Rachel, Cassie, Rachel’s dad and her two younger sisters go to the circus where Rachel sees the elephant trainer using a cattle prod on the performing elephants. She decides to ‘fix’ the problem by morphing elephant, ‘talking’ to the trainer and throwing him about twenty feet.

The next day, a Monday, Marco tells the group that he and Tobias have been following Chapman without telling the others and that they’ve found a new entrance to the Yeerk Pool through a changing room in The Gap. Remembering the first attempt to attack the Pool, they decide not to try it again. However, Rachel points out that the Kandrona, which emits Kandrona rays, is the Yeerks’ real weakness. They decide to infiltrate the Pool and look for information on the location of the Kandrona so they can destroy it.

That night, Rachel’s father, Dan, goes to Rachel’s house for dinner, an unheard-of event since her parent’s divorce. He tells Rachel and her sisters that he’s been offered a job as a weekend anchor in another state and will be moving. He then offers Rachel the chance to move with him. Rachel doesn’t give him an answer, although she is surprised to find that she wants to move with him.

Feeling confused after her father leaves, Rachel morphs to owl to visit Tobias, but the talk doesn’t help. She then goes to The Gardens and acquires a grizzly.

The next evening the Animorphs, sans Tobias, enter the Pool as roaches through the Gap changing room. They start to explore the buildings there but are eaten by a Taxxon in the Pool’s lunchroom. Just before it swallows them, everything else stops and then they demorph involuntarily. Then Tobias shows up as a human. They decide to leave before the Controllers start moving again and figure out the ‘why’ at a later date. Then the Ellimist appears, looking like a frail old man, and tells them that he can see the future and knows that they will loose the fight. He offers to take them and a selection of a few other humans to another planet that has been set aside for them and asks them to decide immediately. They see a drop-shaft in the background and after a bit of discussion decide to decline. After their decision, the Ellimist tells them he will give them one more chance and then everything returns to the way it was. Which puts the Animorphs halfway down a Taxxon throat. They demorph and run for the drop-shaft. Rachel uses her grizzly morph and looses control, but still manages to battle through to the shaft.

The next day Rachel skips school and in the afternoon everyone meets at Cassie’s barn. Rachel tells them about her dad and they discuss the Ellimist’s offer again. They vote; Jake and Tobias against accepting, Marco and Cassie for accepting. Before Rachel can cast her vote the Ellimist shows them the future. The Animorphs wander around in a scenario where they Yeerks have conquered Earth, most of downtown is an open Pool, and the only recognizable building is the EGS building, which has a glass dome over the top. They meet the future Visser Three and future Rachel. Rachel attacks Visser Three, who can’t fight back without risking changing the past. Before she can do anything the Ellimist returns them to the present. Disheartened, they vote again and all vote for accepting his offer. Nothing happens.

The next day in school, Cassie and Rachel discuss the possibility that the future shown isn’t the only future possible and that the Ellimist might have been trying to tell them something in a round-about fashion. That night, Rachel figures out what he was trying to tell them: the Kandrona is in the top of the EGS building. She tells the others and they attack that night. In battle morph, they enter the building, ride the elevator to the top floor and locate the Kandrona which is guarded by eight Hork-Bajir and a few humans. After a furious battle the Hork-Bajir retreat and the Animrophs find the Kandrona, which is about the size of a car. Rachel morphs to elephant and pushes it out the window.

Two days later, Rachel helps her dad pack and bids him farewell, but decides to stay.


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Plot points –

1. Tobias and Marco announce the discovery of a new Yeerk Pool entrance; the Animorphs decide to sneak in and look for information on the location of the Kandrona

2. Rachel’s dad tells her he’s moving to a different state and asks her to join him

3. They infiltrate the Pool and are eaten by a Taxxon

4. A creature called the Ellimist stops time and tell them they will loose the fight, but he can save them by moving them and a few other humans to a designated planet; the Animorphs decline and escape from the Pool

5. The next day they discuss the offer again but before a decision can be made the Ellimist appears again and shows them a vision of the future after the Yeerks win; the Animorphs decide to accept his offer but nothing happen

6. The day after that Rachel, using information from their trip to the ‘future’ figures out that the Kandrona is in a skyscraper downtown

7. The Animorphs attack the EGS building, barely win the fight, and destroy the Kandrona

8. Rachel helps her dad pack and tells him she has decided not to move with him


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First morphs –

Rachel – great horned owl, grzzly


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-Random Facts-

Rachel’s dad almost made the US Olympic gymnastic team when he was younger

The elephant trainer’s name is Josep

The Yeerk Pool is big enough to run under the school, fire station, a couple of gat stations and most of the mall

Rachel and her sister spend one weekend a month at their dad’s apartment and go on an ‘outing’ every other weekend

Rachel’s father’s name is Dan and he works as a reporter for a local station and does some investigative journalism

Tobias preens his feathers when he’s bothered by something

The Gardens is south of Tobias’ territory

Humans smell like a flaar, an animal on the Andalite home world

One of the upward drop-shafts from the pool ends at a water tower behind the school

Cassie has a scar just above her left wrist (KASU?)

The trip from the mall to downtown takes about half an hour by bus

Ms. Paloma teaches one of Rachel’s classes, probably history



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