My name is Tobias. A freak of nature. One of a kind.

Possibly the best opening we’ve gotten yet.

I won’t tell you my last name. I can’t tell you my last name.

Because…you’re a bird and you live in a tree and clearly a last name is going to be so vitally important to tracking you down?

You’re already spilling the beans on the human thing.  I don’t think a last name is going to do any more damage in your case, Tobias.

I want to tell you everything, but I can’t give any clues to my true identity.

No clues at all, huh?  1) You used to be human, the rest of your friends still are.  2) You went to the school where Chapman works.  3) You have an uncle on this coast and an aunt on the east coast and both of them care not for you.  4) You had a cat.  5) You live in the town where the Yeerks are currently massing most of their efforts. 

Seriously.  A last name is just fluff at this point.

Alright, I’ll be stuck on this all day if I keep going.

My eyes were … what color were my eyes? It’s only been a few weeks, and already I’m forgetting things about being human.

THE TOBIAS FEELS ARE STARTING EARLY, I SEE.

When I was a kid, I didn’t really appreciate details like this.  I was all “yeah, eyes, whatever.  Whine more, emo boy, you have hawk eyes now!” and now I’m a bit more “omg, body horror.”  I love that I get something new every time I reread these books.

I looked down and focused my laserlike eyes.

Laser-like because they…um…shoot out beams of light?  I mean, lasers aren’t really known for clarity and sight, it’s more a metaphor for narrowing the focus of something down to a precise point, but I have no idea why he’d need hawk eyes for that. 

So Tobias is out flying around and he wants to mash up this car dealership because they have a red-tailed hawk as a mascot.  And…yeah, that’s it.  The guy keeps a hawk in a cage…sometimes?  Always?  Just for promotional stuff?  There’s really nothing given here except that the guy owns a hawk and she’s in commercials sometimes. 

Tobias…people have been domesticating hunting birds for thousands of years.  Literally, thousands of years.  There’s every chance in the world that this “Polly” is not a wild hawk that got caught, but was bred in captivity.  There’s also no evidence – none – that Dealin’ Dan is mistreating Polly.  Yes, she’s in a cage.  Right now.  While in front of cameras.  For all you know, after this Dan is going to take her home where he has a proper mews and gives her regular exercise.  For all you know, he’s a responsible and kind owner. 

Also?  Just so you know, domesticated falcons live longer than wild ones, because they get consistent feeding and protection and medical care.

But Tobias cares not, because for the next hour or so, Polly is stuck in a cage and that makes him mad.  So he’s going to fuck shit up and he got Rachel to help.

Next he’s going to come over and stomp on your house because you keep gerbils or something.

He was starting the commercial. It would be live on TV all over the area.

Commercials…aren’t generally broadcast live.  I mean, that’s kind of the whole idea behind a commercial, that it’s shown in the middle of other shows.  Nobody turns on the TV thinking “Oh, wow, I sure don’t want to miss that live sales pitch that the guy down the street is filming.”

The mechanic swung the wrench! It barely missed my head.

Oh, don’t act so surprised.  You have talons and a beak that you repeatedly describe as deadly and routinely use to attack people, plus you’re acting very unnatural.  They’re trying to hit you so you don’t attack and pass on your rabies, not because they’re evil.

The hawk was wary. She was a true hawk, with only a hawk’s mind and instincts to guide her. But she did know an open path to the sky when she saw one.

She’s also a trained, domesticated hawk who has food right there in her cage. 

Fun story, I ran afoul of a trained bird once.  Well, sort of.  She escaped on the way home from a hunting trip.  She did not, in fact, run away from her owners.  She sat on top of my building playing with some dead animal while her owners tried to tempt her back with lures and treats.  When she got bored with the dead animal, she went calmly back to her carrying cage with nary a ruffled feather, because that’s what she was trained to do.  I spent a while talking to the frustrated owners.  They said she does that sometimes – she’s got a personality like any pet dog or cat and she likes to tease – but she never runs away or gets out of sight.  If they left her cage open by accident, she would stay in the area, and probably go back to it willingly because that’s what she sees as home.  Where other birds have a nest or roost or tree or whatever, she has her mews, and that’s what she’ll always go back to.

So congrats, Tobias.  You let the hawk out.  She’ll turn around and fly home now, BECAUSE SHE’S A TRAINED, DOMESTICATED HAWK, EMO BOY.  But hey, so glad you and Rachel caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage in the process.

We had reached a patch of woods behind Dealin’ Dan’s car dealership.

There was a patch of woods next to the construction site last book, too.  I think Ani-town is just made up of a patchwork of urban sections and convenient “patches” of woods.

Rachel chides Tobias for doing all that on TV, but really it was Rachel’s addition that made the whole thing suspicious.  Tobias was just an odd hawk and could easily have been trained by PETA or something, if PETA suddenly developed a rage against pet owners.  But an elephant?  Yeah, screams “look into this more.”  Rachel knew this…and continued on anyway?  She couldn’t have said “slow your roll, emo boy, let’s wait until the cameras are done”?  Or at least “yeah, I like birds, but this isn’t worth the risk, you’re on your own”?  Instead she just went in merrily stomping on cars and then getting mad at Tobias for…not telling her to stop?  For telling her to go?  Damnit, Rachel, I know he’s a male, but you can still tell him no.

Rachel runs off to buy flip-flops because she had no shoes…and apparently couldn’t retrieve the shoes she came in…but whatever and then she goes home and Tobias fills us in on the past two books.

Tobias then thinks about how awesome it is that Polly is out there, in the wild, which she is completely unsuited to handle.  Because apparently no one thought to look up “falconry” before writing this book.

As Tobias is flying around killing time, he comes across an invisible ship and tries to follow it, but it’s moving too fast.

Well, we’re getting to the plot a lot faster than last book.  Still, this is the second in a row where we open on something completely extraneous before carrying on with the real point.  I don’t remember this being a normal thing, but for all I know, that’s just because these opening bits are so thoroughly forgettable.  Do they drop this after a while?

Tobias and Rachel meet up with the others at her house, where they are roundly yelled at for being stupid.  In the middle of all this, Tobias also describes everyone for the newcomers.

We find out that Tobias is living Jake’s attic, and Jake mentions leaving food for him.  Tobias says to be careful because of Tom.  And that just brings up the question of why the fuck he’s living with the only member of the team who has an enemy for a brother.  I mean, come on, Cassie’s got a barn and actual bird-of-prey food.  (Really, in a later book she pulls out frozen mice because that’s what the feed the injured hawks and eagles.)  Why isn’t Tobias living there?

I wondered if I should tell her what I had seen, the darkness within darkness, the hole in the sky. But the truth was, even I didn’t know what it was.

And…so?  Aliens are invading and you’re a boy in the body of a hawk.  I don’t think it matters that you don’t have all the details.  Tell them when weird shit happens so you can all go figure it out together.

But they didn’t really understand. I hadn’t had a real home since my parents died. I was used to being alone.  And I had the sky.

ENOUGH OF THE BAD LOGIC, TIME FOR MORE FEELS.

SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS, THIS BOOK IS LIKE 50% LOGIC FAILS AND 50% PURE FUCKING FEELS.

The next day I decided to go back to where I had seen – or not seen – the big thing in the sky. I had a feeling about it. A bad feeling.

Really?  Tell us more about how mysterious it is that your instincts don’t like the invisible ship in the sky.  I mean, it’s not like you could use your (still) human-brain to realize that there’s megalomaniac aliens around and maybe the invisible ship is connected to them.

Nope, let’s focus on your bad ~*~*~feelings~*~*~.  Play some spooky music while you’re at it.

And actually, the red-tail hawk in my head would be just as happy perched patiently on the branch of a tree, waiting to see its next meal go scurrying past.

So…sort of like Polly was perfectly happy to sit on her perch? 

Tobias mentions that he doesn’t want to hunt because he’s scared that once he pops, just won’t stop.  But he has nothing else to do all day, because he’s a hawk and hawks mostly spend time hunting.  He, apparently, has no curiosity and spends no time playing Peeping Tom around town. 

I used to spend most of my free time watching TV, hanging out at the mall, doing homework, reading … all things it was difficult for me to do, now.

Okay, the middle two are hard, but I bet Jake would leave the TV on for you or leave a few books out if you asked.  Also, you can fly around town and watch other people’s TV if you want, or fly around town and watch people.  Just because you don’t have thumbs doesn’t mean you don’t have things to look at and explore.

Aaaand I’m starting to remember why I always call Tobias emo-boy.  Yeah, what he’s going through is tough.  Yeah, it’s entirely reasonable that he’d be hyper-focused on what he can’t do anymore, instead of what he still can do.  Nothing about this is actually wrong.  It’s just boring.  I didn’t pick up a book to read about what the characters aren’t doing, I want them to do stuff.  He can still whine while doing stuff, but that’s not what’s going on here.  He’s just sitting and whining. 

Each of them, my uncle and my aunt, thought I was staying with the other.

I had no idea how long that trick would hold up before one of them figured out I wasn’t in either place.

Apparently a long time, because this is never mentioned again.

By chance, Tobias finds the invisible ship again.  Thank god.  If not we might have spent even more time watching him not do stuff.  The ship crashes into some geese, and only then does Tobias put two and two together and realize it’s a Yeerk ship. 

Skip to later in Cassie’s barn, where Tobias is telling everyone about it.

Wolves were new in the area. Wildlife experts had brought some back to the nearby forest.

There’s a big difference between “new” and “used to be fucking everywhere until they were exterminated, and now they’re being re-introduced.”

“Yeah, but every Yeerk ship we’ve ever dealt with has been either on the ground or about to land,” Jake said. “Maybe the cloaking ability doesn’t work when they get close to land.

Why?  I mean, I’ve no problem with them taking it off voluntarily.  They don’t want to get out of the ship and immediately run face-first into a strut or something.  But why assume that something inherent to the ship is somehow connected to altitude?

I said flatly.

“How can you be so sure?” Cassie asked.

Does it matter?  Option 1: it’s a Yeerk ship, find out what it wants.  Option 2: it’s not a Yeerk ship, but it’s still an invisible flying ship.  Find out what it wants.

I said stubbornly.
All Yeerk ships send out evil vibes.  V3 had that feature installed specially. 

Cassie shrugged. “I halfway feel like we’ve done enough. You know? We attacked the Yeerk pool. We barely got out alive. We infiltrated Chapman’s house and Rachel was captured. Again, we barely got out alive. I guess the question is, how many risks are we going to take? How many more times are we going to barely escape?”

…There’s a reason you’re the least favorite in the fandom, Cassie.

Good lord, even Marco never said something like that.

“Well, we blew up one ship.  They’ve got a million others, but we got that one tiny one, so that was all we really need to do.  Let’s go take a nap.”

I get that she’s scared and nervous and worried about death-by-alien, and that’s all valid, but don’t phrase it as “we’ve done enough.”  That’s a far cry different from “I’ve had enough.” 

“I mean, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t just do nothing while people are enslaved by the Yeerks.” Cassie said. “Maybe it’s just me …” She shrugged. “The thing is, I have these powers.” She shrugged again. “I can’t just do nothing.”

…There’s only one paragraph separating these two quotes.

Cassie, did you just decide to play Morality Mad Libs?

So they argue some more, and it’s the same argument from the past two books.

I said,

Oh, fuck off, emo boy.  I know you got the short end of the stick, but that doesn’t mean the others are dancing around in a field of roses.  At the very least, we know Rachel has some pretty hellish nightmares, and it’s safe to assume the rest do as well and we just haven’t gotten to their POV yet.

They decide to go off in the mountains the next day after school and try to find the invisible ship.  Apparently between now and last book, one of them realized that bird-watchers are a thing, so they’re going to morph into wolves. 

Cassie’s farm has a lot of open grass areas, and it borders on a national forest.

So, looking more and more like this isn’t actually a farm at all.

There’s some banter because Marco doesn’t want to be a girl wolf.  But he and Cassie morphed the same osprey.  Was that male or female?  Is it okay for Cassie to be a male osprey, or does Marco just not care because no one verbally told him the sex of the osprey beforehand? 

After the banter, Cassie morphs wolf to test it out, then there’s more banter.  I guess because Tobias doesn’t get to morph, so we have to have the “oh, these instincts are so cool!” moment in dialogue instead of narration. Then the others morph, and it’s off to have a mission!