Ann Chovi was lost. She had gotten up to go to the bathroom and now wandered through the forest, searching for the campfire. It had to be somewhere around here... Someone once told her that moss grew on the north side of trees. The moss here grew on all sides of the tree.

Ann noticed the flickering of firelight. Hypnotized by the beautiful fire, she walked into the clearing and sat down on a log. Then she looked around.

"ACK!"

There were people all around. They looked strangely familiar.

"Ann!" Roses called out. "There you are!"

"Roses!" Ann called back. "I'm back!"

Tails popped the burned shell of a marshmallow in her mouth and said, "Wew tewwin stowy."

"What?"

Tails swallowed. "I said, we're still telling the story of our lives. It's your turn."

Ann thought for a moment. "Okay. Here goes. I happily grew up with the Chovis until I turned 14. That summer, my cousin Jan Chovy came to visit."

"Jan Chovi?" Roseidous said before disappearing again.

"No, Jan Chovy. Her family kept the old spelling of it. Anyway, when Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae came to pick her up at the end of the summer, they thought that I was her, because we look exactly alike. Which is strange, now that I think of it, because I was left on a doorstep and am not a blood relative of Jan's, and -"

Omega caused a lightning bolt to strike a nearby tree. Ann took the hint and continued on.

"Aunt Mae and Uncle Bob didn't believe me when I said I was Ann, because Jan has been known to lie about it before. So they took me cross country. They found out after about a month that I wasn't their screwed-up kid, but since it was such a long drive to my parent's house, they decided to keep me until summer. To make up for it, they bought me all the Animorphs books I wanted."

Ann looked at Pen/cil, and it looked right back at her. There was something odd about that writing implement.

"When I was returned to my family, they felt so bad about the past year that they got Internet access. I discovered The Nothilit's Guide to Animorphs, and I got Animorphs Weekly newsletter. And then Nothlit said something about Morphz always getting info about the books before anyone else, so I journeyed over to there."

TAS laughed. "You journeyed there?"

Ann tied TAS to a tree. "Yes, I did! It was a long journey through cyberspace, fraught with peril!" Ann waved around her pointy stick. "Does anyone have a problem with that?!"

Roses, busy duct taping a chicken to TAS, shook her head. Holli and Tails joined her at the tree. And there was much joy.

Bookshelf