The Ice Cream Man by Estridaldrea An ice cream man is driving his ice cream truck when he passes Rachel, Marco, Cassie, Ax, and Tobias, in human morph. They say," We morph, you morph, we all morph for ice cream." He laughs and drives off. About four weeks after, he is driving on an isolate road in the woods when a Taxxon pops out and says,” I eat, you eat, we all eat for ice cream.” The ice cream man quickly dives away his ice cream truck away from the road. When he is in the mountains, he thinks he sees a bright green hitchhiker along the road. The ice cream man drives to him but it is a lone Hork-Bajir! The Hork-Bajir says,” I slice bark, you slice bark, we all slice bark for ice cream.” He is alarmed and drives off. Soon he drives into a tunnel. It seems to last forever until it ends up to the Yeerk Pool. A pair of Hork-Bajir controllers yanks him from his truck. Visser Three walks up to him and says, The ice cream man is very confused by this. Still, the Hork-Bajir controllers drag him towards the Yeerk Pool. As the ice cream man is being dragged, he hears,” I sob, you sob, we all sob for ice cream,” from a cage with humans in it. In a nearby cage with Hork-Bajir, they say,” I tear, you tear, we all tear for ice cream.” The ice cream man is very alarmed by this. As he is at the end of the infestation pier, the ice cream man is very worried. Since he has a good humor from selling so many Good Humor © bars, he think and says,” I run, you run, we all want to run away from this place.” His head is shoved in the pool just as he is finished saying that. After the Yeerk had infested him, it says, < I sneer, you sneer, we all sneer for ice cream.> The ice cream man says, < You are very arrogant.> He says this because he remembered he put an ice cream sandwich in his pocket. The ice cream man takes it out and squeezes the melted ice cream into his ear. The ice cream does what he wanted: it goes through the hole that the Yeerk made and it touched it. The Yeerk instant flees. The ice cream man runs for his life and Visser Three shouts, Visser Three’s head stretches out and a beak forms. The Abomination’s stalk eyes flatten and form blades over his newly formed eye ridges. Fur disappears and skin switches to bright green. Irises and pupils enlarge and change to red. His weak many-fingered arms change to long powerful, four-finged, clawed arms. From the wrists, two blades appear, one wide and one narrow. Suddenly, Visser Three’s legs are sucked in. He just manages to stay upright with his tail. Then his tail splits into three. Joints, blades, toes, and claws appear on the two front ones, which are the legs. With the morph almost complete, Visser Three jumps onto a nearby cage. “Get him!” Dracon beams start to fire. From somewhere in the crowd, a tiger, Jake, jumps onto the cage. It takes a swipe at Visser Three. He shouts,” Animorph!” A squadron of Red-tailed hawks, Tobias and the Auxiliary Animorphs, swoop down from above and gouge out the eyes of some of the attackers. Something brown, gray-green, and silvery climbs out of the Yeerk Pool. It was Cassie, morphing from Yeerk to human to wolf. From behind a storage shed, a gorilla, a grizzly bear, and an Andalite comes out and attack. The ice cream man sees the distraction, gets into his truck, and drives away. As he is driving, Tobias comes up and says, < Follow me. I’ll tell you everything later.> He flies to the side of road. In about an hour, they reach camp. Many huts cover the clearing. Jake, Cassie, Marco, Ax, and Rachel stand before them in human form. Nearby are Toby, Jara, Ket the other free Hork-Bajir, the Auxiliary Animorphs and the Animorphs’ parents plus Rachel’s sisters. Tobias landed and morphed to human besides Rachel. Cassie said,” Ice cream man, whatever your name is, you saw the last time we could live somewhat normal lives. It is hard to remember what you were once like unless someone else remembers. This war has been going on a long time, ever since our live were changed when Elfangor landed in that abandoned construction site.” Tobias said,” I had him bring some ice cream.” “Is ice cream sticky and sweet like cinnamon buns?” Ax asked. “Don’t eat them all,” Marco said. Cassie said,” See, that’s what our lives used to be like. Ax, eating everything in sight. Marco, making jokes, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Me, being the animal nut. Rachel, born-shopper and Xenia, warrior princess. Jake, the serious leader, but every now and then, makes a good joke. Who says a little ice cream can’t cheer things up?” Jake said,” Ice cream man, what is your name?” The ice cream man said,” My name is just Hunter Fisher.” Eva said,” Did you have a relative named Allison Kim?” Fisher said,” Yes, I did. She was found dead as if she had been murdered. Alison was a relative through my mother’s side.” “Had she married someone named Gildy Gervais?” “Yes.” “You are, in an extremely weird way, a second cousin once removed to once-was Visser One and a relative to me.” “Who or what is Visser One? I still don’t even know what was that centaur thing, those snake-reptile things, that centipede-thing, or even the place where those things were. Those slug-things. Gross.” “That centaur thing was Visser One, but not the Visser One I mentioned. I will call him Esplin 9466 so we do not get confused, but you could not see him.” “So Esplin 9466 was some kind of parasite.” “Yes, he is. The thing you saw was an Andalite named Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. That slug-thing you saw was the species of alien Esplin 9466 is. They are called Yeerks. They control someone by entering through the ear canal and then spread themselves pare-thin on the brain. The Andalites are the prime enemy of the Yeerks but they seem to be doing nothing now about the invasion of Earth.” “So those things in that container of gray liquid were Yeerks.” “Yes, that is correct. The green things were Hork-Bajir and the centipede thing were Taxxons. How you are related to me, I will explain. The Visser one I mentioned, I will call her by the proper name of Edriss 562. Well, she had infested me and on a trial that happened between Esplin 9466 and Edriss 562, there was a lot of her secrets revealed. One was on her exploit of Earth along with a Yeerk named Essam 293 they had infested a married pair of humans and they fell in love.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, showing her scared face. “You see, Yeerks die when they reproduce so it is left for the lowest of ranks. This love between themselves soften their evils jus the tiniest bit but love means higher dependence on one another. They had a pair of twin named Darwin and Madra, the only bright tiny Yeerk home world moon. Edriss and Essam started the Sharing and ended up with their first voluntary human host who they later killed. Edriss left Essam to continue the Sharing. She comes back to Essam on his deathbed and the twins sick. He died and she yanked him out, creating an insane Gildy Gervais. On this trail, Esplin 9466 showed her that he had found an insane drunken Gildy and a controller-Darwin. I learned the rest of the details about Essam when Edriss had gone through her last and final fuge, the starvation of a Yeerk when many of their memories are unleashed. I had told it to Jake and he told me what it was called.” Jake said, “Well, Hunter Fisher, open up that big lunch box or small soft cooler, whatever you call it. Eva, Peter, Naomi, Walter, Michelle, Toby, Kelly, James, Collette, Timmy, Craig, Erica, Jessie, Liam, Julio, Judy, Elena, Jordan, Sara, Marco, Ax, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, grab an item and eat.” Elena felt around in the air because she was blind. Toby grabbed a Popsicle and took a bite. She said,” Tree bark is better,” and gave hers to Ax. He, on the other hand, had eaten all of his including his wrapper. Marco shook his head and said,” In the human culture, you are not supposed to eat paper even if it tastes good.” Hunter Fisher said,” He, who laughs last, laugh best. In this case, its me. We know that the Animorphs eat, but do they ever brush their teeth?” Marco said,” Well, two don’t have teeth. Well, usually and some…”