�You know, I could swear I head that bird talking. I must be nuts.�

<Gee, really?! Do you think?! Hold my breath?!> Tobias managed to respond.

<He must be okay. He�s still capable of being sarcastic.>

<I�m a freak of nature, Rachel. Any day I stay alive is a good day for me.>

We were in a church. I was a 7-foot tall creature with horns and a spiked tail holding a pitchfork. And I was in a church.

I looked at the altar. I looked at the terrified priest who was shaking so badly he couldn�t cross himself.

<Sorry,> I said to the priest. <It�s not what it looks like. Sorry,> I added, looking at the altar. <Boy, is this the wrong morph in the wrong place.>

�I think I like you better as a chicken, Tobias.�

<Professor Plum did it in the conservatory with the candlestick!>

Tobias was alive. But he must have hit fairly hard. He seemed to be reliving a game of Clue...<Miss Scarlet? Was it Miss Scarlet with the plum in the professor?> Tobias wondered.

<I have this slight tendency to wake up when big, blue, scorpion-tailed alien centaurs go crashing around in the woods like a herd of ruptured elephants.>

<How did you get a quarter for the phone?>

<With these eyes? Coins shine in the sunlight. You fly around outside coin-op Laundromats or the drive-through lane at a McDonald�s, you�ll find a dropped quarter sooner or later.>

Rachel laughed...<You are the world champion of coping with weird situations,> she said.

<A gun! A gun? This kid has a gun?!?> I yelped.

From far off I heard, <Actually, Miss Scarlet, I think you should have used the wrench.>

<Well, I saw two Chee projecting tree holograms, and another one trying to pass himself off as a rock, but nothing to worry about.>

<Are you always this nice about being a Peeping Tom?>

<I am never a Peeping Tom...I cannot use my superpowers for evil.>

�Safe as a dead person can be,� Marco said.

<Who�s safer than a dead person?>

<I�m sideways. I�m sideways on a smooth, damp surface I think was white. And there�s a big lake below me.>

We all considered that description for a moment.

<Oh, man,> Marco yelled. <Tobias, you�re in a toilet!>

<Is she in there?> I asked.

<No, it�s after midnight, so naturally she�s out in the yard playing Hacky Sack,> Tobias snipped.

<Rachel, in case you haven�t noticed, our lives stopped making sense that day we walked through the construction site and had a spaceship land in front of us...>

<How exactly do you program a computer to kiss butt like that?>

�Geez, now a hawk, too?� a cop yelled. �What is this, When Animals Attack?�

<Oh! Oh! Fried chicken!> Marco said. <Hey, Tobias. If a seagull eats chicken, is that like cannibalism or something?>

<Jake? Rachel? Is anyone else here, or am I the only one watching George Freaking Washington climbing into a boat?>

<Hey, he was cute,> Tobias called down from the sky.

�Oh, shut up, you mouse-eating freak,� I said.

Tobias laughed...<I heard that! Heard what he called you, too. The guy is perceptive as well as cute.>

And off we went. A red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle riding the roof of a cop car, wings open, beaks forward, talons straining to take the pressure.

<Now this doesn�t look too strange!>

Tobias was back on his feet, arms crossed over his chest, looking on calmly. �You two guys may want to step back out of the way, because I don�t think Davis here is going to be having a very good day.�

Sometimes I wonder if the truth is that I�m some lunatic. I wonder if in reality I�m a hopeless, raving madman locked in an asylum, merely imagining that I am a hawk.

<Unusual is our middle name.>

<Diurnal? Have you tried Kaopectate?>

Tobias laughed. �Hey, the chicks go wild for the feathers, bay-beee.� He laughed again. �Sorry, Ax had Austin Powers on his TV last night.�

�Tense. Very tense. Too many high-caffeine mice.�