The Encounter (Animorphs)

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Animorphs Books
The Encounter
Narrator	Tobias
Number	#3
Release date	August 1996
Cover art	Tobias morphing a red-tailed hawk
Cover quote	Now you see them. Now you don't...
Author	K. A. Applegate
Illustrator	David B. Mattingly
Pages	154
Preceded by	The Visitor
Followed by	The Message

The Encounter is the third book in the Animorphs series.

[edit] Plot summary

Tobias and Rachel liberate a caged red-tailed hawk from a car dealership where it is being used in advertisements. Later that evening, Tobias is flying over the city when he sees a "shimmering" in the air, and suspects it to be a Yeerk ship using optical camouflage.

Tobias tells the others about it, and they morph wolves to head up into the mountains (where the ship was headed) and check it out. They arrive at a lake where the ship is uncloaking itself, revealing itself to be a massive logistics ship that sucks up water and air for the Yeerk mother ship in orbit. Tobias also sees the hawk he and Rachel freed, and has an urge to go be with her.

Returning from the mountains, the Animorphs are almost trapped in wolf morph, which reminds Tobias of what happened to him. Later that night he discusses with Rachel his suspicion that he is losing his humanity.

The Animorphs plan to morph to fish and get themselves sucked up by the ship, so they can disable it from the inside. Tobias heads up to the mountains to check the lake out again, but his hawk instincts overpower him on the way and he kills a rat. Greatly disturbed, he flies to Rachel's gymnastics exhibition at the mall and cries for help. He flies around the mall in a panicked state until Marco smashes open a skylight with a baseball for him to escape.

Tobias regresses into his hawk instincts for several days, living in the woods and hunting rodents. His human side only re-emerges when he saves an old man escaping from Hork-Bajir, and he returns to Rachel. They discuss what happened, and Tobias decides he needs to keep fighting the Yeerks to remain human.

The Animorphs hide in a cave and morph fish, and Tobias carries them to the lake where the logistics ship is, to avoid notice by the Yeerks who have locked down the area. The others are successfully sucked up by the ship, only to discover that the water tank is sealed off inside, and they are trapped. Meanwhile, Tobias is spotted by a Hork-Bajir Controller, who remembered him for saving the old man, and is attacked by the Bug Fighters and helicopters of the Yeerks.

He lands on the logistics ship, the one place he can be sure the Yeerks won't risk firing at. A Taxxon emerges out onto the deck to kill him, but Tobias kills it and takes its Dracon beam. He fires the beam at the ship's bridge, destroying it and freeing his friends in the process. (They had thoughtspoken this request to him, assuming they would die as well, and Rachel hinted at her love for him.) They manage to escape, but Tobias again sees the red-tailed hawk he freed - this time as she is killed by the Yeerks.

Tobias again discusses what happened with Rachel, and is happy with his newfound balance between being a hawk, and a human.

[edit] Morphs

• Jake: wolf (male), trout
• Rachel: wolf (female), trout
• Cassie: wolf (female), trout
• Marco: wolf (female), trout

[edit] Trivia

• The cover model for this book is blonde, but dyed his hair brown prior to posing for the cover. Because the model was under contract and had to be used, Applegate changed Tobias' hair color to "dirty blonde."
• This is one of the four books that features a cover morph that does not actually occur in the book.
• Katherine Applegate spent some time at the University of Minnesota studying raptors for this book.