The Reaction (Animorphs)

The Reaction is the twelfth book in the Animorphs series, written by K.A. Applegate. It is narrated by Rachel.

Plot summary

Rachel and Cassie are on a school field trip to zoo at The Gardens. At the crocodile enclosure, the girls witness a young boy fall in. Rachel bravely jumps into the pit after him to rescue him. Out of sight of the other zoo-goers, she acquires and morphs a saltwater crocodile, and carries the boy to safety. The boy is hailed a hero, while a disgruntled Rachel becomes known as "the girl who fell in the crocodile pit".

At a meeting later in the barn, Jake derides Rachel for taking such a foolish risk. The Animorphs then focus on their latest news: An actor named Jeremy Jason McCole, a teen heart-throb on a fictional TV show called Power House, has become a new spokesman for The Sharing. The Animorphs fear this could make thousands of teenage girls join The Sharing, and decide to try and stop it from happening.

That night, Rachel looks up information on McCole on the Internet. Suddenly, she finds herself morphing involuntarily into the crocodile, subsequently morphing directly into a fly- without needing to return to human form, a clear violation of traditional morphing 'rules'- and then into an elephant. Her floor collapses under her weight, and crashes into the kitchen. Fortunately, her two sisters were not in the room. Once again, Rachel makes a media spectacle of herself, now "the girl who fell in the crocodile pit" and the "girl who had her house fall on her". She meets up with her father (a reporter), and he takes her to his hotel. Rachel asks Dan, her father, to get her on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show, as McCole will also be on this show.

Rachel tells Cassie what really happened, but pleads with her not to tell Jake, because he will remove her from the mission. Cassie agrees, but warns her that they will have to ask Ax about uncontrollable morphing. Things become even more problematic when Rachel is called to Chapman's office- Chapman feeling that the potentially suicidal Rachel might make a good candidate for the Sharing- and she is barely able to stop herself from morphing into a grizzly bear (Fortunately she manages to keep the morph contained to her feet, passing them off as new boots).

The next day the Animorphs spy out McCole's yacht in seagull morph, and find that Visser Three is there in his human morph. McCole is telling the Visser he wishes to become a voluntary Controller, as he is sick of being a teen heart-throb. Rachel becomes angry at him, but suddenly finds herself morphing straight from seagull to elephant, then ant, and then crocodile. Visser Three is alerted, and morphs a "Lebtin javelin fish". The other Animorphs morph dolphins to try to protect Rachel, and the Visser is thwarted when Rachel uses her powerful crocodile jaws to bite through the alien fish's soft skin. They quickly escape the scene.

Back at the barn, Ax diagnoses Rachel's condition. She is allergic to crocodile DNA, which explains her involuntary morphing (which only happens when she is emotionally stressed or otherwise excited). Ax tells her that she needs to expel a full, live crocodile, a process known as hereth illint, roughly "DNA burping" in English. Jake pulls Rachel off the mission until she undergoes the process; however, she lies to him and Cassie the next day, pretending that it occurred that night.

The next day Rachel is scheduled to be on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show. She takes Cassie with her in human form, while the other Animorphs infiltrate the studio as insects, Marco later posing as a llama. To avoid any complications if Rachel is called upon while 'burping' the crocodile, Cassie acquires her DNA to replace Rachel if the need arises. Rachel and Cassie meet McCole in the dressing room. Also on the show that day is Bart Jacobs, an animal handler. Rachel gets nervous, and the real hereth illint begins. Cassie rushes her to the bathroom, and Rachel 'vomits' the crocodile there. As the crocodile attacks her, she morphs to grizzly bear to defend herself. While Rachel does this, Cassie morphs a squirrel in another stall (She claims to have been unable to think of anything else). The new crocodile becomes wild and runs onto the stage with Rachel and Cassie, causing great commotion with the cast and the audience. Cassie is flung off-stage, where she later turns out all the lights. The crocodile tries to attack Jeremy McCole, and the Animorphs are unable to match the crocodile's sheer power and armored scales, until Ax decapitates it with his tail. This is not seen as everything is dark. Rachel steps on McCole's Yeerk, which tried to escape its host when the crocodile nearly ate him.

Rachel later sees one of the producers speaking to Cassie (who has morphed Rachel) backstage. He suspects she may be one of the "Andalite bandits," but Cassie manages to convince him otherwise; when he calls after her "Andalite" in an attempt to catch her off-guard, Cassie simply replies "Yeah, a light would be helpful, too."

The mission to stop McCole is a success, as the young actor retreats to Uzbekistan, a sparsely populated country of deserts and plains - far away from Yeerks and crocodiles. The Animorphs finish the book by watching Xena: Warrior Princess in Rachel's hotel room.

Morphs

Re-Release

Scholastic will re-release this book with a lenticular cover in Fall 2013.

Allusions

• The character Jeremy Jason McCole is a parody of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and the Barry and Cindy Sue Show is modeled after Live with Regis and Kathy Lee.
• This story was used as an Animorphs TV episode (given the same title and using the same animal, the crocodile) but the episode had Cassie allergic to the morph rather than Rachel in the books; also, the allergy simply caused Cassie to morph randomly between her human and crocodile morph, rather than the random transformation from one morph to another that was demonstrated in the book.
• Cassie's mom (Michelle) thinks Cassie is interested in a number of musical groups: The Fudgies, Snoopy Diggity Dog, Boys Eleven Men, and Nice Is Neat.
• In this book Cassie mentions that she told her mother NIN stood for 'Nice Is Neat', so she could get the new Nine Inch Nails CD. However, in real life NIN hadn't released an album since 1994 at that point.