The Visitor, published in 1996 and written by K. A. Applegate, is the second book in the Animorphs series. It is the first book narrated by Rachel.
| This article is written from a Real World point of view. |
Official Description
Morphing is certainly more fun than Sega -- you can soar as an eagle and walk as a cat. But being an ANIMORPH is by no means just fun and games. Rachel knew better than anyone. One of her best friends, Melissa, is acting very strange. And it looks like Melissa's dad, who is also the school's Assistant Principal, may be connected to evil aliens. Rachel can't tell Melissa what the ANIMORPHS have learned, but Melissa doesn't seem interested in talking to Rachel these days anyway. Could Melissa be one of "them?"
With the help of Jake, Cassie, Tobias and Marco, Rachel plans to enter her friend's house as a cat, intent on unlocking the secrets from within. If only Rachel could keep her mind off mice...
Plot summary
The Animorphs are all out together flying in the bird-of-prey morphs that they have acquired. Jake is a peregrine falcon, Rachel is a bald eagle, and Cassie and Marco are both ospreys. Tobias helps Rachel get the hang of flying and everyone enjoys the experience. Suddenly, something passes through them. Cassie is able to see that its two guys in the woods with a rifle. Using their human intelligence with their raptor morphs, they're able to dodge the bullets, then Rachel come up with an idea: They fly out of range of the shooters and get far enough away and enter into a steep dive towards the trees banking and zooming through them until they come up to a clearing where the two guys were, scanning the skies, looking for those birds, not knowing what will happen until it was too late. Rachel snatches the rifle and retreats, though it was a struggle to gain altitude with the additional weight of the rifle. Flapping hard, she makes it out towards the beach, where she disposes of the rifle about a mile out in the ocean.
While walking home from their little flying adventure, they decide that they need to make their next move against the Yeerks, but the only lead they have is that Chapman, their assistant principal, is a Controller. Jake asks Rachel to try to get to him through his daughter Melissa, who is an old friend of hers. However, Melissa has become distant lately, and Rachel fears she has become a Controller like her father. Rachel remembers Melissa's pet cat, and the Animorphs plan to infiltrate Chapman's house to find out what they can; Rachel morphs Melissa's pet cat to gain access.
Rachel first acquires and morphs a shrew, in order to lure the cat, but she panics in the shrew morph as the cat attacks her, but the others eventually catch it. Rachel demorphs and acquires the cat, but they decide to do the infiltration for another time. Three nights later, Rachel morphs into the cat and gets into the house, she follows Chapman into a secret room in his basement and discovers that he communicates directly with Visser Three through holographic technology, and he addresses himself as Iniss 226. While in the room, she is spotted by Visser Three, who orders Chapman to kill her because she might be an Andalite. Rachel doesn't react, and Chapman reasons with Visser Three to allow Rachel to escape shaken, but unharmed. Before she leaves the house, Rachel follows Melissa and learns that she is not a Controller, but has pulled away from her friends because she believes her parents—now both Controllers—don't love her anymore.
The first-page illustration from The Visitor, showing Rachel in the doorway of Chapman's house, in cat morph.
Rachel decides to keep the encounter with Visser Three a secret from the others, and convinces them that she needs to infiltrate Chapman's house again. She does so a few nights later, this time with Jake stowed away on her back as a flea. Rachel is careful to stay out of Chapman's and Visser Three's sights, but is found out again. Visser Three is sure now that she is an Andalite bandit, and orders Chapman to bring Rachel to him. He also tells Chapman to bring Melissa so that she can be infested because she is a security risk to Yeerks; it was her cat that the "Andalite" used. Chapman and his wife rebel against their Yeerks, causing their Yeerks to momentarily lose control of the host-bodies and fight to take it back, but their Yeerks regain control. Chapman's Yeerk is tired by the effort and opts not to take Melissa, planning to explain the circumstances face to face with the Visser.
Chapman takes Rachel and Jake, who's still a flea, to the abandoned construction site, and Iniss 226 allows Chapman, his host, to speak to Visser Three. Chapman reminds the Visser that he willingly became a Controller on the condition that the Yeerks stay away from Melissa, and if they were to violate that contract, he would make life as hard as he could for the Yeerk in his head. Since Chapman is in a position of some influence at the school and is regularly meeting with parents, this would be very disastrous, and Visser Three grudgingly gives in. As Rachel is taken into the Blade ship, one of the earthmovers starts up and slowly head for the Blade ship, The other Animorphs had showed up to rescue them. Jake jumps out and morphs back into human, and then he morphed again into his tiger morph to face the Visser.
A Dracon beam incinerates the earthmover, destroying it, but a second earthmover starts up. Rachel heads to a half-finished building to demorph, when suddenly she hears giant steps and the concreate is torn apart. It was Visser Three, who had morphed into a giant rock beast with three legs and a human-sized head. He almost catches Rachel when the second earthmover destroys a Bug fighter, allowing Rachel to run along the top of the wall. But Visser Three sweeps his huge hand toward Rachel, but she jumps, heading toward a rusted, twisted metal covered ground when Tobias shows up and catches Rachel. They fly towards the trees where Tobias drops Rachel and as she's falls, she morphs back to human and she sees Visser Three in a fury after the Animorphs had escaped again. The next day, she writes an anonymous note to Melissa, telling her that her father loves her more than ever, despite not being able to show it.
Appearing
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Melissa Chapman (First Appearance)
Villains:
- Visser Three
- Chapman/Iniss 226 (Yeerk First Named)
- Mrs. Chapman (First Appearance)
- Various Hork-Bajir, Taxxon and Human-Controllers
Other Characters:
- Naomi (First Appearance)
- Jordan (First Appearance)
- Sara (First Appearance)
- Fluffer McKitty (First Appearance) (Only Appearance)
Locations:
Items:
Morphs
| Morpher | Morphs acquired | Morphs used |
|---|---|---|
| Jake | Peregrine Falcon, Flea | Peregrine Falcon, Flea, Siberian Tiger |
| Rachel | Bald Eagle, Shrew, Tomcat (Fluffer McKitty) |
Bald Eagle, Shrew, Tomcat (Fluffer McKitty), African Elephant (partially) |
| Cassie | Osprey | Osprey |
| Marco | Osprey | Osprey |
| Visser Three | Vanarx (mentioned) | Vanarx, Unnamed three-legged Rock Beast |
- TV Adaptation
The Visitor was adapted as part of the Animorphs TV series, which aired on Nickelodeon and YTV between the fall of 1998 and the spring of 2000. It was covered in episode five, "Between Friends." The TV episodes did not follow the books faithfully, altering many aspects of the characters' roles within the Animorphs, the events in the war against the Yeerks, and added plot lines that were not present in the books.
- Chapman didn't take Rachel to the abandoned construstion site, he took her to a mansion.
- Mrs. Chapman did not make an appearance in the episode.
- Jake didn't stow away on Rachel's back as a flea, he followed Chapman in dog morph.
Trivia
- K.A. Applegate originally planned for Ax to make his debut in this book.
- Cassie tells Rachel that at 4 morphs (elephant, bald eagle, shrew, cat), she has the most morphs out of anyone. However, at that point Jake also had 4 morphs (dog, lizard, tiger, falcon).
- #53: The Answer reveals that the Animorphs were 13 at the start of the series. Rachel explicitly states in this book that it takes place a week or so after their first Yeerk pool attack (the events of #1: The Invasion). However, she later shows a photo of her, Melissa and Fluffer from Melissa's 12th birthday "few years ago".
- Rachel's age being 13 makes it even more disturbing when you realize a college guy tried to force her into his car.
- The 1996 cover shows Rachel morphing into a gray cat, although the book describes Fluffer as black and white, in patches. The 2011 cover gets it right.
- While the author doesn't have a cat named "Fluffer McKitty", her own cats do have interesting names: "Rabbit", and "Dick the Evil Foot-biting Cat".
- The front cover quote is "No one knows who they are.".
- The inside front cover quote is, "Nine lives are better than one....".
- While all of the regular numerical Animorph book covers were made by David B. Mattingly, the first two books were created by Peter Bollinger (#1) and Tim O'Brien (#2). Also interesting to note is that the models didn't begin to show up in full body shots until David B. Mattingly started doing them with #3, where they would show up in full loosely clothed outfits (conflicting with what the books told us about the Animorphs never being able to wear anything past skintight clothes in order to morph with them)
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