It took a few minutes for the facts to sink in.

"Wait a minute," Rachel said. "Are you saying the Yeerks are running that hospital? Or at least a part of that hospital? Why would they want a hospital?"

I hesitated before answering. I wasn't sure my guess was right. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

But Marco, who could teach a class in paranoia, had already figured it out, of course.

"Oh, man. They're going to use the hospital to infest host bodies. You check in to have your tonsils out or to have a cast put on your broken arm. You check out as a Controller."

14 Chapter 4

Tom came home late that evening. He smelled like wood smoke and barbecue sauce.

My mom and dad and I were already at the table, eating dinner. My dad had his injured ankle resting on a stool. We were having broiled chicken and potatoes and veggies.

As he walked in through the kitchen door, my mom said, "Tom, how was the big cleanup? They showed some of it on the news."

Tom came into the dining room and took a chair across from me. "It was okay. We filled two Dumpsters full of garbage and dead branches and stuff. Hey, what happened to your leg, old man?"

My dad winced. "I tried for a shot I shouldn't have tried for. Twisted it."

"Did you have enough to eat?" my mom asked Tom.

Tom patted his stomach. "Burgers and dogs and chicken. Not as good as your chicken, of course."

"Actually, your father cooked. He cooked by calling Gourmet Express and having it delivered."

"But I did microwave the sauce," my dad said. "That counts as cooking."

Tom winked at my dad. "Well, the stuff at the barbecue had to be better than dad's chicken.

Good thing I ate there."

"Just for that you get no dessert," my dad said. "And it's cheesecake. From Santorini's."

"Oooh, Santorini's?" Tom groaned. "I take it back. I apologize. I grovel. I beg. I love Santorini's."

Homer came in, sensing it was time for table scraps. "Hey, Homer," Tom said. He scratched him behind the ears and Homer got his happy- moron look, the look where his eyes glaze over and his tongue lolls out of his mouth.

A totally normal scene. Around a totally normal dinner table. No one would ever have guessed the truth. In my brother's head was an alien. A creature from another planet.

I asked Ax about how it works. Ax is the Andalite we rescued from the bottom of the ocean. He's one of us now, I guess.

Anyway, I asked Ax about how the Yeerk slug lives in a person's head. He'd explained it to me.

How they can flatten their sluglike bodies. How they can sink between the crevices and cracks of a person's brain. How they melt like a liquid into every available space. How they wrap their bodies around a brain and attach their own neurons to human neurons.

15 Tom must have noticed me staring at him.

"What's your malfunction?"

I snapped out of my daze. "What? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of something."

"You were staring at me. You were staring at my forehead."

I forced a laugh. My mind raced to think of a joke. "Really? I thought I was just staring blankly into empty space. But then again, empty space, your head. What's the difference?"

It worked. Tom snatched up a dinner roll and chucked it at me. I caught it in midair a split second before it would have hit my face.

For a moment we just glared at each other.

"Don't throw food," my dad said. "It's undignified."

"It's okay," I said. "Tom's not fast enough to hit me anymore. He's slowed down. Lost his touch."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Don't push it, midget."

I smiled. It was a fake smile, but it was the best I could do. "You used to be faster when you were still on the basketball team. I guess hanging out at The Sharing all the time, eating barbecue and potato salad, must have slowed your reflexes."

You know, in the old days, Tom would not have put up with that. He would not have let me challenge him and get away with it. He would have had me in a headlock and given me a massive noogie till I begged for mercy.

But now he just gave me a cold, uncertain smile.

Maybe it was because he had changed. Maybe it was because I had changed. The silence stretched between us for a few minutes, and my parents, feeling uncomfortable, made small talk.

"I have homework to do," I said at last. "May I be excused?"

"Come back down for cheesecake later," my mom said.

Tom caught up to me on the stairs. "I don't know why you're so against The Sharing," he said. "A lot of the kids in your school have joined."

"I guess I just don't like to join things."

"Yeah? Well, don't dump on what you don't understand. What were you doing that was so important today? While I was out cleaning up the park?"

16 I stopped and turned to face him. I was one step higher than he was. We were eye to eye. "Me? I wasn't doing much of anything. Hanging out with Marco."

"Your loss," he said. "There are things that are cooler than hanging out with Marco. Cooler than being on some bogus team. Important things. You could be a part of something . . . bigger. You could be part of something great, not just another nothing kid."

He gave me a look. Like he could tell me incredible things. Like he could open up a whole new world for me.

I could be part of something bigger. Some thing important.

I knew that kind of stuff worked on some people. That was the first step toward becoming a voluntary host. That was how The Sharing started you out: talk of bigger, more glorious, more interesting things that you could be part of.

"Thanks, Tom," I said. "But I don't want to be a part. I guess I'd rather just be one person. On my own. One little nothing kid."

For a split second after I said that, he let the mask slip. For just a moment I saw an expression of pure arrogance and contempt. Yeerk arrogance. Yeerk contempt.

The look said "We will have you, sooner or later. You and all the rest of your weak race."

Then it was gone, and Tom was shrugging like it was all no big deal.

I went to my room. I did some homework. Later, I went back downstairs and ate cheese cake along with my folks and my brother. One big happy family watching TV and pigging out.

That night, I had the dream.

A dream that had begun to appear almost every night.

17 Chapter 5

"I can't believe we are actually going to practice a morph," Marco said. "We never practice. We just do it, and when it's a huge disaster we try and deal with it then."

"We need the practice," I pointed out. "We're going in as spies. We're going to this thing to try and hear what they are saying. And it takes a while to learn how to use the cockroach's senses to understand sound."

"This would be a great horror movie. Or at least a book," Marco said. "Roachman."

We were in Marco's new apartment. It was the first time we'd ever used it. Probably because now that Marco's dad was back at work, they had moved to a better place. I guess Marco used to be embarrassed over his old place.

In fact, his dad was out, working late at his new job. I hoped the job would last. Marco had been carrying a big load of family problems for a long time.

"Is it possible to die of total willies?" Cassie asked. "I mean, do you think we could someday just gross ourselves right out of existence? I didn't even like touching a cockroach. How am I going to stand becoming one?"