Free The Invasion by K. A. Applegate

didn’t know. Others I did.
    Were they all Controllers? I wondered. How could I ever know? And was my own brother one of them?
    After about an hour of hanging out there on the beach, I was sure I was nuts. There was no way these guys were aliens. We played some volleyball, me and Tom together on one team. We ate the barbecue ribs they had. I mean, it was just like this normal, good time.
    The sand was still warm. The night air was chilly, but near the fire it was nice.
    “Now you see why I enjoy this?” Tom asked me.
    “It’s cool,” I said. I looked around at all the people having fun. “I didn’t realize it was so much fun.”
    “Well, that’s not
all
it is,” Tom said. “I mean, it’s more than just fun. The Sharing can do all kinds of things for you. Once you’re a full member.”
    “How do you get to be a full member?” I asked.
    He smiled mysteriously. “Oh, that will come later. First you become an associate member. Later the leaders will decide whether to ask you to become a full member. Once you become a full member … the whole world changes.”
    At that moment, something weird happened. I was looking at Tom, and he was smiling at me. But then his face kind of twitched. His head started to pull to one side, like he was trying to shake his head only he couldn’t quite do it. For just a split second there was a look in his eyes—scared or … or something.He was looking right at me, and it was like some different person, some scared person, was looking out of those same eyes.
    Then he was back to normal. Or what looked like normal.
    “I have to go for a while now,” he said. “The full members have a separate meeting. You guys stay here and have fun. Have some more of that barbecue. It’s great, isn’t it?”
    With that, he was gone into the night.
    I felt like I had swallowed barbed wire.
    Marco and Cassie came over. They had just finished playing Frisbee in the surf with some other kids. Marco was laughing.
    “Okay,” he said, “I admit it. I was wrong. These are just normal people having a good time. And Tom is not a Controller.”
    I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Marco was wrong.
    I knew what I had seen in Tom’s eyes—he was trying to warn me. Somehow he had managed to gain control of his face for just a second before the Yeerk in his head had crushed him.
    Tom — the
real
Tom, not the Yeerk slug in his brain — had tried to warn me.

CHAPTER 14
     
    T hey’re all going off to a separate meeting,” I said. “All the
full
members. I’d sure like to know what goes on in that meeting.” I struggled to sound normal, but my insides were churning.
    “I saw people heading that way.” Rachel pointed.
    “Let’s see if we can get close,” I said.
    “What’s going on?” Marco asked. “I thought we just decided everything was normal here.”
    It was Cassie who answered him. “Nothing is normal here,” she said. “Can’t you feel it?” She shivered. “All these so-called
full
members, they’re all being so perfectly nice. So perfectly helpful. They’re soperfectly normal it’s abnormal. And all the time their eyes are following you, watching you. Watching you like … like a hungry dog watching a bone.”
    “Creepy,” Rachel agreed. “Like if you took cheerleaders, combined them with gym teachers, and made them all drink ten cups of coffee.”
    “They are all just a little too happy, aren’t they?” Marco admitted. “People keep telling me how all their problems disappeared once they became a full member of The Sharing. It’s like some cult or something.”
    “I’m getting into that secret meeting,” I said. I had to
know.
I had to be dead sure. “Let’s get away from the fire. Over behind that lifeguard stand.”
    “How are you going to get into the meeting?” Marco asked.
    “They won’t worry about some stray dog that’s walking along the beach,” I said.
    “Some stray … oh,” Marco said.
    “Good idea,” Cassie said. “I’d do it, too,