The Invasion by K. A. Applegate

And with all my power, I ordered my lizard body to follow him.
    I tried not to think about the spider in my stomach, or the fact that it was still not completely dead. I tried not to think about the fact that part of my body was back on the floor, jerking like it was still alive. I just raced along after Chapman.
    Because Chapman might reveal something that would help Tom.
    I planned to follow Chapman to his office. I’d hide under his desk and listen to him make phone calls. I figured sooner or later he might let something slip about the location of the Yeerk pool.
    Cassie and I had talked about it. She’d said it could take days of hiding in Chapman’s office before we learned anything. Besides, we could only stay in a morph for two hours. And meanwhile, I would be skipping class. Sooner or later, I’d get in trouble over that.
    And the really funny thing is, when they catch you skipping class, you get sent to the assistant principal.
    Mr. Chapman.
    I could just imagine
that
scene….Sorry I skipped class, Mr. Chapman, but I’ve been in this lizard body, watching you because I know you’re a Controller and part of a giant alien conspiracy to take over the earth.
    I would have laughed, only lizards can’t laugh. So I just followed Chapman as he marched down the hall.
    Suddenly he stopped. Were we at his office?
    I looked around as well as I could. It didn’t look like the office. The spider gave a kick in my stomach.
    He opened a door. It swung right over me with a big rush of air. It went just above my head as I hugged the floor.
    I concentrated on making sense of the sights. Wait a minute! This was the janitor’s closet, a mess of mops and buckets and cleaning solutions. What was Chapman doing …?
    He went inside. I followed, careful to stay away from the high leather walls that were his shoes.
    I heard a loud click. He had locked the door behind him.
    It was a long way up from the floor, but I could more or less see him doing things to the sink faucet.I thought he grabbed one of the hooks they used to hang up the dirty mop heads. I was pretty sure he twisted it because I could hear a squeaking sound.
    And to my total and complete amazement, the wall opened.
    There was a doorway where the wall had been. Strange smells and stranger sounds wafted up from inside the doorway.
    Chapman stepped through. There were stairs just inside, heading down into a purple-lit pit. From far away, as if it came from a hundred miles down, I heard a faint sound.
    It was a scream. A scream of fear and despair. A human voice, crying out in the darkness of that horrible place.
    “Noooo!” the voice moaned. “Noooo!”
    I knew what the scream meant. I knew what was happening. Somewhere down there, a human being was feeling the Yeerk slug slither inside its brain. Somewhere down there, a human being was being turned into a mindless slave of the Yeerks.
    Chapman headed down the stairs.
    The door closed behind him.
    I had found the Yeerk pool.
    It was right under my school.

CHAPTER 18
     
    S creams,” I said. “Human screams. They sounded far off, but that’s what they were.”
    My friends looked at me. All but Marco, who looked away. It was that same afternoon, right after school. We’d gone to the mall. We figured it was the best way not to look suspicious. No one thinks there’s anything weird about kids hanging together at the mall.
    We were at a table in the food court, sharing some nachos. Ever since eating the spider, I’d had a desire to consume lots of junk food to help me forget.
    “You were a lizard at the time,” Marco pointed out. “Who knows what you heard?”
    “I know,” I said.
    “I can’t stand the thought of what’s happening to people down there,” Cassie said. She shuddered. “It’s sickening.”
    “We have to do something,” Rachel said.
    “Yeah, let’s rush right down there,” Marco said. “Then it can be
us
screaming.”
    I realized I had lost my appetite for nachos.
    “Marco, you can’t