...My father said we're going as a family...Three, maybe four days. The maximum time a Yeerk can last without a trip to a Yeerk Pool is three days. Four days without Kandrona rays and the Yeerk in Tom's head would starve...

...Tom's Yeerk was trapped. Under pressure. Squeezed. It wasn't ready for this turn of events. Didn't know how to play it out. Didn't know what to do...Tom's Yeerk is passing as a normal high school kid. Bottom line, he can either follow family rules or he loses his cover...

...The Yeerks have a choice: Keep Tom in place by infesting my father. Or withdraw Tom's Yeerk, put him into a new host, and kill Tom to keep him from talking...

...I scanned my father's face. Had he become a Controller yet? Stupid. I didn't know. Couldn't know. It's not as if Controllers went around twitching or exchanging Yeerk high-fives or playing with their ears. A Controller looked, acted, seemed exactly normal. My father could be my father. Or he could be screaming, helpless, just beginning to realize that his eyes and ears and mouth no longer belonged to him...

...If the Yeerks can't make his father into a Controller soon enough, they could just kill him. As a orphan Tom's cover isn't affected. Might even be enhanced...And Tom will probably be the one to do it...