mmm, pancakes

[pandion]

Andi is up first again the next morning. She pads downstairs.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

"...yeah," says Trouble, "I hear ya. Do you even know if anybody's talked to her yet? She was on a trip or something, right?"

[pandion]

"Nobody's reached her. I'm supposed to call the hotel she was at last night sometime today when she will probably already be gone."

[aeskhyne]

"So I guess if your dad had actually been mauled to death by a bear, you might be trying harder to get ahold of her."

[pandion]

"Well, we could have got her on the phone last night, or I could call the hotel now," says Andi, "but there wasn't a way before that, she wasn't planning to be at specific hotels at specific times till now."

[aeskhyne]

"She's probably gonna feel like shit about that when you finally talk to her."

[pandion]

"Yeah."

[aeskhyne]

"That sucks," says Trouble.

[pandion]

"Every few months she thinks about getting a cell phone, then decides it would be too expensive," sighs Andi. "I bet she gets one now."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah, I'll say. Do you know if you guys are gonna tell her about - stuff?"

[pandion]

"I don't think Bella's decided yet."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. It's hard."

[pandion]

"Mom is decent with privacy but not very good with secrets, is the problem."

[aeskhyne]

He nods. "And then there's what if she just gets a random Yeerk..."

[pandion]

"Right. That's already happened the once and we were really lucky."

[aeskhyne]

"Lucky's one way to put it, I guess."

[pandion]

"Well, I mean, if there had to be an Animorph getting Yeerked, you and Aspret is one of probably not all that many combinations that lets us end the day not all enslaved or dead. I don't mean it's lucky it happened at all."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah, no - what I mean is - the reason Aspret got me specifically is the same reason she could barely hang onto me," he says. "It wasn't all luck."

[pandion]

"Huh?"

[aeskhyne]

"She got assigned to me as a punishment. To torture her, basically."

[pandion]

"...Uh?"

[aeskhyne]

He hesitates.

"...Maybe you don't wanna know."

[pandion]

"I... don't know if I wanna know, do I wanna know? Should I know?"

[aeskhyne]

"Well... I wouldn't mind you knowing. But it's pretty nasty."

[pandion]

"It kind of sounds like you got tortured a lot? And the Yeerks knew it?"

[aeskhyne]

"Kind of about right," says Trouble. "My stepdad's a Controller. He has some kind of a deal with his Yeerk. I dunno what the Yeerk gets out of it, but I know what Reggie got."