Andi is dimly visible in the moonlight filtered through the curtains; she hasn't bothered to turn on a light. She is standing by the sink with a glass of water. "Making friends with Ax?" she asks Trouble.

"Trying to."

"Are you having trouble with it? I pried the plastic stars off our ceiling for him and showed him where to get a casserole dish he could stand in to drink water out of and bam, friendship."

"How come?"

"'Cause the other day I accidentally insulted him and he accidentally scared me, and now I'm trying to work through that."

"Oh. You were scared?"

"Yeah. Scared doesn't usually look like scared, on me."

"That and you were a pigeon."

"You can't see scared on pigeons?"

"Nnnnot really."

"I can. I mean, now that I've been one. I wasn't born with a mystical connection to pigeons or anything."

"The Amazing Pigeon-Boy!" suggests Andi.

Trouble cracks up.

"It was super-dark too, anyway."

"True."

"I thought he was really polite, what scared you?"

"It's not about how polite he was. It's just - the whole thing set me off."

"Yeah, obviously, what about it?"

"If I knew, I might tell you."

"Huh."

He shrugs.

"So you're trying to avoid getting set off again without knowing how the heck the setting-off works?"

"Not... exactly. I know some stuff, and I'm working on what I know. It's just not all stuff that's easy to explain. And it's mostly not about what he does so much as it's about how I feel about him."