"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."

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

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

"Yeah. It's hard."

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Huh?"

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

"...Uh?"

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

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

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

"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."

Andi scratches her head, but doesn't say anything.

"What?"

"I dunno how much I'm supposed to be able to figure out from that?"

"You can always ask for the rest."

"It's kind of awkward to have to ask, though, like, I don't have sadistic fascinations here and probably don't actually have to have details to do anything I need to do and I dunno how much you want to tell me anyway."

"I want to tell you, I just don't want to give you nightmares if I can help it. And me and my high tolerance for unpleasant shit aren't always good at figuring out where that line is for other people."

"I don't really have a problem with nightmares. If my dreams get even slightly unsettling I wake up and roll over and try again. So I guess that kind of is a problem with nightmares, but not the usual kind."