She has inexplicably tidy handwriting - inexplicably has handwriting at all; inexplicably can spell fifteen words in twenty instead of zero - which she uses, rather a lot. She makes a list of things that are food and magnetizes it to the fridge for reference, adding to it when she locates more things that are food, and when she is trying to tackle complex books she takes notes on who all the characters are so she doesn't have to page backward to remind herself, and she discovers journaling, even though she doesn't have that many events to record.
One day, the event she has to record is: Chris says to morrow she wil go to the DMV and shud not have us ther becas it may take six ours. We wil be baybe sat. If I hav ben baybe sat be for I do not remembre it.
She is curious about the imminent babysitter, and is up bright and early on the day when same may be expected.
Katie is not done with this book yet. She continues on. She is accumulating a list of words she does not know.
Katie re-reads the pages on which she found those words. (She noted the page numbers.) Then she continues.
She is very systematic! Eventually she has finished a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories. She puts the stories and the dictionary back where she found them, and then looks at the math homework to see if it has become any more interesting.
"Math is important to know at least a little bit of when you're a grown-up, especially if you're going to be doing things that need it," says Virginia. "So we have to learn it in school, and doing homework helps us learn."
"I'm going to find out more about everything I could do first, before I decide anything."
"I'm not sure yet," she says. "And I haven't started keeping a list, because I don't know enough about all the possibilities."