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Katie settles in pretty well into the house, and later, when a bed has been obtained, into Lizbeth's room. She wears Lizbeth's hand-me-downs to start, then gets her own clothes; she doesn't have strong opinions about what she should be wearing, but the sizing on Lizbeth's old things isn't really right, and there aren't all that many still lying around anyway.
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.
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queensidecastle
Meanwhile, she takes the stethoscope from Virginia and trades her some money.
"Thanks," she says. "Have a safe trip home."
"Thanks," she says. "Have a safe trip home."
No one is panicking about Katie's lack of thumpiness, so neither does she. She goes back to toybox-rummaging and starts to make things out of legos.
queensidecastle
It having been previously established that Katie does not think of legos as food, Chris keeps an eye on her but doesn't interfere.
Katie makes a lego bowl, and lego approximations of flowers, and a lego castle.
Katie makes a lego stirring rod, and attempts to stir the flowers around in the bowl. It doesn't work very well; she giggles when her stirrer breaks.
Lizbeth giggles, too, looking up from Katie's list of unfamiliar words.
The list of unfamiliar words contains mostly nouns, and while many of them are relatively advanced - or archaic, given the source material - words, some of them aren't especially. She had to look up "aneurysm" and "Mormon", but she also had to look up "blood" and "cigar".
Looking at it was just an idle thought, but it is actually fascinating and Lizbeth is now studying it in earnest.
"Blood" is certainly the weirdest gap in Katie's vocabulary, but she was also pretty thoroughly devoid of knowledge of geography, apparently. She made a confused note about "hunting for food" - nothing Katie eats runs away and she hasn't seen anyone's carnivore entrées in a motile state - and she also had to look up "married" and "horse".
Lizbeth tries to build a picture of what kind of life would teach Katie these words and not those.
It's a strange picture.
It's a strange picture.
queensidecastle
And Chris contemplates the stethoscope.
Eventually - during an apparent lull in legoing - she asks, "Katie, can I listen to you not thump?"
Eventually - during an apparent lull in legoing - she asks, "Katie, can I listen to you not thump?"
"Okay!" says Katie, abandoning the legos to go over to Chris.
queensidecastle
Chris listens.
Katie does indeed not thump.
She listens to herself, to double-check, and verifies that the stethoscope does indeed transmit appropriate thumping.
"Huh," she says.
Katie does indeed not thump.
She listens to herself, to double-check, and verifies that the stethoscope does indeed transmit appropriate thumping.
"Huh," she says.
queensidecastle
"It's good that you're alive. But something weird is clearly going on, and I don't know yet if it's an okay thing or not."