"Why can't I just go with Lizbeth? I don't know any of these people."

"Lizbeth is older than you, so she started school earlier and is now farther along."

"Can I catch up?"

"In theory, yes. But it would take a lot of work, and by the time you managed it you might know some people in your class and not mind so much anymore."

"I guess. What if I don't like them, though?"

"Then you can avoid them as much as possible. If you really can't stand school, then I can homeschool you, but that takes time and money and I don't have infinite supplies of either."

"I can read by myself, I'm good at that."

"Yes, I know. Still. Try to give school a fair chance, please."

"Okay."

"Thank you."

Katie eyes the playground. "They will let me out of the building some of the day, right?"

"Yes. Two or three times a day, usually, I think."

"That's good, I don't want to fall over more than usual."

"Yes. Falling over is unpleasant."

"Yeah." Katie sighs, and peeps into her lunch, and hugs Chris.

"You'll come get me in the afternoon?"

"Yes I will."

"Okay. Love you."

"Love you too."

"Hey you," says Chris. "How was your day?"

"It was okay. Kind of boring. Ms. Keenan let us draw though, and I did go outside, but she thought I should be running around, so I told her I don't run, and she argued with me but I still didn't."

"If Ms. Keenan keeps pestering you about that, I can come argue with her for you."

"Okay. I don't think she knows why I wouldn't run. She said everybody falls sometimes and you have to get up, and I do get up but that's not the point, but she didn't get it. I did go on the swings to make her leave me alone. The swings are okay."

Chris nods.

"She read us a story, but I can read faster than that."

"Lizbeth has much the same problem."

"Are they still gonna read me stories out loud really slow when I'm all the way in second grade?"

"Yes, but not nearly as often. Mostly with her it's things like the teacher telling everyone to take some time to read one chapter of a book, and Lizbeth finishing two instead."

"That's annoying, why do they do that?"

"Well, I'd guess they tell everyone to read the chapter because they want everyone to read the chapter, and they give everyone plenty of time to do it because most people don't read as fast as Lizbeth."

"But then she'll have read two and when they tell everybody 'read chapter two', she won't have anything to do."

"She reads chapters three and four. And when she gets to the end she starts over, or goes back to where everyone is supposed to be."

"That sounds dumb. Why don't they put the people who read fast in another class?"

"Because then the people who read fast would need another teacher, and they might not have enough to go around."

"Oh."

"Yep."

"Maybe Lizbeth should bring a book from home and read that instead of chapter two when this happens, and then she wouldn't be ahead or wasting time."

"Some teachers don't like it when she reads things in class other than the things she is supposed to be reading in class. Even when that makes no sense."

"Why do they not like it when not liking it doesn't make sense, then?"

"I am not them, so I don't know."

"Can't you ask them?"

"They might not know either. Sometimes people don't. And it wouldn't be polite. And their answer might not make enough sense to be worth it."

"Why wouldn't they know why they did a thing?"

"Sometimes people just don't. They don't think about it in the first place, or don't keep track."

"That sounds scary! What if they just - wake up one day and don't know why they're where they are? That happened to me and it wasn't even something I did."

"Well, sometimes that happens to people who get drunk. But mostly people do manage to remember where they went to sleep last night and how they got there."

"That's not why, though, it's how. Why do people get drunk?"

"For fun. It's not fun for everyone, but it is for some people."

"It doesn't sound nice."

"Then you can avoid it for as long as you want."

"I'm not even sure if the drinks that make people drunk are food."

"If they aren't, that's another good reason to avoid them."

"Yeah. Lunch was tasty," adds Katie. "Somebody wanted to know what the turmeric was and I told him it was turmeric and he said 'what's turmeric' and I said 'it's this' and he looked at me like I was being mean to him but I wasn't."

"It's a spice," Chris suggests. "If you want to know more things about it in case of future questions, we can look it up later."

"Okay. I like it, but I mostly eat it for the orange. I don't want to be pink again."

"Orange is a good colour on you. The pink was... memorable."

Katie giggles.

Chris laughs.

"Is Lizbeth going home on the bus right now?"

"Yes she is."

"Tomorrow I have to go on the bus too, right?"

"Yes."

"Oh well."

"Do you expect not to like the bus?"

"I like you driving me. Maybe the bus will be okay."

"The bus will probably be tolerable."

"Will I be allowed to open my window on the bus?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the bus driver."

"I'll see tomorrow I guess."

"Yes you will."

"A kid felt sick today and got sent to the nurse," Katie muses. "Could a nurse tell I'm a plant?"

"It's possible. Try not to bleed on one or let them check your pulse."

"I'll try."

"Good."

"Why don't I have recess at the same time as Lizbeth?"

"Some kind of scheduling reason, I guess. I don't know."

"Oh well. Ms. Keenan said," Katie adds, "tomorrow we will have play-doh, but that we were not allowed to eat it. Do people eat it? Is it food?"

"People who aren't plants don't have as clear an idea as you do of what is and isn't food to them," says Chris. "Sometimes children need reminding. I don't think play-doh will do most people a lot of harm if they eat it, but I don't think it'll do them any good either."

"It's really obvious what's food. To me. I don't know by looking whether you or Lizbeth can eat things."

"Other people don't know by looking whether anything is food to them or not. We have to learn how to tell, by hearing about what kinds of things other people eat and how safe or tasty or nutritious they are or aren't."

"Do you make a lot of mistakes?"

"Not usually."

"That's good. I wouldn't like it if you were poisoned."

"Me neither."

"I wonder if I could learn to tell what is food for not-plant people."

"I wonder that too! I wouldn't know how to try, though."

"I will think about it. If I could would it be useful?"

"It would be convenient. And interesting. But we are mostly good enough at figuring out what is food for us by ourselves, so I don't think it would make a huge difference."

"Okay. So if I think of something better to do I will stop working on that thing."

"Seems reasonable."

"Yes. I am very smart. Maybe I don't need to go to school."

"Unfortunately, needing to go to school isn't really about how smart you are."

"What is it about?"

"Children have to either go to school, or be homeschooled. It is the law. I'm not sure why it's the law, besides that someone decided it should be."

"Who makes things be the law?"

"Legislators. Which is just a word for 'people whose job it is to make things be the law'."

Katie giggles. "How do you be a legislator?"

"I'm not exactly sure. We can look that up too, if you want."

"Does somebody pay them to make things be the law?"

"It's more complicated than that, I think."

"Well, I want to know how it works."

"Then we can look it up."

"Okay!"

"Hi Lizbeth! How is second grade?"

"It's a lot like first grade," she says. "The math is still too easy."

"When do you think you will get hard enough math?"

"Probably not for a while," she says. "Maybe not for years."

"Chris says you have a thing where you read faster than everybody, too. We got read a story today and I could have read it much faster."

"Yeah, I read fast. Sometimes it gets boring."

"What do you do about it?"

Lizbeth shrugs. "It's not that bad. And I can always just daydream if I'm finished everything else."

"S'pose. What are you learning besides easy math?"

"Facts about things," she says. "Mostly not interesting ones. And spelling words I can already spell."

"I don't think whoever invented school was very smart."

"I'm not sure someone invented it," says Lizbeth. "At least not all at once."

"What would a partly invented school look like?"

"It might look like a bunch of people all coming to learn something from the same person at the same time because more people can learn it that way than if they did it one by one," she says consideringly.

"I didn't even learn anything today. Except things like where my class is. Maybe there should be a partly-invented school and we should go to that."

"There might not be any," says Lizbeth.

"Oh. I guess. Why are so many things done badly?"

"I think," says Lizbeth, "that fixing things is hard sometimes and people don't like doing hard things. And sometimes they don't notice if things are being done badly because they're used to it being that way."

"I guess." Katie peers down at her notebook, then looks up. "Lizbeth?"

"Yes?"

"You wouldn't ever read my notebooks without asking, right?"

"What would be a more important reason?"

"I don't know," she says. "I can't think of one. But it would have to be something that was urgent and while you weren't around, because if you were around I could just ask you and if it wasn't urgent I could just wait and then ask you."

"I can't think of a good reason for you to read them even if there was some kind of emergency. What would - the house being on fire or whatever have to do with the notebooks?"

"Well, the house being on fire wouldn't, but if you were missing and we couldn't find you, that might."

"I wouldn't go missing on purpose, and if it wasn't on purpose why would there be anything in the notebooks about it?"

"There wouldn't be anything obvious but there might be something not obvious. If you went somewhere or saw something that turned out to be important but you didn't know so you didn't tell us."

"Yes?"

Katie follows the voice. "You wouldn't read my notebooks without asking, would you?"

"Not without a very good reason."

"What would be a good reason?"

"Well, if you disappeared and I thought something bad might have happened to you and your notebooks might have a clue about what it was or where you went, that would be a very good reason. Or, when you get older, if you aren't missing but are somewhere else and I don't know exactly where and I need to find you very quickly because something bad might happen if I don't. Things like that."

"That was what Lizbeth said pretty much. But you wouldn't read them otherwise?"

"No. Only if there was an emergency and no chance to ask you."

"Okay. That's important."

"Okay."

"Thanks. You're a good mom."

"I try," she says, smiling.

Hugs!

Hugs.