Winona sticks it on the fridge. "You should be able to give your tests 'orally' - speech to text isn't good enough that they can be using that for blind students and I know not all blind people learn braille. But it'd be good if you did have a way to write."

Yeah.

She might decide to hide some of what she can do again. Not as much but some.

"Hmm... which things?"

She doesn't have anything very specific in mind, it depends on what they want her to do and what they think it means that she can do it.

"Hm. I suppose if I didn't know anything else about somebody and I heard they could write with magic pens they made, I'd assume they could also type, if not very fast."

Yeah, that kind of thing.

"It's probably important for Julie and I to know what you're saying you can do, but with us helping you can probably maintain less margin like that, I think - if we sit down and say your IEP can't require you to produce any writing, then even if you let a teacher see you write, they have some things they have to do before they try to make it a requirement."

That sounds good. What's an IEP?

"It stands for Individualized Education Program, if the regular school arrangement doesn't work out for you."

Okay.

"It still has to use the faculty the school has, but it can tell them how to react to you."

That's good.

Do they have to know what to tell them ahead of time or can they wait until there's a problem and say what to do then?

"It'd be better to tell them ahead of time."

That's less useful, then. Not not useful, but less.

If it says that they aren't allowed to touch her that should cover anything that'd be an emergency.

"I'm not sure if that's normally something that gets folded into an IEP. There might be emergency situations where somebody would have to touch you - if you fainted, say, or if another kid was attacking you and you hadn't told them you could phase."

If it says 'just in an emergency' they'll just decide it's an emergency whenever they want to do something to her.

"I don't think so. I can see why that's the sort of thing you'd expect but I don't think so, it'd be something like a medical emergency or a fight. We can make sure they know they shouldn't try to hug you or tap you on the shoulder, but I don't think any school will agree to never touch you even if you pass out or get into a fight."

She shudders a little, but doesn't seem to have anything to say about that.

"They'd be liable if something happened to you, or to another student - but only if the something was more like getting punched in the face than like getting pulled away from a bully."

She doesn't understand that but she also doesn't really want to keep talking about this.

"Okay." Winona hugs her. "I'm sorry it's all so hard and scary."

Yeah. (Snuggle.)

Eventually Winona and Julie go to bed.

She stays curled up on the couch.

She doesn't seem to be in the house, the next morning.

Julie searches the house, and the yard, calling out "Dusk?" occasionally.