Lucky Starbolt! Starbolt whuffs warm air onto Dusk's arm.

Has she made a friend? Looks like yes. It can continue to be carrots and pats time for a while, then.

"That's enough for her for now. You can give some to the other horses if you want," says Ms. Copeland.

Okay.

The other horses are probably nice too. (She keeps an eye on Starbolt as she moves off.)

Starbolt does not think she has had enough carrots. The other horses think she definitely has.

"That one's Nikola Tesla," says Ms. Copeland.

- okay. Well, she can pass out carrots, that's a thing she can do.

Nikola Tesla likes carrots. So do the horses named Naruto, Twilight Sparkle, Black Hole, and Mrs. Yost.

And then she's ready to go.

Hopefully the last school will be better and it will be an easy choice.

"I hope so too, kiddo," says Julie.

The next school has more conventionally schoolish architecture than the horses school, from the outside, but the inside has a lot of its doors propped open and several extra ones added, so kids can move around between rooms without worrying much about it. There are a wide range of kids there, from preschool all the way up through high school, though they are grouped in the buildings by age bracket for the most part.

Dusk isn't assigned to a specific native guide here, just turned loose into a classroom section where kids of roughly middle school age (11-13) are doing various things in clumps and alone: reading, asking the scattered teachers questions, messing with the science equipment and art supplies, talking to each other, poking tablet apps. Only one teacher seems to be actively holding court to deliver a lesson to an entire group, and she's doing it in French.

...oh. Oh. Yes, this.

She wanders around for a bit, just kind of looking at stuff.

This seems to be totally normal behavior; some of the kids are drifting between activities at any given time. These kids are collecting examples of half-rhymes out of a book of poems; these kids are trying baking powder instead of baking soda to see if it makes a notably different volcano when mixed with vinegar; these kids are taking notes on the French lecture; this kid is sculpting something out of wire; this kid is asking a teacher a question about non-terminating decimals.

Well.

Julie, she wants this one.

"You're sure? You've been here for fifteen minutes."

Yeah. She only took the fifteen minutes because she wanted to be really really sure.

"Well, let's talk to the guidance counselor, then, figure out what accommodations they'll have to make."

The guidance counselor is a little old lady. She listens to Julie's explanation of the potential stumbling blocks. "I don't think a later start time is a problem. Some of the staff stay late for the after-school program, that would let Dusk make up most of the lost time. We have to comply with state standardized testing regimes, but they'll have their own rules about that and they'll be the same wherever you go unless you drive into Rhode Island or what have you. I don't think there's a way to nonverbally complete the foreign language course, but I'm sure the language instructors would be willing to guide her progress if she wants to work on receptive fluency. I have some hesitation about well-roundedness - if the teachers are trying harder than usual to avoid nudging her because of previous neglect-related sore spots, that takes a lot of tools out of their pockets."

"I think if you tell my wife and I what you usually expect there we can get some idea of whether Dusk's not doing enough of something," Julie says.

(Yeah, see? Definitely the right choice. She leans happily on Julie and doesn't comment.)

They have to delay some of the paperwork because Julie is not Dusk's legal guardian yet, but once that's sorted out, they will be able get Dusk a place at the school.

Ee.

"You wanna hang out here till school's out?" Julie asks. "Meet some kids?"

Yes but she probably shouldn't, she's a little overwhelmed. In a good way, but she doesn't think she's going to make a good first impression like this.

"Okay. There'll be time later," Julie smiles, and she takes Dusk home.

Eee.

"I'm really glad we found one you like!"

She is too!!

"Did you follow the part about well-roundedness, that means if you do nothing but art for three days they start wondering if you're gonna pop out knowing who the President is or not."