"I am uncertain. Legally speaking, it would be possible to withdraw from my current school and begin homeschooling, and I am sufficiently autodidactic that I expect to pass any homeschool evaluation tests without the input of an adult, but convincing my father to cooperate with this plan would be more difficult."

"I could probably convince my mom to homeschool me, but haven't invested the effort yet. I'd miss Xander, I don't think he'd take to it as well so he'd require more teaching input from Renée."

"If I were going to leave school it would certainly be necessary to extract Jaromira, if only because it's a boarding school. Educating her would take up more of my time than educating myself but probably less than school eats."

"Where do you live when you're not at school?"

"With my father and stepmother. This is the primary source of my reluctance to withdraw."

"I meant geographically."

"Ah. In Tucson."

"Still well within daytrip distance on the wing, okay."

"Yes, if being unable to see you were a factor I would certainly have mentioned it."

"I didn't want to presume but it did occur to me."

"I don't actively like people often enough to break contact with one casually."

"You spontaneously mentioned Norman Borlaug."

"I consider myself fortunate both to have thought to bring him up and to have met someone for whom this was a significant positive factor!"

Isabella laughs.

"You're so--I keep coming back to the word 'thoughtful' but I don't mean it the way most people mean it, I mean that you're self-aware and you--seem to do things that work instead of things that social scripts say to do when they clash."

"- I'm surprised that's noticeable on short acquaintance but yes I am and yes I do, thank you for observing it!"

"The self-awareness was evident from the introspection conversation, the part where you do things that work was garnered from a combination of the misanthropy discussion and the 'how to deal with irritating authority' exchange and to a lesser extent miscellaneous other pieces."

"Okay, I guess I did telegraph it, I'm just not accustomed to people taking note."

"They are tragically underappreciated traits." 

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome, although I can assure you that I said it because it was true. I don't go in for false flattery."

"I wouldn't thank you if I thought you were lying to me! That would not be gratitude-inspiring behavior at all."

"Very true. I also don't--mm, point out factual positives about people if they aren't specifically relevant or emotionally salient?"

Isabella's wings are rustling a little self-consciously. "Awww."

"Do let me know if at any time I'm--coming on too strong."