"Maybe if you find the Valar you can tell them to bring back dinosaurs and give them a place to live that isn't full of people."

"When I find the Valar I will tell them to do that but I think they might do some other things first."

"That makes sense. They've been dead for a long time so it's not like anybody can miss them too bad."

"Yeah. But like your mom, they have to get her back right away if she wants to come back because people do miss her."

"That makes sense. 

"Do you know how to use phones? You should have grandma and grandpa's phone number so you can call us if anything weird happens. Or if you find the Valar or something."

"I do not. Can you show me?"

"Yeah!"

So Zana takes him to the phone and explains how you call people and looks up and provides him with her grandparents' number.

What a good concept.

Phones are pretty great!

In the morning Karen is grateful that transit times exist, and that when the other kids leave Maitimo can be safely at church day camp and neither in contact with her terrible lawyer coworkers or her I'm-sure-they're-trying-their-best-but-talking-to-them-makes-me-want-to-disappear parents.

It's not a very pretty building. It's old and brick and one of the windows appears to be held together with duct tape. It does, however, have a sanctuary attached, and there's a little playground out back with a slide and some swings.

I'll pick you up at six. Don't, like, mention the whole being an alien thing, OK? Or that you can read minds. Or do the telepathy thing. I don't really want them to think they need to take any kind of drastic action about you, OK?

Okay.

He will just sit here with his eyes closed singing?

She tells them his name is Maitimo and that he's never spent a day away from home before. She considered giving a fake name but honestly she thinks everything about him is much less surprising if you imagine that his parents were the sort of people who would name a kid "Maitimo". There are papers to sign about emergency contact information and about letting them take pictures (which she signs) and a paper to sign about letting them use corporal punishment (which she doesn't). 

She hands him his lunch. And she heads to work, because there's nothing else she can do for him here, really.

They give him a name tag necklace shaped like a cartoon frog face that says "Maitimo". Nobody tells him to stop singing as other kids file into the combination cafeteria/gymnasium setup they have here. Some other kids are playing with board games or balls or jump ropes, but nobody comes to talk to him.

At nine o'clock, a middle-aged woman in one of the daycamp's blue uniform T-shirts tells everyone to start cleaning up so they can go to morning worship. 

That seems fine.

When all the toys and games are stacked on the tables she tells everyone to line up. The other kids line up but mostly do not stop talking.

Talking to people and playing with people sounds really nice but he can't think well enough. He can line up though.

The woman holds a finger up to her lips until everybody else stops talking. When it's quiet they walk to the sanctuary.

It's neither a pretty nor a horribly ugly sanctuary. The walls have been newly painted and the carpet is royal blue and there's a stage at the front with some speakers and musical instruments. There are projectors that make the lyrics to songs come up on big screens, usually with pictures of sunsets or praying hands behind them.

They sing some songs and then they sit down and a different woman gives a speech about how God can do anything and loves all of them very much, and when they see the frogs around the church they should remember to Fully Rely On God.

It is still really confusing why God let all of this happen but things can be bad for a long time, right, that is the point of the story of how the universe was sung into existence, the only thing that is guaranteed is that everything is wonderful for everyone eventually. 

It makes more sense now why his grandfather is still scared about things that don't happen in Valinor.

He sings the songs and does not fidget and opens his eyes sometimes.

After morning worship it is time for crafts. They go back to the cafeteria and the older kids are given wooden pieces and instructions on how to connect them to make a birdhouse that looks like a church. Kids in Maitimo's age group are just given assembled birdhouses and told to color them so they look nice. He is given some markers and stickers.

That's weird but maybe the birdhouses are needed very quickly so they don't want the kids wasting time making them from scratch.

He can't figure out how to make most of the stickers work in elegantly but he can make the birdhouse sufficiently pretty assuming they give him long enough.

They give him thirty minutes.

Most of the other kids his age just kind of scribble different colors on different sides of their birdhouses or cover them in the stickers they like best. The adults and their teenage helpers compliment all of the birdhouses, but they sound more sincere when they are complimenting his. If he leaves his birdhouse on this table he can take it home at the end of the day.

It's awful to lie to children and pretend that their art is good; they know better. 

"There are no birds where I live but if you'd like me to take it home and finish it and bring it back I can do that."

"Maybe you can give it as a gift to someone who has birds?"

"I do not think they would like it."

"Why not?"