“We’re, like, in the library with a bunch of seniors and Orion and stuff, I’m not gonna go to sleep but it’ll probably be fine.”

"If you say so. Uh, anyway, I was hoping maybe you could walk me back downstairs to the infirmary and then I can do the ADHD screening stuff with you?" 

“Totally!”

Marian follows him down the stairs. Keeps an eye out and her knife in her hand, just in case he's inattentive in general. 

He is taking this so seriously and doing such a good job at looking out for mals! Probably! His eyes are darting around a lot, at least.

They encounter a tiny blue octopus creature that runs away from them at high speed, jaunting merrily on all eight legs like some sort of horrible cephalapod spider, and a slippery ooze that they can just walk around, and then they are at her office!

The octopus thingy was kind of cute? Probably she's not really supposed to think that about the death monsters. 

Marian ushers Zeke into her infirmary-office and offers him a seat on one of the cots. "Uh, right. I think this time I'm going to ask the void nicely for a clinical screening tool on this. It's been so helpful." Flattery flattery flattery. 

The void will provide! 

It's a very bad photocopy of a multipage questionnaire, but the text is large so it's still readable. The first page has a list of items, and checkboxes beside each one for 'happens at home', 'happens at work', and 'happens in social life.' 

Carelessness
Overlook or miss details? Submit inaccurate work?
 
Trouble staying focused
Trouble focusing throughout meetings or conversations?

Poor listening
Do you become distracted during conversations?

Easily sidetracked
Do you start tasks then lose focus?
 
Difficulty organizing work
Are you disorganized and messy? Do you miss deadlines?

This is really involved and feels kind of ridiculous, but the void does seem to be more helpful when she does a bunch of rigamarole around it? Maybe it's like some bizarre magical variant on the placebo affect? 

Marian asks all of the questions and checks off boxes based on Zeke's answers. 

He overlooks things sometimes but it’s hard to tell how often; he made mistakes on his preparatory pre-scholomance schoolwork stuff if it was, like, hard? He definitely gets distracted and has trouble focusing sometimes during conversations, a lot of conversations are super boring. He usually has more of an issue with starting tasks and then having too much focus and then it’s hours later and suddenly his entire wall is orange - has he mentioned his orange speckled wall, his orange speckled wall is awesome and he’s gonna do the same thing to his other walls. But finishing boring stuff is hard, yeah, obviously. His mom gets - his mom used to get mad about the state of his room sometimes but probably that’s not an ongoing concern, or whatever. He does not have much experience with strict deadlines.

The test would also like to know about the following! Does he have issues with any of the following:

Avoid lengthy mental tasks
Do you avoid paperwork or reviewing lengthy reports?
  
Losing everyday items
Like your keys, phone or glasses?
  
Easily distracted
Does your mind frequently wander?
  
Forgetfulness
Do you forget to return calls, keep appointments or pay bills on time?

Fidgeting
Do you tap your hands, feet or squirm in your seat?
  
Can’t stay seated
Even when you’re expected to?
  
Feeling restless
Are you often on edge?
  
Difficulty with quiet activities
Like sitting through presentations or movies?
  
Always “on the go”
Uncomfortable being still for extended periods of time?

Talking excessively
Ignoring or missing social cues in the process?
  
  
Interrupting others
Do you cut others off, in traffic or conversation?
  
Has trouble waiting in line
In traffic, at the bank, etc.?
  
Intrusiveness
Do you butt into conversations or activities?
 

All of the above? To, like, to varying degrees, he can too stay seated if he tries hard and believes in himself and he’s never had to pay a bill in his life, but still mostly all of the above.

Marian scores him! 

"...Uh, I'm guessing deadlines are going to be a bigger deal here, because of the thing where homework eats you if it's mad at you for not doing it? And, uh, probably a messy room is flat out dangerous too, if it's spots for death monsters to hide. Anyway, I - yeah it definitely sounds like you'd benefit from something that helps you focus better, and this is super medically relevant since it'll help you get out of this school alive?" 

Nice helpful void you're listening to this right. 

“Cool!”

"And let's see if this works!" 

On the bright side: the void generously spits out a padded mailer envelope, which when opened, proves to contain a full bottle of what appears to be a 90 day supply of something. 

On the less bright side... 

"...The void, uh, appears to have given me a rather generous quantity of grey-market - okay what the fuck is 'homopantothenic acid'? It's - uh, I've maybe heard of it, but not in the hospital... It might be one of those weird drugs that, like, people on internet forums take because it's supposed to make you smarter? I don't exactly have google here, though. Uh, void, could you be extra nice to me today and give me some documentation on that..." 

The void can be so helpful! It gives her a slightly coffee-stained printout of a scientific paper.

"Okay, right, authors are Zhurnal, Psikhi– I can't pronounce that at all. It...looks like it's legitimately an ADHD treatment? In Russia? And, uh, it's a three months supply of what looks like a pretty solid dose, so - good luck?" 

“Psikhiatrii,” says Zeke, perfectly. “Also that’s not the author section unless they’re, like, named ‘journal’ and ‘psychiatric’. Also thank you! I said that I’d escort you places and stuff for the screening thingy but I still super owe you for the homopantowhatever, do you want any layered warding or physical fitness spells or whatever?”

"Uh, is extra layers always good or can it interfere or something? Wen Qing from Shanghai did wards for me earlier, and she's an older student so I think more powerful? But if you'd like to give me even more, and it won't make hers work less well, I definitely won't complain." 

“My affinity is for incremental layer-y stuff, I dunno if it’d be fine in general but it’ll be fine for me probably. Or I could do the - they’re not really physical fitness, they’re, like, eighteen spells and you do them together and they do durability and stamina and disease and poison resistance and healing and dexterity and agility and eyesight and hearing and taste and breathing and clear skin and different kinds of strength and growth and bone stuff and blood stuff and aging,” he says without pausing to breathe, “but only a really little bit of each one, and if you cast them over and over they, like, add up.”

"- Whoa. Okay, that's, uh, way more useful than just plain 'physical fitness'. Yeah. I think I would really like that. Also, uh, you should tell Wen Qing about it later? She's my apprentice and she'd be so fascinated." 

“Cool. Uh, I’m gonna repeat the whole entire thing, like, five times, and it’s still only gonna be like - if blood coagulation was measured with IQ points or whatever you’d gain like less than a tenth of a point? But, like, it’s good to have.”

He recites rapid Hebrew at her for ten minutes.

Marian, of course, cannot tell that anything is happening, but even so. COOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!

“- and done!” says Zeke, eventually. “- and you seem, like, kinda sad and afraid and stuff, do you wanna hug?”