A couple Babybels should do it, if that's all right with Evelyn?

Evelyn has absolutely no objection to Deskyl eating food out of the fridge - which is, as long as she lives here, her fridge too - and smiles reassuringly at her. They can have a pleasant breakfast, with Evelyn chatting to Deskyl about nothing in particular just for the language exposure. 

They've still got two and a half hours before the social worker's arrival. Evelyn is going to attempt to convey via gestures and visual aids how the clock works, and that when the hands get to here, a person will be coming to see Deskyl. 

Analog clocks are ancient tech by her reckoning but fortunately she's at least heard of them before, enough to have the first idea of what Evelyn is trying to get across; she nods agreeably at the explanation.

And then... hm. She doesn't feel like working on the books anymore for now; she might work on her Force effect, but she thinks she's got it as good as it's going to get for making sounds with right now and she can't get it to help her with the local language without knowing more about it... well, or doing mindreading, but she's not sure how to do that yet and doesn't really want to go poking through Evelyn's head at this point, what if she messes something up. At home she'd have classwork, or she'd go see what the other kids were up to, but that's not an option here. Maybe if she just dithers in the kitchen Evelyn will have a suggestion?

Evelyn was actually hoping they could do some language practice! She still doesn't feel like she knows what she's doing, but Deskyl seems to be able to make headway, and if it's going to be weeks to get a language tutor she's not going to just waste that time twiddling her thumbs. She found some ESL worksheets on Google and printed them out. They're definitely more aimed at six-year-olds than eleven-year-olds, with cartoon pictures that need to be matched up to the correct written English words, but hopefully Deskyl won't be offended. 

Yep, that works! She's not bothered by the age level issue, it's not like the material is too simple for her. She goes through the material at a reasonable pace, slowed down by wanting to take notes; she'll want to take a break to walk around in the backyard (or around the block, if Evelyn seems likely to be receptive to the request) after an hour or so but comes back to it when she's done and will still be at it when the social worker arrives, if there are enough worksheets.

A walk is a great idea! It's lovely when children don't have to be nagged and bribed and threatened with taking away their television time to get them to exercise. And there probably still aren't enough worksheets to fill two and a half hours, but Evelyn is happy to find and print out more. 

The doorbell rings at about 4:05 for the social worker. 

Deskyl startles just slightly at the unfamiliar sound, but finishes up the question she was working on, and then she'll follow Evelyn to the door.

Christine Barbey stands on the doorstep, with perfect posture as always. She's midway through slipping off her designer sunglasses, perfectly moisturized hands and tastefully manicured nails snapping shut the bespoke sunglasses case before slipping it into its designated pocket in her designer handbag, which never has the residue of gum wrappers and spare bandaids and hair elastics that Evelyn's collects. She's smiling her best bright designer smile, showing off tasteful pale lipstick and flawless natural makeup, wearing ballet flats that would last about six hours if Evelyn were wearing them, a pencil skirt, and a shift blouse in light summery fabric that somehow doesn't show her bra straps. It's a warm day, but her makeup doesn't look sweaty or shiny at all. 

"Evelyn! I'm very sorry about being late. Is now a good time, may I come in?" 

"Yes, of course!" Evelyn takes half a step back, gesturing for Deskyl to move out of Christine's way as well. And tries very hard not to show that her hackles are up, because kids can tell, and it's important that Deskyl has a good relationship with her social worker. 

(It would honestly be easier to like Christine if there were anything Evelyn could straightforwardly criticize about her - if she were as fake and plastic as someone who looks like that should be, or if she were a box-checker or a stickler for protocol and rules at the cost of an actual child's actual happiness, or if she pushed toddlers off her lap rather than let them get their sticky hands all over her perfectly made-up face, or if she made naive assumptions based on her old-money family and her sheltered perfect life. It's not that Christine is perfect - she sometimes drops things, or misses emails, or has to reschedule visits at the last minute because she's behind schedule - but she's solidly in the better half of social workers in terms of reliability and conscientiousness, and she's not fake, she seems to genuinely like everyone she meets. Pencil skirt or not, she's not above getting down on the floor with kids to play with Lego. She's new enough to social work to be a little naive sometimes, but she's not grating in her assumptions.

Just - and Evelyn is aware this is an absurd and childish way to feel - in how she looks perfect at all times, and moves about the world with the serene confidence of someone who takes for granted that everyone she meets will be basically decent and reasonable and they'll work as a team to sort something out. And then most of the time this works, which is in an objective sense not surprising because people like feeling treated like decent and reasonable human beings, and it makes it even more galling how Evelyn knows that if she were a better person, she would respect Christine for it rather than bristling about it. 

And, of course, there's the awkward history where the one time Evelyn was convinced Christine was getting it wrong, it turned out that she was - arguably, at least sort of - the one out of the two of them getting it right.) 

She smiles brightly, and - doesn't put a protective hand on Deskyl's shoulder even though interacting with Christine always makes her want to. "This is Deskyl! I'm not sure how much she understands of what we're saying, but we've been making great progress with some educational worksheets today. She's been a pleasure to have around so far." 

Deskyl scoots out of the way as indicated, and... contemplates Evelyn, for a moment, before turning her attention to Christine and offering a reasonably-friendly chirp.

Evelyn smiles reassuringly at Deskyl, and tries harder to drag her mood back to cheerful and focused. "Well, then, let's go have a seat in the lounge. Would you like something to drink - tea, coffee...?" 

A professional-yet-warm smile. "Whatever you're having is fine!" 

They can have seltzer, because Evelyn is a ridiculous person who feels self-conscious about her 'mummy tummy' whenever Christine is around, and it's too hot for tea and too late in the day for coffee (and besides, Christine is a fancy espresso machine sort of coffee drinker and Evelyn is always self-conscious about her jar of instant.) 

She brings the drinks over on a tray. Juice for Deskyl, since a lot of kids don't like seltzer. 

Christine slides a beautiful leatherbound folder out of her handbag and flips it open across her knees. "Let's get the formalities out of the way first. There isn't much paperwork, we didn't find any leads on her parents. No one's made any reports about missing children under fifteen in the last week - we checked the photos just in case she's a really young-looking fifteen, but no matches. The police passed her description around at the airport and no one remembers seeing her either. I believe they're trying the Greyhound station next, but I'm not hopeful, and of course they might well have driven in." 

Nod. "Have you had any luck with the sample of her native language's alphabet that I sent in?" 

Christine looks politely puzzled. "What's that? No, I don't recall seeing anything sent in." 

Is little miss perfect behind on her email today Probably not. Evelyn frowns, thinking. "...Oh, right, I sent it to my supervising worker, I didn't have your name yet. She must not have gotten around to passing it over yet."

And, of course, Evelyn could have thought of it this morning, she has Christine's contact information, and she didn't and so really it's her who screwed it up. Humiliating. She will smile apologetically. "We can show you now, if you want to take a picture of it yourself. Deskyl?" She'll try to gesture at Deskyl's pocket and hope this conveys what she wants. 

She has a few papers in her pocket, and rifles through them for a second before pulling the right one out and showing it to Evelyn. "This?"

"Yes!" Evelyn beams at her. "And that was really good, you said it right."

(And surprising. Did they cover that word specifically today? She decides to operate under the assumption that Deskyl is retaining enough from worksheets and/or language immersion more broadly that she might well understand any given sentence.) 

She reaches out to indicate that she wants to take the paper and show it to Christine, without actually taking it because that would be rude. 

Yep, that's fine, she hands it over.

Christine examines it closely for a couple of minutes, glancing up once to give Deskyl a friendly smile. 

Eventually she turns back to Evelyn. "Are you sure this is a real language?" 

Wow. What a spectacularly rude thing to say, especially when Deskyl continues to be RIGHT THERE! Evelyn is smiling so blandly. "What else would it be?" 

"It's not that rare for very bright children who grow up isolated to invent their own alphabet as a game, or a secret code no one else can read. It's nothing to be concerned about," she adds with a reassuring smile. "I suppose this could be a really obscure language, but most of those don't have their own alphabet, and this isn't even close to any of the ones I recognize - I took a comparative linguistics course in college."

Of course little miss perfect knows comparative linguistics shut up, Evelyn's brain, that's immature and beneath her. "Well, do you think we could send it to an expert who might know more about very rare languages?" 

(Though technically Deskyl didn't tell her this was the standard alphabet for the language she speaks at home. Surely a child who invented a code so she could write seriously wouldn't just show Evelyn how to translate the code, though??? Especially when they've only known each other for a day!) 

"We can certainly try it." Christine retrieves a brand-new iPhone from the side pocket of her purse, toggles to the camera app, and, tongue between her teeth, lays the paper flat on her lap and takes a picture, before politely offering it back to Deskyl. "What we could really use is a speech sample. I know she doesn't have much English comprehension yet, but if you give me a moment to pull up Voice Memos, can you try to ask her to say a few things in her language?"