"Echitov," Evelyn nods. "Your language is yarva." ...She's going to go grab her notepad and write that down. And then not email it to Christine because aaaaaaaah. "Echitov is - far?" She makes an expansive gesture with her hands. 

"This," she points to the one lamp, "not this," the other. "Far." She mimics the expansive gesture and then shrugs. "Eva dax," she points to the second lamp again, and then counts off on her fingers. "Not earth, not earth, not earth, Echitov, not earth, not earth, not earth."

"Mmm-hmm." Does she mean other planets in the same solar system? Ugh, the solar system mobile is upstairs and she doesn't want to keep dragging Deskyl around from pillar to post, it feels like it might ruin the moment. Is it even that important? - everything is important right now, she thinks, Deskyl is trying to convey something that matters a lot to her, and how Evelyn reacts will affect how much Deskyl feels like she can trust her and is safe here. 

(Is she maybe, slightly, deciding to take Deskyl's story seriously because Christine obviously didn't? Possibly! Evelyn is just not going to stare too hard at that particular petty motivation, right now, the main thing that matters here is Deskyl.) 

...They could just go to the computer, where she'll have Google Images at her fingertips to use for visual aids. (She has Safe Search on, she shouldn't accidentally turn up anything terribly inappropriate while Deskyl is watching.) 

She gestures for Deskyl to follow her to the study; there isn't really room in the closetlike room for both of them to sit side by side, but she can put a kitchen chair a little behind the office chair, if Deskyl would rather sit than stand. She wakes up the computer, opens Internet Explorer, and googles 'Solar System', clicking to embiggen the clearest-looking picture on the first few rows of results. 

"Like that?" she asks Deskyl. "Not-earths and Echitov around the -" what was it, "- Eva dax?" 

Nodnodnod "beh!"

Evelyn beams at her, resisting the urge to reach over and give Deskyl a hug since she's not sure they're on that level of closeness yet; she does pat Deskyl's arm. 

Right. Hmm. What's her next question? Evelyn hasn't really...processed any of this...enough to know either what she's personally curious about or what seems most relevant to Deskyl's care and day to day routine, but she has an instinct to keep the conversation going. 

Try to figure out how Deskyl got here? Though, uh, if Deskyl was dropped off in a spaceship then...surely...that would have been on the news...? Evelyn will pull up the first Google Images page of results for "spaceship" anyway, which turns out to contain a mix of real photos of space shuttle launches, concept art, and what she thinks are screencaps from sci-fi TV shows. She makes a questioning face at Deskyl. 

She looks them over, somewhat perplexed. "This, earth?" she tries, eventually, pointing at one of the more obviously photographic images. "Echitov," wobbly hand-gesture, "this", one of the concept art pieces, given another wobbly hand gesture.

Presumably she doesn't mean that Echitov is literally from - whatever that image is even from, she clicks it to see more of the website preview underneath and still isn't sure if it's a TV show or a book or a science website. It's unclear to Evelyn whether she followed the question Evelyn was trying to ask, of 'how did you get from there to here'? Evelyn could apply more persistence to that but it honestly seems easier to just come back to it once Deskyl has a bit more English vocabulary. 

What she actually wants to know is more detail on Deskyl's day to day life on Echitov - did she go to school? did she live with her parents? come to think of it, do her parents have any idea where she is - but she's failing to think of good idea for how to Google Image that. 

- oh, right, she said she would try to explain school. 

She closes the Internet Explorer window with the spaceships, to indicate that they're moving on to a different conversation, and then pulls up a new window. "Christine talked about school," she says, making a talking-mouth gesture, and then gets up a google image, probably a promotional photo of some kind, of a generic classroom full of happy-looking children. Then open a new tab, pull up a Google Map routing from here to the local secondary school. (She's not sure what grade they would put Deskyl in, but starting seventh grade in the fall term seems reasonable, and then - planning for the long term, if she ends up being with Evelyn for the long term - she could stay at the same school through high school graduation.) She points out at the driveway. "Deskyl go to school, here." Point at the map and then the classroom. "To learn. Like the worksheets." 

Does any of that seem to be making it across? 

She seems pretty happy about something, at least!

Good! 

...Ugh, Evelyn already closed the tab with the concept art. "Echitov school?" she asks. "Did Deskyl go to school on Echitov?" 

She nods, then gives a handwobble and says "worksheets", points at one of the pictures of kids, makes a horizontal height-measuring gesture at shoulder height, taps her chest, and makes the gesture again at chin height.

Evelyn is not entirely following that; she's pretty sure it's a claim about ages? She's not sure if it's meant to be 'Deskyl went to school from when she was this size to that size' or 'Deskyl went to school and was bigger than the other kids' or 'Deskyl was in a higher grade than the kids in the picture'. Evelyn feels very stupid - she's supposed to be good at understanding what kids mean - and tries to set that feeling aside, she's pretty sure it's mostly that interacting with Christine often leaves her with some lingering defensiveness about her competence as a foster carer. 

"You were at school when you were this big?" she guesses, repeating Deskyl's chin-height gesture. 

"Mmm..." she gets out her alphabet sheet again, and one of the worksheets from earlier. Makes the lower height gesture, points to the kids and then the alphabet sheet, "this this," then taps her chest and the worksheet, "Deskyl this," and repeats the lower height gesture but raises her hand to the higher position.

"Oh! You were - ahead, harder work?" Evelyn has no idea if those words are in Deskyl's current vocabulary. 

She shrugs and taps her ear.

Apologetic face. "Sorry. ...More worksheets?" 

"More worksheets." She would like all the vocabulary, yes please.

It feels like such a privilege to have a child who, not only doesn't need to be bribed and cajoled into schoolwork, but is self-motivated to learn and seeks it out. Evelyn can obtain more worksheets, though she's having trouble figuring out which Google keywords will get her sheets that are harder as opposed to just different, and really hopes Christine will figure out arranging a call with a tutoring advisor for her sooner rather than later. 

As long as she's getting different words, Deskyl is not going to complain. She takes another walking-around break after a while and opts to try puzzling out some more of One Fish Two Fish afterward, bringing it downstairs so she can ask Evelyn to confirm her guesses about how the words match up with the pictures.

It's a lovely pleasant way to pass the evening together! Evelyn calls a break for dinner at 6ish - she's not incredibly in the mood to cook a lot, and makes fish fingers and sweet potato oven fries with a coleslaw salad - and then finds more worksheets again. (She's also trying to at least make sure they're including new words, though they're all at the level of concrete nouns and verbs and propositions, objects or activities that are easy to make sense of for children and can be depicted in cartoon illustrations; it doesn't give Deskyl much in the way of abstract vocabulary. Despite a lot of Googling she can't track down a space-themed one even though it seems like it should be a thing.) 

...As sunset nears she is slightly stressed that they're going to have a tree-related fight again. Does Deskyl make a move to go out into the backyard? 

Deskyl seems to maybe anticipate a problem too, from the way she's keeping an eye on both Evelyn and the angle of the sun in the hour or so leading up to it. She isn't particularly sneaky about it, though, when she judges the time to be right and heads out back.

Evelyn really doesn't want to have a fight about it! She could have, uh, tried to figure out some visual aids to explain "I'm scared you're going to fall if you climb down in the dark" but she didn't remember the issue in time to do that. It's clearly important to Deskyl, even if Evelyn hasn't figured out why, and not just a whim or her being stubborn about being told to stop doing activities by grownups. Maybe it's a religious ritual from her home planet Evelyn's brain can stop that please. ]

When Deskyl starts to head for the backyard, Evelyn holds up a hand in a stopsign-gesture and says "wait!" which should have been on one of the worksheets. She runs to the garage - hopefully it's in the box she remembers putting it in - aha! 

She's back thirty seconds later with a headlamp! It's the kind with an elastic that goes around your forehead like a headband, that can be clicked on by pressing it. Is Deskyl, in fact, still on the ground waiting for her? 

Yup! And she chirps approvingly when Evelyn demonstrates the headlamp. And now can she go?

Yep! This is perhaps not maximally approved fostering practice, and Christine would probably have a heart attack. (Evelyn has trouble picturing Christine having ever climbed a tree in her life, though probably that's unfair, people contain multitudes and all that and who knows maybe Christine does judo on weekends or something). But Christine isn't the one trying to build rapport with this particular girl – this bright, diligent, self-sufficient, fascinating and confusing girl. 

Evelyn definitely hovers nearby worriedly, but she tries not to look worried and instead be smiling, and she doesn't push for Deskyl to come down when the sun starts to set. 

Deskyl stays up just until the first stars begin to show, and then clicks on the headlamp and makes her way down the tree just as readily as she went up. She seems inclined to keep the headlamp, though she does turn it off as soon as she reaches the ground.

She's welcome to it! Evelyn isn't actually sure why she owns it - oh, right, it's from when Jeremy went caving on a school trip, but she's pretty sure it hasn't been used since. 

...She will start trying to nudge Deskyl toward getting ready for bed. It's edging toward 9 m, and she doubts Deskyl is tired at this point, given how she woke up at 1:30, but routines are good and Deskyl will eventually need a 9 pm bedtime once she's in school.