She has no particular objection to brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas and getting into bed with her books, but, yeah, she doesn't seem tired at all. She wakes a little earlier the next morning, at one, and spends the day in much the same way as the previous one; by the end of it she's managing simple sentences reasonably often. The following day, with her specialist appointment planned, she'll be up half an hour earlier again, at least if Evelyn leaves her to her own devices.

The appointment is at 3 pm and so Evelyn doesn't especially have to rush Deskyl. 

Deskyl's vocabulary is coming along brilliantly, but Evelyn does still plan some visual aids to explain it, even though by now some of the worksheets and children's picture books they've been going through has covered the concept of a doctor's office. After they eat, she takes Deskyl to the computer, but this time she's gone higher effort and collected images in advance. In a Powerpoint, because she doesn't know a better file format for gluing a lot of pictures in a sequence, even though it makes her feel like she's about to have to get up in front of a roomful of new foster carers and give a training presentation. 

"We're going to the doctor today," she says. "Like Flopsy the bunny in the book." She's obtained a screenshot of the map again and a picture of the front of the hospital that she found on its website. "But this is a special doctor, we'll see him at the big hospital. His name is Dr Emblin. He's a neurologist, so he can check out problems with brains and nerves." She has brain and nerve pictures. "I noticed you have more trouble with cutlery than most children your age." A picture of someone spreading butter on toast with a clip art on it of a child's face looking frustrated. "I think it's probably just how you are, but I want to make sure nothing is seriously wrong." 

"Huh, okay. Nothing wrong."

"Hopefully there isn't! But we don't have any of your medical history so I'll be happier if we check." 

Evelyn can, by now, recognize the face Deskyl makes when she's trying to decide if something is worth the effort of trying to communicate, but apparently the answer is no, this time.

Plausibly Deskyl has already seen a doctor, or multiple doctors, and knows the cause of her fine motor issues and just can't communicate it. Maybe medicine on other planets is more advanced and she sees the doctors here like Evelyn sees medieval doctors equipped with leeches. Whatever the reason, it must be frustrating not to be able to communicate it, but - well, even if Deskyl could explain, it's not like Social Services can just take her word for it without any documentation. 

Evelyn shakes her head apologetically. She points out the time they need to leave, 3:30, on the clock. 

She's ready with ten minutes to spare.

Then they can drive over to the hospital! Evelyn is finding that she's actually kind of nervous. She's looked after children who had medical needs before, but she's never taken a child here for a diagnostic specialist appointment like this, where both she and the child in question are meeting the doctor for the first time. And certainly not in a case where there was a language barrier and she couldn't even explain everything. Not having her computer with Google Images at her fingertips feels a bit like she's missing a hand. 

They arrive early. The outpatient clinic isn't specifically for children, and in fact most of the other patients in the waiting room are elderly. One very thin older lady is in a wheelchair, her hands visibly shaky when the nurse brings her a consent form to sign. 

You know, in retrospect she should probably have expected most of the people at the doctor's office to be sick.

She'll just wander around and see how many of them will let her tap them on the knee or whatever, how about.

Uhhhhhh. Is she being reasonably polite about it? Evelyn doesn't actually have grounds to stop Deskyl from being friendly while they're stuck waiting here anyway - and doesn't even disapprove, it's sweet - but getting up in people's faces without checking if they mind is rude. 

She's trying - her language skills are definitely not up to 'strike up a conversation with a stranger' level, and she's pretty good at expressing herself via body language and facial expression but there's only so far that goes, especially when she's clearly worried about people rather than just being a silly friendly kid. On the other hand, she does seem to have an excellent sense of when she's getting on someone's nerves, and she's not happy about backing off in that case but she will do it.

In that case Evelyn does not incredibly have grounds to object, though she'll try to catch the eye of the various people Deskyl is approaching and wave with a friendly smile, just so they know this child isn't unaccompanied and that Evelyn is the person to approach if they have an issue with her friendliness. 

She's...kind of confused? Deskyl hadn't seemed that extroverted at home, and - it's not exactly like she wants to meet people here, either, she mostly looks stressed. Maybe she hasn't spent a lot of time around disabled elderly people and it's upsetting for her - Evelyn should probably have thought of that, actually, and tried to prepare her with visual aids, but it completely failed to occur to her. 

Evelyn's brain wonders if this means Deskyl is from another planet with better medicine Evelyn's brain is getting ahead of itself and should, as Jeremy would say, "chill out."

She smiles pleasantly and tries not to worry. 

The elderly people mostly don't seem bothered! Waiting rooms are boring and Deskyl is a cute harmless-looking kid. 

...The overweight man who Deskyl approached second stands up when the nurse comes to fetch him in and - looks surprised - but doesn't say anything. 

They still haven't been called up by the time Deskyl has made the rounds of everyone willing to let her approach. 

Evelyn...is pretty sure she has a question...but she's not sure exactly what the question is and is also impaired by the lack of Google Images. She tries just lifting her hands palm-up and making a questioning expression. Maybe Deskyl can string together enough of her current vocabulary to answer. 

She does look significantly less stressed when she gets back; she considers Evelyn's question, and shrugs, and shakes her head and taps her mouth, but does offer a sotto voce "I help."

Awwwwwwwwwwww. "I'm sure you did help, love." 

The nurse comes out a few minutes later and asks some questions, which she's not at all trying to express in Deskyl-friendly vocabulary and which Evelyn mostly doesn't know the answers to either. The nurse crosses off most of the boxes on her form and puts 'N/A', has Evelyn sign since Deskyl is a minor, and then ushers them back to an exam room, where she slides over a machine to take Deskyl's temperature and blood pressure. 

(Evelyn hopes that Deskyl won't be alarmed by this. One of the picture books had a teddy bear who went to a doctor and had his blood pressure taken, and Evelyn showed her some Google Images photo clips, she should hopefully recognize it?) 

Honestly there being machines involved here is the most reassuring part yet, even if they aren't autonomous ones. She whines a little when the blood pressure cuff squeezes her arm tightly but is otherwise perfectly cooperative.

Deskyl's blood pressure is normal (to Evelyn's relief, the nurse's at the pediatrician's office are usually good about remembering that kids might have a high blood pressure reading because they're stressed about the doctor, but this isn't a kids' clinic.) Her temperature is fine. The nurse calls her over to the scale to weigh her and measures her height and writes the numbers down; she doesn't comment about whether it's normal for Deskyl's age, probably because unlike at the pediatrician office she doesn't have a growth chart right there. 

There's a more detailed questionnaire to fill out, which Evelyn does herself because Deskyl can't read English; it has a lot of boxes to check whether a problem is present or not, and space for comments if the answer is yes.

She isn't worried about Deskyl's vision or hearing. Deskyl sleeps a normal amount (well, Evelyn assumes, once you account for her ongoing jet lag and late bedtime) and doesn't seem to get tired unusually quickly. Deskyl's gait is normal as far as Evelyn's non-expert eye can tell. The examples given to assess gross motor skills are "using stairs", "throwing a ball", and "riding a bicycle". Evelyn has only seen one of those but she's also seen Deskyl climb a tree like a squirrel and she's not worried. Fine motor skills gets a yes, and she writes in that Deskyl struggles with cutlery and has very messy handwriting. There are a lot of other questions she can't answer confidently and leaves question marks and "language barrier" written in, but she doesn't think Deskyl has trouble concentrating or remembering facts or events, she does great with the worksheets. Presumably all of the questions are relevant somehow but Evelyn is still kind of irritated with all the paperwork - don't they already have the notes she wrote earlier when she asked for the appointment, also what's the point in doing it now when the doctor will have like three minutes to review it, have they never heard of sending forms in advance by email - but she tries not to let any of her irritation show where Deskyl might notice it. 

The nurse comes back in to ask if she's done, and takes the clipboard. They're left to wait some more. Evelyn is starting to wish she'd thought to bring extra worksheets in her handbag. She's bored and Deskyl must be more bored. 

Deskyl is staring into the middle distance by the time Evelyn is done with the paperwork, as seems to be her default activity when there's nothing else going on, even at home. Fortunately, she seems quite content to do so for fairly arbitrary lengths of time.

...Okay, fine, maybe Deskyl is not more bored than Evelyn, and is capable of using her child's imagination to entertain herself indefinitely. Evelyn used to be able to do that when she was Deskyl's age. She's not sure if aging made her less imaginative or if it's just that she spends so much time tracking things happening around her that she's out of the habit of losing herself in an inner world. 

Evelyn will wait, trying to keep herself from exploding of boredom by reading the posters on the walls, which seem to be mostly drug promotion advertisements. 

Fortunately they don't have to wait much longer; soon there's a knock on the door. "Hi, I'm Dr. Emblin, and this is - Deskyl, am I saying that right?"

Deskyl doesn't seem inclined to answer and may not have caught that the second part was a question. "Yeah, you're saying it fine. I'm Evelyn, Deskyl's foster carer. She doesn't know much English. I've been using visual aids when I have to explain anything complicated." 

"All right. And what are you bringing her in for today?"

Did she not just spend like ten entire minutes filling out a huge form, and being annoyed that doing it on the spot meant the doctor wouldn't have a lot of time to review it Evelyn is polite and friendly and helpful and not annoyed, at least not where the doctor can see it. 

 "I'm a little worried about her fine motor skills. I haven't had her for long, but she struggles with cutlery and using a pencil. I don't think it's just a lack of familiarity, she arrived knowing how to write in her own language and we don't think she was neglected. I checked no for most of the boxes on the form - a lot of them I can't be sure of because of the language barrier, but her gross motor skills are actually pretty good, I've seen her get up a tree like you wouldn't believe. She doesn't seem bothered by it or scared that something is wrong and she may have had a diagnosis in her home country," or other planet do NOT bring that up with the doctor, "but we don't have her past medical records and haven't been able to locate her parents. I just - don't know what sort of things could be causing the symptoms, and whether any of them are progressive or need urgent treatment." 

"Okay." He holds up a finger in front of Deskyl's face. "Can you have her watch my finger?"