"...I am very tempted to make fun of you for doing embroidery but - honestly, that's sort of neat? How about this, if you embroider me a skull on my favorite jeans I'll promise never to make fun of you for your goody-two-shoes hobbies." 

Someone wanting her to make art for them feels amazing, wow. "Sure! I bet there's enough denim for a patch in the craft cabinet."

"Sweet. It's a deal. And I bet your foster mom will give me points for," airquotes, "'socializing appropriately'." 

This is the point at which Evelyn stands up and waves to them. "Miranda, ready to head out in a minute?" 

She giggles at Teagan and gives Evelyn a thumbs up.

The Abbotts get up and wave their boys over from the slide and swings, and wave to Teagan, who gets up and immediately re-adopts the slouching teenage I Am Here Under Protest body language. She had been mostly forgetting to do that while talking to Miranda. She strolls over, already texting on her phone while walking. 

And Evelyn will usher Miranda and Jeremy back to the car. She waits until they're all loaded in, Miranda is in her booster seat and the doors shut, before clearing her throat. "So? What do you think?" 

"She seemed great, honestly." Teenage, cynical, defined more by opposition than by the pursuit of a particular vision of the Good, but why shouldn't she be? And sure, that was probably some amount attempt to make a good first impression, but if Miranda wanted perfect candor she should have avoided ending up in a position to affect Teagan's life for the worse.

"Oh good! You're very easy to get along with, I wasn't especially worried, but I'm glad you like her. So it's okay with you if I call my social worker back once we're home and confirm she can live with us? She would be arriving tonight." 

"Certainly. Also I want to go through the craft cabinet for denim scraps, she asked if I'd make her some embroidery and I think that'd be super neat." (Her own backpack already has a couple of patches.)

"Oh, that's lovely! Yes, of course." 

Evelyn is sliiiightly worried that Teagan has mastered the art of seeming very sympathetic to other children and this will result in Miranda being gently manipulated into covering for her shenanigans, but - one, there's no graceful way to bring that up that doesn't imply she distrusts Miranda's judgement, and two, it's definitely borrowing trouble to be ruminating on it now. She'll deal with that hurdle if and when they come to it. And Miranda does, actually, seem to have pretty good judgement. Disagreeing with Evelyn on what's normal or appropriate for a thirteen-year-old because her own background was one of benign neglect and age-inappropriate independence is not, actually, the same as having poor judgement, and 'Evelyn feels uncomfortable' is not, actually, the same thing as there being a problem. Evelyn has a feeling she's going to be reminding herself of that a lot. 

They get home, and she calls the social worker to confirm that she would love to have Teagan stay here and arriving tonight is fine. And then they can have lunch, and Miranda can occupy herself with crafts or books or computer time as she sees fit - Evelyn is pretty content to let her pick, and they've already had an Outdoor Outing today, even if it wasn't a very exercise-y one. 

Miranda puts together some fabric and thread for a skull patch and makes some sketches, but doesn't start it because she needs to consult Teagan on sizing and design first. Instead she gets on the computer and resumes work on some open source contributions in Python, which will absorb her until someone tells her to stop.

Jeremy is actually going to be out for the afternoon; he has a shift at his NEW SUMMER JOB, which is with a call-up-and-order tree-planting business. He's going to be earning $9.45 an hour, which is more than minimum wage. He's very excited about it. If he impresses the boss with his trustworthiness he might even get to drive the tree-hauling truck later this summer! 

Evelyn is happy to putter around doing housework. She sliiiiightly wants to use her computer but Miranda is plugging away so happily and it's not like she has anything urgent. 

She tries out a new recipe for fake meatloaf with crumbled firm tofu and textured vegetable protein held together by a tomato paste and cornstarch-in-water base. It doesn't come out very much like actual meatloaf but it's imminently edible and the flavor profile is decent. Teagan shows no sign of turning up yet, so she calls Miranda over to eat with just the two of them. 

Miranda happily chows down on the foodloaf and can be easily preempted from hogging the computer again afterwards. She has more of Gödel, Escher, Bach to enjoy and curls up into a little spaghetti-bowl of arms and legs on one end of the couch to go about enjoying it.

Teagan does not arrive by 7 pm as expected. 

Evelyn waits until 7:30, which is already nearly Miranda's bedtime, before calling the social worker who was supposed to be driving her over. Delays aren't exactly surprising or unexpected, but she haaaaaates when kids arrive right at another kid's bedtime, and she had been...kind of under the impression that the Abbotts were eager to be rid of Teagan and Teagan was eager to be rid of them. 

...They have, apparently, not left because Teagan "threw a fit" about some disagreement around packing and is now staging a sit-in and refusing to leave her bedroom. Great. Just wonderful. 

"Sorry," she tells Miranda when it hits 7:45. "Teagan's apparently not joining us until a bit later. You should start getting ready for bed anyway." 

"Fair enough; I can see her in the morning. Though for the future I've been thinking I want to move my schedule a bit later. It always takes me over an hour to fall asleep and I think my circadian rhythm just won't let me before 9 or so." 

“Oh, hmm, that’s good to know. And you don’t think you’re waking up still tired or feeling underslept? You’ve been awake on the early side.”

"I'm getting eight hours and I seem to need eight hours; I just don't have a ton of flexibility on which eight." At least not in the early direction; for all she knows she could do 1AM to 9AM with no ill effects if it was useful.

“Most children your age need more like ten, but fair enough, I haven’t noticed you looking tired." And Evelyn trusts Miranda's claims on things like sleep needs fifty times more than she would coming from the average six-year-old. 

She frowns. "I do think it's good to have some time to wind down before bed, but maybe you can go up at eight-fifteen today." 

"Yeah, it's nice to have some time to chill in my room before bed." 

Nod. "And we'll see if we get Teagan here before or after that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a while. Anyway, I guess you've got another half-hour to read or have computer time, if you'd like." 

"Do you know what the holdup is?" she asks as she picks out a book. "Hopefully just the normal delays and not someone being ill or anything."

"No, no, nobody's ill. It's just - well, it sounds like Teagan is causing a bit of drama. I'm sure this is all very upsetting and disruptive for her and she'll behave well once she's settled in with us, though." 

"Mm." She shrugs the shrug of "who am I to judge" and settles in to read about ancient Greece for half an hour or until Teagan arrives.