Teagan is still not in at 8:15 when Evelyn nudges her upstairs to get ready for bed. Or at 9:00 when she actually manages to fall asleep. 

In fact, she's not in until 9:45, at which point the front door bangs open and stomping footsteps thunder down the entire length of the house, followed by a crash and a "JUST FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU'RE LITERALLY MORE EVIL THAN HITLER!" 

Aaaa? Whut ist? Is this the kind of problem where bystanders ought to go and make themselves useful or the kind of problem where bystanders ought to mind their own business?

Evelyn would definitely tell her NOT to go try to make herself useful, but she's sort of trapped downstairs right now by the living, screaming, slightly-crying teenager currently flinging herself around in the kitchen screeching at her social worker. Evelyn has no idea what on earth they were talking about in the car but it CLEARLY DID NOT GO WELL AT ALL. 

The social worker, a small dark-haired woman called Marley who Evelyn hasn't met before, is flapping her hands sort of ineffectually. "Teagan, sweetheart, please calm down -" 

"DO I LOOK LIKE A SWEETHEART TO YOU?" Crash. "JUST GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" 

She probably can't be useful but she definitely can't be asleep and she's too bloody curious to try. She opens the door and goes the minimum amount closer to the yelling necessary to get line of sight. She's not trying to move silently, but she's in socks and weighs approximately bupkiss and there's enough going on that nobody is likely to notice her.

Teagan, her eyeliner smeared all over with what might have been recent tears, is systematically pulling items - schoolbooks, an empty Tupperware, a water bottle, a hairbrush, a pencil case - out of her knapsack and throwing them at her social worker, who's dodging ineffectually and looking very overwhelmed and not at all in control of things. 

Evelyn is watching it all calmly, leaning against the wall, like there's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about having a raging teenager yelling swearwords in her house at 10 pm. 

Well, nobody's having a medical, so that's all to the good. She wonders why the social worker hasn't simply fucked off. Are some of her possessions in the house? Are some of Teagan's possessions not in the house? It can't just be that she wants to talk to Evelyn; phones exist.

Evelyn does technically need to sign some paperwork and get some copies to file. She had initially thought that waiting it out was the best strategy, but Teagan and her current social worker - who, if she recalls correctly, is new on the case, Teagan's been tossed around from pillar to post between different social workers as well as placements - clearly did not get off on the best foot, and Marley does not seem to be successfully taking charge of things. 

"Well, Teagan," she says brightly after another thirty seconds of Marley entreating for Teagan to calm down, "if you don't want a tour just yet, I'll just let you get on with it and go back to my show." She heads to the lounge and turns on the TV as though she doesn't have a care in the world. 

This...does, in fact, seem to throw Teagan off-balance enough that she stops shouting or throwing things - she's just about out of projectiles in her backpack, anyway, and her other possessions are in fact still in the trunk of Marley's car - and instead stares at Evelyn like she's some sort of crazy person. 

...Marley, given a brief reprieve, hurries to set her shoulder bag down on the hall cabinet and starts digging in it. 

Evelyn is a genius in her area of expertise and Miranda is glad she hasn't actually needed to go head to head with her. She contemplates whether there's anything worth doing, decides that even if it definitely wouldn't restart the fuss and bother she's too tired to volunteer to clean up a mess she didn't make, and goes quietly back upstairs to give sleeping another go.

In that case, Evelyn will continue to have no idea that Miranda crept down and eavesdropped on Teagan's rather awkward first introduction to their house! It's not until nearly half an hour later that she manages to get the paperwork handled and all of Teagan's bags in and Marley shooed out of the house before the tensions explode again, which is the first moment when she feels comfortable going upstairs and quietly listening at Miranda's door for a few seconds. She's pretty sure Miranda must have woken up to all the yelling, but hopefully she wasn't too upset. Evelyn will check in with her in the morning. 

She mostly doesn't try to have a substantive conversation with Teagan tonight. Teagan must be exhausted and riding an emotional roller coaster, and the best way to move on past this is to avoid making any kind of fuss. She'll calmly show Teagan around the kitchen and then her bedroom upstairs - she gets the pink room - and assure her that she'll be awake for another hour if Teagan needs anything, and then watch TV downstairs like there's nothing out of the ordinary happening tonight. 

Teagan thumps around her new room grumpily for a while, but is stymied in her desire to play very loud music by the fact that the room doesn't have a stereo and her phone speakers only go so loud, and sound terrible at full volume especially when you play death metal. 

She plays music anyway, and then thumps out to the bathroom and takes a very long shower, and then goes to bed without unpacking any of her things. 

Miranda has passed out again by the end of the paperwork, and if the thumping makes her conscious enough to experience disgruntlement it doesn't make her conscious enough to experience disgruntlement at Teagan in particular as opposed to the sorry state of the cosmos in general. If nothing prevents her she will sleep in 90 minutes later than usual and then get up feeling basically fine.

Evelyn has been up (and underslept) for a while, nursing her coffee at the dining table; she always sleeps very badly the first night a new placement is with her, especially if she's nonzero worried they're going to sneak out and run away. Teagan played tinny phone-speakers death metal until 2 am and is still fast asleep. 

She looks up and smiles at Miranda. "I'm guessing the little bit of drama last night did wake you?" 

"Yeah. Poked my nose downstairs long enough to verify nobody was likely to get hurt and then went back to sleep. We'll see if I end up needing a nap this afternoon. How about you? Basically functional?"

Evelyn can't help smiling at that. What a phrase for a six-year-old to use. "I'll cope. You get used to missing sleep sometimes, in this line of work. At least there's coffee." She grins slightly. "And we'll probably have a morning to ourself for a while. Got a feeling Teagan's a bit of a night owl, I heard her music going until pretty late. I hope that didn't disturb you?" 

"I don't think so, but if on future nights she starts up before I've fallen asleep I might have problems. . . . I wonder if there's a way to acquire a ton of egg cartons without purchasing eggs; I hear they make good cheap soundproofing. Maybe Costco has some that would get thrown out otherwise or something."

"Egg cartons?" Evelyn blinks at her. "Where would you put them? Like, on the walls?" 

"Yeah, they're supposed to muffle the sound. I bet I could put them on the walls in a way that wouldn't damage the paint or anything. But no sense borrowing trouble when she hasn't actually kept me up at night yet."

"The walls are pretty well soundproofed and I had the doors replaced with the foam-core kind - I just slept with my door open, I usually do when we've got a new kid here, just in case they need anything." Or, more likely in this case, try to SNEAK OUT, but it's not exactly appropriate to say that to Miranda behind Teagan's back. "Anyway. Breakfast?" 

"Sounds good!" Unless there's some kind of specific cooked thing about to happen she'll have one of those phony yogurts with granola in it.

Nah, cold breakfast this morning is about Evelyn's speed. She'll have granola too, with non-phony yogurt, and another coffee.