"I'd like to try to get onto your same meal schedule--at some point we should talk about my food preferences but obviously lunch is going to be whatever is in the fridge. I'd love to play Scrabble with you." Is she good at Scrabble? One way to find out! 

(It transpires that she is implausibly good at Scrabble for a six-year-old and merely decent for an adult; her vocabulary is what it is but she has no familiarity with the letter pool or the board structure and a corresponding lack of tactical instincts.)

Evelyn is a very enthusiastic Scrabble player, but in terms of skill she's also merely decent, and they're quite closely matched. Evelyn is suitably impressed, and praises Miranda; she's not actually sure that Miranda needs the boosts to her self-esteem that so many neglected children in foster care crave, but it's basically a reflex at this point. 

At 12:30 pm they can start putting the game away to clear the table for lunch? 

Scrabble is fun and Miranda gets the sense she hasn't played it much; her past self was missing out. 

While they're both comfortable and at ease at the end of the game, she says, "There's something I'd like to clear the air about a little."

Once Evelyn is making eye contact she gives her the most serious, level, adult gaze she can muster. "There are some things about myself, and about my past, that I haven't been saying. And I'm going to keep not saying them. I'm not concealing anything a mandatory reporter would be required to report. I'm not concealing any danger to myself, you, or anyone else. I'm not concealing anything I would be particularly distressed to have concealed from me if I was in your place. I believe if you somehow came to know everything I wasn't saying you would agree that it was reasonable of me not to say it. I wish I could be totally candid with you but I can't, and I hope the reassurances I can give will be enough for you for now." She carefully doesn't say anything about not concealing criminal activity because she totally did lie to the cops several times and she's pretty sure that's illegal.

Her heart rate while she waits for Evelyn to respond is roughly a billion and another song is running through her head. Roland, Roland, you know that you're betrayed/ but in your heart is courage and your voice is not dismayed/face you now grim battle, take your swords and raise 'em high/with honor we have lived our lives, with honor we shall die!

....Wow. Wow. Okay then. Evelyn was not expecting that. ...Or, well, on the one hand she's not surprised that Miranda is concealing something from them, because obviously she is, but she really, genuinely, hadn't expected her to admit to it on her first afternoon in Evelyn's house, let alone in such careful language. She sounds like a tiny lawyer. Has she been anxiously mentally rehearsing that all morning, worrying about how Evelyn will respond? Poor kid. 

Evelyn has no idea how to react, but that's not a first, and reflex takes over. She finds herself matching Miranda's intent, serious tone. "Oh, love. I'm so glad you felt able to tell me that much. And I understand why you aren't ready to tell me everything, of course I understand, you barely know me. It's okay. I'm not angry. I hope that will change, if you stay with me longer, but right now all that matters to me is that you're safe." 

And then she clears her throat. "I do have to put what you told me in my log notes. And - I'm not going to lie to you, it will affect Social Services' assessment of your parents, if and when we find out where they've gotten to. Because we have to make sure that you would be safe with them. But I'm not going to make a big deal of it right now, really, I'm not. If you want to talk - if you ever want to talk - I'm always here to listen, but if you'd rather just get on with our day, that's fine." 

Aaaaaaaaaand hopefully that was the right thing to say, and Miranda isn't upset? She's so weirdly hard to read. Most kindergarteners wear their heart on their sleeve. 

"Anyway," Evelyn adds brightly. "How about some lunch?" 

"I understand. Thank you for--being so graceful about it. Lunch sounds like a great idea. What sorts of food do you have?" Changing the subject is best subject. Maybe in another month she'll feel safe enough to say that the reason she's concealing things is that they're implausible but definitely not now.

Lunch, then! Evelyn promises that tomorrow they can do a proper grocery run, as well as the Walmart clothing run, and Miranda can pick out some things she likes - within reason, it's also a house rule and part of Evelyn's parenting philosophy that they eat junk food only in moderation, and treats are for after healthy meals. In the meantime, she suggests that Miranda can have a poke around her fridge and cupboards and point out foods she likes, and they can hopefully probably assemble a reasonably balanced meal that way. 

(The fridge is well stocked, with milk and cheese and deli meats and various dips including hummus and a wide range of colorful fresh vegetables that can be eaten raw. There's bread in the freezer, and various condiments to have on it, and there's some leftover quiche and macaroni salad from last night's family dinner. Oh, and another house rule is that meals are eaten together, at the table; on very special occasions, they might sometimes get takeout as a treat and eat in front of the TV, but not usually.) 

Evelyn does not bring up Miranda's revelation at all, or even hint that it's on her mind. Inside, she's reeling, but she's used to keeping that off her face, and this is far from the worst mood whiplash she's experienced. She remembers the time a seven-year-old boy confessed that his older brother had been sexually abusing him for most of his childhood, and then two point five minutes later seemed to have effortlessly tucked the memory away in its box and was enthusiastically giving her Lego construction orders. It's a thing. Kids learn how to do whatever they need to do to cope, and whatever happened to Miranda, she's clearly doing exactly that. 

Over lunch, she feels Miranda out on what board games she knows, and slips in a question about whether she has a usual bedtime and what kind of routine before bed she's used to. 

She assembles herself a plate of hummus and carrots and a PB&J. Her knowledge of board games is fairly limited; she keeps trying to search for memories of playing games and coming up empty instead of mentally reviewing games that exist and checking her familiarity with the rules. Probably for the best since she has no clue when any of the games she likes were invented. Her bedtime routine is to brush her teeth and change into pajama pants and she generally does it whenever she's tired. 

"I don't know if the police officer told you that I prefer not to eat animal products. Is that something you're comfortable with?" She's expecting a bunch of worries about balanced nutrition that she'll try to defuse with a willingness to eat tons of beans; if that doesn't work she'll offer a compromise on dairy products. She doesn't have a good plan for getting supplemental B12 other than "just ask for it" but given the apparent good health of this body that isn't this-week urgent.

"Oh. I see." If Evelyn is worried about Miranda's nutrition, she's clearly being careful not to show it. "I think I'd be more comfortable running that by our pediatrician, but I imagine that should be fine, as long as you're eating a balanced diet otherwise. One of my gym friends is a vegan, I think, I could bother her for recipes." She looks thoughtfully at Miranda. "Were your parents vegan as well? That can't have been easy, living on the road." 

"Talking to a pediatrician makes sense." Oh no now that she's given the concealing-things speech she doesn't want to repeat the same lie she told earlier. She'll give standing mute a try. "Getting recipes from your gym friend would be great too." Stupid conscience.

If Evelyn notices the evasion, she doesn't show it. "Then I'll do that. I should give her a call and catch up anyway, it's been ages." She chuckles. "I'm not exactly the best at sticking to my New Years gym resolutions. ...Speaking of our pediatrician, do you happen to remember when you last had a checkup? And whether you've been to the dentist or had your eyes checked this year?" 

"I'm afraid I don't remember; I probably ought to get one of everything." Hah, that was totally accurate and basically complete. Presumably Evelyn has some kind of insurance situation that will make getting Miranda's meatsack tuned unproblematic.

"I'm sure we can arrange this. I know an absolutely lovely dentist," who is particularly good with kids, but as a general rule kids hate having their kidhood made salient like that. "It'll take a couple of days to sort out all the paperwork, but I'm sure we can arrange something within a couple of weeks."

And she sighs, because they really should have this conversation, given that she's heard absolutely nothing all day from the police or Social Services about Miranda's parents and this does not bode well. 

"Miranda, I understand you were homeschooled before, and I wish I could keep doing that with you if it's what you prefer, but I'm not a qualified teacher and Social Services wouldn't agree to it. Your social worker is going to want you to be in school, and I think it's a good idea, you should be meeting other people your age and not spending all your time cooped up in here with an old fogey like me. There's a very nice primary school a five-minute drive from here. I don't know how long you'll be staying with me, but - I'll be honest, I expect at least a month, and maybe a lot longer." 

Ah yes, this conversation. It was inevitable and now she shall have it. "It makes complete sense that you want me to be in school, and I'm entirely on board with the project of getting me as educated as possible, but I'd like to try to talk you into some flexibility on the matter of what grade I start in. It would be no use to anyone for me to repeat one or more years of material I already know, and I'd really like to take some placement tests and try to get matched with classes that will challenge me intellectually." Serious level gaze that definitely isn't a proud challenge? Nope, can't thread that needle, she's looking at the air next to Evelyn's head now.

Evelyn bobs her head, keeping her expression open and trying to convey in body language that she's taking this request Very Seriously. It seems to be important to Miranda. 

"Of course. I understand that, and you certainly seem to be a long way ahead of most first graders. But, love, school isn't just about the reading and math." Aaaaaaand how to handle this diplomatically without making Miranda bristle about it. "I imagine this might be another difference in parenting philosophy, but I think it's important for children's wellbeing to play with other children of the same age. Even if you can keep up academically in a higher grade, I worry you would feel isolated there." 

She smiles sadly. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you think I would fit in better socially with first graders than with sixth graders? If you can, I would like another few days of interaction followed by you re-evaluating the question." That wasn't the tactically optimal thing to say but her heart is full of nothing but pride and loneliness. She can tell it would be so easy to give up, to lean into being alone, to be completely alienated from humanity, and she doesn't know how hard she wants to fight against that impulse, and she wants to cry. She will get on the internet and have adult correspondence and if that doesn't work she can consider seceding from human interaction then.

She doesn't know why this topic hurts so much. She doesn't remember anything. 

"Oh, love." Evelyn slides her chair closer and lowers her chin to rest on her folded hands on the tabletop, so her eyes are a little bit lower than Miranda's.

"I can tell that I upset you," she says gently. "I'm sorry. You really must feel very different from other six-year-olds. I can see that you're very precocious, and I can see that– well, I don't actually know, do I, but I can make a guess that your parents treated you like a much bigger kid, or even like an adult. And I know no one likes to feel like someone sees them as a baby. I can't blame you. But the thing is, you are six, not twelve, and that does matter."

Aaaaaaand that is probably as close to 'criticizing the birth family' as she's willing to step; she's arguably already overstepped what she should have said, but the thing about Miranda is that it is hard to remember how young she is. 

She sighs. "Once we've got your new social worker and all the paperwork is done, I'll give the school a call and see what their options are for skipping grades. See whether they have some kind of enrichment, so you can be challenged in class and still have classmates who aren't literally twice your age. And I'm not going to labor the point any more right now, but - I hope you'll decide to give the other kids a chance, rather than deciding at the start that you'll never fit in." 

God damn her lack of a poker face when it matters. Her voice cracks as she says, "Understandable. I would appreciate options to socialize with older children in some kind of extracurricular thing." She has no idea if older children will be any more interesting than younger ones. She doesn't remember if she had friends before or where she got them. She thinks she did; if she was used to being alone then the loneliness wouldn't hurt this much. She will email scientists with thoughtful questions about their publications and she won't tell Evelyn she's doing it and she won't tell the scientists jack shit. 

And now she's crying, mostly out of shame at her own incompetence for crying. Fuck. "I'm sorry, I've--had a very long day and--I would like to be alone for a little while. You haven't done anything wrong." She will wait for some kind of acknowledgement before fleeing to her bedroom.

Evelyn feels terrible about having hit some kind of clearly very sore spot for the poor kid (and is also pretty confused about...something...she hasn't quite pinned it down yet but her instincts are telling her that she's missing a key swath of the Miranda-picture. Which isn't surprising, Miranda as good as straight-up told her that she was, but that doesn't mean she likes it.) 

In a lot of cases she definitely wouldn't let an upset six-year-old on her first night in foster care away from her parents go run off and hide alone, but her instincts are also telling her that Miranda will be fine, and calm down faster if Evelyn gets out of her face and definitely in no way makes a big deal about it. 

"Of course. You can go to your room if you like." Evelyn does have a good poker face, and is not visibly ruffled or upset at all. 

"See--you later." And she will go hide among the plastic stars and go through half a box of tissues weeping silently about the loss of her home and her family and her freedom and part of her mind, and about her own lack of skills, and about some source of pain she can't remember and thus can't process. And swears vengeance against it all in the form her soul names legitimate, which is to become so competent and impressive and beautiful that any attempt by the universe to fuck with her will look like a sad joke against the backdrop of her glory. She has advantages most children never dream of and even a lot of adults don't have, and she's going to kick reality's ass.

(She is not going to kick Evelyn's ass, even metaphorically. Evelyn is merely honestly mistaken. Miranda is like unto a fae wandering the Earth in human guise deceiving everyone, and Evelyn has been kind to her, and the only proper result is for Evelyn to unexpectedly benefit in the long run.)

And after about 45 minutes she emerges, and detours to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face and drink and generally recover her countenance, and go looking for Evelyn again. 

"Hello! Sorry for the interruption. All my beliefs about what would be optimal for my social life are entangled with the thing I'm not talking about and I'm not going to ask you to believe me without evidence. But I predict that I will benefit from opportunities for mixed-age socializing and that ought to be an easily testable prediction."

What Evelyn should have spent the last forty-five minutes doing is updating her log notes while everything is fresh in her mind, but she's instead spent it on Google, looking for online educational content and alternative schooling options close enough to be driving distance. Now that she's actually stopped to think about it, the local primary school really doesn't feel right for Miranda. 

When Miranda comes down and makes her (clearly carefully rehearsed) little announcement, Evelyn somehow isn't even surprised. She pushes back her chair. "I've been thinking. I still think it's not healthy for a child your age to only socialize with adults, but I decided to do some research, and there are alternative education methods that don't split children up by age so much; they have kids of different ages all in the same classroom, but working at their own pace based on what they're interested in. Have you heard of Montessori schools? I didn't know very much about them until today, but there are a few in town, and one of them is free. It's a longer drive, but I think you might be happier there. Would you be willing to try it?" 

"Sure, Montessori sounds great! And I'm happy to socialize with loads of people of whatever age, I just want somewhere I can learn trigonometry and enough people interested in discussing philosophy that I don't bore them all to death in a week, you know?" She's not even lying about the trigonometry; she's forgotten enough high school math that she frankly ought to repeat it while she has all this free time. Maybe this time she'll get the hang of diff eq before she turns 16 and gets distracted by the opportunity to exchange labor for fiat currency, LMAO.

It's so nice to see her happy. Evelyn feels like she finally got something right. 

"Trigonometry, wow!" That's not just ahead of grade level, that's high school math. "I don't know if they'll teach it at the Montessori school, they usually only go up to eighth grade curriculum, but if you like math that much, we could look into finding you a tutor."

(Which will be expensive, Evelyn can't afford to pay that out of pocket, but Social Services has funding to pay for extra classroom support and tutoring for children who are below grade level. And Evelyn is pretty sure she remembers reading somewhere that kids who are bored because they're ahead of their peers are also likely to act out and get into trouble, and if she digs up that citation she can maybe persuade the local office to scrape together the funding. ...All of that, of course, is assuming Miranda stays with her long-term, which would in a sense be bad news - it's generally considered much better for children to stay with their natural family, with support and supervision from Social Services of course, even if the parenting isn't ideal - but Evelyn is finding that this is definitely the outcome she's personally gunning for. Miranda is a neat kid. Relevantly, Miranda is a kid - even if Evelyn is starting to see how one could drift into treating her like an adult - and she needs parenting. She needs someone looking out for her and making sure she has as much of a normal childhood as possible, even if she's clearly a deeply unusual child.) 

"I don't want to cost you a ton of money? I can study stuff on my own if I get curious about something the Montessori school doesn't have. But maybe there are cheap tutors, I wouldn't know."

Aaaaaand Evelyn is not entirely comfortable about this six-year-old child going off and learning things on her own without supervision. She isn't going to say that, though; she'll find a way later, once Miranda is more settled, to have a conversation about age-appropriate reading and Internet safety. 

"I was thinking we look for a college student who's hoping to earn some extra money over the summer." Sigh. "I suppose you probably won't be in school before the schools let out for the summer, anyway, it always takes a while for the wheels to move. Maybe tomorrow we can have a look at summer programs, see if any of them are cheap - I do get an allowance for you and that should cover a few weeks of summer camp, if there's an affordable one you're interested in." She grins. "Probably not tennis camp. Don't ask me why tennis camp is so expensive, but it is."