"Hmm, yeah, I don't have a ton of recipes memorized. Tofu and beans are good for protein and I can see what else is available." This is a weird, weird situation to be pretending to have been poor in. On the other hand, it's a great place to find soy milk. Normal breakfast cereal experience, here she comes.

Evelyn doesn't seem especially suspicious about this. She grins. "Beans! I remember in college whenever I complained about money, my mom said, just eat rice and beans. It's supposed to be very healthy, and cheap. But I haven't met many kids your age who would put up with that." 

They can go explore the canned-food aisle and all the kinds of beans, and then hunt down the tofu in the Asian food section. Evelyn stares at the display. "Wow! I had forgotten there were so many kinds of tofu." She...honestly doesn't actually like tofu very much, and hardly ever buys it. "Firm, soft, silken, 'sprouted' whatever that means... Ooh, and seitan, do you know if you like that? I think I've had it at Chinese restaurants, I'm sure I could find a recipe." 

"I'd be pretty sad if I never got to eat things that weren't rice and beans, but rice and beans are good." Black beans and kidney beans and navy beans and cannellini beans and chickpeas! 

"Let's go for the firm tofu, I think you can bake or fry that and I'm not sure what to do with the other kinds." She makes a show of inspecting the seitan package. "Yeah, this looks neat and I bet there's recipes with it on the internet somewhere." There's definitely at least one but she doesn't remember what else goes into it.

"We can look at recipes and try one tonight!" Evelyn is obviously not going to be letting Miranda use the stove or a chopping knife unsupervised, but cooking together is an activity she approves of for children, and she can already tell that Miranda, unlike most six-year-olds, will actually be net helpful. 

They can get soy milk. "Or almond milk? Is that better? - oh, and do you want vanilla or plain or vanilla but unsweetened?" Evelyn would normally be against unnecessarily-sweetened beverage products but maybe soy milk is a sufficiently inferior milk substitute that it's unpalatable to children without extra sugar?

"- Whoa!" She's now reached the section of vegan-dairy-products that has the yogurt cups, which seems like a great idea. (Though a moment's glance confirms that they're full of additives, which Evelyn is vaguely superstitious about - there's a lot of debate on the foster parents Facebook group about whether certain additives really exacerbate ADHD or behavioral issues in children but Evelyn FEELS like there's a pattern. Though Miranda isn't really one of the kids she would worry about, she's not sure she's ever met a child who was less ADHD.)

"Have you had these before? We could just get a couple to see if you like them, but it'd be convenient to have something ready to go for a snack. ...Ooh, vegan cream cheese! Hmm, and I think they might have a vegan deli section a ways over, we could get you something protein-y to go on sandwiches. Oh! And I think they have vegan ice cream here, I've never bought it before but I've seen it with the regular ice cream, we could buy some of that for treats?" 

Oh nice, this is such a broad selection. She'll go for unsweetened vanilla almond milk. She doesn't know if she likes vegan yogurt so they shouldn't buy a ton of it but getting a few would be good. Cream cheese and fakemeat sandwich fixings are also worth a try; if they don't have mustard at home they should get some mustard to go with the fakemeat. She's very enthusiastic about trying vegan ice cream! It'll be good to have something to eat for dessert when Evelyn and Jeremy are having dessert.

(Grocery stores are also a jewel of civilization and she's having a great time.)

Whole Foods is great! (On the pricy side, especially for fancy vegan alternatives, but Evelyn makes no comment about that. It's her job to feed Miranda, and it's not like money is especially tight now that the mortgage is paid off, she can't afford to unthinkingly book fancy vacations or archery summer camp, but a vegan yogurt cup being $1.99 each instead of $5 for six regular yogurt cups is not going to bankrupt her, and her practiced grocery-shopping eye notes that the vegan cup is bigger anyway. Also, beans are cheaper than meat and should cancel it out.) 

They have mustard at home (and pickles, and mayo– oh, right, mayo is not vegan, but at this point they're near the checkout and Miranda didn't ask about it, if she turns out to desperately miss vegannaise they can get it on a later trip.) Evelyn does grab soy sauce and sesame oil and a pack of dry rice noodles, on the premise that fried tofu sounds like an Asian stirfry sort of thing and that's not a set of ingredients she religiously keeps in stock.

It's nearly 12:30 by the time they check out, and Evelyn at least is definitely hungry. (She reminds herself not to react to this by unthinkingly tossing more things in the cart as she passes them.) As per her usual procedure for shopping with the kids, Miranda can pick out one (1) treat from the candy display at the cash register, if she wants. 

Miranda is vaguely aware of Whole Foods as The Obnoxiously Expensive Store but hopefully if she sticks to ingredients and not prepared foods she won't give Evelyn too much trouble. 

Ooh, stir fry ingredients. Stir fry is good.

She will grab one (1) pack of Oreos from the register while reminding herself that a) it's not an affront to her dignity because Evelyn is paying and b) she should not develop any kind of psychological food scarcity issues around the concept of other people having influence over what she eats.

(Evelyn is actually pretty familiar with kids having food-scarcity issues! Children who had chaotic home lives or whose parents were often short of money tend to be hyper-aware of where and when their next meal is coming from. One boy, over a six-month period, filled his entire suitcase - which Evelyn had assumed was empty and stashed under his bed for storage - with squirreled-away packages of snacks that he must have snuck from her cupboards, never taking so much at once that she got suspicious. And, given what she knows of Miranda's background - and particularly the mention that sometimes there wasn't enough money and she had to eat non-vegan fast food - she's going to be keeping an eye on that. She usually expects that giving kids the option to pick out something they want will help with this, though.) 

They get everything packed away in the trunk and head home, Evelyn playing bland pop music on the radio again. Does Miranda want to help carry in some of the lighter items? 

Miranda is happy to help put away the groceries with, not exactly total disregard for her physical stature, more deliberate defiance of it. (She should really pick up a weightlifting habit. Unfortunately lifting weights sucks.)

While they're transitioning from putting away groceries to putting together a lunch, she looks seriously at Evelyn again and says, "I just wanted to say explicitly: I really appreciate your willingness to open your home to strangers who are down on their luck. It's really admirable of you and I intend to pay it forward eventually."

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! 

"- Can I hug you?" Evelyn asks after a moment. "'No' is fine, we don't know each other that well yet, but - that was such a sweet thing to say -" 

Evelyn is a sweetheart and she asked permission so "Sure!" Hug. 

Evelyn seems to be in a very good mood for the rest of lunch. She chats to Miranda, telling her a bit about the neighborhood; she seems to be the sort of person who has close relationships with all of her neighbors, and a perfect memory for all their jobs and hobbies and relatives and children. "And Krystal's brother is a programmer at someplace or other! He lives in Vegas but he visits pretty often to see his nephews, we could invite them over next time he's in town?" 

People being embedded in their communities is so good and sparkly! And also really makes her wonder if she was ever this embedded in a community no shut up brain it is GOOD and SPARKLY.

"That would be great. Maybe by then I'll have some meaningful programming projects underway." She wants to have at least one thing that's not part of a larger project, one codebase that's fully hers to do whatever she wants with and make all the decisions according to her own sense of how things should be done and not make any hacky compromises with preexisting work. But also big multiperson projects are how important things get done, and reading other people's code and navigating the hacky compromises is an extremely important skillset. "How old are his nephews?"

"Tyler is nine - he goes to the local primary school, though I don't imagine you'll end up there - and Ethan is three and a half, he's such a sweetie. I guess I don't know if you like playing with younger kids much?" 

"You know, I'm not sure either." And even if she did know, it's probably totally different when she looks like a slightly older kid. "It'll be fun to find out though!"

"Maybe we can spend some time with them, then! I can call Krystal up tonight and - hmm, since you're not in school yet, we could maybe plan a picnic lunch at the park or by the river tomorrow? I know she appreciates some help burning off Ethan's energy, he's one of those kids who never stops." 

And once they're done lunch, how does Miranda feel like spending their afternoon? They could do a library trip, or if it's already been an errandful enough day for her, she can have some computer time and explore Evelyn's books some more? 

She's up for a library trip! 

Once they get there she takes in the signage and heads straight for adult nonfiction, intending to see what they have in any of math, CS, and bio. She'll take pop sci if it's what's on offer but if the universe decides to bless her with something with exercises in it she's super down.

I'm gonna be, the very best, like no one ever was/to catch them is my real test, to read them is my cause . . . 

It’s not a huge or incredibly well-stocked library (or at least this is Miranda’s vague sense, she doesn’t recall specific libraries to compare it to), and the adult nonfiction section is much smaller and sadder than, say, the adult romance and thriller section. There are a lot of books on practical topics, gardening and cooking being favorites but home improvement shows up as well. There’s a lot of history and politics. There are self-help books and relationship and parenting advice books. There are some pop science books, and some biographies of famous scientists. There is a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach. 

Evelyn is the one with the library card and will end up reviewing Miranda’s picks when they check out, so she  doesn’t try to supervise Miranda’s picks too closely at this stage. She’s in the same general section, though, looking for vegan recipe books.

If the fates have decreed it history week then she will read history. Indian and Chinese if they have it, classical antiquity otherwise. No milhist, that'll raise eyebrows. One pop science (paleontology, because the physics ones are probably full of lies-to-children). Plus Glorious, Excellent, Based: the Enlightening Glittery Book, partially out of the joy of meeting an old friend in a strange land and partially because she wants to at least try sharing the gospel with Evelyn. If Evelyn does not want the gospel that is fine but she should have the opportunity. (Miranda should reread it herself first, both to avoid questions about where she's seen it before and to refresh her memory.)

This is probably more than she can read in a week if she's also coding and setting up the Wikipedia strat, but better safe than sorry. (Having scarcity issues about books is normal, hinged, ranged, etc.)

Evelyn has no concerns with Miranda's book selection, though she discreetly checks the titles and blurbs as she hands them to the librarian to scan. (She also makes small talk with the librarian and asks him how his daughter's first year of college is going.) 

"Do you know much about paleontology?" she asks Miranda as she loads the books into the reusable grocery bag that she has mentally assigned as For Library Books. "I know my friend Roberta's foster son Elliott is on a dinosaurs kick right now - he's a bit older than you, eleven, but I doubt that would bother you." 

"Not as much as I'd like! It's one of those fields where there's a handful of important principles and then kind of an infinite number of facts, you know? I'd be happy to meet Elliott and hear what he has to say about dinosaurs." Being infodumped at about dinosaurs by an eleven-year-old sounds adorable. Is this before or after the emergence of the scientific consensus that lots of dinosaurs had feathers? She's pretty sure it's after the discovery of the Chixulub crater.

"You'll definitely run into him sooner or later, we have regular get-togethers with some of the foster parents around here." They have a Facebook and everything but Evelyn is not going to remind Miranda of the existence of Facebook in case she asks for an account. "But I can definitely give Roberta a call and see if she'd like to have us over for dinner or do a museum trip on the weekend? ...It's not a paleontology museum or anything, just science in general, but it's a nice outing." 

And they should head home and get dinner started. Does Miranda want to help try out an Asian stirfry recipe with the tofu, or would she rather enjoy her newly-acquired book stash? 

Miranda would not book her face unless there was some really important reason to do so, but cannot read Evelyn's mind and so cannot reassure her on that point. "Highly in favor of the science museum; science museums are awesome."

She's happy to help cook; she'd like to learn some recipes. (Also it's her fault Evelyn is having to cook and eat unfamiliar things, she doesn't say.) She's very careful with the knives because they're so much larger relative to her hands than her muscle memory thinks they ought to be. Also she needs to stand on a stepstool for using the countertops to not suck but presumably Evelyn has one.

Evelyn does have a stepstool! Evelyn doesn't especially want to start out giving Miranda tasks that involve chopping things, as opposed to tasks that involve stirring the pan or fetching things from cupboards and fridge drawers given instructions, but she does let Miranda cut the tofu into cubes, under close supervision. 

Jeremy is home for dinner tonight! He wanders in while Evelyn has Miranda on a stepstool with a wooden spoon, stirring the pan of tofu and veggies to make sure it doesn't burn. 

He tosses his backpack down on one of the dining chairs. "Wow! Mom, how is that not child labor."