"Most careless people is eated by bears, but some becoming great heroes instead. Men are more careless because men do not make babies, so more men is great heroes."

"...In poor countries," she adds, since Evelyn looks confused.

?????????????????????????????????????????

That does NOT really clarify things. 

"I don't think that, uh, being careless and getting lucky enough not to be eaten by bears is a good career path for anyone," Evelyn says, mostly because it feels like she should say something. "And - yeah, young women can - get in trouble with careless decisions like getting pregnant, but it's not like boys can't ruin their lives by being careless, even if they're only careless once. Driving drunk and getting in a bad car crash is pretty life-ruining, and young men are way more likely than young women to die that way."

She's not sure why she said that. It probably wasn't a helpful thing to say. She maybe just really wants to argue with the claim that it's fine, even good, for boys to be careless??? (Honestly, you would think it would be EVEN EASIER to ruin your life with a careless decision in a poor country with a terrible medical system? ...Maybe if you're poor enough that you can't afford a car or a motorcycle.) 

"Yes, young men are more likely to die. Girls mostly die babies, boys mostly die Alfirin and Iomedae age, or twenty. ...in poor countries." This conversation is a bad idea and they should drop it, shouldn't they, except it's - a really good feeling when the pieces of America start to come together. "I am happy to talk to the priest. I will stop asking you God questions. Thank you for explaining."

The last several questions weren't even slightly related to God???? 

...You know what, nevermind. Evelyn thinks she managed to navigate that without saying something the wrong way and either upsetting the girls or confusing them even more, but it would probably be better not to keep pushing her luck. 

"You're welcome!" she says, smiling brightly at Iomedae. She glances at the clock. "And Lily will be home pretty soon. I'm going to get out a snack for her, you can help if you want." 

Iomedae will happily help get Lily a snack! She's also pleased with herself for apparently navigating that conversation without upsetting Evelyn. It seems like it's important to Evelyn to assure Iomedae that she too can be a great hero, but Iomedae knows this because Aroden picked her.

Evelyn still seemed confused by that conversation, but Alfirin's not sure what part was confusing. Alfirin is confused about what a career path is - she was guessing it was a paved road or something where there won't be bears? But thinking about it more that doesn't make sense and it's too late to ask about it now. She will help make a snack and smile at Iomedae who seems pleased and also remembered to stop telling Evelyn things about poor countries, which Alfirin had forgotten about, so she's grateful for the reminder.

If not for Alfirin Iomedae suspects she'd be spending half her time wondering if she'd been bitten by a mad animal and was now mad herself. She'll smile back.

Lily arrives on time a few minutes later! 

She's a bit subdued, which prompts Evelyn to briefly waylay the bus driver and ask if Lily had any "P-R-O-B-L-E-M-S" at school today, and receive reassurance that Lily's teacher reported she was well-behaved and had a very good day. 

(Lily is trying very hard to be Not Suspicious so that Mummy won't notice anything. She lets Mummy hug her, and then goes to hang up her backpack herself and take out her lunchbox and planner and homework sheet, so that she can zip her backpack up again and Mummy won't have any reason to look inside and find the art project. It's very hard to wait patiently until Mummy goes away from the kitchen and she can sneak the art project to Iomedae, but it's important to be Not Suspicious.) 

"Thank you, love, that's very helpful of you." Evelyn accepts the lunchbox from Lily and puts it beside the sink. "Would you like help with your homework?" She's a little confused about Lily's apparent good mood, but she's not complaining. 

"C'Meday he'mee?" Lily asks politely. So politely. 

*"Can Iomedae help me?" 

Evelyn ruffles Lily's hair. "You'll have to ask Iomedae." 

Something is definitely up with Lily right now; she's very obviously on her best behavior for some reason. Maybe she heard about a toy or game from one of her school friends and plans to butter Evelyn up before asking for it; usually with kids, it's usually that or some request related to seeing their birth family, and there's no way Lily is plotting the latter. Well, Evelyn still isn't complaining. 

Lily brings her handwriting-practice worksheet over to Iomedae! "He'mee?" 

Evelyn hums to herself as she carries the plate of cut vegetables and dip to the table - Iomedae is, as usual, somewhat terrifyingly efficient at cutting up carrot sticks and zucchini sticks to specification - and then unpacks the empty Tupperwares from Lily's lunchbox, humming to herself. It's lovely to see the kids getting along. 

- Iomedae can attempt to help Lily with her homework but she still can't, you know, read. The handwriting worksheet at least looks like the ones Evelyn gave Iomedae and Alfirin.

It does! It's actually simpler words, for the most part, 'dog' and 'cow' and 'apple'. Lily doesn't need help with it, so much as praise and encouragement to stay on task. She's very slow at writing and clearly finds it frustrating and difficult; her handwriting is terrible. 

(She's also having more trouble than usual concentrating, because she's paying a lot of attention to Mummy and whether she seems like she might be about to leave the room and if so for how long. It needs to be long enough that she can explain to Iomedae to hide the art project.) 

Evelyn is trying to ignore the background unease that things are going Suspiciously Well, similar to the itchy feeling in her spine when she suddenly realizes the upstairs bedrooms have been Very Quiet for several minutes. It would be unfair of her to punish kids with suspicion for being on their best behavior, whatever their ulterior motive. 

And it's adorable watching Lily try to earnestly explain the vagaries of English spelling (cow isn't spelled c-a-w even though A is what makes an ahhh sound, and you HAVE to remember that apple has two ps) while painstakingly tracing barely-legible letters on her connect-the-dots handwriting practice lines. Having Iomedae and Alfirin around is so clearly doing Lily a lot of good; it gives her a reason to talk and, given Iomedae and Alfirin's ESL status, to put more care and attention into speaking clearly. She's got to be making impressive progress in her speech therapy sessions, which she's pulled out of class to attend twice a week. Evelyn should remember to email the therapist and ask about it. 

And Iomedae and Alfirin might actually be learning something, hearing Lily proudly and mostly-comprehensibly chatter about spelling. Honestly, Evelyn is feeling very warm and fond of Lily right now. If Lily is trying to butter her up before requesting some $50 Barbie accessory that one of her school friends bragged about, well, maybe Lily has earned a treat. 

She putters in the kitchen, putting together ingredients for a lasagna. 

...Lily runs out of words to write on her worksheet. Oh no. She needs to stay at the kitchen table, near where her backpack is, until Mummy leaves the kitchen. Mmmmmmaybe she can do EXTRA homework, just turn the homework sheets over and write some other words that she knows? 

(Without the benefit of connect-the-dots tracing lines, her handwriting is very large - she can only fit five or six words on the full sheet of paper - and still hard to read, but she can carefully explain to Iomedae and Alfirin how to spell 'BARBIE' and 'GIRL' and 'CAR' and 'TEBLE', which she stares at for a while, it looks wrong but she can't figure out how it's wrong.) 

Whatever her agenda, Lily sure is hamming it up. Evelyn smiles fondly and puts the lasagna in the fridge and asks Iomedae to keep an eye on Lily while she goes to the bathroom. 

!!!!!!!!!!!

(Oh good, Mummy isn't suspicious. Lily is very proud of how good she's been at acting Not Suspicious.) 

As soon as she hears the bathroom door close, she's up like a pogo stick and dashing to her backpack. She unzips it and yanks out the art project, which is carefully folded and only slightly crumpled at the edges, and rushes it over to Iomedae. 

It's three A4 sheets taped together along the long sides, with three different parts of the Google Maps printout almost-but-not-quite lined up. The school has the lazy printers that don't run if you get them wet, although Lily isn't really sure why the teacher calls them lazy printers, it seems like they must work harder than the kind Mummy has that runs. Maybe they're lazy because they only print in black and white? She's remedied that by adding lots of messy decorative doodling with crayon, and a non-decorative doodle of a house overtop of Grandpa's address on the map. 

She shoves it into Iomedae's hands. Points emphatically at the marked address. "Hayit f'Mummy!" 

*"Hide it from Mummy!" 

Evelyn is trained from long habit to be fast in the bathroom. The toilet flushes upstairs. 

Iomedae tucks it up and places it into the pouch where she keeps her money and nods to Lily very seriously. When a small child entrusts you with an important quest to stop a man who did unsayable things to her, you do it. 

When Evelyn comes back downstairs, Lily is SO UNSUSPICIOUSLY concentrating on trying to spell 'FLOOR'. She no longer has a good reason to keep pretending to do homework, and she's getting pretty frustrated with it, but it might be suspicious if she stopped very suddenly. She can spell FLOOR and then DOOR and then go play with Barbies. 

Awwww. Evelyn is definitely on some level waiting for the other shoe to drop, but that doesn't make it less cute. 

Do Iomedae or Alfirin have any questions about their impromptu spelling lesson? 

"English is very hard spelling, letter Ay is not making sound Ay."