And once they've eaten, Evelyn will go Google and print of lots and lots more worksheets. They're still ones aimed at six-year-olds, but they have words to copy and pictures of what the word means. She makes two copies of each one, for each of them, and also brings them a stack of lined paper for more general writing practice and a box of pencils with a pencil sharpener. 

"You can keep a list of any words where you don't recognize the picture or don't think you know the English word for it," she suggests to Iomedae. "I'll tell you the words after I'm done my stuff upstairs." 

And she leaves and gives them some privacy. 

Iomedae will diligently go through English writing worksheets for as long as it takes to finish them all.

Alfirin likewise. She really wants to understand the language so that Iomedae doesn't have to translate for her all the time.

Evelyn writes grumpily in the barely-used diary that Jeremy got her two Christmases ago, and then grumpily vacuums the upstairs carpet, and then goes back downstairs, grumpiness cleared out. 

...She has ten dollars each for Iomedae and Alfirin, and then another fifteen dollars for Iomedae. "For your weekly allowance." Normally she gives it out on Fridays but she's pretty Iomedae is going to go on not believing her about it until she has the cash in hand. "And for the three mornings you got up with Lily, Iomedae, I'm counting that as an hour of babysitting each time." 

And then they can do some verbal English practice? 

Iomedae is so confused. 

What???

Why???

"Thank you, ma'am."

...and yes, they can do some verbal English practice.

...What? It...maybe makes sense that Evelyn would actually give Iomedae money for the work Iomedae is doing that Evelyn is pretending to pay her for but Alfirin didn't do anything.

She'll just practice English and pretend this is normal.

Because she said she would! And could tell that Iomedae didn't believe her (and Alfirin may or may not even have understood it)! She kind of doubts Iomedae is going to want to spend it, and - having an additional $25 on top of the money she already has doesn't really seem like it increases the odds of her running away. The thing that will keep Iomedae safe and happy is if she trusts Evelyn. 

(Evelyn is perhaps, slightly, defending herself to Diel in her own head.) 

She's not an experienced ESL tutor or anything, but she has a lot of patience and can spend the next two hours sitting with the girls and giving them her full attention. She goes through vocabulary on the sheets, and challenges them to try spelling words they know, and walks around the house naming every household object she can find, and eventually resorts to reading them picture books to try to find more vocabulary prompts. She suggests that Iomedae can have one of the school notebooks and spell the English word alongside the Taldane translation and maybe the pronunciation written in the Taldane alphabet, if that's going to be a helpful memory aid for her to look over later. 

Iomedae can absolutely do that. She can also prompt for words she has wanted to know. "Word for - the thing a child owe a parent and a man owe a greater man? Word for the thing Martin try do? Word for the person most power all America? Word for foster child if not a child?"

Those are good words to ask about. Alfirin has more. Words for people who make TVs? People who make bikes? People who make or train cars? (She's still not sure which, for cars). People who know everything? People who know things people aren't supposed to know? Places that are smaller than America?

That's a lot of questions! Some of those are pretty awkward vocabulary questions and some are just baffling! 

Start with the easy ones, and she'll try to keep a mental list - or, hmm, actually just write a list - of the hard ones so she can come back to them.

"The word for what Martin tried to do is 'rape.' The leader of America is called the President. People who make bikes and TVs are...engineers, I think, if we're talking about the people deciding how to make them, and just 'factory workers' for the people putting parts together. I'm not sure anyone really knows everything, there's a lot to know, but - 'polymath', maybe? Something a person isn't supposed to know is called a secret, but I don't know if there's a word for a person who has secrets, in general, other than just saying that." Explaining spies sounds complicated. 

And back to Iomedae. "...I don't think there is an adult version of being a foster child? I mean, sometimes adults live in group homes because they're too disabled - not healthy enough - to work or live on their own or take care of themselves, and they need help like children usually do. There's not a special word for that, I don't think, and I wouldn't say it's really the same thing." 

That...feels like not what Iomedae is getting at. Hmm. The part that bothers Iomedae about being in foster care is not being allowed to leave. And not being allowed to get paid, but Evelyn already explained that's about her papers and not about being in foster care... There's, like, prison, but Iomedae knows about that and also it's clearly not the same sort of thing. 

"People can be not allowed to leave a place if they're very sick - if they have a problem with their mind and a doctor thinks they wouldn't be safe living on their own, or might hurt other people. I suppose in a way, that's - sort of like the doctor deciding that they aren't really an adult who can be responsible for adult decisions. I - don't actually know if there's a specific word for - a person in that situation - but is that more the kind of thing you're thinking of?" 

"All foster child stop being foster child when older?"

"...Yeah? - I mean, if you do end up living with me until you're eighteen, I'm always going to feel a bit like you're my child, like I do with Jeremy, and you would be welcome to visit. But once you turn eighteen, you'll be legally an adult, and not a child in foster care. And hopefully you'll have papers by then, too, and be able to work all the same jobs Jeremy could, if you have the education for them." 

"You no have to buy it? Just - when you eighteen?'

What?????

"No! You don't have to buy being an adult, it's just based on how old you are. I agree it'd be nice if it were a bit more flexible - some people are more mature at fifteen than other people at twenty-five, I know it's very frustrating for you to be treated like you're too young to be responsible - but eighteen is what the American government decided was the law." 

That is still three years she'd really like to spend on fixing the world and not on being a slave but it is really, really different from 'forever'.

"That is good! - the word I wanted was for people who no have papers, maybe."

"I think she said we are only slaves until we are adults?"

"Yes! That is what she said!!"

"Thank you Evelyn!"

Oh no did Iomedae - did both of them? - spend all this time under the misconception that being taken into foster care was SOMEHOW IRREVERSIBLE AND PERMANENT??? Evelyn...is honestly very confused how she might have gotten that misapprehension but she's relieved that it's cleared up! She will try to smile very reassuringly.

(It makes a lot of sense that Iomedae is impatient. Evelyn thinks she was impatient to grow up and move out already by the time she was fifteen or sixteen, and Evelyn isn't even a future Joan of Arc. Hopefully, in time, Iomedae will - be more willing to trust that Evelyn is going to try to give her as many opportunities as she possibly can, and this is really a lot better than picking fruit as a migrant farm laborer.) 

"That's - I think 'undocumented immigrant' is the polite word. There are other ways to be an immigrant that are legal, if someone comes from another country with the right papers - an immigrant is just someone who isn't a citizen, a citizen is someone who has the right to live and work in America no matter what." She will write all of those words down. 

"But when we are adults, we will have papers, and be citizens?"

"I think permanent residents, which isn't quite being a citizen, but it means you can stay in America as long as you want and work any job. Diel says there's a law for foster children that lets you apply to be a permanent resident, and in the meantime you can't legally be paid for a job, but you can live with me, and go to school, and have health insurance - that will pay for you to go to the doctor or the hospital if you get sick - and things like that."

She's preeeetty sure she explained health insurance to Iomedae earlier but is starting to re-evaluate how much poor Iomedae is actually absorbing from what must feel like a constant firehose of baffling new information. You never really think about how complicated living in modern America is until you see it through the eyes of an illiterate ESL kid from a third world country, apparently. 

"And after three years, can carry a weapon, can say things to a judge and it counts, can work for pay?"

"You might be able to work with pay sooner, if the law for getting papers goes faster! ...I don't think of those three things as - really things that go together? I'm an adult and I can carry some kinds of weapon, if I want, and not others. And - either of us could say something to a judge in court. A judge might be more likely to believe me - either that I was telling the truth or just that I had understood things right - but it's not that they would definitely believe me and definitely wouldn't believe you, it's - complicated." 

She's trying to speak slowly and pay a lot of attention to whether Iomedae seems to be following, but this is hard. Iomedae has a tendency to look like she's politely attentive to your every word regardless, except for the moments when she bursts out in frustration because of a misunderstanding. (Or, you know, a frustrating thing she understood 100% accurately, but at least some of it is misunderstandings.) 

Iomedae flatly does not believe that it is unpredictable whether judges will trust rich landowners or foster children with limited English. This shows on her face because Iomedae is not good at concealing anything. 

"She says we will not be citizens but we will have papers, and can work for pay, once we are what America says is grown."