"...No. Is school with bad things, bad things happen at school, it good if I particularly afraid to go to school, like it good I afraid of brown thing?"

She takes a minute to parse that. "No, school is great! School is how you'll learn the things you need to get good jobs and live a good life. But some kids are scared of school anyway because it is something they haven't done before, or their parents told them bad things about it, or the kids there are mean to them, or they had a bad teacher who did not teach very effectively."

"Most thing in America something I haven't done before. I not particularly afraid of school."

"Are you afraid that you might die?"

"I -" don't know if I'm going to go to Paradise or the Abyss, she was about to try to say, before she remembered that educated people in America - which surely means healers - don't believe in afterlives. " - think I afraid of die same as every person afraid of die?"

"How often have you been scared when you are at home?"

"At home I scared when go places, hear animals. Or see hose. Or see person died. Or fire. Or other bad thing."

That is the second time the girl has mentioned hoses. "Did your parents ...hit you with hoses?" That's a thing, right? Because rubber won't leave a mark?

"...Why my parents hit me with hoses? Hoses maybe bite me or bite them. My parents have sticks. And hands."

"...that makes sense. You had mentioned being scared of hoses a couple of times and I had not heard of anyone being scared of hoses so I wondered if hoses were used to hurt you. Your parents hit you with sticks and with their hands?"

"Only when I - not have word. Not obey and happy angry about not obey."

"How often did that happen? Was that something that happened a couple of times, or something that happened often?" She's staying calm. It does not help if when kids mention there's abuse at home you get upset. They'll think they did something wrong. And the girl is already in foster care, probably not unrelatedly. (But this may well be the first clear accusation they have; she may not have brought it up with her foster mom.) She is typing very fast trying to get down exactly what the girl said.

"...Not very much?" Something is up, here. "I not - happy angry not obey - very much. Is important learn obey, or get die brown thing, eated locusts."

"Do you have sisters? Brothers?" 

"...Why you ask? That not about my behavior."

Because if there are still children in the home at risk from being hit with sticks then that's important for the report. She doesn't want to lie to the girl but she also doesn't want children to be beaten with sticks and threatened with being eaten by locusts. "I want to make sure they are also safe and fed," she says after internally panicking for a moment.

Yeah, right.

"I have one baby brother, get sick, die as baby."

"I am so sorry to hear that. How long ago was that?"

"Six years"

She's just going to - flag this for a more experienced interviewer? And return to the screening. 

"Do you experience worrying a lot about things you touched being dirty or having germs or being poisoned?"

"...I worry about things being dirty when they are dirty."

"Do you sometimes feel like you have to do the same thing over and over in order to be safe, like washing your hands or touching a door or saying certain words?"

"No."

She's going to try one more time at the siblings thing. Sneakily.  "Do you sometimes feel like you are not setting a good example for your brothers and sisters?"

"...Do you mean my foster sisters? I think I am not a particularly good example for them or a particularly bad example for them."