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Katie settles in pretty well into the house, and later, when a bed has been obtained, into Lizbeth's room. She wears Lizbeth's hand-me-downs to start, then gets her own clothes; she doesn't have strong opinions about what she should be wearing, but the sizing on Lizbeth's old things isn't really right, and there aren't all that many still lying around anyway.
She has inexplicably tidy handwriting - inexplicably has handwriting at all; inexplicably can spell fifteen words in twenty instead of zero - which she uses, rather a lot. She makes a list of things that are food and magnetizes it to the fridge for reference, adding to it when she locates more things that are food, and when she is trying to tackle complex books she takes notes on who all the characters are so she doesn't have to page backward to remind herself, and she discovers journaling, even though she doesn't have that many events to record.
One day, the event she has to record is: Chris says to morrow she wil go to the DMV and shud not have us ther becas it may take six ours. We wil be baybe sat. If I hav ben baybe sat be for I do not remembre it.
She is curious about the imminent babysitter, and is up bright and early on the day when same may be expected.
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Eventually Katie goes and gets a slip of paper and starts writing notes on all these characters and the clues that have turned up.
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Gina observes her to make sure she has enough paper for what she wants to do. She seems to.
Okay then.
Okay then.
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Then she will probably continue until lunchtime.
"I'm hungry," says Gina. "Is anyone else hungry?"
"I'm hungry," says Gina. "Is anyone else hungry?"
"Me! I'm hungry!" says Lizbeth.
"I will eat some food," nods Katie. "I can only eat food, I won't eat not-food like Lizbeth and Chris eat sometimes."
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"Okay," she says. "You can eat what you want, and Elizabeth will eat what she wants."
Katie waaaaants...
Raw spinach, turns out. She eats it one leaf at a time, with no dressing, by hand.
Raw spinach, turns out. She eats it one leaf at a time, with no dressing, by hand.
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...well.
Gina is doubtful. But she makes more substantial food for herself and Lizbeth, and she doesn't complain about Katie's choices.
Gina is doubtful. But she makes more substantial food for herself and Lizbeth, and she doesn't complain about Katie's choices.
Katie eats spinach until her bowl is empty and then she goes back to her book, apparently satisfied.
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"If you get hungry again later I can get you something else," says Gina.
Katie is not done with this book yet. She continues on. She is accumulating a list of words she does not know.
Eventually Katie puts down the book and gets the dictionary to look up the confusing words.
Katie re-reads the pages on which she found those words. (She noted the page numbers.) Then she continues.
She is very systematic! Eventually she has finished a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories. She puts the stories and the dictionary back where she found them, and then looks at the math homework to see if it has become any more interesting.
"This is boring. Why are you doing it? Is it just because Lizbeth likes to watch it?"
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"I don't think it's that boring," says Gina. "And I have to do it for school."
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"Math is important to know at least a little bit of when you're a grown-up, especially if you're going to be doing things that need it," says Virginia. "So we have to learn it in school, and doing homework helps us learn."