worth an oat

[alicornucopia]

In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".

Comments

[pythbox]

"Where are the tests? How long do they take?"

[alicornucopia]

"I can proctor them right upstairs in this building and they will take all day."

[pythbox]

"I'll tell the crew so they don't think I died."

He goes away. He speaks briefly to another, larger child. He comes back.

[alicornucopia]

"Ready? Have you eaten yet today?"

[pythbox]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

So she picks up her desk and takes him through the back and up the stairs and sits him down and gives him a test.

She seems to be assuming he can't read and is reading him aloud the questions and answers so he can mark them.

[pythbox]

Perhaps she will notice her mistake when she is halfway through the first sentence and he is already halfway down the page.

[alicornucopia]

Yep.

She stops.

[pythbox]

Well, then, he can continue blazing through this test in peace.

[alicornucopia]

She will trade him for another test when he's done.

[pythbox]

Good.

[alicornucopia]

This is not going to take him all day. There are a lot of tests, though, so it will last long enough that she will ask him if he wants lunch.

[pythbox]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

So she brings him down the stairs and they both get a bit of lunch from the soup kitchen friends and eat it in the back and then go up again for the last bit of test.

[pythbox]

The tiny child is a tiny genius. There are things he doesn't know, but astonishingly few of them for his upbringing, and quite a lot he can figure out given the vaguest facsimile of a hint.

[alicornucopia]

Yes, she noticed that after she went over the first one. The rest are basically icing.

She runs the last test through her desk.

"I just realized," she says, as she tots up the results, "I've forgotten to ask your name. I'm Sister Carlotta."

[pythbox]

"My name is Oat. I don't like it."

[alicornucopia]

"...I see. Would you rather I call you something else?"

[pythbox]

"I don't have anything better."

[alicornucopia]

"All right. I'll hear back from the schools I send results to by tomorrow morning. Would you like to stay here with me or go back to your crew for the night?"

[pythbox]

"Stay here. Less dangerous."

[alicornucopia]

Nod, nod. "I suspected that."

Sister Carlotta is staying with one of the soup kitchen volunteers who lives in an apartment farther above the soup kitchen. There is not actually a guest room but there is a couch Carlotta has been sleeping on, and there is an inflatable mattress for Oat. The soup kitchen volunteer has apparently given Sister Carlotta access to her non-soup kitchen and Carlotta fixes the two of them sandwiches for dinner and then declares a rather early bedtime.

[pythbox]

Oat curls up on the inflatable mattress, so tiny it's hard to tell he's even there unless you stare very hard at the folds of the scrunched-up puffy blanket. He has probably never had a puffy blanket to scrunch up before in his life.

[alicornucopia]

It's adorable. Especially compared to the total blank of facial expression or the subsequent little lawn-gnome smile. ...Sister Carlotta reminds herself that he is one of God's children. She goes on the couch and sleeps.

[pythbox]

In the morning, neither the blanket nor Oat is on the inflatable mattress.