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Fiona thought about that for a moment. “Okay,” she finally said. “I don’t want him to help me with my homework ‘cause I don’t want his head to hurt.” She jumped to her feet and ran to the backpack, which she’d dropped next to the couch. “I’ll get my homework and we can work on it together.”

“Good plan,” Jo said.

Fiona had a page of math problems and a page of reading homework. Jo studied both of them, then asked, “Which one do you want to do first?”

“The math page,” she said immediately. “I like reading better than math.”

Jo smiled. “Good to do the one you like less first. Then it’s out of the way. Why don’t we sit at the kitchen table? It’ll be easier to write on the table.”

Fiona’s math page was addition problems. The girl smoothed it on the table, then reached into her backpack for her pencil pouch, unzipped it and removed a pencil.

“Is this what you studied in school today?”Jo asked.

Fiona nodded. “This is adshun. That’s what we’re working on.”

“Okay,” Jo said. She put her finger beside the first problem. Three plus two. “Do you know this one?”she asked.

Fiona counted on her fingers. “Five!”she said, beaming. “Three plus two is five.”

“Very good.How about this one? Four plus one?”

Fiona repeated the counting on her fingers. “That’s five, too!”

“Right.” They worked through all the problems on the page, and Fiona got them all right. Jo was pretty sure she’d have the addition tables memorized before too long.

“Okay,” Jo said. “What about your reading homework?”

Fiona slid her math paper into a folder, then pulled out another sheet. There were a series of simple words -- ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘let’, ‘cat’ were a few of them. She needed to sound them out and write them on the line below each word, then say what the word was.

Fiona flew through the reading page. She briefly struggled to sound out some of the words, but she got them all quickly. When she got to ‘cat’, she frowned. “I want a cat. But Daddy said no.”

“Did he tell you why?”

Fiona nodded. “I’m not old enough to take care of a kitty.”

“Well, that’s a good reason.” She tapped the page of words. “I’m very impressed, Fiona. You did this page really fast.”

The girl beamed at her. “I like reading better than math,” she said.

“You’re good at both of them, though,” Jo said. “You must take after your daddy. He was very smart in school. Did he tell you we went to school together?”

“No! Were you in his classes?”Fiona said, staring at Jo.

“Some of them. He was my best friend in high school.”

“Wow. You’ve known my Daddy for a long time. Because he’s old, and you are, too.”

Jo swallowed the laugh that wanted to escape. “You’re right about that,” she said. “Your dad and I are very old. Practically ancient.”

Fiona snickered. “You’re not ancient. Grandma and Pop Pop are ancient.”

Laughing, Jo put her finger to Fiona’s mouth. “Don’t let them hear you say that,” she said. “That would hurt their feelings.”

Fiona put a finger to her lip and mimed turning a key. Then she mimed throwing the key away.

“Good. Let’s keep that thought locked in your head instead of out in the open.” Jo stroked a hand over Fiona’s soft blond hair, letting the silky soft strands slide through her fingers. “You’re done with your homework, so what do you want to do now? You wanna watch TV?”

Fiona shook her head vigorously. “No. Can you read me a book?”