No More Turning a Blind Eye (Clara)

"Of course she's okay." Jacques replied, trying to sound as certain as possible in that moment, even though he knew better. She had a small bump this term, but she's settled back down." He tried to amend, not wishing to go down the avenue of how the Clements had found out about Mimosa's condition.

But the reality of the situation was quite the opposite. Jacques was quite worried about his sister. Where his initial response had been anger at how she'd treated Mimosa, now it was concern. Mimosa was resilient, but Elenore...

He pushed the thoughts away, in favour of taking in the food that had just been put before him. Repulsive would have been too delicate a word for the slop that had just been put before Jacques. He'd seen nicer food put before the homeless in the summer. Still, this was America, he reflected. It wasn't as if the did anything with standards in this country. "Thank you, Clara, this looks wonderful." Jacques said, outwardly looking like he meant it whilst internally he dreaded picking up the plastic spoon he'd been presented with.

"No, no!" Jacques shook his head, trying to spear some of the lasagna with some kind of grace. But it wasn't successful. "Do you have a knife, please?" He asked, buying a little bit of time.

"I was saying," Jacques continued, managing to get a forkful of the slop Clara had given him on to the fork, but not yet bringing it up to eat. "Elenore, and the rest of us, have noticed that Mimosa is struggling with her reading. More than struggling, actually... We think she might be have some form of dyslexia. And, I need your help to... to get her tested.

"I'm asking you because... well, Mr Harrington and Papa..." Jacques said, trailing off because he didn't wish to go in to details on that. As he finished, Jacques brought the first mouthful of the food up and cleared the fork carefully. It took a couple of chews, and a mountain of will, to finally swallow the foul excuse for food. Merlin what did they put Mimosa through when she was here?

The overly sharp knife that Jacques was handed was over the top, but the Frenchman made use of it as he did his best with such a measly meal. Thankfully the stay was only going to be temporary, because Jacques doubted very much that this excuse for food was going to stay down for very long.

And the idea of licking his knife?

Merlin's beard.

The question of his certainty on the subject was one that Jacques took a moment -- pretending to be enjoying the lasagna to gain himself a moment more. Though, that was brought short as Clara stuck her finger in the food and sucked the sauce from her finger. Had the woman been thirty years younger, Jacques might have mistaken it for a gesture of a sexual nature that would have made his skin crawl, but with Clara, it simply put him off touching that side of the plate. Not that he'd particularly wanted the food in the first place, but alas, he had set off down that road.

"This... is my point." Jacques replied. "I think we need to get a professional to attempt it. You see... Mimosa wrote to Elenore without the aid of her quills, and Elenore suggested Mimosa jumbled things up. Then, another time, her quill malfunctioned whilst writing to myself. I had initially wrote it off to the broken quill, but I have a feeling Mimosa might have written it herself. Then, for Mimosa's birthday, I took her in to the Dehlientelle, playing a reading game to test her reading. I'm not expert in the field, Clara, but I do genuinely believe that Mimosa's current reading and writing abilities are being hindered by some form of dyslexia.

"If we don't try to resolve it... I fear that she's going to be left behind by her class mates." Jacques explained, not quite meeting the older witch's eye in that moment. Unlike any other time, or any other person, Jacques statement was completely truthful. He was not worried about the Clement name or image with Mimosa's condition, the young witch's well being, her happiness, was what was important to him right now.

He'd let her down too much already.

"I don't think there's a contest for the better man." Jacques replied, not hostile in that moment. A show between a Clement and a Harrington would only ever have one winner, but his Papa was a fool for believing otherwise. And, Jacques was not interested in the feud between the two men. A feud that had never, ever made sense.