"She couldn't trade knowing things about humans?" asks the green.

"Not for everything? Most shoggoths are pretty isolationist, especially around humans. And pure information's hard to trade, too. But you could kind of say she was trading 'being the local expert' with the whole group?"

"Oh, cool," says the green, and the others nod.

"Yeah. I don't think it'd work well if you had a bunch of people, but it works for us."

"It sort of works, you can be like the provincial or federal expert on a thing as a job if you're good enough at the thing!" says the green.

"That makes sense, yeah."

"Do you think you'd join a lot of clubs if you come here?" asks Parbe.

"At least one or two? Dunno though. I'd like to."

"Most people are in at least two," says the purple. "They're good for things you don't have time to cover in class."

"Yeah. And I like talking to lots of people."

They all start listing what clubs they're in - film club, foreign film club, Tapap club, animals club, knitting club ("but actually I crochet"), orchestra, one of the four different book clubs that there are.

Lots of those sound fun!

They chatter about their clubs till lunch is over and Bright is escorted to a car to be ferried to the next school.

She says a cheery goodbye to her new friends!

Which one is next school?

Next is the theater program one! They don't assign her a single buddy; instead she's going to be sitting in on the two year olds' drama class and literature class.

Drama class is doing improv exercises today! This one is called "and what's more", where somebody says a thing and you have to go with it and add to it. The teacher spins a spinner to pick someone to start and lands on a purple student who has something wrong with one arm; she hesitates a moment and says, "Today an alien came to our school!" and gets a laugh.

She smiles. (Who adds next?)

Spin! A green says, "And what's more, she brought lots of alien pets! Spin! An orange says, "And what's more, the pets are allergic to Amentans!" Spin! Bright's turn!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

"And what's more... The Amentans don't have alien pet food."

Spin! "And what's more, the pets think chairs and tables look like alien pet food." Spin. "And what's more, the Amentan atmosphere has dissolved all their leashes!"

This goes on a while till everybody's gotten to go at least once - the teacher dispenses with the spinner once a few people have gone twice and points out the remaining kids - and then they play a game where four kids at a time do scenes, two of them speaking gibberish and moving around a lot, two of them "dubbing" the others like they're a foreign film. Would Bright like to be in the first batch or watch first?

She can be in the first batch and actually speak alien languages!

Nobody else will understand her so nothing responds to the meanings she's using but this is serviceable! She plays opposite a grey boy and the dubbers decide that they are digging a pool.

She starts repeating what they just said but in a different language because it's funny.

She's pretty good at pantomime, too.

The dubbers decide that the pool has begun to be filled in before they are done with it! They are knee deep!

Giggle.

She makes her babble increasingly frantic, gestures wider.

The dubbers have her panicking about drowning! The other party is dubbed to ask doesn't she know how to swim?