And lastly Bright has civics! They are doing a unit on public health. The teacher says that a lot of it won't apply to Bright since she probably can't get Amentan diseases and would stump Amentan doctors, but some of it might be relevant in case she can transmit anything.

She pays close attention then!

Some important factors in public health are custodians, well maintained plumbing, quarantine and well-sealed transportation to and from doctors for sick people, rules about not coming to school or work when sick, and everybody getting their vaccines! It's especially important that all these things are free, because people can make really bad choices when there are too many things they need to spend money on and can't do without and some of those things are reducing risk and other things are more obviously important. So Voa taxes everyone, and the tax money makes sure nobody is ever making a choice like that about getting a vaccine or taking an enclosed car to the hospital instead of the train which would be cheaper than an enclosed car normally.

(Amentans take sickness really seriously, huh...)

It is a CRIME to expose people to disease knowingly, with some commonsense exceptions like "you are still allowed to live in your house even if you share the house with other people and you have a cold".

How serious a crime, and how serious a disease?

Depends on the disease and whether you had reasonable alternatives - you might get off with a warning if you are the least sick person in your house and your internet is out and you go to the corner store with a mask and gloves on to buy medicine and groceries, but you will be in big trouble if you show up to your food service job with an intestinal problem because you were saving up for a video game. Because of measures like this, the rate of infectious disease has gone way down over time! Behold this impressive graph.

Huuuuuuuuuuuh.

This segment isn't super interesting, so her attention drifts some and she doesn't ask a ton of questions, but she still pays enough attention to get the other important points.

The last quarter or so of class is a discussion about how to manage things like anxiety about falling behind in class if you're sick and have to miss school.

She pays attention but privately thinks she doesn't actually care enough about school to have that anxiety.

And then school is over!

On the next school skip day, how would you two feel about meeting some representatives from other governments, demonstrating you exist, etc.?

Combing and Bright are both okay with that. (Bright's email contains exclamation points; Combing's agreement seems far more reserved.)

Ude sets up meetings with some ambassadors in the morning and some other ambassadors in the afternoon.

They'll be there, then, dressed appropriately.

Bright would like to know if this should be Amentan-appropriate or if they should be obviously aliens!

Ude says the ambassadors will want to see the shapeshifting, and that can include their clothes! It might be nice to show up in formal Amentan clothes at first, though, and here is a guideline for how to do that.

They'll do that, then! (Bright's clothes are perhaps a bit more saturated in color than is standard.)

A truck takes them to a meeting room where they can greet the ambassadors from five countries, including Tapa!

Combing takes the lead here - her child is very gregarious, but still a child.

Formal introductions time! (Bright insists on giving at least the medium-form name when introducing themselves, though not the long name because that would take forever.)

All the ambassadors introduce themselves too, and the ones who use job names explain those. The ambassador from Tapa asks if they can see a demonstration of the alien shapeshifting abilities in person.

Sure. Combing can have tentacles, then.

Bright is now a fox!

Ambassadors squint at them. The ambassador from Cene asks if he can shake a tentacle.

Sure.