Petal is SO intrigued by the smallbig and will happily watch Ari smallbig all the things. Eventually, in fact, she grabs it herself and starts flying around the room inspecting objects at random.

(It turns out, meanwhile, that all the harvested objects appear to be ordinary objects of their kinds... but the merged objects, those fancified petals, don't look quite like any real petal Ari has ever heard of. They look like someone took the original petals as inspiration and built a Fancier Version from scratch. And yet, under the scrutinizing eye of the smallbig, they do appear to have living structure just like real petals.)

Awwwww, a little explorer!

Has Petal shed any fur into her bed-box? 

She has not! Nor has she made outputs of any other kind. A very tidy creature.

Smallbig the dandelion head in resin! Smallbig the sunflower head! Smallbig Plasma's head! Smallbig Ari's head! Smallbig this peanut! Smallbig that bookshelf! Smallbig ALL the things!

Would she like to try out the microscope? It's like a smallbig but even more so! She has to be gentle with it and probably shouldn't try to pick it up--it's bigger than Petal is and much heavier--but Ari can put things under it.

"Smallsmallsmallbig!" she says excitedly. She would LOVE to look at things under the smallsmallsmallbig.

Awwwwww.

At some point Ari needs to screw her courage to the sticking-place and take Petal outside. It's just so hard to be sure she won't zoom off into the distance and never be seen again and possibly get eaten by a hawk. Most babies have a lot more time to establish patterns of behavior before they become able to exit stage up. At least it seems pretty likely that Petal will come back inside for food or naps.

"Petal, do you want to go outside and see more things?" She points illustratively at the window.

"Outside?"

She flies over to the window.

"More things!" she says, gazing wide-eyed out at the world. "More more more things!! More things yes!"

"This way!" Ari says, opening the hallway door. The courtyard has more stuff than the balcony and is slightly less tempting to fly away from.

Petal follows Ari by floating slightly above and to the right of her right shoulder.

They pass a kid of maybe fourteen halfway down the stairs.

"Woah, what's that?"

"Recursively nonpublic."

"Garbage. I mean, uh, I'm super curious and frustrated."

"I've heard swearing before, kiddo."

"All my coworkers cuss and I'm trying not to get in the habit. Good skill with your secret stuff."

"Very sensible of you. Goodbye?"

"Goodbye."

They get down the stairs and into the air shaft at the center of the building. It has a red maple tree (currently green), some planters of flowers, and the abandoned chalk drawings of the building's small children.

"Recursively nonpublic!" says Petal. Quite possibly while the kid is still in earshot.

The kids stares back, then shakes his head and moves on.

Ari starts naming the things in the courtyard, including using the flowers to explain what it means for something to be a subtype of something else.

This is so interesting! Also Petal harvests the maple tree and puts the resulting seed on top of Ari's head.

Ari smiles and says, "That might fall off," but makes no attempt to remove it. Instead she goes into explaining the concept behind "might," using the example of a pebble that she might throw into one of the planters but might miss.

After the vocabulary has been sufficiently explained, Petal echoes, "Might fall off!" and retrieves the seed, holding it telekinetically next to her body in what seems to be her favourite way to carry objects.

Ari should sew Petal a tiny shoulder bag. And line it with tinfoil so seeds can't get stuck in it. It would be both practical and adorable.

More language! More questions about what Petal could make! Digression into the difference between"might" and "can"!

That's a pretty fine distinction and she has trouble picking it up but she gives it her best effort.

It's okay if she doesn't super get it; it's a tricky question. Could she make any parts of this plant? Could she make any parts of that plant? Could she make one of this wood chip? Could she make one of that rock?

Petal scrunches up her tiny face in an expression of deep concentration, then floats up with her maple seed to the tree she got it from.

"Petal make seed," she says. "Make seed... tree. Make tree no; make seed! Make...? Make no? Tree?? Make-no tree??"

"You can make the seed that will grow into a plant but can't make grown-up plants?"

"Noooo," she says. "Make-no tree." She goes up to the tree and gently rustles it in a visibly exaggerated imitation of the way she interacts with things when she's harvesting from them. "Make-no tree, make tree seed." She goes up to a small bush and rustles it next. "Make-no plant, make plant seed." A different plant, rustle rustle. "Make-no flower, make flower seed. What's-that?? What's-that make-no??"

"Things you didn't make? Hmm . . ." Normal? Regular? Alive? "Natural?"

"Noooo..."

Think think think.

Okay, how about...

She deposits the seed on the floor. "Put seed. What's-that? Put."

She picks it up, goes to the tree, rustles the tree, carries the seed away from it. "Make seed. What's-that? Make."

She floats up to Ari and peers dramatically at her with lots of exaggerated eye movements. "Look Ari. What's-that? Look."

An exaggerated nibble from a leaf. "Eat plant. What's-that? Eat."

She picks up the seed again, goes to the tree, rustles demonstratively, produces the seed once again. "Make-no tree?? Natural tree?? Eat tree?? Sleep tree?? Whurbl tree??? What's-that??"

"Ohhhh! Make, eat, put, sleep, are verbs. Petal, tree, leaf, seed are nouns."

"Verbs! Petal want verb! Petal make seed tree, verb seed make. Petal make seed tree, verb tree what's-that??"