"Right," says Queenie. "When is that?"

"Right at the end of the year.  But actually it's even more at the end of the year, because it's not October threect-seven, it's October fourct.  New Year's Eve."

Queenie blinks a few times. "Huh, my calendar must be a misprint, it puts New Year's Eve on December 31."

"Or there's two more months here for some reason.  Uh, but, I just lied to you about my birthday, which was safe in this context but you absolutely shouldn't do to someone who's going to be healing you with crystals, is my point."

"You did what about your birthday?"

"Lied.  When I said I was born on October threect-seven but actually it was a day later?"

"I don't think I know what threect-seven is."

"It's uh, thirty-one in decimal."

"So you were born on Halloween, that's fun!"

"Is that another name for New Year's Eve?"

"No, it's October thirty-first. November is after that, and then December."

"In the system I'm used to October thirty-two is the last day of the year."

"System you're used to... Is this the Chinese calendar or something?"

"I don't know whether I'm billions of years in the future or twenty-some thousand years in the future or on the bottom of the world or what, but - I think I teleported much farther than just to a different country.  I guess I'd call it the Roman calendar but I think that means a different thing to you than I'd mean it as."

"I would have told you Italy uses the same calendar we do."

"Yeah."

"So in our calendar is your birthday Halloween or New Year's Eve?"

". . . Huh.  I don't know whether I match up with anyone here.  Probably if you had the same solquinoxes as us you'd have noticed - but I guess the even folks could still be the same . . ."

"What's a solquinox?"

"Somebody born at the peak of a season.  They all have really forceful personalities but I guess the ones here might be kind of subtly forceful.  . . . Or if this is the bottom of the world maybe everything's kind of opposite, and - they're actually the most, uh, even-tempered?  Or something?"

"This is the northern hemisphere."

"Northern . . . . . . . . . . 'hemisphere'."

"Yeah. Because the Earth is a sphere. We're on the half closer to the north pole than the south pole."

"The Earth is flat."  - Ellie kind of instantly regrets saying this to the person kind enough to host her but here she is, now!

"Wow! I was not paying particularly close attention in school but that really surprises me to hear! I wonder why they make globes. I guess they're sort of fun to spin around."