"Oh! I can make shoes, and shelves. People sing, and … do a fabric thing with a hook instead of pointy things … and pick fruits without breaking them? Do machines do those better here?"

"Wow, I didn't even think about singing as something that people do, I'm just too used to listening to recordings I guess? And we have trees that drop ripe fruit onto the ground now, and machines can do a perfectly fine job of shoveling fruits off the ground. They're not really better, it's just kind of a waste of time not to use the machines."

That sounds like the wrong way to farm fruit but he's not an expert, so he'll try changing the subject. "Do you have a recording you like?"

"Yes, I have many!" She rapidly reaches into the waistband of her skirt, getting a phone and quickly tapping it until an incredibly patriotic song with lots of trumpets begins playing through well-hidden speakers. There's a singer singing in a mysterious language that sounds vaguely Russian and extremely patriotic.

It's a language he doesn't know, he's doomed–

It's fine. Nobody expects him to be spell-competent in it. He'll … try to tap his fingers quietly on his leg to the beat, that's a non-disruptive way of demonstrating that he's listening.

It isn't a bad song.

"Cool, isn't it? Anyway, I bet that there are people that want to talk to you about your world, and that they'll ask much more fun questions. My mom will probably explain how all that stuff works to you, though. Once it's time to begin on that."

"Okay. Do you want to talk to me more, or no?"

"Well, I was going to ask what you do to play and have fun!"

"I have been very very busy. So not much. I like to draw."

"Huh. Do you like climbing in trees and on playgrounds? There's one not too far from here! You'd be a fun friend to play with!"

"I don't know, but I'd like to find out!"

Her mom then walks in. "Well, I'm pretty sure I won't be able have any of the people who want to pay to talk to you here until, at the very least, 3 hours from now. Candace, go have fun in the park with the alien man. It's important to stay in shape and have fun."

"Yay!" Candace is full of excitement, taking the elevator down and running off to a playground, tucked away between some buildings another few blocks away from the skyscraper apartment.

It's a playground! He hasn't had time to play on one of those since way before he went to the Scholomance. He'll go for the swingset.

Candace runs towards a kind of plastic tree, designed to be fun and easy to climb. It's not long before she reaches the top, maybe 15 feet off the ground, and sits down looking at Ibrahim, letting her legs dangle off the side of the artificial branch. "Bet you won't be able to climb as fast as me!"

"I've never climbed it before! No bet."

But sure, he'll give it a shot.

The various handholds and nooks and crannies don't make it too difficult to reach up to Candace. She then sneaks her way past Ibrahim, landing on the ground and rolling away from the tree, as she takes her turn on the swings. She chooses to jump off the swing, again rolling carefully to minimize any strain on her joints. She's full of energy after landing.

Good for her.

He wishes he could have been doing this five years ago. He would have enjoyed it properly then.

He'll climb down more carefully and go back to the swings again.

Candace has fun making her way up and down one of the playground's slides, before deciding to climb upside down on a net that hangs a fair bit off the ground between two different parts of the playground.

That'd maybe be neat if he wasn't wearing his backpack. He'll go explore the fake tree in a less hurried way.

The plastic of the fake tree feels very nice when Ibrahim grabs the strategic handholds; the tree itself is colored a very dark shade of blue. There are many paths for Ibrahim to take all around the tree, none of them particularly tough. The fake tree doesn't reach too far into the ground; there's no need to worry about falling off, especially onto the soft padding at the base of the tree.

And how's the view from the top?

It give a nice view of the swings, the slides, the seesaw, the playhouse, and the many toys on the playground. It's not tall enough to quite let Ibrahim look properly down, but it almost works as a kind of map for seeing all the different parts of the playground. A few other kids have also shown up; Candace is also playing with them, climbing around the playhouse and almost crashing into each other on the slide, or pushing each other on the swings.

Is there anyone his age or is it all little kids?

They're all 5-12, with a few of the older kids explaining science and history to the younger kids.