He'll try to go listen in on the lectures.

"So, the simplest way to explain a nuclear reactor is that it has fuel, something to make the reaction go faster, and something that it boils to move around. Just putting a big enough pile of super-expensive uranium together makes a reaction begin, but once you put it into some heavy water, it means that a much smaller amount of uranium makes a much stronger reaction. It's the thing that makes the reaction go faster, that I mentioned. The easiest thing to boil would be water; but water isn't quite perfect for this, in large part because it boils too easily. Reactors today, compared to those of old, are almost boring in how simple they are. They use a special metal alloy, that's a perfect mixture of various parts, that means that you can just stuff super-simple uranium into it, and it works both to make the reaction go faster and as replacing the water as the thing boiled. And the boiling off of the alloy works to slow down the reaction, meaning that it's impossible for a reactor to just get going faster and faster and faster."

"The almost-boringly-simple solution is the key thing to understand about engineering: it should be boringly simple and obvious. 'A clever solution is an idiot's solution', as the slogan says. Electrostatic headphones used to be patented, meaning that the far less elegant kind had to be used instead. But when they finally came off patent, doing things in the sensible and correct way finally became an option. It used to be like this dystopian novel where someone patented 'using steam pressure to convert thermal energy into mechanical', and so people were condemned to pre-industrial poverty for centuries, because the patent holder was an idiot who made it illegal for anyone to do better than him. And things went from bad to worse, when another patent became introduced: using the extract of one rare plant grown in distant corners of the world, that had proved itself a cure for a raging pandemic. Its inventor wasn't a very useful botanist, and condemned the world to go without it until he'd be able to finally get his greenhouse working, decades later."

Yeah he's missing a lot of these words but it sure sounds interesting.

The kids explaining things totally ignore Ibrahim. In fact, they don't seem to care much about the kids they're talking to, either.

In that case he's going to spend the rest of his time at the park taking notes with as much paper as he wants, because he is in the outside world and paper is cheap. (He startles when people get near him from angles he wasn't primarily watching, but they keep not being hostile, so he keeps going back to taking notes.)

Eventually, Candace walks up to Ibrahim. "My mom called and told me that she's ready for you to start talking about your past in interviews and things, so she wants you to get back to her apartment. I hope you'll find the interviews fun, too."

"Okay."

And he'll head back to the apartment. Hopefully he can manage to be interesting without causing all these rather nice people too many problems. Bella and Lucy had mundie dads, right, Bella said something about her dad turning mals into moose. But you can't unring a bell and he doesn't know where the safety margins are and these people seem more willing to believe in weird things than the ones he remembers from home.

The woman waits for Ibrahim outside the apartment, leading him in. There's a projector, projecting a life-size version of a man dressed in something that seems like a fusion between skinny jeans and dress pants. He waves at Ibrahim.

"Hi! I'm professor Morley. I was told that you came from an entirely different dimension, with a culture of your own! Nice to meet you! Now, before any of the proper questions, is there any question that you'd be completely unwilling to answer?"

Well, let's hope this isn't a trap. "I am unwilling to answer a question about magic if everyone will hear my answer."

"Sure, sure! We respect your privacy! Now, there's one question we like to start with: what's a ordinary day like in your culture? Would you be able to break it down hour by hour?"

"Uh. Hmm. So. A day starts in the middle of the night and has 24 hours. An ordinary twelve-year-old boy would leave bed at 6 or 7. He might share a room with his brother, if he has one. He'd change from sleep clothes to day clothes, use the toilet, maybe use a thing for not smelling bad. He might eat at home – I can draw foods – or he might eat at school. He might clean his teeth. Then he'd go to school. His parents might drive him in a car, or he might walk or take a bus. If his parents don't have much money, he'd go early for food the school pays for. School starts around 8 and ends around 15. At school, he'd go from room to room for classes of around 30 people that are a bit less than an hour. He'd take classes like … mathematics, reading and writing, moving the body – stuff like moving fast or moving in water or playing a game, history, study of life or physics or such. And maybe a class he got to choose, sort of, like writing pictures. He'd also have a break for food around 12. He might eat food from home, or he might eat food from the school. The school sells food but also will offer very cheap food to children with parents who don't have much money. He'd have a break of a few minutes between each class to move between rooms. After that, he might do an activity at the school like a moving-around game, or go to a friend's house, or go home. The school would send him home with work to do, so his parents would tell him to do it at some point, but he might try to say he had no work, or otherwise ignore them. Probably at least one parent, usually the father, would be working and not home until 18, often both the father and the mother. For playing … he might watch moving pictures, he might play a game at a machine. He might help take care of his brother or sister if both his parents work. He'd probably eat food with his family sometime between 17 and 20, and go to bed … I think sometime between 20 and 23? Oh. And for bed he'd change into sleep clothes and maybe clean his teeth."

"Well, nothing too magical there. We also have 24 hours, although we usually start at 8 and end at 12. 30 pupils is a bit smaller than one of our classes, but not by much. And the classes sound the same too; you said there's a class about moving in water, around what age do you first tend to have diving classes?

Usually, kids don't eat at school because they've had so much for breakfast. And this cheap food for children to parents who don't have much money, couldn't they just charge everyone that same, low price, not just those with little money? Also, we're not sure exactly what kind of work that they'd send home to you. That thing about often have both parents working until 18. Shouldn't you have more than just two? We think that there are some cultural differences that you're kind of taking for granted, here."