"I guess that's worse but it's less..... I dunno, icky?

"I wanna learn to make paper."

"Not a bad thing to know about! It’s one of those long processes where you let things wait for a long time, but it’s not that complicated."

"Can you teach me?"

"Mmm... not really, we should get someone else to. It's a good thing to know how to do, though."

"Who can teach me? I want to start right now."

"I sort of know how but I think... I know someone better but it might take a couple of days for it to be a good time. I can make it happen, though."

"Would I be better at making paper if I wait a couple of days and don't start learning from you first?"

"No, but that way I won't end up putting off other things I need to do, and we won't waste any papyrus if I make mistakes, and anyway I don't really have everything set up to make paper so it wouldn't be as much faster as it sounds. I can talk about it right now if that helps."

"Yes please!"

He knows things about paper-making and can say them.

She has bits of paper on her and squints at them while she listens.

Eventually there is a papermaking lesson.

Zizu attends to her papermaking lesson with great concentration as though she will save the world by making paper with maximum efficiency.

Mile introduces her to a friendly old man and a couple of women who can have her shadow them while they harvest papyrus and cut it up; the green peels are for weaving other things, and the pulp can be cut and soaked (they're just going to leave it like that for a while but they were, also, already in the process of making paper and have some further along) and pressed dry and woven into paper and pressed some more.

There are more steps after that but these people do not happen to have any paper in the precise state of doneness necessary to show Zizu the rest of the steps right now. She can come back in a few days to see how they finish up.

Is it hard to grow papyrus? Will any grow right near where she lives so she could make her own?

It likes to be very very wet and will want to be kept in a pot that can be kept adequately wet, which will then be more vulnerable to cold than an entire river and which she will need to bring in for the winter.

That sounds doable, though she will not be able to fit all that much of it in the house.

Also, Mile points out, sometimes the family stays up in the town of Leopard Hill, and it might make sense to take her there, at which point it will be the servants taking care of her papyrus.

"Are they already busy with enough stuff that they couldn't also grow the papyrus?"

"They could grow some. Just take it into account and ask it of them on purpose, not by accident."

Nod nod.