“You don’t look like a woman,” Hannah said.

“I look like a woman where I come from,” Sorvalh said. “We look different, is all.”

“You’re very good with children,” the woman said, noting Sorvalh’s responses and tone.

“I spend my days dealing with human diplomats,” Sorvalh said. “Children and diplomats can be remarkably similar.”

“Would you mind?” the woman said, gesturing to her main gaggle of children. “I know some of the other kids would love to meet an alien—is it all right to call you an alien?”

“It’s what I am,” Sorvalh said. “From your point of view.”

“I just never know if it’s a slur or something,” the woman said.

“It’s not, or at least I don’t think it is,” Sorvalh said. “And yes, you may bring the other children over if you like. I’m happy to be an educational experience for them.”

“Oh, okay, great,” the woman said, and then grabbed Hannah by the shoulders. “You stay here, honey. I’ll be back.” She rushed off to get the other children.

“She seems nice,” Sorvalh said to Hannah.

“That’s Mrs. Everston,” Hannah said. “Her perfume makes me sneeze.”

“Does it,” Sorvalh said.

“It makes her smell like my grandmother,” Hannah said.

“And do you like how your grandmother smells?” Sorvalh asked.

“Not really,” Hannah admitted.

“Well,” Sorvalh said. “I promise not to tell either your grandmother or Mrs. Everston.”

“Thank you,” said Hannah, gravely.

Presently Sorvalh found herself surrounded by a gaggle of small children, who looked up at her expectantly. Sorvalh glanced over at Mrs. Everston, who also looked at her expectantly. Apparently it was all on Sorvalh now. She suppressed an inner sigh and then smiled at the children.

Some of them gasped.

“That was a smile,” Sorvalh said, quickly.

“I don’t think so,” said one of the children.

“I promise you it was,” Sorvalh said. “Hello, children. I am Hafte Sorvalh. Have any of you ever spoken to an alien before?” There were head shakes all around, signifying “no.” “Well, then, here’s your chance,” Sorvalh said. “Ask me anything you want to know.”

“What are you?” asked one of the children, a boy.

“I am a Lalan,” Sorvalh said. “From a planet called Lalah.”

“No, I mean are you like a lizard or an amphibian?” the boy asked.

“I suppose that to you I might look a little like a reptile,” Sorvalh said. “But I’m not really like one at all. I am more like you than I am like a lizard, but I admit I’m mostly not like either. It’s better to think of me as my own thing: a Lalan.”

“Do you eat people?” asked another boy.

“I eat churros,” Sorvalh said, holding up her now-neglected treat. “So unless churros are made of people, no.”

“You can’t eat churros all the time,” this new boy pointed out.

“Actually, if I wanted to I could,” Sorvalh said, taking the opposite position of her earlier comment to Tony. “It’s one of the perks of being a grown-up.”

The children seemed to pause to consider this.

“However, I don’t,” Sorvalh said. “When I am on Earth, I usually eat your fruits and vegetables. I particularly like sweet potatoes and tangerines. I only rarely eat your meats. They disagree with me. And I don’t eat people, because I wouldn’t want people to eat me.”

“Are you married?” asked another child.

“My people don’t get married,” Sorvalh said.

“Are you living in sin?” asked the same child. “Like the way my mother says my Aunt Linda is?”

“I don’t know about your mother or your Aunt Linda,” Sorvalh said. “And I’m not sure what ‘living in sin’ means here. My people don’t marry because that’s just not how we do things. The best way to describe it is that we have lots of friends and sometimes as friends we have children together.”

“Like my Aunt Linda,” the child said.

“Perhaps,” Sorvalh said, diplomatically as possible.

“Are you pregnant now?” asked another child.

“I’m too old for that now,” Sorvalh said. “And we don’t get pregnant anyway. We lay eggs.”

“You’re a chicken!” said the first boy, and there was laughter to this.

“Probably not a chicken,” Sorvalh said. “But yes, like your birds we lay eggs. We tend to do this all at the same time, and then the community cares for them all at once.”

“How many eggs have you laid?” asked the latest child.

“It’s a difficult question to answer,” Sorvalh said, guessing that Mrs. Everston probably wouldn’t want her to go into great detail about Lalan reproductive matters; humans were known to be twitchy about such things. “It’s probably best to say that I had four children who lived to adulthood, and two of them now have had children of their own.”

“How do you speak our language?” asked a girl, close to Sorvalh.

“I practice it,” Sorvalh said. “Just like anyone does. I’m good with languages, though, and I study yours every night. And when I go to other countries, I use this.” She held up her PDA. “It translates for me so I can speak to other humans and they to me.”

“Do you play basketball?” asked another child.

“I don’t think it would be much of a challenge for someone of my height,” Sorvalh said.

“How do you get into rooms?” asked a different child.

“Very carefully,” Sorvalh said.

“Have you met the president?” asked a different little girl.

“Yes, once,” Sorvalh said, recalling the event. “I liked visiting the president because I can stand up easily in the Oval Office. It has high ceilings.”

“Do you poop?” asked a boy.

“Brian Winters,” Mrs. Everston said, severely.

“It’s a valid question!” the boy said, protesting. He was apparently the sort of eight-year-old boy for whom it made sense to have the phrase “it’s a valid question” in his repertoire. Mrs. Everston said something else to Brian while Sorvalh quickly looked up the definition of “poop” on her PDA.

“I apologize for that,” Mrs. Everston said.

“Not at all,” Sorvalh said, smoothly. “It’s not the worst question I’ve ever been asked. And to answer your question, Brian, no, I don’t poop. At least not like you do. I do excrete waste from time to time, and when I do, it’s otherwise very much like going to the bathroom is for you. Next question.”

“Do you know any other aliens?” asked another girl.

“Whole planets’ worth,” Sorvalh said. “I have personally met people from four hundred different races of intelligent beings. Some of them are as small as that,” she pointed to a squirrel running frantically toward a tree, “and some of them are so large that they make me look tiny.”

“Do theypoop?”

“Brian Winters,” Sorvalh said, severely. “That is nota valid question.” Brian Winters, unused to being reprimanded by a ten-foot alien, shut up.

“Will more aliens come here?” asked a boy.

“I don’t know,” Sorvalh said. “More have been coming recently, because my government, which is known as the Conclave, has been talking to the governments here on Earth. But I think a lot will have to happen before they are so common that you don’t notice them anymore when you walk down the Mall.”

“Are we going to have a war?” asked Hannah.

Sorvalh turned her head to look at Hannah directly. “Why do you ask, Hannah?” she said, after a minute.

“My dad said to my mom that he thinks there’s going to be a war,” Hannah said. “He said that it’s going to be the humans against everyone else and that everyone else wants a war to get rid of all of us. You’ll fight us and then when we’re gone you’ll live where we live and no one will know we were here.”

“‘A monster fights and wrecks things,’” Sorvalh said. She looked out at the children and saw them quiet, waiting for her answer, the two adults standing silently as well, patient.

“I can’t say there will never be a war,” she said. “We can’t make promises like that. What I can say is that I am a diplomat. What I do is talk to people so we don’t have to fight them. That’s why I’m here. To talk and to listen and to find a way all of us can live together so that we don’t fight, and we’re not scared of each other.” She reached out and gently touched Hannah on the cheek. “It’s my job to make sure that none of us has to see the other as a monster. Do you understand what I mean, Hannah?”