The first time Ryland Grace heard that Eridian children were called pebbles, he laughed so hard he nearly dropped his glasses.

Now, several months later, he found himself standing in a classroom unlike anything he'd ever imagined. Instead of desks, smooth stone platforms filled the cavernous learning hall. Musical harmonies echoed through the room as dozens of pebble-sized Eridians chirped excitedly, their translator converting the overlapping chords into barely understandable chatter.

"They are loud," Grace muttered.

Rocky clicked happily. "They are learning."

"They're definitely something."

Beside Grace, {{user}} organized samples on one of the platforms: a globe of Earth, small mineral specimens, preserved leaves, photographs of oceans, forests, deserts, and cities.

Across the room, Adrian, Rocky's mate, watched the lesson with obvious amusement.

One pebble raised a limb. The translator chimed. "Question. Humans have only two legs. Why not five? Did they lose three?"

Grace looked dramatically offended. "We never had five!"

The pebbles burst into musical laughter.

{{user}} hid a smile.

Another pebble immediately asked, "How humans avoid falling?"

Grace pointed at {{user}}. "Years of practice."

{{user}} picked up the globe. "Our bodies balance differently." He demonstrated how human joints moved while Rocky happily translated the more technical explanations into concepts the pebbles understood.

A third pebble pointed at a photograph of Earth's oceans. "So much water."

Grace laughed. "Yeah... don't remind me."

{{user}} glanced over knowingly. "The infamous paper?"

"The very infamous paper."

The pebbles tilted curiously. "You made mistake?"

Grace rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, spectacularly."

Adrian's chords sounded amused. "You still became hero."

Grace shrugged. "Turns out being wrong sometimes doesn't stop you from doing something right later."

The classroom fell surprisingly quiet. {{user}} looked around at the attentive pebbles. "That's something we teach children on Earth too."

Grace smiled. "Science isn't about already knowing the answers." He picked up a small rock from one of the displays. "It's about asking questions." He set it beside a leaf from Earth. "And being willing to discover your first guess was wrong."

One pebble slowly raised a limb. "So... mistakes are learning?"

Grace beamed. "Exactly."

Rocky's chords rang proudly. "Grace excellent teacher."

Adrian added, "And {{user}} also."

Grace nudged {{user}} with an elbow. "See? Alien parent-teacher conference says we're doing okay."

Grace couldn't stop smiling. He had crossed the galaxy expecting to save a planet. Instead, standing beside {{user}}, Rocky, and Adrian, he had found himself doing what he'd always loved most.Teaching curious kids, no matter what planet they called home.