[ It's probably best Pepa passes on commenting, lest Alberto reveal more about his childhood. He does notice her self-restraint after listening to his little story, though, and how his crabs and snails and turtle are smoothly glossed over. It gives a hint of that familiar gnawing worry that maybe what he just said didn't seem all that human... So he's just as eager as she is to push past it, too. ]

I didn't know there were whole stores for toys? I mean... How many kinds of toys are there? Is it just like— a ton animals like these, like at the big-dock-games? Or what?

[ He's envisioning the stands of carnival games on the pier with their walls lined with countless stuffed animals, crawling over ever usable inch of space like so many vines. But given that his father wasn't so cruel enough as to steal toys from human children (usually) and most human men aren't bartering their kids' toys in card games, Alberto really was never exposed to the wide array of types of toys on land. All he's ever known how to do was make his own fun, bound only by the limits of his imagination... and the depths of his boredom. Both are vast. ]