"Foster is - you're living here, Evelyn is taking care of you like a mom, but you weren't born here and you probably won't live here forever." Social Services is presumably looking for her parents, but if all Deskyl is giving them to go on is claiming to be from another world, that doesn't sound very promising. "I'm Mom's only kid who was born here, but we've had kids in and out since I was tiny, it's Mom's job to - well, look after children who don't have parents of their own, or whose parents aren't able to take care of them."

Deskyl makes a face at 'like a mom' and doesn't particularly stop making it through the rest of the explanation, and spends a couple seconds thinking about it afterward.

"Echitov teach, other place, not kid house, kid only mom, dad, brother, sister. That, here? Persons say, kid, not mom, not dad, go other mom? Dunno I want. -Evelyn good," she clarifies, "Evelyn good Evelyn not do mom."

Jeremy did not incredibly follow all of that, but it's not like it's the first time a kid in care has made faces about Evelyn being described as a surrogate parent figure. 

"Evelyn might not do the things that your mom and dad did where you're from," he allows. "But, yes, the way it works here is that if someone is a minor - if they're not grown up, here we say people are grownups when they're eighteen - then they need to live with someone who is grown up and can - make them food and take them to school and things. That's what Evelyn does." 

"Mm. You not have house robot, want person work food, I not do," she holds up a hand indicatively, letting it dangle uselessly from her wrist. "Want person work food different want mom, but... person not see kid house, person not see kid okay no mom." She shrugs, and huffs in mild frustration.

Jeremy is kind of struggling to follow. "You...lived in a house with only kids before, not the one where your mom and dad were, and you looked after yourself? Or I suppose maybe the robots looked after you." 

"Kid house not have moms, not have dads. Kid house have robots, robots do work, robots do Evelyn things. Moms and dads go kid house small times, no times, kids okay."

Nod. "Those must have been some very trustworthy robots! ...Well, I suppose it sounds like Evelyn is acting like a childcare robot to you, then, and not like your parents did. We don't have robots that trustworthy here so children normally live with their moms and dads, and their parents do the things like cooking and cleaning and driving them places. Not to mention paying for the house." 

"Trustworthy?"

"...Mostly good enough at things, I guess. Kids need lots of things to be safe, and we don't have robots here that are smart enough to make sure of that. We don't even have robots that can drive cars safely, and I think lots of taking care of kids is harder than that." 

"Dunno words. Echitov robots - persons do thing, robots do thing, not all thing, but small not all thing."

"It's 'people' for more than one person, not persons," Jeremy says absently. "Robots were - almost as smart as people, could do almost all the people things but not quite all?" 

"Dunno word smart, dunno word almost. Almost..." she holds her hand out palm down and gestures to it, "all," then folds her thumb under, "almost all? Robots do almost all people things, yes."

"'Almost' is like - yeah, if you had a cup," he mimes one with hands, "and it was full up to here, it would be almost full, and you could put more water and then it'd be all the way full. Smart is -" he taps his head, "can think, can read books, can write and do math and things. Computers are a bit like being smart, but not almost as much as people. Your robots are almost as smart as people?" 

"Robots smart as people, not almost! Different and people, different smart. Is - person say, I want for me, robot not say. Person want many things, robot have work, want work thing, not other thing. Smart work thing, maybe not smart other thing. Kid house robots do teacher work, smart many things. Farm robots smart farm, do farm smart as person, not smart other thing."

"Wow! Those are very advanced robots. We don't have robots that can do farming as well as a person, at all, there are machines that can do plowing or water fields but people have to run them." He frowns. "...Are they people? I think if someone is as smart as a person they're - kind of a person - even if it's different smart. Be kind of creepy and dystopian if they were people who were just, like, programmed to be slaves." 

"Robots say robots not people. I say, okay, robots happy? Robot say, robot robot, robot not person, robot not not happy. Robot say, persons have robots good, robots do work, persons happy. No robots, persons do work, persons not want do work, no good."

...Nod. "Maybe they're programmed to say that. I guess it could also be true, maybe something can be as smart as a person and still not have feelings like a person, if it's made that way on purpose? And it'd be pretty horrible to give your slaves feelings and then program them to lie about it."

He looks thoughtfully at Deskyl. "It was good of you to ask them if they were happy."  

"Beh. Is... dunno word... sunset thing, robots okay."

"...Sunset thing?" Jeremy does not follow. 

"Is... hm..." she gets a worksheet out of her pocket to refer to. "Big feelings thing," she concludes, having found the relevant word. "Not happy, not sad, big."

"...Mmm. Yeah." Jeremy is not sure he exactly gets it but he gets something, he thinks. That it's a big deal to her, and - there is something admirable about that. 

He smiles at her. "You like watching the sunset?" 

"Yeah, sunset good. Big feelings, happy. Here sunset like Echitov, good."

Awwwwwwwww. "Yeah. Sunsets are really nice. ...Especially over beaches. Have you ever been to the ocean?" - she might not even know the word. He'll pull up "ocean sunset" on Google Images. 

"Ooh." She's a bit enraptured, for a minute.

"Echitov have video other places sunsets, two sun, big sun, different place things, all good."

"Two suns! Wow. ...I think there's a TV show that has videos of that, but they're - pretend, made with computer animation, we don't have actual videos of other worlds."

Proooobably neither does 'Echitov' but Jeremy is rolling with this conversation by not really assessing that question right now. He can try to find a sci-fi show clip for Deskyl. The CGI is pretty good.