"What? Oh, no. No, no, I just worked here today," she explained, gesturing out towards land again. "For passage."
She had no idea what she could teach really or how to even teach him, though. Would he understand her words for things? "I'm not going to spend a bunch of time teaching you out of the goodness of my heart, you know. You have some way to pay for lessons?" Perhaps she was asking a dangerous question considering she wanted to know what the merman's most treasured possessions consisted of.