"Big Rice Bucket Restaurant specialty: boiled pelican eggs!"
"Today, I'm challenging the Pelican Captain! The stakes are the right to eat eggs for the next year! Wakakaka, I'm going to eat the Pelican Captain's eggs! Wakakaka! Waka!"
Pretending to be a water ghost, Old Zhang clambered onto the deck, dripping wet, then lunged at her with bared teeth and began wrestling with the Pelican Captain.
"Squawk, squawk!"
Amid laughter and curses, the little boat gradually drew away from the Yellow Sand World's coastline.
The all-enveloping sandstorm seemed to be seeing these uninvited guests off. Or perhaps, one day, these uninvited guests would return, bringing even more uninvited guests... Who could predict the future?
(I never thought we'd come away from this world empty-handed.)
(Hmm... not entirely empty-handed. Life experience is a gain, too.)
Teacher Little White yawned as it lay on the sun deck. It had failed in its challenge against the lake, but felt that these years had been fulfilling. Living independently really had helped it improve a great deal.
Little White watched the captain and the cook fight, bored. It had a feeling that this time, they might reach their destination safely.
Perhaps, probably, there would be no more unexpected complications?
So much really had happened along the way, so many memories, tears and laughter, laughter and tears.
But this was only the midpoint of their journey, not its end.
What was Earth like? What were humans like? What tasty things were there to eat?
Could it carry Human Civilization on its back?
Little White could not help looking forward to it.
Only thirty years remained of the journey. Looking back, the voyage resembled the three stages of life: in youth, mountains were mountains and water was water; in middle age, mountains were not mountains, nor