Bonny’s Revenge hovered just above the surface of Mars. My hiding place, behind the bright glare of the dream’s twin suns, was still good for seeing what Dragon Father and Dragon Little were doing on Mars just as well as what they were doing on the surface of Earth’s ocean. 

The pirate ship hovered just above the reddish, cracked desert which was Mars’ surface. 

“Okay, look at this!” Dragon Father ran to the side. It was not often that he was excited to teach his daughter new things. He spent most of their time together going on adventure with her. “We saw the planet from above and it was round. But now it looks completely straight!” 

Dragon Little was still surly from the day in which she did not do anything she wanted. “A-haaaaa.” 

“Do you see that it’s straight here?” 

“A-ha.”

“It was round just a second ago when we looked at it from space!” 

“A-ha.” 

“So Mars isn’t really straight. It just looks like it. Just like our oceans.”

Dragon Little shook her head. “You don’t know anything. It’s round from space and straight here.”

Dragon Father’s face blanched. “That’s a crazy thing to say. Seriously, I have to teach you more science. It looks straight because.it’s huge.”

Dragon Little shrugged. “You don’t know anything.”

Dragon Father bent down to look straight into her eyes. “I’m your father and that was a rude thing to say. You can’t talk to me like that.”

“You. Don’t. Know. Anything.” She said slowly. ”Mars is straight. The ocean is straight.”

“You. Will not. Talk to me. Like that.”

“You. Will not. Teach me something. That’s not true.” She chided him. 

Dragon Father laughed. “You’re awesome!” I am sure he was as impressed as I that she was only four and a half years old and she stood up to him with as much strength as he has shown to her. “It’s the truth you want, it’s the truth you’ll get. Let’s be scientists and test our theories, okay?” 

“I don’t want to be a crazy scientist!”

“No, no. Not a crazy scientist,” for they have encountered a few of those as villains, “just a scientist. That means… I mean… I mean, let’s just test to see who’s right, okay?”

She nodded, excited this time. “Okay.”

They picked a spot Dragon Father said they would return to, and headed south, towards the south pole. 

Dragon Father hoped to return to the same spot. I do not know how it works on his waking world, but it would not turn out as he expected. Dragon Little knew the dream better than he did. The planets were indeed round from space and straight and endless when you were on them. Dragon Father would not find out that Mars ist round. But he would find something else. I will tell you more on that tomorrow. 

—Told by The Red Dragon