When Dragon Little asked Thank You the turtle if he wanted to go on adventure with her, I was skeptical. ‘Adventure’ only happens when Dragon Father dreams it. When he ist gone, as he was now, villains, planets, locations do not just appear out of nowhere. When her father ist gone, Dragon Little can only ‘play’ in the emptiness he leaves behind. 

But Dragon Little seemed confident. 

“You wait for me right here, okay, Thank You?” she patted his back. 

He nodded. 

“I’m going to bring something from the ship that’s going to help me go underwater. Okay? Don’t go away.” 

Thank You nodded again. 

Dragon Little climbed aboard the little grooves on the side of Bonny’s Revenge. She had climbed the ship this way many times by now. 

She went to the small life boat, which usually has no use. 

Dragon Little untied it, dragged it to the edge, and with great effort threw it into the water. 

The lifeboat landed next to Thank You, missing him by only a few centimeters and frightening him. 

“Look out below!” she yelled too late. 

She collected a few ropes, then jumped into the water again, and climbed on the lifeboat. 

“Just one second, Thank You. Just one second.” 

She held two ropes in her hands. She tied one to one hand and another to the other hand. 

“I’m making sure I can breathe underwater,” she said. “So you can show me anything you want.” 

Thank You nodded. 

The end of one rope she tied to one side of the boat and the end of the second rope she tied to the second end of the boat.  

She began to rock the boat. 

“When the boat is upside-down,” she told Thank You. “Go down and I’ll sit on you and grab you with my legs. Then we can really go down. Okay?” 

He nodded again. 

Dragon Little rocked the boat harder and harder. Her hands were tied to the edges of the boat. 

Then, when the boat rocked very hard, she leaned in that direction, and the boat flipped. 

I gasped. She was underneath the boat, tied to it. 

But in a split-second, I realized what she had done: She was underneath the boat in a big, boat-sized bubble of air. 

Thank You took in a breath of air and dove slowly. 

From my vantage point, he disappeared underneath the boat. 

Then the boat itself slowly sank into the water until it disappeared. 

And I understood now why she had tied the boat to herself. She did not have strength to hold an entire boat full of air under the water, but the boat was tied to her. It sank with her, as she clung to Thank You with her legs.

Even as I was worried for Dragon Little, thinking about all the things that could go wrong, I was so proud of her inventiveness. 

I already loved her, but every time she did something like this, I felt as if there was a slightly higher chance she will survive outside her father’s dream, survive even when she would be found by those who seek her.

Tomorrow I will tell you of their ‘adventure’ underwater. 

—Told by The Red Dragon