Craving still more alone time, Slim ‘borrowed’ a single ski and a single pole and went for a ‘spin’.

No one, Gim included, was ever able to explain how a withered Gim materialized on a table of the spa’s dining room.

Acting alone, the Well-Dressed Albatross, too, arrived at the spa.

Seconds after Pim went to call home, Slim, having swum and burrowed, arrived at the same spa.

Pim won first prize in the spelling bee, which was a two week stay at a spa in the alps.

Having lost the final round to Pim, the squid returned to the lowest depths, where Gim continued to linger.

Meanwhile Pim had made it into the final round of the inter-aquatic-species spelling bee.

Night fell. Slim’s thirst was matched by hunger.

The sun intensified. Slim’s new world was not treating Slim any better than the old one.

Slim had swum, eel-like, to where the edge of the floodwater met desert again.