11. Ah-moe's Permenant Haircut

Now, we must realise that on a ship, resources are limited. Using too many lights at night without ample reason is not allowed. This is especially true for this rather old ship - in order to conserve energy, only the captain's cabin had a single light bulb. Hence, dinner is often served at 6pm, just before it gets dark, and the sailors retire for the night by about 7pm. Any later would mean trying not to stuff the food up your nose, walk into a door or something.

So, after being treated to a simple dinner by the sailors, the Hoo family retired for the night to each of their rooms just when it was getting dark. That was only about 7pm.

In the dark, unlit cabin of Ah-moe and Ah-mo...

"死Ah-moe! 我要出去玩! 我要去找Ah-mui 打架!"

"笨Ah-mo! 不可以 lah! 他们锁门 liao lah! 死Ah-mo叫我爸爸hor!"

"不管er! Jed... Harh? Jed... 我肚子饿 leh..."

"我也饿 hor! 不要吵lah! 死Ah-mo跟你妈妈一样... Oww!!!!"

And Ah-mo yanked out a whole chunk of hair out of Ah-moe and started chewing.

"Oei!!!! 死Ah-mo! 哪里可以这样 huh? 我打... Aiyah!!!!"

And another chunk of hair was jerked out of Ah-moe's head.

"Oei!!!! 你够 liao hor! 我... Oei!!!"

"Mmm... 好吃极了!"

"Aiyah!!!"

This "aiyah" wasn't screamed by Ah-moe anymore, but by Ah-mo as Ah-moe grabbed his son's hair in return, pulled it clean out and started munching.

"Eh! 真的好吃er.. 死Ah-mo头发也好吃er... Mmm... 非常好... Oei!!! "

"Mmm... 好吃极... Aiyah!!!"

.
.
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Echoes of "Aiyah" resonated throughout the ship in the still of the night...

In less than an hour, Ah-moe was left absolutely bald, and Ah-mo managed to escape with three strands of hair left. Neither of them realised that the hair of Plutonians is an effective herb for varying the rate of hair growth. It's a delicate process -- different amounts of hair consumed at one sitting brings about largely different results. And it could only work once.

For Ah-moe, the amount of hair consumed was just enough to stop all hair growth. Since he's completely bald now, he will now be bald for the rest of his life.

"死Ah-mo..."

"光头大笨和尚!! 哈哈..."

(Footnote: Plutonian hair bears a strong resemblance to compressed candy floss. It is clumpy, very easily detached from the scalp and strangely edible. Some people says it tastes like seaweed... Don't ask me, I haven't tried it before... And regarding the "monk" part -- apparently, Ah-mo did learn something from watching all the television programmes back on Pluto. )