23. Far Far Away

"好er! Ah-moo! 你先进去!" Ah-pui barked.

"Huh? But it's so dark! And so small! We can't go through it! What if there are monsters and ghosts inside... what if it's.. Hey!" Ah-moo stammered, before Ah-pui grabbed him by the shirt and threw him headfirst into the tunnel. Ah-mui, who was still admiring her clothes, was stuffed in next despite her protests.

"我来liao!" Ah-pui cried as she jumped in, her weight crushing the two who were stuck, driving them into the dark unknowns with Ah-moo screaming all the way.

Darkness... Down and down they slid... It was a long road down with many twists and turns marked by loud clangs of flesh against metal... Finally, light at the end of the tunnel... And very suddenly, darkness again... A loud thud...

"... khoor heew..." It was time for bed... Ah-pui and Ah-mui fell asleep promptly before hitting the bottom. They landed neatly on Ah-moo and rolled off him, without stirring from their slumber. Ah-moo sat there shivering, letting his imaginations run wild, being startled by every little sound around. It was after hours before he finally got hit by some disposed tranquiliser syringe from above, and fell into deep slumber.

The garbage truck hauled them in together with the trash at 6 am in the morning the next day. None of the garbagemen noticed the sleeping three amongst the huge pile of rubbish. So, loaded in the truck, the trio were transported away, to a place far... far... a...w...a...y...

(To be continued at Adventures of Ah-moo)

(Footnote: As you might infer, they do not have something like rubbish chutes in Pluto. Rubbish always went upwards, into space, where it would be gathered and atomised with nuclear rockets every month. Such similar tunnels were often magical portholes that were built for instant teleportation to far away places on Pluto. They were of course, much wider and more comfortable.)