AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter was partly inspired by Speedwell's Story in Tales from Watership Down. Spartina's story is not supposed to make sense. Also Skree and Hedge the wizard only appear in the series.
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.
-Charles Lamb, The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb
After several hours, the ship was finally clear of the typhoon. While nearly all the containers had fallen overboard and those that remained had been severely damaged, the ship was still afloat and would only require minor repairs. While the captain knew that he was responsible for the destruction of the containers, he also knew that most captains would not have been able to keep their ship afloat in such a strong typhoon.
The rabbits were slowly getting to know Spartina. Her life had been clearly different from any of theirs, due to the strict militaristic regime in Darkhaven. They had trouble understanding her descriptions of various pieces of human junk that were processed by the machines. Nevertheless, she seemed to be a good fighter and a useful asset to the group. Bigwig was taking a special interest in her.
The next day, while everyone was eating some flayrah from a container that had fallen apart, Bigwig suggested that Spartina tell everyone a story of El-ahrairah.
-Do you wish to request a specific story? she asked.
-I don't know. I'm sure the stories you told in your old Darkling warren are different from those we know.
-You're probably right, except that the warren was called Darkhaven, not Darkling. Anyway, here is the story of El-ahrairah's unusual trip:
"El-ahrairah was profoundly annoyed. He had found a certain human object near the warren and wanted to understand what it was before silflay. Unfortunately, he couldn't because he didn't see the end of the wires.
He went and cleaned his nose. Outside, the rabbits were drying the grass to bring it underground. Rabscuttle asked him if he had to pass hraka, but he didn't, so instead he went to get some dew to make his fur shiny. He was thinking about the cats and how they really should be elsewhere. He hoped he wouldn't have to send Rabscuttle to Hufsa's warren all over again because some of his rabbits were kidnapped.
Suddenly, Prince Rainbow arrived and started shooting burning rainbows everywhere for no reason. That was the stupidest thing he had done since he had caused a snowstorm the previous summer. This caused several rocks to be moved and the mountain to fall apart. El-ahrairah would have to rebuild it when he would stop seeing the rocks' shadows. He rode his hrududu for a while to stop thinking about Prince Rainbow's competition. Instead, he ended up thinking about the day when the dog had prematurely harvested the warren's entire supply of flayrah.
Along the iron road, he found a box. He opened it and saw that it was full of water. He poured the water onto the ground and a forest grew. It was a magical forest, where guns can shoot by themselves and where trees can catch fire under one's paws. That was because Prince Rainbow once decided that El-ahrairah stories were stupid and needed to be banned so he could take over the world. He failed because of one of El-ahrairah's daughters. Her name was Violet.
El-ahrairah jumped into the ditch. He then heard strange sounds and, in an attempt to determine where they came from, he walked off a cliff. He spent a few hours hanging from a tree root before falling in the Big Water. Below the Big Water, there was another world, where it is possible to do many things you can't do in this world. A hawk called Skree, who for some reason wants to help rabbits, saved El-ahrairah and put him back on the ground.
El-ahrairah then realized that he was in a place that he did not know. He had never been there before despite having travelled around the world the previous year. Suddenly, he saw a big snow monster. In an attempt to get away from it, he climbed to the top of a tree and jumped into the sky, eventually landing on Inlé.
Inlé was a terrible place, full of human junk everywhere. The Black Rabbit had left after the humans' first visit there. The only creature El-ahrairah found was a turtle called Hedge, who proclaimed herself to be a wizard. She said: "This is series hrair! This is all the fault of humans but don't blame that yellow rabbit. Don't forget the laws of magic". This was an encrypted message. El-ahrairah had first encountered encryption when a hlessi started to become invisible and drive everyone crazy. Since then, he had discovered the secret to encryption, allowing him to decrypt Hedge's message: it told him to jump to the nearest rock, the red one. He did so and found the Black Rabbit. They played a friendly game of bobstones that neither won. The two wandered around the area, meeting many famous rabbits who had stopped running a long time ago. Eventually, it became time for El-ahrairah to go home. He went back to the other planet when suddenly..."
By that point, the other rabbits were nearly tharn. They did not understand anything Spartina was saying, but they all wanted to know what was going to happen to El-ahrairah. They were suddenly interrupted by a raucous cry from above. Before they could realize what was happening, a large seagull crashed in the middle of the group.
-Meester Pigvig! Meester Hazel! You all right?
-Of course we're all right, Kehaar, sighed Hazel, although you did scare us a little just now. Anyway, did you find anything?
-Ya, ya, I see dem. Der poat sent dem to dat veree cold place!
-Where is this...very cold place?
-Now why don't you tell us more about these objects you found on the shores of...Darkhaven? said Bigwig, taking advantage of Kehaar's arrival to sneak away from the others with Spartina.
-I brought one of these objects with me when I escaped. I'll show it to you.
She took him to the other end of the deck, only to start smelling the ground, clearly puzzled.
-What's the matter?
-It's gone. I left it right there, and now I can't find it anymore!
The ship's captain burst into the third officer's cabin.
-Hey! I need your help! he shouted.
-Here I am, answered the officer. What can I do for you?
-My VCR is broken again! Come and fix it.
The officer sighed. The captain frequently asked him to repair various machines on the ship, although he rarely succeeded. Unfortunately, he had no idea how VCRs work.
He followed the captain to his quarters and extracted a videocassette from the machine with a pair of pliers. He looked at it for a few seconds, before turning to the captain:
-Do you notice anything unusual about this videocassette?
-Well, the tape is hanging out of the cassette. Why don't you just fix the VCR?
-Did you notice anything else?
-Well, it was a little bit wet, but not enough to cause any problems. Why are you asking me all these questions?
-A LITTLE bit wet? Where did you get this?
-I, uh...I found it lying on the deck, uh...
-That explains everything. Your VCR is ruined, but I might still be able to recover the data on the cassette...
The third officer succeeded in digitizing the videocassette; it was surveillance camera footage of Hyzenthlay and Spartina's escape. However, all the rabbits were speaking Lapiné so nobody understood what was happening. The footage eventually became a minor hit on the Internet.
After several days, the ship finally reached its destination of Vancouver, Canada.
-You reach land now, Kehaar told the rabbits. You can go pack on yur search.
-All right, Kehaar, we'll be leaving now, decided Hazel.
He quickly found Hyzenthlay, Pipkin and Blackberry, but Bigwig and Spartina were nowhere to be seen.
-These two spend a lot of time alone together, said Pipkin, and I discovered their hiding spot. I'll show you.
With that, he led the others to the small hiding spot, behind one of the containers.
-Look...Spartina...I've been meaning to ask you this...since we first met, Bigwig was struggling to say. Will you...
-You want us to be mates? guessed Spartina.
-Uh, yes...
-But what about Thethuthinnang? interjected Hyzenthlay.
With that, Bigwig and Spartina turned and stared at her. While Bigwig's look displayed a mixture of anger and fear, Spartina seemed surprised.
-Who's Thethuthinnang? she asked.
-Vat you all wait for? shouted Kehaar. You can all get oof dis poat now!
-Where are we going? What's going on? Why does nobody tell me anything?
-We have to search for Fiver and Vilthuril, explained Hazel, we'll deal with this other problem later.
As the six rabbits walked towards the ramp leading off the ship, Spartina pulled Hyzenthlay aside.
-You're the only one I can really trust, after what just happened. Who's Thethuthinnang?
-She's Bigwig's mate. She's still at the warren where we all lived before going on this rescue mission.
-He already has a mate? Then why did he...
-When it comes to love, Bigwig is a mess. He even asked me to become his mate once, but I had already chosen Hazel-rah.
-Oh.
As everyone was walking down the ramp and towards the wharf, Bigwig and Spartina did their best to be as far from each other as they could without straying too far away from the rest of the group. The other rabbits left them alone, knowing that there was nothing they could do to improve the situation.