Message Hero HQ and say hello, hero

Thursday means the Visitor's Table, and the visitor's chair is filled. Lobster Bob comes home to the Trading Post with a Land Tour card: the Sahara Desert, the Erg Chebbi dunes and the camel treks.

Lobster Bob gives your hero the whole wonder in three true things. The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth, stretching across the top of Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Most of it is not sand at all, but at Erg Chebbi the sand wins, with dunes around one hundred and fifty metres tall that the wind moves grain by grain. And the camel's hump is not full of water. It is full of fat, a packed larder for weeks of walking.

Then the cross-type duel, two rounds. Sgt. Peck deals Auntie Ellie's critical thinking card from Tuesday and calls a sea slot against a desert. Round one to Hero HQ. Then Lobster Bob reads his own card before he calls, skips the fair call because it would lose, and takes round two with the Land Track. Same two cards, different call, different winner. That is the skill.

Auntie Ellie keeps the part worth keeping: he did not call the big number because it was big. He called it because he looked first.

Pvt. Ace brings the Ace Mode version. Same mission. Your way.

Your mission tonight: ages 4 to 6, find Africa on a map, lay your finger flat across the top of it, and tell a grown-up what a camel really keeps in its hump. Ages 7 and up, retell all three desert facts, then draw your own camel and decide its opinion about the correct speed.

Mission done? Tick Thursday's box on your Squad Mission Chart, free at scrubbingsquadpodcast.com