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

Message Hero HQ and say hello, hero

Cpt. JT Peg takes a diary down from the Hero HQ shelf, and this one belongs to Pvt. Nurse Nicky, Camp Medic of Recharge Camp.

Hero HQ sends her to the Australian Outback with a box of little wellbeing guides for a cattle station near Alice Springs, a farm so big you cannot see across it. She visits the Alice Springs School of the Air, the biggest classroom in the world, learns to make damper in the coals of a campfire, and finds out what it means to boil the billy.

Then the fire burns low and the dark arrives. Not city dark. Outback dark, with not one electric light for hundreds of kilometres. The Squad's calmest pair of hands stands completely still, frightened, and tells a little girl she is fine when she is not. That is her stumble. What happens next is the medicine: name it, three slow breaths, one small brave look up. And up is full of more stars than she has ever seen, because there are no lights to wash them out.

Auntie Ellie keeps the part worth keeping: the bravest sentence in the whole Outback was not "I am fine."

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

Your mission tonight: ages 4 to 6, do Nurse Nicky's check with your grown-up when the lights go out. Ages 7 and up, that, plus teach your family one true thing from the Outback at the table.

Mission done? Tick Wednesday's box on your Squad Mission Chart and tick Pvt. Nurse Nicky on your Squad Roster, both free at scrubbingsquadpodcast.com

Message Hero HQ and say hello, hero

Sgt. Peck opens the Trading Post for the first time, and the first card on the table belongs to Uncle Jamie: How to Start a Morning Routine.

Yesterday your hero met the boy who was hopeless at mornings. Today Uncle Jamie gives them the rest of it: the whole skill in three steps. Pick your three. Same three, same order, every morning, so one job pulls the next along like a little train. Lay out your armour the night before. And if the train comes off the rails, that is not a fail. That is finding out which morning is the hard one.

Then the table. Uncle Jamie's Common card faces Auntie Ellie's Legendary in a one-round duel, played exactly the way you play it at home, and the shiny card loses. Rarity makes a card more wanted, never stronger. Auntie Ellie explains why the number is only ever about who did the work.

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

Your mission today: ages 4 to 6, do your one small job, then one more thing straight after it. Ages 7 and up, write your three down tonight, in order, and run them for three mornings.

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