30th April, 1990
And so it came to pass that the large elephant crashed through the big plate glass window into the China Shop, which surprised the Chinese into large fits of ecstasy and several quantum finite uses of the word `goody'. Meanwhile Claude was rather embarrassed as he suddenly discovered that he hadn't discovered anything, and began preparations to retrace the route from the goldfield at Kalgoolie to Lassiter's Peak. The cause was not so much caused as effected by the cause, which was self-referential and hence very confusing. Back in the China Shop, the Chinese had finally gone back to the tennis match which was breaking all the porcelain and foot faulting all over the place. Fortunately the ducks on the wall were keeping score and thus prevented cheating. John McEnduck lobbed a nice law suit at the umpire, who promptly put it on. It was a lovely shade of green, and went very well with the tie presented by Chris Evert-Duck and then chopped into little pieces, which floated serenely down across the spectators.
The porcelain was becoming rather crunchy underfoot, and electric sparks were visible when the lights were turned off. It was like biophosphoresence when you eat Peppermint Crunch's in the dark, but this was very beside the point, which was won by Martina Navduckilova who then went on to own her own brewery, become halfback in the Australian XI, beat Wayne Gardinduck in the World 500cc championships, and to father several children after the operation.
Meanwhile, in the Sudan, Claude had finally made his way out of the bazarre, into the surreal and through the mall which connected one end of itself to the other. The bazarre contained many stalls each with its own exotic items which could only be found in this corner of the Sudan, including china ducks to put on the loungeroom wall. Claude was very surprised to see them, as he thought they'd be off watching the tennis at the Sudanese China Shop which was located in Canberra - a long way to walk but usually worth it if there is a good match of avian tennis on. They were clearly on vacation, which, given the temperature in Canberra, was a very sensible thing for them to be doing. Walking was good exercise for most people, although having no legs made it difficult for Claude; he had lost them whilst bravely fending off a marauding band of whistling pygmies in Darkest Africa. In Lighter Africa he also lost his arms when several flying pirhanas leapt into the fray (which was the ultimate cause of the fray - most pirhanas don't realise how easy it is to cut rope) and ordered three large pepsis and fries to go. At this point Claude had desperately gnawed the arms off to stay sane, but was unable to salvage the rest of the chair, which tottered precariously whenever he sat in it.
Back in Canberra, the flies buzzed quixotically as they knew an election was in the air. General Voros, the new leader whose reign of terror began after the recent coup d'etat, pondered on how effective his vote-rigging had been. This was irrelevant as the ducks had everything under control, and they proved they'd left nothing to chance when they raided the campus and gained the biggest vote swing in the history of gerrymanders in Australia. Thus deposed, the General took a job as a shop assistant in a Canberran China Shop, which pleased Claude no end because he was an avid tennis fan. Using a set of robots hands cast by Kruppers at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he was able to switch channels on his non-remote-control television allowing him to watch all the tennis matches broadcast. The ducks weren't pleased about that as they thought their ethernet address wasn't accessible from the Internet. However, after an accident with a pair of wire cutters they died. His soul fled to the Sudan, and so ended the story.