"STOP" The ice cream soda argument was not a good one at all, for no lump of ice cream ever remained long intact where Pee-wee was.

Whether it melted or not, it disappeared.

And why this freakish little island did not rapidly dissolve was a mystery.
By all the laws it should have melted away, leaving the deserted tree to topple over and form a new obstruction to boating.

But there it was floating more easily as the tide rose, with apparently no intention of allowing itself to be absorbed by the surrounding waters.

It is true that a belt of muddy water bordered its wild and forbidding coast and that its shore line was of a consistency suitable for the making of mud pies, but its body seemed as solid and resistant as a rock.
Pee-wee always claimed that it was he and he alone who discovered the mysterious secret of Merry-go-round Island; he and he alone who penetrated its unknown depths.