Alice meets the White Queen, who is very absent-minded but boasts of her ability to remember future events. Alice and the White Queen advance into the chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a stream together. At the moment of the crossing, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with (seemingly) nonsensical shouting about "crabs" and "feathers". Unknown to Alice, these are standard terms in the jargon of rowing. Thus (for a change) the Queen/Sheep was speaking in a perfectly logical and meaningful way.