“On your way then, and bon voyage!” * beamed the Riddlefish. He’d recovered from his astonishment and didn’t seem at all put out by Dot’s success in solving his spelling puzzle.

“Merci beaucoup!” ** said Fromage, bowing low from Dot’s shoulder. “ ‘Ow vairy nice to hear le beau Français *** again!” he said wistfully.

No sooner had he finished speaking, than Lucia the Tracboat began to move smoothly forward, straight for the Portal with its shimmering, never-ending waterfall.

“Farewell, farewell!” said the Riddlefish, in his funny bubbly voice. Then plink! he was gone, with just a few drops of “water” spraying out as he went – which were absorbed once again by the silvery cascade through which he’d poked his fishy head.

We surely can’t get out through that, thought Dot.

But this is, after all, Networld we’re in just now!

As the tip of Lucia’s bow touched the water of the waterfall, the Portal suddenly ballooned out around the Tracboat, with a faint sighing sound. As she sailed deeper in, it grew larger and larger around them. It was if they really were sailing into a balloon.

The Tracboat was bathed in a creamy light, which changed all the colours before their eyes. The net-sky, with its vast gold and blue spaces, and the unending net-plain beneath them were no more to be seen. A soft rustling could be heard as Lucia sailed slowly along. Wiz made his “I’m slightly worried” snuffle-whine sound.

It reminded Dot of something – oh yes! Playing tents under a white sheet in her bed when they went on holiday to Positano in Italy, with the midday sun shining through the shuttered windows of their hotel. Dad had been very strict about everyone having siestas after lunch – which wasn’t hard to do as the lunches were big!

And as he always insisted on “carefully sampling” glass of the local red wine!

A cool, fresh breeze blew over them all, slightly scented. The sighing sound became – well, not louder, but more… around them, as if they were inside a gentle sleeping giant.

Then, right at the sharp tip of Lucia the Tracboat’s bow, a little tear in the cool white “balloon” appeared, revealing a glimpse of a different net-sky – a kind of goldeny-green this time. Then she stopped.

Oh NO, thought Dot. It was going so well. What NOW??

But she needn’t have worried.

“Excellent!” said Walpurgis. “Good tracmap! We’re fixed-safe! Now let’s portalclear, and get on our way!”

He turned to his fellow TricTrucTrackers and raised his furry arms like a conductor in front of an orchestra.

“Deedly-dee-DAAA” went Katzilow.

“DOO-dum-DEE do da da daaaa” went all the others.

Then a great humming started among the TricTrucTrackers – some of it getting near the key of G, apparently, because Wiz opened his mouth to join in again, but swallowed and stopped when Dot raised a warning finger. She had a feeling that this music had to be just right for them to portalclear properly.

Whatever the truth of that, there was no doubt that the TricTrucTrackers’ singing magic still worked. As the humming grew, becoming more and more complex, the little tear at Lucia’s bow became wider – then wider still – then widest of all, and the strange balloon-like envelope in which they were sitting opened up on either side of them, and Lucia glided forward again.

Into a part of Networld that Dot, in all her travels, had never seen before.

The goldeny-green colour of the net-sky around them was new for a start – but so were the huge structures floating all around them.

They were like pointed round skyscraper towers, hundreds of metres high. Their sides were shiny like glass, divided into strange shapes which constantly shifted and changed. The towers glittered in the soft light of the net as they slowly turned and turned again.

Each one was divided with what looked like a thin band of gold and green – till you looked again, and saw that each “band” was actually a gap. Every one of the cone-shaped towers had them, so that each was divided into at least a hundred sections – yet all the sections kept together perfectly as the towers spun slowly on their way through the net-sky.

“Wow!” said Dot softly.

“Dee DAAAA da daaaaa!” went the TricTrucTrackers, coming to the end of their humming song. It had done its work.

Walpurgis turned to Dot, laid a big furry paw on her shoulder (Fromage hopped out of the way with an indignant squeak!) and made a broad, sweeping gesture with his other paw.

“Welcome to Encorium!” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “Here is where we will find your friend Mr Mouse!”


* – “Have a good journey!”

** - “Thank you very much!”

*** - “beautiful French”