“The Mountain of FOOD!” said Wizzie, his long spanielly pink tongue hanging out. “That sounds GREAT!”

“Well, it wasn’t for me!” replied Eldenbeam, smiling a little at Dot’s friend. “I was in entirely the wrong place. Completely out of linement on my very first TricTrucTrac – almost over as a TricTrucTracker before I began! I was so ashamed of myself when I came to the end of my searchfind and found where I was!”

“What was eet like, zees… zees montaigne gastronomique?” * asked Fromage, twirling his whiskers thoughtfully. “Were zere any… any cheeses, per’aps..?”

“Oh lots” said Eldenbeam grimly. “Lots and lots! What there wasn’t was any sign of this silly Tweet that Simon Baker had gone and lost!” “It’s quite a sight, the Mountain of Food” said Katzilow, smacking his beak, schlurp schlurp. “It has canyons and valleys running down its sides, full of everything nice you could possibly want to eat – and rivers running down it, sparkling with drinks, orange, lemon, blackcurrant, elderflower, Coke – everything! The top is covered in what looks just like snow, but it isn’t – it’s solid clotted cream!”

Wizzie put his paws up on the computer table next to him. He was panting with excitement. “Any doggy treats?” he asked.

“Oh yes, those too” said Eldenbeam. “On the south face of the mountain. The north has a canyon just for cats. Quite smelly stuff – fishy!”

“Yukk!” said Wiz. “But I’d LOVE to go to that south face. Can we? Can we?”

“NO, Wiz!” said Dot firmly pulling him back down before he got totally carried away. “Anyway, let Eldenbeam go on with his story!”

“Toot toot!”

The little train came puffing out of their very own food mountain with their main courses. I’ll just remind you:

“So” he said thoughtfully, finishing a mouthful of his Red Thai Quorn Curry “What was I to do? I didn’t know what had happened, you see – why I was where I was. I was sure I’d put the right searchfind data into my TracMapper – didn’t really even know for sure I was in the wrong place. Didn’t even know what I was looking at. And then the Twing started.”

“The Twing of Tweets?” asked Dot. “The Head of Twitter?”

“Exactly!” said Eldenbeam. “He’s such a pain – you can tell that just by looking at his Twingdom, the Twitterworld. But that’s nothing compared to what he’s like to deal with. And the worst of it for me was, I was young and inexperienced – had to listen to him and obey, especially as my task was to find one of his snollocking little Tweets that had gone missing!”

“Why is he so difficult to… to deal with?” asked Dot. Everyone at school seemed to be Tweeting – even Ms Atkins!!

“Have a listen!” said Eldenbeam. He put down his plate and placed his paws on the wobbly green jelly of the Tracmapper keyboard. As he did so the bright blue neon light ran round its edges faster and faster, still seeming in some mysterious way to hold the jelly-like device together.

“Oh NO!” groaned Hombellyton, putting his plate of fish stew down with a bang, “Do we HAVE to?”

“Well Dot can’t really understand Eldy’s story if she doesn’t hear what the Twing is like, can she?” said Carmeramalita.

“Just the sound Hombo” said Eldenbeam. “Only for a minute!”

“If you can discon him!” grumbled Hombellyton.

“Of course we can!” said Walpurgis firmly. “Off we go!”

Eldenbeam moved his paws sideways and to the bottom edge of the “keyboard” – then slid them off very suddenly with a kind of squelching sound.

Then it started – a high-pitched voice talking very fast and very loudly – and about absolutely nothing! What Dot’s Gran calls “drivelling drivel”.

“Well I said I didn’t know where I was going and HE went yes you do and then I went after all I haven’t had a THING to eat today and you ought to see the state of my HAIR it’s a fright and anyway YOU said I could come out and WHEN I did you were like oh no you don’t understand so nyaaah and mememememe it’s MEEEEE that gets into trouble when YOUUUUUUUUUU”

“Discon it!” groaned Hombellyton. “Pleease! NOW!!!”

Lucia gave a huge shudder and her bow dipped, as if in agreement.

Eldenbeam turned back to the keyboard and pushed down hard with his paws in the middle of the squidgy green stuff.

“SHE never did anything anyway what with her going out night after night and HE HE HE was just like someone in a dream all the TIME with his talking about - ”

“Crangleston!” muttered Eldenbeam, pushing as hard as he could, so that the fury hairs on his back stood up.

“CAN’T tell them anything they always know best they tell you this and that and mememememe and then they go - ”

“Let me have a go!” roared Hombellyton. “I can’t stand this! KNEW he wouldn’t discon!”

To Dot’s amazement, he got up onto the seat next to the Tracmapper keyboard – and then jumped on it!

“Hey!” shouted Walpurgis. “Watch out!”

Too late! But it worked! With a “bleeyowargle” sound, the maddening voice stopped.

Eldenbeam turned back to Dot as Hombellyton unstuck himself from the squidgy green keyboard with a slithery sound and picked up his plate of fish stew.

“There, you see!” he said. “Imagine trying to getthat to listen to you. Most of all because he’s only really interested in himself – that’s what the mememememe stuff is all about. How was I going to find a way to one of his blicbotchy Tweets without some new direction?”

He paused. And smiled, as if remembering something nice. Then:

“That’s when the Magic Malarkerette arrived!”

* - “Colline gastronomique” – literally “gastronomic hill”. Mountain of Food to you and me!