"What?" said Dot.

Her little mouse friend had stopped telling his story and was just looking into space, as if he was remembering something he'd much rather forget.

She was a bit worried about him - he had that sad look again. She tickled his tummy with her little finger and said "Come on - we're your friends Mr Mouse - it always helps to talk!"

Mr Mouse gave himself a little shake and did another one of his big, BIG sighs. It was such a big sigh it blew two pages of Dot's homework off her desk so they floated down onto the floor. Mr Mouse watched them, his eyes looking sad.

"The script" he said. "It was all written down on paper, but I just couldn't remember my lines!"

"Which ones?" asked Wiz. He knew there quite a lot of them in the esure.com commercials featuring Cousin Esure (who was called Mister Mouse when he was performing in the TV ads, not Mr Mouse like his friend.)

There was the one with the cat... and the one with the little car made out of a computer mouse - that always made him and Dot laugh when Mister Mouse, Cousin Esure, zoomed about and crashed it next to the computer keyboard. There was all that stuff about why people didn't use their computers to find out about esure.com... lots of different words to remember.

"But why couldn't you?" he asked, looking puzzled. "You're always really good at remembering stuff and you know lots of words." Too many sometimes, he thought with a secret smile to himself!

"I know, I KNOW" said Mr Mouse, waving his paws from side to side. "Think it was nerves or something. Maybe 'cos I was worrying I was going to sneeze all the time. Anyways, I just couldn't get it right - and especially the big one!"

"Which big one?" asked Dot, trying to keep up.

"Give us a quick!" - no, DARN IT, give us a CLICK!" said Mr Mouse, getting cross again. "There! See? I'm STILL getting it wrong! Even NOW! GRRRR! And it's the most important line, the whole shamola, the BIG-BIG-BIGGY!"

Dot and Wiz remembered it - it was the last thing the esure.com Mister Mouse said, every time at the end of all the commercials - just before he squeezed himself back inside his little hideaway, the computer mouse.

"Oh... dear... " said Dot. She could see why Mr Mouse was so worked up. It seemed such a little thing to have to remember, but if you just couldn't get it right...

It reminded her of the time she had to give some chocolates to a visitor in Assembly, their local school inspector called Mr Hinkle. He was a nice man - he was head of the inspection team but he always spent too long at her school because he got so interested in all the classes. He even ended up joining in with Year 3 doing painting in Art once and got red and blue paint all over his suit!

All she had to say when she came out on the platform where Mrs Rudman and all the teachers were was "Please accept these chocolates from St Mary's School with our thanks Mr Hinkle." She'd practised for ages, and she got everything right except his name - she called him Mr Tinkle!! So EM-BARR-A-SSING!!! Luckily she wasn't near the microphone so only Mr Hinkle and Mrs Rudman heard it and they just thought it was funny, but it still made her blush just thinking about it.

"Give us a QUICK... give us a CRICK... give us a KICK... I did 'em all" said Mr Mouse gloomily. "SOMETIMES I got it right, but it took loads and loads of goes before I did. AND the sneezing, that still kept happening. And everyone just waiting - I can still hear the production assistant going "esure.com commercial - Take 27!" in her funny little voice... she was this cute little poodle... "

He stopped, and shook his head. "And THEN the flip-flop stuff started!"