You could have heard a pin drop.
It was like one of those freeze frame moments in a movie, when everyone stays exactly where they were when the freeze happened.
Mr Fruity was bent over under the stick in the middle of his limbo dance.
The other cyber rats hadn't been holding the stick too close to the ground because he had to get his big tummy under it - but he still looked really funny. His mouth was wide open in the middle of the "yaaaay" he'd just been shouting as he went under the stick!
Everywhere else, cyber rats were standing or sitting (or lying - some of the silly creatures had already had too much beer)just as they were when the little disc thrown by Cruncher had touched Arcathon.
Best of all, the terrible oldie pop music had stopped - all you could hear was the dripping of the slimy water (or whatever it was, ugh!) off the walls of the cyber rats' cavern.
Mr Mouse gave himself a little shake. "Phew !" he said. "Thought I might have frozen too!"
He ran down Dot's arm, tickly tickly tickly, and hopped down onto the floor. He scampered up to the frozen Mr Fruity, hopped up and ran up the cyber rat king's chest till he was standing on his shoulder next to his ear. He took a deep breath and -
"FRRRRRRPPP!" he went, right in Mr Fruity's ear.
Nothing! Not a sausage!
The Children of the Casement burst out laughing at his cheeky behaviour. It was nice to see that, they'd always looked so serious!
"What... what... how did it..." stuttered Dot.
"Well" laughed Carvelia. "That was - "
Pop! Pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!
It was Drindel Zildith, the Day of 23! His horrible cling-film was falling away from him! That was what was making the popping noises, which sounded just like when you squeeze the round bits in bubble wrap to make them go pop.
(I know. Don't remind me. There are some people who just can't stop doing that once they've started. Drives you crazy. There's this bloke at work who -)
Get on with it Rob. What happened next? Best - Sharon Doughty, Creator missdorothy.com
Oops sorry Shaz!
Pop-pop-POP!!
The last bit of the yukky "cling-film" stuff came off Drindel. For a moment he looked dazed - as if he didn't know where he was. Then he gave himself a little shake and looked round. He saw Wizzie and a smile spread over his face. It was good to see that too.
"Aha!" he said. "A Cavalier King Charles! My favourite!"
Then out of one of the side pockets in his cloak, he brought a nice little titbit.
Wiz was there like a shot, of course!
But just as he took the treat, he jumped - Drindel's moving picture cloak was coming back to life! Once again the dolphins and whales moved through the film of the deep oceans shining out from the folds of his Zildith cloak - if you listened carefully, you could even hear the squeaks and groans of them calling out to each other.
Drindel laughed with joy at the sight, and then began his very own little dance, twirling round and round and humming to himself. It sounded like that old song 'Happy Days Are Here Again', only it was hard to be sure!
Dot realized her mouth was still wide open. Thoranon saw, and laughed.
"That's Nohtacra!" he said, still chuckling. The other Child of the Casement had a big grin on her face too. "Great, isn't he?" He bent over and picked up the two medallions, which had stuck together as if they were magnets.
"But... what happened?" asked Dot.
"Oh, of course you don't know!" said Thoranon. "Well Nohtacra is Arcathon spelt backwards."
"Yeah, well I already worked that one out" said Mr Mouse in his most annoying voice.
Wizzie groaned. "As IF!" he muttered.
Thoranon glanced at Mr Mouse and smiled. "So just as it's a backward spelling, so too this little coin has backward powers over its twin - which is our Arcathon, the medallion that opens the Casement in Phargon. So if Nohtacra touches Arcathon - and he only has to be put nearby for them to come together, it’s like magnetism - everything goes backwards. It's our way of putting right any mistakes we make. Like 'Undo' or CTRL Z on your
computer at home."
"But first" said Carvelia "Everything that's happpening at that moment - stops. Apart from anything to do with a Zildith, which is why Drindel was released straight away. But everything else freezes, to give us time to check.” She waved around at the frozen cyber rats. “Just like them! Not for long, though."
"What I don't understand" said Thoranon "is where Nohtacra came from. I mean... I thought we had him, didn't you?"
"Who cares, who cares?" said Drindel, still twirling round and humming to himself. "All I can say is - dear friends, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!"
"And what about me?" said a scratchy voice. "Don't I get a thank you too?"
