Dot has come to the best bit of Dendringham Hall, a stately home with a difference – you can log on in each room and see scenes showing what that room was like in the olden days. But in the scene she’s looking at, one of the people has turned towards her and asked…
“Can you solve the mystery of Dendringham Hall?”
Dot didn’t know what to say - didn’t even know if she should say anything. The strange man was still looking at her from out of the screen, with a little smile on his lips and one eyebrow raised.
She couldn’t ask her mum or dad – they were on the other side of the room, where she could see Mum was asking LOADS of questions about the silver and her Dad was trying not to yawn.
“Cool!” said Mr Mouse. “This we gotta do!”
He hopped up on the edge of the laptop and stood there with his paws on his hips.
“Do what, cheeseboy?” asked Wiz. He remembered the time they’d gone net-voyaging to find some EDam cheese, and ended up at the EDen Project in Cornwall – which was lucky, because they’d been able to save Eden from a cyber-rat attack. *
“Sort it out! Solve the crime! Get the bad guys!” said Mr Mouse excitedly. The face on the screen twitched and the strange man’s smile got broader.
“Er… well… hadn’t we better… ” said Dot, chewing her lip. Just for something to do, she drifted the pointer about on the laptop screen without really looking where it was going. It ended up on a little box in the bottom right hand corner of the screen which said “DOUBLECLICK TO JOIN IN THE MYSTERY”.
She didn’t notice though because Mr Mouse hopped in front of that bit of the screen to look her straight in the eye.
“AW, come ON!” said he said, putting on his ‘Pretty Please’ face. “It’ll be fun! And no-one will know we’re gone!”
True, thought Dot… time just stood still when they were net-voyaging, so they always came back to the same moment in the real world. Well maybe one-billionth of a second later… Samson the Sever had never been able to work that one out totally for sure!
“All the same… ” said Dot.
Still looking straight at her from her laptop, the man on the screen turned his head on one side and raised his eyebrows together.
“But it’s so HISTORIC!” said Mr Mouse again, getting even more excited. “This fantastic old house and we could go back in time and be there… and… well just LOOK at it, so HIS-STO-RIC!”
Now, if you’re ever standing on a laptop near the edge, you know that bit where you rest your hands, it’s NOT a good idea start waving your arms about.
Yes yes, I know you wouldn’t stand on the edge of a laptop really but just imagine if you did… if you were a very small person…
Anyway that was what Mr Mouse did. And next thing –
“Woaa! WOAA!” he went – and fell flat on his back.
His backpack, I mean. The bit he clicks to get everyone on the net.
So that’s what it did. Click-click! Then…
ZVIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSH!
“Mr Mouse, you BANANA!” barked Wiz.
Too late! They were flying along the fibre optic systems of the Internet once again – weaving in and out like jet fighters, dodging data packets and e-mails and texts, with the world wide web’s data pathway all around them.
Then suddenly, the pathway opened out into the bluey-green sky of the Internet so that they were flying over the huge net plain.
“HONESTLY, Mr Mouse” said Dot crossly, holding on tight to Wizzy’s lead. “Where are we going?”
Right next to her ear, in his fave place tucked under the collar of her T-shirt, Mr Mouse laughed. Then he pointed.
“THERE!” he said. “Look!”
And sure enough – appearing in front of them, standing up on the net-plain, were the gates of Dendringham Hall. Only this time it was a cyber version.
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM they went through the gates. ZEEEEEEEEEEE they went through the main entrance of the Hall.
Now they were flying along a dark corridor, heading straight for a big wooden door.
Dot closed her eyes. She knew they’d never hit it, but she couldn’t help herself.
Just in time, as always, the big heavy door swung open before them – and they landed, verrry gently.
In front of them were the backs of all the ladies and gentlemen who were listening to the strange man. Dot and her two friends had landed just behind the big sofa where the lady doing the embroidery was sitting, so nobody saw them. The strange man was talking again.
But something funny had happened… Dot looked down.
What on EARTH was she wearing?
*See Dot and the Eden Project.
