Dot and her friends have travelled back in time to Dendringham Hall in the Victorian era – and now they’ve found themselves all dressed up in Victorian
clothes. The strange man has finished talking to everyone in the drawing room about the mystery, which is still a mystery to Dot – and everyone else too. What ISN’T a mystery is what’s happening now – some real old-fashioned Victorian teaching…!
“Once three is three
Twice three is six
Three times three is nine
Four times three is twelve…”
It was AT LEAST the SIXTH time Dot had gone through her times tables, and she was getting really bored.
It w as all right for Mr Mouse – he’d tucked himself under the collar of her new sailor suit, the bit at the back like a big square flap – and as for Wizzie, well!
He was having a WONDERFUL time. She could hear him barking outside in the grounds as he played “You’re It!” with the other dogs from the Hall – a St Bernard called Victor and a Welsh Terrier called Angharad.
Dot wondered if she’d be able to speak to them too, just like she could with Wizzie. That would be fun…
“Concentrate, my dear, please!” said the tired-looking lady in the black dress, who was taking the lesson in what she called ‘The School Room’. Only it wasn’t like real school at all.
For a start Dot was all on her own, though there was a row of old-fashioned desks with lids and little pots full of ink in them. The one she was sitting at had ‘Archie was Here’ carved in it with an arrow. Naughty!!
There was a blackboard, with lots of bits of different-coloured chalks in a ledge on the bottom, and a globe of the world which seemed to be nearly all pink. There were charts on the walls of birds and insects and flowers (that was a bit like her classroom at St Mary’s), only these were all paintings and drawings and not photos.
Two big windows looked out on the park around Dendringham Hall, and it was a nice sunny afternoon… wished she could be out there with Wiz and his new friends…
“Dorothea!” said the tired-looking lady loudly. “Try one more time please! I want to hear you say them ALL correctly before the end of class!”
She tapped on the blackboard with a long pointer, where she’d written out the times tables Dot had got right so far. “I wouldn’t be doing my duty as your governess, just as Lord d’Auberley asked me, if I didn’t at least make sure you knew your tables!”
So off Dot went again…
“One times four is four
Two times four is eight
Three times four is twelve…”
It had all been a kind of whirlwind after the strange man had finished talking to everyone in the drawing room at Dendringham Hall. Still trying to get used to her new clothes, Dot had been taken away by the tired-looking lady straight up to the school room, while all the other people who’d been listening had gone off to get on with their day
The tired-looking lady was called Miss Walsingham. She was a governess – which meant she looked after the young people in the house, and taught them their lessons too. Only at the moment it seemed that Dot was the only young person at the Hall.
She had to keep pinching herself to remember this was all happening in cyber-space – it wasn’t the real world at all. Because it FELT so real – it really was as if she’d travelled back a hundred years or more!
One good thing was that just like in the real world now, the d’Auberley family who owned Dendringham Hall really liked having pets in the house – so no-one minded Mr Mouse and Wizzie being with her all the time.
“My turn!” she heard Wizzie bark to his new doggy friends, out in the park. It
was getting darker now but they were all still playing It.
But what was the mystery?
“Four times nine is thirty-six
Five times nine is forty-five
Six times nine is… is… is… ”
Why could she NEVER remember that one!!
“AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Miss Walsingham dropped her pointer with a clatter and put her hand up to her throat, her eyes staring wide at Dot.
“Oh no!” she gasped. “Oh no! Not again! Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”
