Like the good Victorian schoolgirl she was pretending to be, Dot bent her head down and got on with her work. She wasn’t crazy about the pinafore dress with a kind of white apron on the front that she’d been given to wear, but her hair felt nice - all warm and glossy and shiny after the 100 brushes that Rosie the chambermaid had given her.

It was hard for Dot to do the task she’d been set neatly, though. She only had an old-fashioned school pen with a scratchy metal nib and a plain wooden holder to write with, and in those days you had to keep dipping the pen in the inkwell to make sure you had enough ink, because there were no biros or cartridge pens.

And it was VERY easy to – FOODLES! She’d smudged it! She’d just have to start again.

There were some funny-sounding river names, though, thought Dot. Dovey and Ribble and Stour and Kennet. Wonder where they all came from…

“Dorothea - I’m just going to take your mending to Jenny in the Sewing Room.” said Miss Walsingham, getting up and gathering Dot’s messed-up clothes together. “I’ll look at your work when I come back. Do try and make it as neat as possible” she said, putting Dot’s false start with all the smudges in the waste paper basket.

She shut the door quietly behind her.

Scritch, scratch went Dot’s pen on the paper. She was so used to using her laptop she’d almost forgotten how hard it was to write really neatly, and this horrible old pen definitely didn’t help!

Mr Mouse stirred in his hidey-hole under the shoulder of her dress. He’d been having a nap – only briefly disturbed when Dot had changed her clothes. Miss Walsingham had got quite used to finding him hiding away up there. In fact everyone at Dendringham Hall seemed really chilled about having animals around all the time, which was nice!

“So, what, kid” he said, yawning and stretching. “Solved the mystery yet? Got it all sorted with the great detective? He can take us riding any time if we get a great tea like that as part of the deal!”

“You had a whole meringue all to yourself!” said Dot, smiling at her friend – still looking very smart in his doll's house Victorian suit. “Where did you put it all?”

“Ah fantastico!” said Mr Mouse, rolling his eyes and licking his lips. “So light and creamy! I coulda done another one, easy, no problem!”

“You’d go pop!”

“Naaa I can handle stuff like that any time!” said Mr Mouse. He yawned again. “Say - sure is stuffy in here. Can’tcha open a window?”

“Oh all right!” said Dot. Trust Mr Mouse to find her something to do! She dried her writing very carefully with some blotting paper so it didn’t smudge again, and got up to go over to the window.

It was quite dark outside now, with the light from the ground floor windows of the hall just showing the green space of the lawn in front of the house. Nearly suppertime thought Dot. Everyone must be getting ready. I’d better too.

The window of the schoolroom looked like it would be really heavy to lift up, but then Dot saw there was one little pane in it that could be opened on its own, like a door.

But not everyone was inside getting ready for supper. As she opened the little window, she heard voices – then, suddenly, one on its own, angry and sad.

“It was unjust – a great wrong! And there will be no peace in this house until you put it right!”