Dot’s dad has got the computer fixed – well, he’s got Zapotek the computer genius to do it anyway! But he’s also got the mouse replaced… THE computer mouse… Mr Mouse himself!
“What’s the matter darling?” said Bill, looking up anxiously at his daughter. “Something gone down the wrong way, sweetheart?”
Dot gulped and swallowed. It really was like something had gone down the wrong way. She could hardly speak. What Bill had just told her was just too awful for words.
MR Mouse… the companion of her net adventures… the way they got onto the net in the first place… had been sent away to be recycled!! WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO DO NOW!!
She took a very deep breath. “Dad... wha… who… where did Mr Mouse go?”
“Oh that” said Bill, laughing. “You had me quite worried for a moment there! I dunno – Zapotek said he’d “Find jure mousey a goob hom”. He gave the horrible new mouse another twirl. “This one is MILES cooler. Don’t you think? And you can have it – I can go back to using the old one, it wasn’t what was wrong with the big computer down here at all!”
Mary Black started singing another song – something about the moon and St Christopher.
“Aw, this one is so beautiful” said Bill, his eyes misting up a bit.
He was gone again.
Just as well – because Dot needed some time to think. LOTS of time, in fact. She muttered something about getting on with her homework, and tramped up the stairs to her room, her heavy school bag bumping on each step.
There was her laptop, on the desk in her room, just as usual – her way onto the net for so many adventures with Mr Mouse and Wizard her Cavalier King Charles spaniel. But where Mr Mouse should have been, on the smart brown fake leather mat that she’d bought for him, there was an empty space. She bit her lip. She felt like crying - but she knew she mustn’t. WHAT – WAS - SHE – GOING – TO – DO??!!!
The worst of it was - she couldn’t talk about it, not to anyone. Mum and Dad would just think she was crazy if she told them about how she net-voyaged and had to have Mr Mouse to do it – even though she always told them everything, they were like that as a family. But they wouldn’t be able to get this. Who would, after all?
And worse even than that, Dot suddenly realized – she couldn’t even talk to Wiz. It was only when they were about to go net-voyaging that he could start talking to her, and she to him. That needed Mr Mouse too.
As if she knew she was thinking about him, Wiz came padding into the room. He looked up at her with his big, big brown eyes, his tail gently swishing to and fro. He was always glad to see her when she came home from school.
She bent down and nuzzled her face into the silky fur on the top of his head.
“Oh Wiz” she said, really sad now. “We’ve lost our friend! Our Mr Know-All! Our Mr I’ll-Fix-It! How will we ever be able to get on the net ever again?”
Wiz gave her hand a lick. He could tell she was unhappy and he didn’t like it.
“And there’s no-one we can ask – we can’t even talk to Samson the Server, ‘cos we can’t net- voyage.”
She clicked on the mousepad, and the laptop came to life. Plink! There was her screensaver again – all her fave pictures, even the one of Mr Mouse standing on top of Wiz’s head (just being a computer mouse of course!) She’d done it like a school noticeboard with pictures pinned up on it, with a space on the left for all her desktop icons so she could read them.
There was even a little cartoon she’d once done of Mr Mouse, the way he looked when they were on the net, with his baseball cap and his back pack and his little tail behind him. He had his hands on his hips and he had that expression on his face. His know-all look, Dot and Wiz called it.
It really annoyed them sometimes. But oh, how she wished she could see it now.
“ ‘S easy, kid” he’d say. “I’ll dance it – you just watch!”
No – wait! WAIT!
Dance, that was it! What had he said once? “You just gotta do the keyboard tango – here, there and that – and bingo, you could get on without me!”
OF COURSE!! HOW could she have forgotten!! The keyboard tango!!
But how did it go? She gazed hopelessly at the keys on her laptop keyboard. They seemed to rise up like a forest of letters and numbers. She knew it started with holding down Ctrl… and then it went… where did it go?
Then she remembered something else Mr M had said. “Go with the flow!” he’d said. “Just feel it and you’ll get it. Shut your eyes and go for it!”
So she did. She held down Ctrl with her left hand and went here, there and that. Nothing.
Here, there and that. Still nothing.
Here, there and that. STILL nothing.
“Dot!” called her Mum from downstairs. “Teatime!”
Here, there and – Wiz, more worried than ever, suddenly jumped into Dot’s lap, jogging her right hand just as it went that again.
“Oh Wiz! I wish you - ”
ZVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSH! They were off! Back on the net, and heading for help!
* “Find your mouse a good home.”
