“Zut!” went Adrienne crossly (which, by the way, is French for “Bother!”) “I was ‘oping I could shut ‘im down – the Internet would be a better place without zat ‘orrible Baron!”

“Oh, great!” came a tiny, equally cross voice from inside the sunflower seed. “How in heck am I going to get out of here now? I’m getting TOTALLY cramped – and I‘ve got this itch on the back of my neck I can’t reach to scratch and it’s DRIVING ME CRAZY!”

Dot turned to Adrienne. She was really worried again.

“But how can we get Mr Mouse back to being Mr Mouse now Blackshanks has gone?” she asked the little squirrel searcher. “He’s the only one who knows what he did!”

“Oh, poufff!” went Adrienne carelessly. “Blackshanks will be back! ‘E will not want to stay the only black canary bird on ze Internet forever – and without coming back to me to unlock him, zat is what will happen. But now ‘e is out of his cage he can – ‘ow do you say it in English or American – make a deal about poor Meestair Mouse. And after zat, ‘e will be gone.” She shrugged – it seemed to be her favourite move, Dot thought. “But it is no good crying over ze – what you English say in your crazy language – over ze speelt milk, huh?”

Dot sighed. It seemed to her that no sooner had they solved one problem, than they had another. It was all to do with the complicated way the Internet was set up – just like on your computer at home there were so many ways of doing even simple things, there was always some way everything could get mixed up. And she needed to get going! What with all this stuff with Blackshanks she hadn’t found any of the websites her dad needed for the Munchenmeat Awards. It was lucky, she thought, that normal time stood still when you were voyaging on the Net, so that when she got back home into “real world” she would arrive at almost exactly the same time she’d left. She felt like she’d been away for weeks!

Just then, Wizzie gave his special warning bark. “Look Dot!” he said. “Look over there!”

And sure enough, there was Blackshanks – standing on one of the Search Zone ports with the search lights going on and off all round him. He saw he’d been spotted and let out a harsh laugh.

“OK!” came the familiar, nasty voice. “You’ve got something I want – I’ve got something you want! Do we deal, or what?”

Adrienne sighed. She knew she had to do it.

“OK – I will change you back” she said, climbing inside her search engine.  She tapped a code into the keyboard in her control cabin, and then held her little paw up just over the ‘Enter’ button. “But – you first, Monsieur le Baron! Until I see Meestair Mouse out of zat seed and back to his normal size, I do nothing!”

Blackshanks chuckled and hopped forward. “No way José!” he sneered. “You go first – I ain’t moving the tip of a tail feather to get our seedy little friend out of his nice new home till I’m back to my real self! Comprenez, ma cherie?” (which means “Understand, darling?” Cheek!)

“Non!”

“Yup!”

“NON!”

“Oh yes!”

“NON NON ET MILLEFOIS NON!” (which means “No, no, a thousand times no!”)

Dot and Wiz had had enough of this. And so had Mr Mouse!

“Will you two get it on!” came his voice out of the screen on Adrienne's search engine. “I’m getting TOTALLY hacked off and now I’ve got pins and needles in my left back paw!”

It looked like they were all stuck. But just then…

“Hey YOU, Inverter!

You just ain’t worth a

Tiny bit o’ trouble -

You wanna go bobble?”

What now, thought Dot!