Chapter 52 - It's the way you play it!
"Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa paaaa..."
Cursor looked up, a lazy smile curling round his big, sleek face.
"Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa... "
Dot knew she'd heard that tune somewhere before. Only then it wasn't being played by a sad-eyed little man with a big cap and even bigger moustaches, who was kneeling down next to a broken Search Engine on the Internet - and blowing into a trumpet mouthpiece on the end of something that looked like a screwdriver with a calculator attached to it!
"Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa paaaa..."
What was that tune? So annNOYing, thought Dot. She'd heard it so many times!
"PA PA PA PA!"
A Search Engine shaped like an old-fashioned car zoomed low overhead, scanning the Search Zone with its bright red beams to find more information. It stopped just past the little group gathered round Adrienne's Engine on the Search Zone floor and reversed back towards them, its net-jet motor whirring.
" 'Ey! Bambino! Is thatta my friend in those moustaches?"
A Jack Russell terrier in a back-to-front baseball cap was leaning out of the Search Engine, his face full of excitement.
" 'Ey!" he went again. "Don't you remember your old amigo - Carlo! It's me!"
The little man looked up and frowned, putting a finger to his lips. He was still pressing the tip of his screwdriver against the hatch of Adrienne's Search Engine. He started to blow into the mouthpiece again - and out came the same tune.
"Pa pa pa pa pa pa... "
Now I remember, thought Dot. It was one of her Gran's favourite tunes! Every time Dot and her mum and dad went round to Gran's for Sunday lunch, she got out a big black flat shiny plastic disc she called an "L.P." and put in on her old-fashioned gramophone. Dot remembered the disc always got stuck about halfway through and kept playing the same note over and over again. Then they all had to jump o the floor at the same time to get the record going again - which it always did, with a kind of "ziiiiiiiiip!!!!" noise. Gran said she'd never be able to get the recording anywhere else again, certainly not on CD, so they'd have to put up with it. It didn't matter somehow - it was all part of an afternoon's at Gran's; and they'd had got so good at knowing when the needle on the gramophone was going to get stuck in its groove, they used to jump on the floor at exactly the right moment without even stopping talking!
But what was that TUNE!
Whatever it was, it was doing something for Louise D and Luis - they were celebrating their new-found freedom with another dance, looking like the young Australian dancers in 'Simply Ballroom', one of Dot's Mum's fave movies. Away they went again, whirling over the search zone floor.
The Search Engine with the Jack Russell in it weaved round and came into land, just missing Luis and Louise D as they danced away. It bounced twice on the Search Zone floor and stopped. The little Jack Russell winked at Dot and Wizard and put a paw to his lips.
"Pa pa pa pa pa papa pa pa paaaaaa..." went the tune again, the little man's cheeks puffing out like balloons as he blew into the mouthpiece. Nothing much seemed to be happening to Adrienne's Search Engine but the he wasn't giving up!
"Corny stuff!" sniffed Mr Mouse in Dot's ear, making her jump. "How much longer we gotta listen to this - why can't this guy do something worth hearing, like that new one from Pink?"
Pink, Dot thought - of course! Pink! That was it! The tune was 'Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White' - a big hit from years and YEARS ago by a trumpet player called Eddie Calvert! Gran loved it. Dot suddenly felt sad - it seemed so long that she'd been away from home... though of course real time stops when you're Net-voyaging, so when you get back it's only about a hundredth of a second later than when you left. She suddenly felt she just wanted to go home and see her Mum and Dad and her bedroom and all her friends again.
Then suddenly - "PLINK - ZISS!|" went the Search Engine.
Could this be it? Was Dot's wish about to be granted...?
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