“REALLY, Dot!” said Wizzie crossly, giving himself a quick scratch. “WHAT was that all about? And where in the Net ARE we? What a SILLYSOCKS!!”
Doty felt AWFUL – she just didn’t know why she’d done what she did. She’d just felt like it, as if it was a dare. So she’d let go of the handlebars of the cyber-bike… just to see what would happen… and lost “synchronous” with Cruncher, which kept the two bikes moving together – and crash-landed.
And now they were stuck! And there was no sign of Cruncher – he hadn’t even noticed they’d gone. He must be MILES away by now thought Dot. FOODLEMAXXXX! HOW could I have been so stupid??
“I’m… I’m so sorry, everyone” she said sadly. “That was a BIG mistake!”
In his hiding place, Mr Mouse let out a snore. He was fast asleep!
“Never mind!” said Drindel, giving her hand a squeeze. “At least we’re all safe and sound and we didn’t fall off our cyber-bike!” He gave it a little pat. “It doesn’t seem to have come to any harm, either!” He stretched and looked round. “Quite a view!” he said. “I wonder where in the Net we are?”
They seemed to be on some kind of an island – a very tiny island. It was in the middle of what looked like a huge, glowing, deep green and silver sea – with little curly waves going across it with a kind of shushing sound. There were no other islands to be seen – just the sea.
In fact they weren’t really on the island yet – but stuck up in the branches of a crazy tree, right in the middle of the tiny island. It was the only tree there.
It had dozens of curly blue branches that went round and round, and leaves shaped like bird’s wings. Different coloured birds’ wings – black, goldeny-brown, green, even bright red.
One thing was lucky, though – they’d landed on a huge branch near the top of the tree. Anything smaller and they’d have crashed to the ground, which looked kind of rocky and hard – though it sparkled from time to time, as the little envelopes of text messages flashed across the internet sky above them.
“Now this is interesting!” said Drindel, stroking one of the wings on the branch next to where he was still sitting on the cyber-bike. “Very interesting!”
“What, that we’re lost you mean?” said Wiz. “TOTALLY interesting!”
“No, no” said Drindel. “This looks like an ordinary cachou tree, but - ”
“Wait a minute” said Dot, trying to keep up, “What’s a cachou tree?”
“Oh, sorry!” said Drindel, laughing. “It’s just what it sounds like – a tree to “catch you”! Hornbeam Zildith, our Keeper of the Book Forest, created them in Phargon, and then sent the seeds out onto the World Wide Web. Neat isn’t it? If you’re falling like we just did it’ll “catch you”, see?”
“Well it certainly did that!” said Dot. “But what do we do now?”
“Well… ” said Drindel “We could just sit tight, and see if Cruncher comes back for us, but I - ”
“HIDE!” Wizzie shouted suddenly “Under the leaves! Pull them over!”
Now dogs can hear certain sounds, especially low rumbling ones, before we humans – and that’s what saved everyone that day. Because what Wiz had heard was – cyber-bikes! Hundreds of them!
There was no time to lose! The three friends crouched down, pulling the branches with the bird’s wing leaves over them. The funny – and lucky - thing was, the leaves and branches didn’t spring back like they do on ordinary trees. Instead, they folded gently over the cyber bike and its riders like some birds fold their wings over their backs and heads when they want to sleep.
Just in time! The cyber rats’ bikes were really close now – and they could all hear them only too clearly now.
RRRRRMMMMMMM! BRRRRRRRRRRRMMMM! BRRRRRRRRRMM!
Dot held her breath. Would they be spotted?
If they were – they’d had it!!
