There was a kind of fluttering all round them – and it made a cool breeze, slightly scented too, like when you go through the perfume department of a big store, with all those beautifully made-up ladies.
The wing-like leaves of the cachou tree were all moving – gently up and down, just like bird’s wings. In fact, they were now more like wings than leaves – much more, in fact, because the tree was lifting off the island!
Ever so gently – but it was definitely going up and taking Dot and her friends with it.
“Now this is interesting!” said Drindel, looking round. “Isn’t it?”
Dot opened her mouth to speak, but then decided not to. It was funny – it just felt completely all right to be sitting in a tree that had taken off to fly through the air.
Where they were sitting, still on the cyber bike where it had landed on one of the highest branches of the tree, they were surrounded by the multi-coloured leaf-wings. Looking down though the branches thatwas all they could see, too – with just a glimpse of the bottom of the tree far below them.
As Dot watched, she saw the roots of the cachou tree slowly fold inwards, so that the bottom of its trunk became a smooth, round globe – like a giant brown football, but with crinkly golden bark all over it.
She gave Wizzie a stroke and smiled at him. It was a wonderful feeling – softly rising up through the air, with the leaf-wings beating all around them.
Wizzie gave Dot’s hand a little lick, then settled down with his head on his paws. He was obviously chilling out too!
“VERY interesting!” said Drindel. “Hornbeam Zildith would love to see this, bless him!”
Though the leaf wings didn’t seem to be beating any harder, the cachou tree was still rising through the cyber-sky. It was now about 100 metres above the net sea below, which gleamed with the soft warm light of cyber space.
One of the leaf wings brushed against Dot’s cheek, with a soft touch like your mum makes when she wants you to feel better about something. She closed her eyes.
“Is this safe?” asked Mr Mouse nervously. He was back under the shoulder of Dot’s T-shirt, peeking out with just his wiffly nose and little black eyes showing.
“Good heavens, yes!” said Drindel. “Old Hornbeam wouldn’t make anything that wasn’t safe… but I must say, I don’t think he ever dreamed his cachou tree would transform like this!”
“Transform?” said Wizzie, looking up from his seat on the back of the cyber bike.
“Yes” said Drindel. “It can happen you know, on the Net – when you set something free like Hornbeam did with these trees, they can change. Transform. And if they’re sent out with a good and helpful data already in them – like this tree, which Hornbeam made specially to help net-voyagers – then what’s good about them just gets better!”
He looked round with a happy smile at all the hundreds of leaf-wings all around them which were flying the cachou tree along. It wasn’t going any higher now – just flying steadily through the air as if it knew exactly what it was doing.
Dot opened her eyes and yawned. “I wonder where we’re going” she said.
Drindel spread his arms wide so that he looked like a bird – with all the leaf-wings around him covering up the sleeves of his cloak as they fluttered along. “Don’t know!” he said with a little laugh. “But somehow I just feel it’s all going to be all right… ”
“I’m wondering where all those cyber rats are now” said Mr Mouse. “And Cruncher too… where’s he got to?”
“I’m here!” said a crackly kind of voice, making them all jump. “Near Phargon! And it looks like they need your help – right now!”
