Far, far below them all at the bottom of the cachou tree, something incredible had happened.
The crinkly round ball that had formed when the cachou tree had taken off had opened, with segments like you get when you peel an orange – and that was where the long green tentacles were coming from.
There seemed to be loads of them – just like there always are when you dig a plant up.
Only, these weren’t just being roots now. They were being much more like an octopus’ tentacles, or a squid’s – and they were giving the cyber rats a REALLY hard time!
Everywhere you looked, there seemed to be tentacles – there must have been sixty or seventy of them, different lengths but all the same apple green colour, with little red bands all along them and underneath, soft little hooks that looked like eagle’s claws.
They swirled about, up, down and to the side, catching cyber rats and their bikes and throwing them away, giving the rats tremendous biffs that sent them spinning off, even giving them a big squeeze before flick – shooting them into deepest cyber space!
“Whoops!” said Dot, jerking her head back just in time as another six cyber rats (this lot were from Sewer wing) shot up past them, going skywards, yelling out and hanging onto their handlebars for dear life. They only just missed the top of the cachou tree, spinning and tumbling on their way into deepest cyber space.
“Mind out!” said Mr Mouse (he’d come out from his hiding place to see the fun, and he wanted everything to be nice and safe!) “Nearly had my cap off!”
“SORRY!” said a big deep voice that seemed to come from nowhere, making them all jump.
“Barkbark!” said Wizzie, leaping up onto Dot’s lap, “What was that?”
“Talking too!” chuckled Drindel. “You wait till I tell old Horners! He’ll be SO pleased!”
“YAAARRGH!” went three cyber rats from Rotten Meat wing, zooming away all tangled up together, their bike engines roaring and whining.
“Would you mind telling us WHAT is going on?” said Mr Mouse, raising his voice to make himself heard above the roaring of the cyber bikes and the screams and yells of the cyber rats - and ducking as a girl rat flew
overhead going “HELLPPPP!”
“Well, I told you” said Drindel Zildith, still giggling away. “The cachou tree has REALLY transformed! It can fight with its roots, and it can even talk!”
He spread his arms out and lifted up the leaf wings on either side of him. “It’s all to with what happens when you send something good out into Networld - it just transforms! And if it’s good to start off with – and Hornbeam Zildith, our Keeper of the Book Forest, made sure it was - it just gets better all the time!”
“Too kind, too kind!” said the deep voice from inside the tree.
Flick, off went another five cyber rats.
“I see… so we’re saved by a tree?” said Dot with a big grin.
“The whole world could be, if only you’d let us!” said the deep voice.
“YAAARGGH!” – that was two more cyber rats. Off they went. And good riddance to you too!
But in fact there was almost nothing left of the cyber rat army now. And as Dot looked down, it was clear that the rats had had enough. The few scattered bikes that had managed to avoid the cachou tree’s tentacles were turning round – and roaring off into the distance.
They were beaten!
Cachou tree 480 – cyber rats, NIL!!
And now – what was that sound coming from Phargon?
