We need to stop the story now, for a moment.

Because we need to talk about - Nascarbalone Trinth.

Because he’s going to be very important to Dot and Wizzie and Fromage, in their desperate search for the missing Mr Mouse.

Because Mr Mouse seems to have ended up in the zone controlled by Mr Trinth – where whatever he says, goes. Think about your strictest teacher and multiply her or him by 100.

Then you’ll know how strict Nascarbalone Trinth is, as he carries out his job – his new job – as ZoneMaster of TZ66.

Let’s look at Nascarbalone Trinth’s childhood – the story where what we all are begins. Somebody once said, you never leave your childhood behind. What you are then, is what you’ll always be, in a strange way – however far you travel, whatever you do, however successful you are in life, wherever you find yourself – whatever happens when you’re young, shapes what you are for all of your life.

So if you have a happy childhood, you’re probably going to be a happy person as you grow up.

And if you’re unhappy… well, you may have a battle to be happy as you become a grown-up.

But, it’s up to you – you can change the way you are, if you decide to do so – take your life in your hands and make it better.

There are millions and millions of people who can show you that – who can show you how to take your life and make it better. People do it all the time, and all over the world – it’s not about having nice things, and living in nice places, but how you are with other people!

Which brings us back to Nascarbalone Trinth.

Nascarbalone is a strange creature – a tall, feathery fellow with a big puffed-up chest, big flat feet in shiny boots, and a peaked cap straight on his head, with a shiny peak and a golden badge shaped like a castle.

He has two round, piercing eyes, and a very sharp, hooked beak.

He doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s often just a reading out of the TZ Rulebook – which has 4000 pages.

Nascarbalone knows EVERY ONE off by heart.

He has a VERY shiny belt round his tummy, with lots of things clipped onto it – a pouch full of ZoneBreaks, which allow net-voyagers to come into TZ66 (but only for a very limited time); a funny kind of camera, which allows him to see what is happening in all the other TZ zones; and a Concentrator, a kind of gun (it looks a bit like one of those big water pistols in fact) which he uses to zapple anyone who comes into his zone without a ‘Server Satisfied’, a kind of permit that allows you to Zonetravel whenever you want.

But why is he so strict? So difficult, and hard – even with netpeople like the TricTrucTrackers, who just want to help. Why is he like that?

Well - Nascarbalone had a net-friend, Hambarkelay Ponthrappin. His best friend, in fact.

He taught Nascarbalone everything he knew about being a Zonemaster. Nascarbalone was his learner – his student, really.

But one day, Hambarkelay was asked for help. By an MP3 download that had got lost on its way to a young, handicapped boy’s laptop. The download needed a quick ‘Server Satisfied’ – so that the boy could listen to one of his fave songs, ‘I Won’t Back Down’, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

(It’s a great track if you’ve got something really hard you have to do, and are scared you just won’t be able to do it.)

So… it meant breaking the checks required by net-law, but Hambarkelay said yes, and let the download into his Zone.

But the download wasn’t real. He was a virus.

And he destroyed the handicapped boy’s laptop, and thousands more like it.

Hambarkelay was disgraced – and vanished into Void, never to be seen again.

And Nascarbalone never forgot. In his sorrow at the disgrace of his best friend ever, he never forgot.

And that is why he never allows ANYONE to break ANY net-law. So… it meant breaking the checks required by net-law, but Hambarkelay said yes, and let the download into his Zone.

And this is the ZoneMaster that Dot and the TricTrucTrackers must deal with, if they are to find Mr Mouse!