“After that, it was easy. A breeze!”

For the first time in telling his story, Eldenbeam smiled - remembering something nice.

“She was just amazing, that Magic Malarkerette” he went on. “Once she'd gone back to being a single Post-It note, and I could see the Mountain of Food next to us again, I explained what had happened. She listened with her face on one side, and then said “Poor you! Bad luck! I fix!”

“She sounds like a text message!” said Wiz.

“Yes, she never says more than two words at at time” nodded Eldenbeam. “Some netpeople say that's part of the programming error that made her in the first place. I've always thought it's because she's always in such a rush she doesn't have time for lots of words.”

“What happened next?” asked Dot.

“Changement mode!” said Eldenbeam. Lucia the Tracboat gave herself a little shake. Eldenbeam grinned. “That's got bad memories for you Lucy, hasn't it? Never mind, it wasn't for long!”

“What was not?” asked Fromage, looking baffled.

“Oh, the Malarkerette played a joke on Lucia - actually, when we installed the Food Mountain” explained Eldenbeam. “The programme turned her into one of those plastic boats you play with in your bath. Only for a minute or two though!”

“Poor Lucy!” said Katzilow, stroking the Tracboat's side to calm her down. “But she did leave us with a big present!”

“Changement mode...?” asked Dot. Really, keeping this story straight in your mind was hard work!

“Yes!” said Eldenbeam. “She said “Show MiniTrac!” So I did. She looked at it for a moment - then winked at me and gave it a big kiss! Like this!”

Smooch! Dot had never been kissed on the cheek by anyone with a big spoon-shaped beak before. It made her jump, but it didn't feel too bad - much better than being given a Dad kiss when he hadn't shaved, anyway!

Just like his helper, Eldenbeam winked too. Then his spread his arms wide and waggled his paws.

“EVERYTHING changed! There was this big ba-da-da-DAAAAAAAAAAAA sound, like about 500 trumpets playing together - ”

“Yes, she's very fond of that” said Hombellyton, putting his hands over his ears as if hearing the Magic Malarkerette's fanfare. “WHAT a racket!”

“ - and everything round me kind of shifted - as if I were in a box with mirrored sides and all I could see was me and the Malarkerette, going round and round, upside down, then the right way up, then back and forwards, till I felt quite dizzy. Then, suddenly the box vanished and in front of me was - the Mountain of Rood!”

BLICK!

“Aha!” said Walpurgis excitedly. He pointed up to the Tracmapper globe. Instead of green-purple-black, the three lights flashing to show they were in sideline, now it was green-purple-white. “We're in the NextZone! Out of Sideline! Any moment now we could get into Encorathon!”

Dot wanted to hear the end of the story. No more interruptions!

“So what did the Mountain of Rood look like?” she asked. “More like a hill, really” said Eldenbeam. “A smooth round hill. It's not very tall, but it does cover a lot of the netplain. But the thing you notice most about it are its Foretell ports - little V-shaped slots so that Foretells can go in and be tested. They're opening and closing all the time. The first Rood test for a Foretell, to check whether it's a clean programme, is to see that it fits one of the V-shaped slots. which all look the same, but aren't.”

“Sounds like one of those wooden Early Learning Centre “fit the shape in the spaces” things you have when you're little” said Dot. (Suzie Com has kept Dot's... even though some of the shapes are a bit chewed... especially the house one, for some reason!)

“Yes, sort of, except all these slots are V-shaped, but each one is a slightly different size and shape” replied Eldenbeam. “And if a Foretell can't find its slot and fit through it, it's unpermitted.”

“I imageene... your Tweet was unpairmitted, zen?” said Fromage.

“Yes!” said Fromage, smiling at the memory. “There the silly thing was, stuck halfway into a Foretell port, going on and on: “StuckintheliftIwasandcouldn'tgetout - why can'tIfindmywaytoeveryone - Simonwillbesocrosscrosscross”, the usual Tweet nonsense. But WHAT a relief to find it! The rest was easy - my MiniTrac has a Detach/Dispatch function on beam - all I had to do was point and press the Activate button, and the Tweet came out like a cork from a bottle and went into my MiniTrac. Once inside it auto-cleaned itself, dropped the < next to the word “future” that had sent it to Rood, and out it came again and off to all Simon Bake's lucky lucky readers!”

“So... you'd done it?” said Dot.

“Yes!” said Eldenbeam. “I had made my first big step on the netpath to becoming a Tracmapper!”

“And the Magic Malarkerette...?” asked Wiz.

“Oh, she just smiled at me and said “OK now?” I didn't know what to say - I was so grateful - but she just went “No no” and flipped forward and kissed me - another smooch! - and was gone! But as she went she said one more thing - “Check pocket!”

“What was in it?” asked Dot. But she thought she could guess!

“It was a tiny, 600 Terabyte SD card... just right for my MiniTrac” said Eldenbeam. “It was her way of saying “Don't forget me!” And when I put it in I found a complete mini-cyberization of the Food Mountain, with Eternity Functions - it'll always work, and always have food! And that's how Tracboat Lucia got her very own mini-Food Mountain!”

“Only reason we took you on!” grinned Hombellyton.

“That and your easy-going attitude to life!” laughed Carmeramalita.

“Oh really?” said Eldenbeam. “Well let me - ”

BLICK BLICK BLICK!

Everyone looked at the Tracmapper. The three lights on the globe had suddenly started all flashing green!

“We're in!” shouted Walpurgis. “Into the Encorathon!”