Lyra stared at her friend as she walked up the beach and away from the games area. The Massking twins were discreetly drawing pictures in the sand with their toes and pretending nothing had happened. But something had and the dark-haired girl from a land dominated by a great central lake as large as an inland sea, felt a vague sense matters were not quite right.

Some of the spectators however were not so sensitively attuned to the inner soul as the lyrical girl.

"Hey, Mangoria girl," one of the boys sat among the rocks at the edge of the beach shouted. "What you need is a sea horse to get that ball back," and there was general laughter. Soo turned on the boy fiercely but Lyra interposed.

"Worry no worry for tasks are not tasks when shared," she said. "I shall retrieve the ball and we will complete our task together." With that she ran into the surf and dived swiftly and surely through the oncoming waves.

Sullenly Soo watched her friend as she swam out towards the fast receding ball on the horizon and a growing sense of amazement filled her. With perfect ease the other girl dived and swam and spun around in the choppy water as she herded the great bouncy thing towards the beach, until eventually she walked calmly to shore with it clutched safely to her. She batted it to the twins as if nothing had happened.

"Your serve I think, and we are now at your service," she said and shook droplets from her hair before taking up a defensive position on the sand. Soo ran up to her full of admiration.

"The way you swam just then, you were like a mermaid," she said. Lyra laughed.

"Such fishy damsels are scarce in Meditia but it is true we are a folk who love the sea. It is not as troubled as the fringes of Frangea but still there is power in its motion and when life is lived within its waves respect for it comes naturally to my people."

"You learnt to swim when young," Soo translated for her own benefit.

The twins coughed, whistled and waved the retrieved ball around teasingly to remind the Sensation girls their honour was still on the line. There was a smugness on their identical faces which fired up Soo's determination to win and erase the embarrassment of earlier, for she was a proud spirit who could not abide the taste of failure. Nothing though could stop the giant squashy thing from soaring over the pair of Sensation girls to plonk down in the soft sand one final time so that the game was then truly lost.

As they left the twins to perform another carefully rehearsed victory dance Lyra suddenly looked at her bracelet.

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"Ooh, time to go," she said and began packing her things.

"It's not even lunch yet," Soo protested.

"Still, my need lies elsewhere, bye," and with that Lyra scooted off with her bundle of beach bags, some of which were obviously empty. Soo watched her race up the slipway a moment and then looked around, feeling suddenly alone. Danique had fallen asleep in the shade of the rock by now and the other Sensation girls were off somewhere else. She did not fancy hanging out with Flare or Wonder and did not know any of the older girls well enough to approach where they were having their own beach fun. As for the boys, she was not in the mood anymore to have a fight after such a series of humiliations. Then an idea came to her, one that required the presence of Lyra Bellicosa at all costs.

"Wait!" the Mangoria girl shouted, "I'll go with you," and she raced after the other at such a pace she caught her even before the latter had negotiated a buggy trip into Cherryball Flats.

With summer wraps over their swimwear and flipflops flipping and flopping on the warm pavements, the two girls sauntered around some of the fashionable boutiques in the centre of the settlement for a while and had lunch at a cafe that overlooked a narrow gorge with its view of a now distant sparkling sea. Neither purchased anything and Lyra's bags remained empty.

"Well," Soo said as she toyed with a straw, her cool Destiny Springs chilled orange drink neglected while she mused on matters. "You were in such a hurry to get away, yet here we are, idling and watching the world go by. Ooh, look at that tiny dog and its enormous owner!"

"You seem to be having fun," Lyra said in casual style. "To be truthful I missed an opening, for I thought you would not be interested in where I intended to go."

"Really? You didn't want me there, did you?" Soo accused her friend, not totally in a joking way. "Honestly. I don't mind, even if it's a folk dancing festival or," and she blushed in spite of herself, "a poetry reciting club."

Lyra perked up at this suggestion.

"Do you know of one?" she said, slurping on her drink and laughing at Soo's expression. "Okay, so it's my turn to make nice, as you have agreed to accompany me. We are but a minute's walk from an incredible event, one I've been waiting for all summer and it finally arrived and opened this weekend."

"And what astonishing thing might this be?"

"The Congress of Dolls," and she pointed at an advertising hoarding across the street that flickered with animated figures of little human figures dressed in funny frocks with button eyes, mittens for hands, and impossibly friendly smiles as they marched up and down, danced and spun to attract the attention of passersby to the event. Soo had been aware of the advertisement but had pointedly ignored such bright and smiley colour.

"You're serious aren't you?" she said as a big happy pink face appeared on the screen opposite and then morphed into various types, all smiling, all impossibly vague in their unwavering stares.

"Never more so," Lyra said, paying the bill for the meal and preparing to leave.

"We're going?" Soo whimpered.

"Indeed. Prepare to feast your eyes upon tiny passionate souls begging for love and affection. You'll learn the nature of motherhood."

With that she stopped the traffic and crossed the road.

"But I'm only eleven," Soo protested piteously. Then she huffed. "This had better be worth it," she added, gritting her teeth, stopping traffic too and then following the Meditia girl into one of the scariest environments she had ever encountered in her dangerous life, the Congress of Dolls.