It was called a tower but it was more like the prow of a very tall ship or some flying vessel frozen in air.

Esper felt a sense of comfort leaning over the glassy balcony and gazing at the myriad specks of Cherryball Flats' main boulevards laid out in rows and curves below. Some were shaped in deference to the land upon which they had settled themselves like sleepy dragons and others cut through boldly as a sword through butter.

Traffic followed with unerring obedience to some invisible force and people mingled with the orderly lines, a magnetic grid dictating their movements as surely as iron filings on a table. All danced in mutual time, endless merry-go-rounds and pirouettes.

Now, why did she think of dancing just then? Ah!

"I knew I'd find you here," came a voice at her ear and Esper turned to smile at Pirouette Wrangly, one of her dorm mates.

"No you didn't," she denied the truth of the other's words.

"Why else would I come here alone?" came an unabashed retort for Pirouette was casually proud.

Esper swivelled away from the splendid view over rooftops and misty seascapes beyond to gaze at the interior of Freedome Tower, a consumer paradise. Carpeted walkways slid around shopping displays packed with priceless accessories. Coloured glass from the curved roof threw tints upon everything in such richness that plain fabrics were transformed and patterns deemed an extravagance.

"Alone?" Esper challenged.

"Hey, Pee-roo-yet," came a throaty voice from among the sumptuous displays and a blonde girl with an outdoor tan stepped forward holding some coloured and sparkly thing. "Don't you think this mauve brings out the colour of my eyes?"

"She's so clueless I didn't have the heart to leave the poor thing alone in such a sharp place as this," Pirouette excused herself with a shrug and smile. She then turned to the other. "My name's Pirouette, you know, like pirouette," and to add to her helpful correction she attempted a twirl which ended after about fifteen degrees of rotation which she obviously thought plenty enough.

Dolly Bloomen made a face of one who cared not at all, and held up the item before her Wonder Dorm colleagues.

"Still," she purred, "this does the trick for Winter Festival," naming the end of year celebration that occurred at Miss Plazenby's right in the middle of winter luckily enough. A party it was before everyone departed to their Home Winkels for it coincided with Foam's great swooping orbit that temporarily weakened the storm barriers separating lands across the world. "Just need to find matching shoes."

"That'll need an experienced eye," Pirouette sighed and glanced again at Esper for support and appreciation of her friendly help for such a benighted soul. But Esper was not listening, her attention riveted on the view again.

The rhythm of movement that marked a normal day amid the shoppers of Pinecone Boulevard had been upset. An unsightly knot was forming at a junction for something had occurred. Frowning, the girl pulled out her tablet from a holdall and held its lens at the disturbance, zooming in on details.

"Oh my, it's Vetta again. Our master criminal is perhaps about to be lynched. Better get down there to help."

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With that Esper started to climb over the balcony and was about to leap into thin air when Pirouette grabbed her sleeve. She froze, blinked, and slowly reversed her movements so she was upon the carpet staring wildly around her. Dolly stepped forward and poked her forehead with a finger.

"What have I told you about human beings?" she said in admonishing baby tones. "They can flit in flitters, but they cannot fly."

Esper still gazed about her wildly, matching Pirouette's sympathetic shock.

"You were going to... you almost..." and she gulped.

"Got to go help Vetta," the girl squeaked and dashed down the nearest set of spiral steps to the street level below without wanting to risk further explanation.

Vetta Mindal meanwhile was bemoaning her melted ice cream. It was vanilla and chocolate with little crispy mint pieces that scraped the tongue every now and then with a burst of cooling flavour on a hot day. The discordant voices and waving hands that surrounded her of a sudden prevented indulgence and she saw dribbles of milky goodness splashing themselves on the dusty sidewalk.

"Is it true you can kill with but a glance?" a girl in a flowery frock too wide for her asked, eager eyes haloed by some frosty colouring she no doubt thought was becoming. It was certainly becoming difficult to ignore as Vetta processed this curious question.

"That would be impractical," the Poldorama girl said seriously as a piece of minty chocolate slid off the vanilla cone like the disintegration of an ice sheet on an overheating world. You know the one.

"I heard you rolled over a dozen bullion boxes in an explosion of thievery," an enthusiastic youth insisted, waving an autograph book as he did so.

"I rarely entertain explosions," came the modest ripost. Within her usually calm inner self something was bubbling up which might at any moment imitate an explosion of volcanic lava if not for a more familiar voice floating over the gathered heads in words of rescue.

"Vetta! Playing at celebrities again," came Esper's happily sarcastic voice. "It's amazing how easily some folk are fooled by the slightest coincidence."

This wave of withering contempt washed over the modest but dedicated crowd in commanding tones, dragging some this way and pushing others that way until an opening allowed Vetta's rescuer to pull her quickly into the nearest doorway and off the streets, though the last piece of solid ice cream slouched to the ground and remained a testament to enforced denial.

Vetta settled passively in a shadowy corner, minty bits a mere passing memory, while Esper furiously scrolled through apps on her tablet. She pointed it at her friend, who cowered a little in delayed shock, and there was a beep as if an image had been taken.

"Got you," the girl said with breathless satisfaction. "Krysyal Kraven, ace cat burglar, gold pilferer and one time veterinary surgeon," and she held up a picture of a round faced girl with wispy blonde hair, wide set blue eyes and an expression of fierceness that might kill at a glance if the owner of it were behind the wheel of a speeding tank perhaps. "Last seen sixty years ago dangling off some building where she had been cornered by law enforcers. She dropped into shadows and no body was ever recovered from the swift flowing river below."

"Why, that's me, right after I was helping papa fix a shelf. I was terribly useless with a hammer so I tended to hold the nail steady. Papa was also not good with tools so he concentrated on perfecting cheeses," Vetta said, reminiscing of a happier if occasionally painful time before she ever heard of Frangea Winkel, Miss Plazenby's or Cherryball Flats and its demanding citizens.

"There's a pretty serious spike linked to the thief, and it seems all that media activity has been inspired by sightings right here along Pinecone Boulevard," Esper said ruefully. "I wonder why?"

Vetta snuck back into the shadowy corner under the inquisitive gaze of her friend that followed upon this question.

"I can't imagine," she said sadly. This seemed to snap something in Esper and she hugged the girl.

"My fault. Playing games with people's heads I think. It'll pass eventually, especially if I make a belated effort to persuade people you are someone with too little imagination to be a cat burglar and that it would be best to avoid you. Perhaps if you were to shave your head as well?"

Esper gave the girl another reassuring hug when a trembling hand had shot up to clutch a fluffy blonde curl in alarm.

"Joking! Oh, Vetta Mindal, I'm sorry. How ever am I going to make it up to you?" and she resumed the hug.

"It would be nice to have an ice cream," came a suggestion from the supposedly unimaginative girl.