"You went to another world," Slops said.

"Well I'm not sure -" Ward began.

Slops shook his head. "You did. And that is so cool."

"I could've been dreaming."

"There're lots of them you know," Slops went on.

"Lots of what?" Carmen said.

"Parallel worlds."

"Para - what worlds?"

"Parallel," Slops said. "Side-by-side, you know?"

Ward's face was blank.

Slops sighed. "Okay, imagine you're a picture on a piece of paper. Flat."

"A drawing?" Ward said.

"Yeh, exactly. And I'm another drawing, on another piece of paper, here." He pointed at his feet. "And you're over there." He pointed at Ward.

"Okay," Ward said slowly.

"Now tell me what you see," Slops said.

Ward looked around. "Um, fields, you two -"

"No you don't. You're flat, right? You can't see anything out here," He waved his arm around. "You're two-dimensional. You can only see the surface of the paper."

"I guess so," Ward said.

"And so am I."

"Right."

"So we can't see each other. Unless -"

"Unless what?"

"You found a way to jump over to my piece of paper."

"But we're not just drawings," Ward said.

"No. It's a whatchamacallit."

"Theory?" Carmen said.

"Kinda," Slops said. " Like an experiment you do in your head. Imagine that. Worlds. All lying one on top of the other. Like pages in a book."

"Okay, but what if I went up into the sky?" Ward said. "Past all the stars, and kept going. Wouldn't I eventually get to one of these para-yell worlds?"

"Parallel," Slops said. "And no. Never. Think about it. You'd just be travelling along your piece of paper – which is huge by the way, nobody knows how big. You'd never leave the surface, no matter how far you went."

"How do you know all this, Slops?" Carmen said.

"I only know the basics. Just what I told you."

"But who told you?"

"The Old Wise Woman," he said, and nodded to himself, as if he had explained himself quite adequately.

"Who is...?"

"Like I said. She's old. She's wise. And she's a woman. Or was. She knows all about this stuff. More than anyone. She goes to the other worlds all the time."

Ward and Carmen exchanged a look.

"Does she have dice?" Ward said.

"What?" Slops said.

"Dice," Ward said. "Does she use dice to go to the parayell-lel worlds?"

"No idea. You'd have to ask her I guess." His face suddenly lit up. "Hey, mere and pere are taking me there next weekend. Why don't you come?"

"Where?" Carmen said.

"Croakumshire of course."

Ward looked at Carmen. She shrugged. His resolve to tell nobody but her about the dice had crumbled, and she had had nothing to do with it. Now Snapper, Slops, and Mildew all knew about them. What did it matter if some weirdo in Croakumshire knew too?"

"Okay," Ward said.

"Great!" Slops said.

"Please don't tell your parents anything," Ward said. "About the dice – anything."

"We won't say a word, will we Leif?" Slops said to the gillywig.

"Slops, this is serious," Carmen said.

"I know," Slops said. "If the Brotherhood find out they'll kill us."

You are now exactly halfway through this book. Give yourself a pat on the back. Okay, you can stop now. Oi, cut it out.