Cybernetic culture research unit
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Takka's Terrific Trek

This is Takka.
She is very excitable, and ticklish.
She is also very tricky.

Whenever Takka feels especially excited, tricky, and ticklish - and that is very often indeed - she runs round and around chasing her tail.
She spins faster and faster and faster until she is dizzy and tired.
"I will never catch my tail like this," she says to herself, "it is just as quick as me."

"Maybe I should be trickier, and try to creep up on it."
So Takka creeps up behind her tail ... but it creeps up behind her instead.

"I need to be even trickier," thinks Takka. "I will trick my tail by creeping around this big red rock."
Even when Takka creeps this way, her tail creeps more creepily still.

She creeps around in bigger and bigger circles, twisting and turning with excitement, but however she twists and turns her tail still escapes.
"I will need to be trickier than tricky, the trickiest of all things that trick," thinks Takka.
"I will have to creep around the whole wide world if I am ever to catch my tail."

Takka sets off on her terrific trek.
She leaves her lair in the middle of the desert where everything is hot and dry.

As she travels the land grows cooler and greener
and wetter
and wetter
and wetter
until there is no land at all.
Takka has arrived at the sea.

"How will I ever get across," she thinks "I cannot swim!"
She gnashes her teeth, and begins to growl.
Takka's gnashing and growling is very loud.
It is so loud that it can be heard down at the bottom of the sea.

That is where Murmu lives.
Murmu sleeps on the sea-bed, dreaming.
When she hears the sound of gnashing and growling
she wakes up
and swims
to the
surface
ever
so
slowly...

Murmu has tremendously twisty tentacles covered with squillions of squishy suckers.
Murmu is very slithery and tangly.
She is so slithery and tangly that she does not even know what shape she is, and neither does anybody else.

"She is the strangest thing I have ever seen," thinks Takka.
"She must know all the secrets of the sea.
Maybe she can carry me across.
The trouble is, she must tickle terribly, and she moves so slowly!"

"Ummm ..." Murmu begins, but before she can say anything else, Takka interrupts her excitedly:
"Hurry, hurry. I must cross this great ocean, otherwise I shall never catch my tail!"
"Umm ... " Murmu begins again, lifting up one of her tentacles.
This is too slow for Takka.
"Hurry! Hurry!" she growls to Murmu "Take me into your tentacles so I can cross this ocean quickly."

Murmu merely mumbles "You must meet me in my dreams."
"What mumbo jumbo!" thinks Takka "and these tentacles are so tickly! It makes my head spin."

Murmu's mumbo jumbo has made Takka feel
just as if she is sinking
ever so
slowly
down
under
the sea.

When Takka wakes up she is on the other side.
She is amazed.
"This trek seems to be going very well," she thinks.
"But I don't like this place one little bit - it is so muddy, and my claws are getting dirty!
I am sure to get stuck, and I still can't see any dry land"

Takka sniffs.
"What is that funny smell?" she wonders.
She looks around and sees Dobo playing in the mud, blowing bubbles and building blobs.
That is what Dobo does best.

"Doobie doobie dop, dubbly bubbly bop" sings Dobo to herself.
Dobo has webbed fingers and toes, just like a frog.
She is the strangest thing Takka has ever smelled.

"Dobo, you are so smelly" says Takka, holding her nose.
Dobo knows that what Takka says is true.
She is smelly, because she lives in a swamp.
Whenever she washes she just gets smellier.

"Oh bubbles to that", says Dobo, "all my friends are smelly and soon you'll be smelly too!"
What Dobo says makes Takka growl. "I can't get stuck here!" Takka says. "I have to travel around the world to sneak up on my tail!"

Dobo answers with her favourite song: "Doobie doobie dop, dubbly bubbly bop."
Dobo blows bubbles while she sings.

Takka twists and turns with excitement.
"Don't be so dodgy Dobo," she growls. "How can I escape from this swamp without getting stuck?"

"Only in a blobby bubble," says Dobo dubiously. "Or else in a bubbly blob."

"Stop your babbling," says Takka, but she is already bubbled in a blob. "Bubbb bubbbb bubbbb" is the only sound that Dobo can hear.

The bubbly blob floats in the air. Dobo blows it across the swamp.

By the time the blob pops, it has blown as far as dry land.

Takka has arrived back in her desert.

In the distance she sees the big red rock.

"Aha!" says Takka. "I have almost travelled around the whole world. My terrific trek is nearly over, and the trick is almost done."

She creeps forward,
and creeps forward,
and creeps forward,
as quietly as can be,
and POUNCES ...

... but somehow her tail has escaped from her trap, and has crept up behind her yet again.

"What a tricky trick!" Takka chatters excitedly. "My tail must have followed me right around the whole world, and nobody told me! Murmu was too slow and dreamy, and Dobo was too busy with her bubbles. It makes my head spin."

As Takka thinks about her adventures she twists and turns as fast as can be.
This makes her feel especially excited, tricky, and ticklish.
Whenever Takka feels like this - and that is very often indeed - she runs round and around chasing her tail.