Vetta found as she read from a supplied brochure that she had a one in four chance of making the acquaintance of a fellow dorm mate for there were only four first year dormitories in the extremely exclusive school.

Her attention was therefore divided between sights out of the window as the great vehicle rumbled along winding coastal roads and began climbing past dark and curious woodlands, and the other passengers sat in the luxuriously comfortable seats or who wandered up and down the carpeted aisle in search of curious characters to engage with.

There were twins on the coach and Vetta could not make up her mind if they might make pleasant dorm companions as they were big girls, loud and mischievous, often descending into slap fights or fits of giggles no one else could understand. A girl sat at the back positively terrified her, with her dark stormy hair and brooding looks. The redhead was not on the coach, she noted, but then that particular character seemed to have such a commandingly independent demeanour that she might be making her own way to the school. She saw some pupils had their own vehicles to travel privately in, including the Greenvale girl, who seemed surrounded by relatives before she disappeared. Vetta wished a little her father had come with her all the way to the steps of Miss Plazenby's but then she wanted the adventure of independence to begin as soon as possible. Besides it would have cost a lot more for him to travel too.

The view out the window soon made her forget her companions for this land of Frangea seemed made of the most incredible mountains she had ever seen. When viewed in pictures they looked jagged and bumpy but small and tolerable. Seeing them now towering over the tiny ribbon of road the coach was rumbling along, there was a massive and sinister look about them. Everything moved around them, running this way and that. Trees dashed away from them as if fleeing some threat. They did not move, only grow larger, more threatening.

Vetta felt a presence near her as some strands of hair drifted into her field of vision and she looked up. It was the girl with the abundance of pencils.

"You were making such whimpering noises I'd thought I would investigate," she said.

"Do you want your pencil back? It is such a nice lemon colour, I understand why you would."

"That's okay," and the girl laughed as she sat down in the seat next to Vetta. "Enjoying the view?"

"It's terrifying!" Vetta replied, eyes wide. "I never realised just how big mountains are. Where does all the rocks and stuff come from to make them so big?"

"Mountains? Those are foothills. Look, we're just going through some settlement with houses and shops and things, all built on these gigantic mountains that are so terrifying. How do you think the people living there cope with such a menace on their doorstep?"

"I can't imagine," came the honest answer. "We are going to Mount Syzywyg. Is that just as big?"

"Well, it's higher up so I suppose it is even bigger. Frangea is very hilly inland and covered in forests. You'll get used to it. I remember you said you were from Poldorama. That's a very flat place so this will take some adjustment."

"How do you know so much, if you've never been here before?"

"Well, I'm from Arbornica. We have a lot of trees and hills just like this, but no coast line or large settlements. Just rivers and waterfalls and lots of wood cabins."

"It must be very nice," and Vetta sighed, trying to imagine such a place.

"My name is Meresinth Woodbine and I've been assigned the Wonder Dormitory," the girl said, showing her papers.

"Me too!" Vetta enthused. Suddenly she realised she had met and made friends with one of her dorm mates even before they had reached the school. "Do you know of any others?" and she looked around at the passengers with renewed interest.

"The one with pink hair definitely not, nor the scowling girl at the back."

Vetta sighed with relief.

"And the twins? Do they count as one or two?" she asked. As she spoke they noticed her looking in their direction and as one returned a stare of curiosity very much doubled in intensity.

"Not sure, I mean about them being Wonder girls. I'm pretty sure they would count as two though." She turned to face the Poldorama girl. "Listen, I do know of one other, but she had her own chauffeured vehicle. Seemed a little stuck up when I spoke to her so I'm not sure how friendly she will be. We were the last two called you see. Her name's Pirouette Wrangly, though she pronounces her name Ranjelly or something like that but I saw how it was spelt. She said I kept saying it wrongly and I just laughed you see. She couldn't or wouldn't understand the joke, so I suppose her sense of humour may have failed to cross the storm barriers."

"I hope her humour returns by the time we are settled in our beds tonight."

"There's heaps to go through before that which might frizz her ringlets so I'm not too sure."

Meresinth's assessment turned out to be quite true as the great vehicle climbed up the last incline through patches of woodland and into open grassy fields, at the centre of which on a spur of the hillside stood a grand building with a multitude of windows.

"Why, it's just like one of our warehouses at home but with many more windows," Vetta declared. "Warehouses have few windows as there is little need to look out of them."

"Or into them either I should imagine," Meresinth added.

As soon as the coach halted the mistress in blue jumped up and began giving instructions. The girls marched out and down onto the gravel sweep where other smaller vehicles had also drawn up, their occupants milling around. There was a small boy running about shouting "Piggypants!"every now and then for some reason and the girls watched him merrily until he was gathered up by the girl Vetta remembered came from Greenvale.

"You are all to gather in the great hall so the other mistresses and Miss Plazenby herself will informally greet you," the lady in charge of the first years instructed, and everyone, with or without family members made their way as a crowd up the wide steps, through a splendid foyer and to their left into the most sumptuously decorated hall the Poldorama girl had ever seen.

Vetta remembered very little of the presentation, her eyes too full of colour and light and texture so unfamiliar to her so that she was grateful it was soon over and she was allowed to climb the stairs with Meresinth to seek out the Wonder Dorm. All the first year dorms were on the top floor, split into two sets of two so that when they had finally reached the final steps, some girls went to the left and others to the right. The twins, who had raced ahead as their long legs easily vaulted three steps at a time, darted noisily off to the right, answering Vetta's query by this action, for she knew her dormitory was on the left.

When she got to the door with its gilded lettering another girl was standing in front of it reading her own sheet. She looked up, appraised the smiling Vetta with a look of utter disdain and then entered the room without a word. Meresinth came up behind Vetta just then.

"Like I said, wrongly," she whispered in her ear.

"Perhaps she's just missing her family," Vetta replied with a faint hope.