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Merlinmary, imagining her sister all chewed up in little bits.
    â€˜There was a shark, but Satanella chased it and it swam off terrified,’ said Morbid.
    â€˜Wait a minute,’ said Valla. ‘I saw her going off along the beach and that was after the stick throwing.’
    They worked out that early that afternoon had been the last time any of them had seen Satanella.
    â€˜I bet she was going off after a scent trail,’ said Betty. ‘Satanella can’t resist a good smell.’
    The family agreed that Betty could be right. Like all dogs, Satanella was prone to picking up those scents that can hypnotise dogs so much that, no matter what else is going on around them, they are in a little world all of their own. You coulddrop a bomb, make it rain lamb chops and throw a million red rubber balls, but nothing would be able to pull them away from the irresistible scent trail. The trail could go underground, up a tree, across a river, under a warthog’s armpit and even into the finest Belgian sausage factory, but the dog would follow it to the ends of the earth.
    â€˜I hope she hasn’t gone to the ends of the earth,’ said the Queen. ‘Little dogs do that, you know.’
    â€˜Well, we’d better go after her,’ said Mordonna. ‘Winchflat, I don’t suppose you brought your Electronic-Hypnotic-Psychotic-Antibiotic-Smell-Tracker from home, did you?’
    â€˜Of course I did, Mother,’ said Winchflat. ‘I never go anywhere without it.’
    â€˜How can you be sure that it was a hypnotic, psychotic, antibiotic smell that Satanella was following?’ said Betty. ‘It might have just been a dead lobster.’
    â€˜I’ve thought of that,’ said Winchflat. ‘It has a Dead-Lobster-Antenna as well.’
    â€˜Should we take a collar and lead in case Satanella doesn’t want to come back?’ said Ffiona, who sometimes forgot that Satanella was Betty’s sister and not just the family pet.
    â€˜A collar and lead?’ said Morbid. ‘You must be joking. The last person who tried to put a collar on our big sister is in traction and still undergoing finger transplants.’
    â€˜We could take Claude,’ said Ffiona. ‘If Satanella saw him, she’d come back straight away.’
    â€˜Darling,’ said Mrs Hulbert, ‘it’s half-past Claude’s bedtime and pitch black out there, and I’ve only just managed to get the last bit of seaweed out of his nose. You are not taking your baby brother back to the beach.’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ said Winchflat, switching on his thermonuclear three-hundred-and-ninety-seven-LED torch. ‘Betty and I will go and find her.’
    Betty’s hunch was right. Even without the help of Winchflat’s Smell-Tracker, because they were wizards Betty and Winchflat were immediately able to detect that there was a powerful scent trailrunning along the beach and off into the darkness. Because they weren’t dogs like their sister, the scent did not entrance or hypnotise them.
    â€˜My equipment has analysed the smell as a very old baby’s nappy wrapped around an even older crab’s stomach,’ said Winchflat. ‘Pretty well irresistible to a dog, especially one with a nose as sensitive as Satanella’s. Come on, we’ll follow it.’
    â€˜How do you know she went that way?’ said Betty. ‘The trail goes in both directions.’
    â€˜My Electronic-Hypnotic-Psychotic-Antibiotic-Smell-Tracker can tell that it came from that way and goes in that direction,’ said Winchflat, pointing west. ‘And I think Satanella would be much more likely to follow whatever is leaving the trail than to go back and see where it came from. I mean, she’d want to catch whatever it is that’s making the smell, wouldn’t she?’
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ said Betty.

    They followed the trail along the beach to the end of the bay.