The end of the track

An indeterminate number of minutes later, as the mouse-car plummeted down its last dramatic drop and came to a slow graceful halt in the flat stretch of track before the boarding platform, Susie took a few deep breaths. Her heart was still pounding as the car came to a stop and her harness straps unbuckled, apparently of their own accord.

"Wow," she said. "Just... wow."

"Oh... my... god..." Bonnie breathed, next to her, strands of red hair plastered to her face. "That... was... incredible!"

"Of course it was, girls. The Mad Mouse offers real excitement!" Trapp was grinning as he extended a hand, offering to help Susie to her feet. She waved him away, still dizzy from the sensation of having been hurtled through space at what felt like a hundred miles an hour, left and right and upside-down and whirling in every direction.

Bonnie helped her out of the car. The wooden planks of the platform felt strange under her feet, rough and bare. She supposed she just wasn't used to stable ground yet. She looked around at the gathered crowd beneath the platform, the assembled ranks of jocks and geeks, cheerleaders and regular ordinary students, as well as a few people who weren't from Pinkwhistle High School at all.

Smiling hesitantly, she gave them a weak thumbs up.

Cheers and laughter rang in her ears, as well as a couple of wolf-whistles. Susie pursed her lips. That was a little inappropriate! Beside her, Bonnie had raised her arms in the air in triumph, basking in the crowd's adoration as camera flashes rang out.

She really did feel a little strange. But the dizziness was beginning to clear now, the reality of solid ground beginning to return to her. She was standing on a raised platform at the base of the Mad Mouse, in front of dozens of grinning people, on her own two feet.

"Commemorative photo, girls? The best is yet to come!"

Susie glanced back over her shoulder at Trapp, who was grinning from ear to ear and holding a gigantic, old-fashioned camera. Something didn't quite add up here. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again, steadying herself as the last of the adrenaline rush left her body.

And realised what she was missing.

For a long, frozen moment the two lovely, astonished girls simply stood there, bathed in the carnival spotlight, skin tingling in the cool night air. Having both realised, at the exact same time, that somewhere between those last two loop-de-loops, their clothes hadn't kept up with them.

Then they let out two identical, high-pitched shrieks, covered their beautiful and very naked bodies with their hands, and sprinted for the stairs.