Master Spiderman screamed with frustration and rose into the air too. Cat and Tonino were lugged up into the air after him, spinning and dangling sideways. Before they could right themselves, they were being towed across chimney pots and roofs at a furious speed.

By the time Cat had hauled on Tonino and Tonino had clutched at Cat, and they had discovered that they could use the butterfly nets they still held to balance themselves upright in the air, they were going even faster, with the wind of speed in their eyes and whipping at their hair. They could see the small green cluster of souls fleeing ahead of them above a ragged field with donkeys in it, and then above a wood. There was a big half moon that Cat had not noticed before, lying on its back among clouds, which served to show the souls up even more bright and green.

“Faster!” Master Spiderman snapped, as they all hurtled across the wood too.

“Go as fast as he does, go as fast as he does,” Cat heard Tonino whisper.

This was exactly what seemed to happen. Master Spiderman snapped, “Faster!” several times, once when the moon vanished and there were suddenly a thousand more roofs and chimneys whirling beneath them; again when it came on to rain briefly; and yet again when there was a full moon shining down on some kind of park below. Yet the small green cluster of souls speeding ahead stayed precisely the same distance in front of them. The dark landscape underneath changed again, but they were still no nearer, and no further away either.

“Curses!” panted Master Spiderman. “They’re travelling into the future. This is a hundred and fifty years now. Boys, give me your strength. I command it!”

Cat felt energy draining strongly out of him through the invisible cobwebs that were towing him after Master Spiderman. Although this was not a pleasant feeling, it seemed to lift some of the fuzzy blankness in his mind. Cat found dim memories flitting through his head as they sped on, of faces and places mostly – a castle, a handsome dark-haired man saying something sarcastic, a lady in mittens, a very old man lying in bed. And a smell. Around the very old man in bed there had hung the same musty, sick smell that came strongly, in gusts, off Master Spiderman as he whirled along in front. But Cat could not put these memories together to make sense. It was easier to notice that the chimney pots beneath now seemed to be growing out into the countryside, in lines along the sides of fields, and to listen to Tonino, who was still whispering, “Go as fast as we do, go as fast as we do!” over and over.

“Are you using his spell or something?” Cat whispered.

“I think so,” Tonino whispered back. “I seem to remember doing this before.”

Cat seemed to remember Tonino could do this sort of thing too, but before he could discover how he knew, the landscape below jerked into another different shape. There were handsome gas streetlights down there now, trees lining wide roads and houses that stood apart from one another in gardens. Ahead, the small glowing group of souls hurtled across a village green and then over a dimly gleaming railway line.