When the final war came, we could not say it was a surprise. We had been warned for years, even decades, that our world was becoming divisive. Splinters of opinion running down the very spine of our culture. Yet we remained largely unprepared.

In those days after the satellites came down, we lost the internet, our connection, telecommunications outside of our own continent. Space was a battlefield now. Those of us who could help the refugees from burning countries did what we could, while the children of the coastal cities were sent inland to seek sanctuary.

It's the songs that I remember most. Who knows where the first voice came from, but as the war stretched on, the singing was the key to our resilience. At first millions fought on each side, but the soldiers of the oppressors realised gradually - hundreds first, then thousands, then many more - that they were fighting for their own demise. Soon it became the many resisting the few, and yet somehow the few still seemed triumphant. They had prepared such an intricate web that they held on to so much of what we needed: the fuel, the industries, the media, the deeds to so many of the homes. The battle to reclaim our land was hard-fought and hard-won. And what greeted us at its conclusion was rawness and pain. A world to rebuild. A cycle to begin again.

When we returned to the ancient texts, however, we discovered the depth of our existing knowledge. How much we had learned from our hunt for Wally, even if the Americans did insist on calling him Waldo, a translation barrier that caused no small fracas during the transition.

We realised now that our enemies were no more than Dracula with a teddy bear. That we must fight with the continued vigour of an underwater cat. That we must make it through the majesty of an dragon cave chase. We had been given the gifts and insight we needed to complete the race of life, and find ourselves at the great gluttonous feast of chapter 1.

And we discovered, too, as we shared songs and fellowship around the campfire, that we had all been beguiled and bewildered by that final Land of Wallies, haunted by the sense of our very self as one of a seething mass, guests at a dreamlike parade in which we are both the spectacle and the spectator.

We know at last that what is to come can never be like it was before. We emerged with hopes not dashed but becalmed, honour restored, glory resisted in favour of contentment.

We know where Wally is now, but we keep him just out of sight. To keep the journey going by choice without need for reward.

We are home. And to know that Wally is nearby, scampering behind a mermaid or a dwarf or a bespectacled waiter is all we ever needed to know. ( )

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How much do I love these? You can find me sitting in a bookstore of library, unwilling to check out because I'd have to put them down for a few minutes. Surprisingly, the PandaBat didn't really burn out on them. ( )

I loved it when I was a kid... And as soon as I get to buy mu own copy of this I'll read it again! ( )

Wally, Waldo, Charlie, Walter, Holger, Valli, Willy, Hetti, and Effy. What do they have in common? They're all the name of a traveler who wears red and white stripes, jeans, glasses and brown shoes. Here in the States we know him as Waldo but he started his journey as Wally in Great Britain. The third book in the series by Martin Handford is The Great Waldo Search (also known as Where's Wally? 3: The Fantastic Journey) and was published in 1989.

The Great Waldo Search requires astute attention to detail. Each scene (spread across two pages) builds on the previous one, requiring the reader to search for a growing number of characters and items. The main focus though on every page is to find three things: Waldo, the Wizard Whitebeard and a scroll. There are also characters from previous scenes hidden in each of the scenes.

The scenes included are:
The Gobbling Gluttons
The Battling Monks
The Carpet Flyers
The Great Ball-Game Players
The Ferocious Red Dwarves
The Nasty Nasties
The Fighting Forester
The Deep-Sea Divers
The Knights of the Magic Flag
The Unfriendly Giants
The Underground Hunters
The Land of Waldos
Sean and I have worked through the book together three times and we still haven't managed to find Waldo on every page. We are completely stumped on "The Ferocious Red Dwarves", "The Unfriendly Giants" and "The Underground Hunters." ( )