A top-down view of a winding river maze through gentle Devon countryside (fields, willows, a stone bridge or two). The maze starts at the bottom — Plymouth & the Tamar bridges — and ends at the top, where the river meets the foot of Dartmoor (heather and a small tor visible). Sammy the salmon at the start, Finley + friends partway along. Several small fish scattered through the river for the child to count. Maze paths should be clear enough for an adult to trace but with one or two dead ends. Style child-friendly and bright.

Hidden detail — e-TRAIL DIGIT: Somewhere along the maze (on a wooden waypost, a milestone, or a floating clue card on the river), the numeral "8" appears clearly painted. This is the 6th digit of Euler's number (e = 2,7,1,8,2,8…) — the hidden trail for mum.

Style: Same warm watercolour storybook style, but slightly flatter / more graphic for the maze.

A top-down child-friendly map of western Dartmoor. Start: the Two Bridges signpost on the left. Destination: a cosy cottage in Tavistock on the right, with bunting and a "Welcome!" banner. The map shows winding moorland paths, tors (granite stacks), small streams, gorse, a marshy bog hazard to avoid, and several shaggy Dartmoor ponies and sheep scattered across the moor. Some hidden pairs of objects throughout. Bright, friendly, slightly aerial-perspective.

Hidden detail — e-TRAIL DIGIT: Somewhere along the moorland path (on a granite waypost, a wooden gate, or a boundary stone), the numeral "4" appears clearly painted or carved. This is the 11th digit of Euler's number (e = …18284…) — the first break in the famous 1828-1828 pattern, confirming the sequence is e itself.

Style: Same warm watercolour storybook style, slightly flattened for map.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style. This spread is a painted BOARD GAME — a Game-of-the-Goose style adventure across Dartmoor from Two Bridges to Granny & Grandad's house, with EXACTLY TWENTY clearly numbered tiles. The path crosses a winding river THREE times via three painted bridges; the bridges themselves are scenery and DO NOT carry numbers.

THIS BOARD IS DESIGNED FOR PRINT. The book will be trimmed and bound, so the central vertical strip (~14% of the spread, 7% each side of the fold) will be partially swallowed by the binding. The whole layout is built around that constraint. The central strip is FILLED WITH RIVER. The river is the gutter's protection.

LAYOUT PRINCIPLES — read these before placing anything:

• ONE continuous painted Dartmoor landscape, tilted gentle-aerial / isometric view, painted in the book's gouache style. Bright friendly afternoon light.

• THE CENTRE OF THE SPREAD IS A WINDING RIVER. A sinuous painted blue-white river (the West Dart) runs roughly vertically down the spread, curving gently like a real moorland river, top edge to bottom edge. It occupies the central ~20% strip. Painted ripples, white-water flecks over granite, a leaping silver salmon, mossy boulders. This is the LOW-DETAIL safe-zone for the binding gutter. NOTHING with a number sits on the river. No text sits on the river. The river is allowed to be partially obscured by the spine — that is its whole job.

• EXACTLY 20 NUMBERED TILES, NUMBERED 1 to 20, EACH INTEGER APPEARING EXACTLY ONCE. No duplicates. No missing numbers. No skipped numbers. No squiggly numberish marks. Count them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Twenty tiles. Twenty numbers. That is the entire set.

• Each tile is a clearly painted rounded-corner granite stepping-stone with its number painted LARGE, BOLD, BLACK, CENTRED in clean readable serif digits. Numbers must be the most prominent thing on each tile — readable from a metre away.

• TILES LIVE ONLY ON THE LEFT HALF AND THE RIGHT HALF of the moor, NEVER in the central river strip. Every numbered tile is well clear of the gutter zone (at least ~7% in from the central fold).

• THREE PAINTED BRIDGES span the river, vertically offset — one upper, one middle, one lower. THE BRIDGES ARE SCENERY ONLY. NO NUMBER IS PAINTED ON ANY BRIDGE. NO NUMBER SITS ON ANY BRIDGE. The bridges connect consecutive tiles across the river — you walk over a bridge to get from one tile to the next, but the bridge itself is not a tile. The bridges are large, simple, instantly readable shapes designed to span the gutter even if partially eaten by the binding.

- UPPER BRIDGE — a granite CLAPPER BRIDGE. Sits between tile 5 (left page upper) and tile 6 (right page upper). Large flat slab-stones on stone piers, mossy. - MIDDLE BRIDGE — STEPPING STONES. A row of five or six big flat granite stones across the river. Sits between tile 10 (right page upper) and tile 11 (left page lower). - LOWER BRIDGE — a rustic WOODEN FOOTBRIDGE. Plank deck with simple handrails. Sits between tile 15 (left page lower) and tile 16 (right page lower).

• THE 20 TILES — placed in FOUR QUADRANTS of FIVE TILES EACH. Read this list slowly and place every single tile:

QUADRANT A — LEFT PAGE, UPPER HALF — exactly FIVE tiles, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: - Tile 1 — START — at the TOP-LEFT corner of the spread, beside a wooden "TWO BRIDGES" signpost. FINLEY THE LION CUB stands on this tile in his navy FINLEY jumper, paw raised, eager. - Tile 2 — plain granite stepping-stone, just downhill-and-right of tile 1. - Tile 3 — BOG vignette (green squelchy puddle painted as the tile background). - Tile 4 — PONY vignette (a shaggy Dartmoor pony head painted on the tile). - Tile 5 — PIXIE CIRCLE vignette (tiny ring of toadstools on the tile). Tile 5 sits at the LEFT END of the upper clapper bridge.

→ cross the CLAPPER BRIDGE (no number) →

QUADRANT B — RIGHT PAGE, UPPER HALF — exactly FIVE tiles, numbered 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: - Tile 6 — plain stepping-stone, at the RIGHT END of the clapper bridge. - Tile 7 — WISTMAN'S WOOD vignette (gnarled stunted oak trees in miniature painted on the tile, in a small painted wood). - Tile 8 — TOR SCRAMBLE vignette (a small granite tor outcrop painted on the tile). - Tile 9 — plain stepping-stone. - Tile 10 — STONE CIRCLE vignette (tiny ring of upright standing stones painted on the tile, on a small painted hilltop). Tile 10 sits at the RIGHT END of the middle stepping-stones crossing.

→ cross the STEPPING STONES (no number) →

QUADRANT C — LEFT PAGE, LOWER HALF — exactly FIVE tiles, numbered 11, 12, 13, 14, 15: - Tile 11 — plain stepping-stone, at the LEFT END of the stepping-stones crossing. - Tile 12 — BOG vignette (second one). - Tile 13 — plain stepping-stone. - Tile 14 — PONY vignette (second one). - Tile 15 — plain stepping-stone, sitting at the LEFT END of the lower wooden footbridge.

→ cross the WOODEN FOOTBRIDGE (no number) →

QUADRANT D — RIGHT PAGE, LOWER HALF — exactly FIVE tiles, numbered 16, 17, 18, 19, 20: - Tile 16 — plain stepping-stone, at the RIGHT END of the wooden footbridge. - Tile 17 — THE HOUND vignette (black hound silhouette on a moonlit ridge painted on the tile, dramatic). - Tile 18 — plain stepping-stone. - Tile 19 — plain stepping-stone. - Tile 20 — GRANNY & GRANDAD'S HOUSE — in the BOTTOM-RIGHT corner of the spread. Painted SLIGHTLY BIGGER than the other tiles. See house description below. A FINISH banner arcs over the house.

• TRACK SHAPE — irregular and contour-following inside each quadrant. NOT a grid. NOT rows. Tiles within a quadrant meander gently around heather, gorse, a small tor, a sheep — but always touch or near-touch their numerical neighbour so the eye can hop 1→2→3→4→5 with no confusion. Adjacent quadrants are joined ONLY by the river crossings (bridges), in the order described above.

• ABSOLUTELY NO ARROWS anywhere on the spread. No curved arrows, no straight arrows, no dotted lines, no "jump-to" indicators.

• NO per-tile text labels. The only text on a tile is the tile's number. Vignettes go on the tile background. Rule explanations live ONLY in the rules panel.

• A small painted START word painted on the moor BESIDE tile 1, and a FINISH banner arcing over tile 20 (the house).

GRANNY & GRANDAD'S HOUSE (tile 20, bottom-right) — a roomy English country house, mid-sized between cottage and manor, painted in cheerful gouache:

• TWO STOREYS. Upper storey clad in warm red-orange clay tile-hanging, with two or three gabled roofs in red clay tile (multiple pitches, characterful, not symmetrical). • Ground storey in pale cream rendered/pebbledash plaster, with a low timber-railed veranda or PERGOLA running across the front, draped in mauve-purple WISTERIA in full bloom. • White multi-pane sash windows, several of them, two storeys' worth. • A small SUNROOM / CONSERVATORY wing to one side with sloped glass roof. • Bunting strung along the wisteria pergola, a small painted "WELCOME!" banner above the porch door. • TWO LION GRANDPARENTS waving warmly from under the pergola — a granny lion and a grandad lion, in the gouache style of Finley's character sheet but older, with softly silvered manes, kind crinkled eyes, gentle smiles. (Finley is a lion cub, so his grandparents are lions too.) • A neat lawn in front with shrubs and a flowerbed; a distant church spire suggesting Tavistock visible behind one gable. • Number 20 painted clearly on a small wooden plaque or on the granite stepping-stone the house sits on.

This is NOT a thatched stone cottage. This is a roomy Arts-and-Crafts-flavoured family house — red tile-hung gables, wisteria pergola, white sash windows.

THE SCENE — the moor as a board:

Moorland landscape painted underneath and around the path — heather, gorse, granite tors, dry-stone walls, a small wood (Wistman's Wood in quadrant B), a stone circle on a hilltop (quadrant B), Dartmoor ponies and shaggy sheep dotted around between tiles (never on them).

Finley's friends scattered around the board cheering him on, each appearing ONCE only, SMALL (never bigger than a tile), and NEVER on a tile or covering a number: • MARVIN the goldfish — in his bowl on a small wagon parked by the riverbank near the clapper bridge. • CAPTAIN CRAB — perched on a mossy boulder beside the stepping stones, claw raised. • SAMMY the salmon — mid-leap in the river itself, near the stepping stones. • ROBIN — perched on the wooden footbridge handrail. • BRUCE the pheasant — strutting near a tor in quadrant B, copper tail fanned.

RULES PANEL (TOP-RIGHT of spread, painted as a wooden Dartmoor-park info board or Ordnance Survey legend, clearly readable, well clear of the central river/fold):

Heading at top: CROSS THE MOOR

Then the caption, each line on its own line:

Roll the dice and race across Dartmoor! Grab a die and a coin each. Take turns. First to Granny & Grandad's wins. Watch out for bogs, pixies and the Hound…

Then a tidy rules list, each rule on its own line, with a small painted icon next to each (a tiny squelch puddle, pony, mushroom ring, tree, ring of stones, tor, hound silhouette, house):

• BOG — slide back 3 • PONY — ride forward 4 • PIXIE CIRCLE — miss a turn • WISTMAN'S WOOD — whisper for one turn • STONE CIRCLE — magic, roll again • TOR SCRAMBLE — scramble up, forward 3 • THE HOUND — re-roll: odd back 2, even forward 2 • Square 20 — Granny & Grandad's. You win!

("Use any die from another game" in smaller italic at the bottom of the panel.)

Text size: Tile numbers must be LARGE and CLEAR — readable from across the room when the book is on a child's lap. Rules panel slightly smaller per-line but every word clearly legible. All text in warm brown storybook serif, tile numbers in slightly bolder weight, BLACK ink.

Hidden details (smaller fun layer, NOT mentioned in the rules panel):

• CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) palm-sized, in his HIKER outfit: a tiny rucksack and a little woolly hat. Hide him somewhere OFF-tile — perhaps perched on a mossy boulder mid-river, or peeking out of the heather beside the stone circle.

• A pun signpost somewhere on the moor reads "WUTHERING PAWS" (Brontë pun, paw-substitution) — a tiny wooden direction post in the heather.

• A wisp of red string trails along between a few of the tiles (the recurring trail prop) — looping playfully across the wooden footbridge handrail.

PRINT-SAFE COMPOSITION (the painting will be trimmed and bound — design for it):

• Paint the moorland landscape ALL THE WAY to ALL FOUR edges of the canvas — sky to the top edge, ground to the bottom edge, side scenery flush with the left and right edges. No white margin, no painted frame, no inset border.

• Keep all numbered tiles, the rules panel, character faces, signposts, and ALL text well inside these safe margins: - At least ~4% in from the top, bottom, and outer (non-fold) edges. - At least ~7% in from the CENTRAL FOLD.

• The central-fold zone (~14% strip through the middle) is the RIVER ONLY. Just water, ripples, and the three bridges sit there. NO numbered tiles. NO text. NO character faces. NO important objects.

• The rules panel sits TOP-RIGHT, comfortably inside the right page — well clear of the central fold and the outer-right trim.

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted moorland palette (heather purple, gorse yellow, granite grey, bracken bronze, river-blue, sky blue). NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat.

ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL RULES — re-read carefully before painting:

1. EXACTLY 20 numbered tiles. Numbers 1 through 20. Each appears EXACTLY ONCE. Before finalising the painting, mentally count tiles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. If any are missing or duplicated, fix them. The numbers MUST run in order without gaps or repeats. 2. The THREE bridges are SCENERY. They have NO numbers on them. A bridge is not a tile. Do NOT paint any number on any bridge. 3. NO numbered tile, no text, no character face is placed in the central ~14% vertical fold strip. That strip is JUST RIVER (plus the bridges crossing it). All 20 numbers live well clear of the centre. 4. The river runs vertically through the centre of the spread, sinuous, top edge to bottom edge. 5. THREE bridges, vertically offset: upper third = clapper bridge (between tiles 5 and 6), middle = stepping stones (between tiles 10 and 11), lower third = wooden footbridge (between tiles 15 and 16). They are NOT stacked at the same height. 6. Five tiles per quadrant, in this exact distribution: left-upper = 1–5, right-upper = 6–10, left-lower = 11–15, right-lower = 16–20. Path adventure: LEFT → RIGHT → LEFT → RIGHT. 7. NO ARROWS anywhere. Not curved, not straight, not dotted. 8. No per-tile text labels. Only the tile number on each tile. 9. The track is irregular and contour-following, NOT a grid. Tiles meander around tors, gorse, heather within each quadrant. No straight rows. No boustrophedon. Adventure shape, not chessboard. 10. Tile 20 is the new house style (two-storey, red tile-hung gables, wisteria pergola, white sash windows, conservatory) — NOT a thatched stone cottage. 11. Finley stands on tile 1 only. The lion grandparents wave from tile 20 only. Other friends appear ONCE each as small cameos between tiles. 12. Painted gouache throughout.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style. This spread is a painted BOARD GAME — a Dartmoor twist on classic Snakes-and-Ladders, played on an 8×8 grid where TORS are ladders (climb up) and RIVERS are snakes (slide down).

Layout principles for THIS spread (different from the story spreads, and deliberately different from the spread-16 dice game):

• ONE continuous painted Dartmoor landscape, tilted gentle-aerial / isometric view, painted in the book's gouache style — but the foreground is dominated by a clearly drawn 8×8 grid of 64 numbered square tiles, set into the moor like granite paving stones edged with heather.

• GRID LAYOUT — strict, classic Snakes-and-Ladders order, no creative liberties: 8 rows of 8 tiles. Row 1 is at the BOTTOM of the spread. Row 8 is at the TOP. Numbering boustrophedons (snake-order) from the bottom up: - Row 1 (BOTTOM), reading LEFT-to-RIGHT: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 - Row 2, reading RIGHT-to-LEFT: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 (so tile 9 sits at the RIGHT end, tile 16 at the LEFT end) - Row 3, reading LEFT-to-RIGHT: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 - Row 4, reading RIGHT-to-LEFT: 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 - Row 5, reading LEFT-to-RIGHT: 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 - Row 6, reading RIGHT-to-LEFT: 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 - Row 7, reading LEFT-to-RIGHT: 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 - Row 8 (TOP), reading RIGHT-to-LEFT: 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64 (so tile 57 at the RIGHT end of the top row, tile 64 at the LEFT end)

Result: tile 1 sits at the bottom-LEFT corner, tile 64 sits at the top-LEFT corner. All adjacent tiles touch.

• Each tile is a clearly painted rounded-corner granite square (about the size of a stepping-stone), set into bracken and heather, with its number painted LARGE, BOLD and CLEAR in the centre in warm brown storybook serif. Every integer from 1 to 64 must appear EXACTLY ONCE. No duplicates. No missing numbers. No "squiggly numberish marks" — real legible digits.

• MOST CRITICAL DESIGN GOAL: a child must be able to glance at the board and INSTANTLY see which tiles send them UP a tor and which send them DOWN a river. To achieve this, the ten trigger tiles must be visually unmistakable: - TOR-BASE TILES (the five tiles you climb FROM — numbers 3, 8, 17, 28, 41): the tile background is tinted a warm sandy granite-orange / pale terracotta, distinctly different from the plain stone-grey of ordinary tiles. In the top corner of the tile, beside the number, paint a small clear upward-pointing icon: a tiny granite tor silhouette with an UP-ARROW (↑) beside it. - RIVER-SOURCE TILES (the five tiles the river sweeps you FROM — numbers 14, 24, 36, 47, 58): the tile background is tinted a cool pale blue-grey, distinctly different from neighbouring tiles. In the top corner, beside the number, paint a small clear downward-pointing icon: a tiny wave or water-drop with a DOWN-ARROW (↓) beside it. - TOR-TOP DESTINATION TILES (22, 26, 38, 49, 60): same neutral stone background, but with a small painted cairn or summit-flag icon beside the number to mark them as climb destinations. - RIVER-MOUTH DESTINATION TILES (5, 11, 19, 30, 43): same neutral stone background, but with a small painted still blue pool with a tiny fish beside the number to mark them as river destinations. - The remaining 44 tiles are plain granite-grey with just the number — no tint, no icon, no clutter.

• TORS AND RIVERS ARE THE GAME — paint them as visible connectors between specific tiles, and the two types of connector MUST look completely different so they cannot be confused: - A TOR CLIMB is a painted STAIRCASE of clear stone steps, OR a knotted rope ladder, climbing diagonally from the tor-base tile up to the tor-top tile. It is solid, sandy/grey, sequential — clearly a thing you climb on FOOT. It is NOT a faint dotted trail and NOT a watercolour line. Each step is clearly painted. A small lion-cub or pheasant footprint may appear on the steps for clarity. - A RIVER is a continuous flowing blue-white ribbon of water with painted ripples and small white-water curls, sweeping diagonally from the river-source tile down to the river-mouth tile. It is OBVIOUSLY water — blue, wet, rippled, with the occasional leaping silver salmon. - Tor staircases and rivers must NEVER cross or overlap each other. If a path and a river would intersect, route the staircase to go AROUND the river. The two connector types occupy different parts of the board. - The connectors are essential — they ARE the game. Each tor staircase and each river ribbon must clearly START on its trigger tile and END on its destination tile, and the eye must be able to trace each one start-to-end without hesitation.

• A small painted RULES PANEL sits TOP-RIGHT of the spread (just to the right of tile 57's column, in the sky), looking like a wooden park-information board or an Ordnance Survey legend, containing the game caption and the rules list.

• A small painted START word painted on the moor BESIDE tile 1, and a FINISH banner over tile 64.

THE BOARD — exact tor and river placements:

TORS (ladders, climb UP) — five of them. The tor-base tile is colour-tinted warm sandy-orange with the ↑-tor icon beside its number (see above). A granite tor outcrop sits ON the lower tile. A clearly painted STONE STAIRCASE or ROPE LADDER (solid, sequential, sandy/stone-coloured — NOT a dotted trail, NOT a watercolour line, NOT a river) climbs diagonally across the moor between tiles up to the upper tile, where a small cairn or summit-flag marker sits. Route the staircase so it does NOT cross any river ribbon — go around if necessary.

• Tile 3 → Tile 22 — Bowerman's Nose. A small craggy granite stack on tile 3; path scrambles up to tile 22 (which sits in row 3, near the right side). • Tile 8 → Tile 26 — Combestone Tor. Granite outcrop on tile 8 (bottom-right corner); path winds up to tile 26 (row 4). • Tile 17 → Tile 38 — Hound Tor (painted as a friendly cluster of granite blocks, NOT the spooky moonlit hound of spread 16 — bright daylight, no silhouette dog). Path climbs up to tile 38 (row 5). • Tile 28 → Tile 49 — Vixen Tor. Granite outcrop with a tiny painted fox (vixen) curled at its base on tile 28. Path climbs up to tile 49 (row 7, left side). • Tile 41 → Tile 60 — HAYTOR (the most iconic Dartmoor tor — twin granite stacks). Painted slightly larger and grander than the others on tile 41 (row 6, right side). Path climbs up to tile 60 (row 8, near the middle-left of the top row). This is the late-game game-winning climb.

Each tor's name is painted in TINY hand-lettered storybook serif on a small painted wooden plaque or carved into a stone at the tor's foot — just big enough to read with the book on your lap, small enough not to compete with the tile numbers.

RIVERS (snakes, slide DOWN) — five of them. The river-source tile is colour-tinted cool pale blue with the ↓-wave icon beside its number (see above). Paint each river as a sinuous blue-white painted ribbon of water flowing FROM the source tile DOWN across the moor to the river-mouth tile, with painted ripples, white-water flecks, and a tiny leaping silver salmon in one of them. The river-mouth tile has a small still-pool-with-fish icon beside its number. Rivers must NOT cross any tor staircase.

• Tile 14 → Tile 5 — River Walkham. Ribbon flows down from tile 14 (row 2) to tile 5 (row 1). • Tile 24 → Tile 11 — River Teign. Flows down from tile 24 (row 3, right end) to tile 11 (row 2). • Tile 36 → Tile 19 — River Plym. Flows down from tile 36 (row 5) to tile 19 (row 3). • Tile 47 → Tile 30 — River Tavy. Flows down from tile 47 (row 6, left side) to tile 30 (row 4). • Tile 58 → Tile 43 — River Dart (the brutal one — you're so close to Granny's, and the Dart sweeps you back). Flows down from tile 58 (row 8, near the right) to tile 43 (row 6). Make this one the most dramatic ribbon — biggest, whitest water, biggest salmon leaping in it.

Each river's name is painted in tiny hand-lettered cursive italic along the painted ribbon — "River Dart", "River Tavy" etc — just legible.

THE FINISH — Tile 64 (top-LEFT corner):

Tile 64 is painted bigger than the other tiles and contains GRANNY & GRANDAD'S COTTAGE — a cosy stone cottage with a thatched roof, smoking chimney, bunting strung above the door, a "WELCOME!" banner, and TWO LION GRANDPARENTS waving warmly from the doorway (a granny lion and a grandad lion in the gouache style of Finley's character sheet but older — softly silvered manes, kind crinkled eyes, gentle smiles). The number 64 is still clearly painted on the tile. A small painted FINISH banner arcs above the cottage.

THE START — Tile 1 (bottom-LEFT corner):

A tiny wooden Dartmoor-edge signpost reading "START" beside tile 1. FINLEY THE LION CUB stands on tile 1, in his navy FINLEY jumper from the character sheet, paw raised, eager to go, eyes bright. He has the same proportions, face and outfit as on the cover and earlier spreads.

FRIENDS SCATTERED AROUND THE BOARD — small painted cameos cheering Finley on, between tiles or in the moor borders, NEVER obscuring the tile numbers:

• MARVIN the mackerel — splashing in the River Walkham ribbon, head out of the water with a grin. • CAPTAIN CRAB — perched on the cairn at the top of Combestone Tor (tile 26), claw raised in salute. • SAMMY the salmon — mid-leap in the River Dart ribbon (the big dramatic one), water droplets flying. • ROBIN — perched on the tiny wooden "START" signpost beside tile 1. • BRUCE the pheasant — strutting proudly at the foot of Haytor (tile 41), copper tail fanned, head high.

RULES PANEL (TOP-RIGHT of spread, painted as a wooden national-park info board or Ordnance Survey legend, clearly readable):

Heading at top: TORS & RIVERS

Then the caption, each line on its own line:

Scramble up tors. Slide down rivers. Grab a die and a coin each. Take turns. First to Granny & Grandad's wins. Land on a tor and scramble up. Land on a river and float away…

Then a tidy rules list, each rule on its own line, with a small painted icon next to each (a tiny tor for the tor rule, a tiny river ribbon for the river rule, a tiny cottage for the win rule):

• Roll a die — move that many squares. • TOR — scramble up the path to the higher square. • RIVER — float downstream to the lower square. • Square 64 needs an EXACT roll — overshoot and you bounce back. • First to Granny & Grandad's cottage wins.

("Use any die from another game" in smaller italic at the bottom of the panel.)

Text size: Tile numbers must be LARGE and CLEAR — readable from across the room when the book is on a child's lap. The rules panel is slightly smaller per-line but every word still clearly legible. Tor names and river names painted SMALL but legible (you have to look closely). All text in warm brown storybook serif, tile numbers in slightly bolder weight.

Hidden details (smaller fun layer, NOT mentioned in the rules panel):

• CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) palm-sized, in his RAMBLER outfit: a tiny waterproof jacket, a rolled Ordnance Survey map tucked under one claw, and a little walking stick in the other claw. Hide him perched on a granite boulder somewhere between two tiles in the heather — not on a tile, in the negative space.

• A pun signpost on the moor edge reads "PRIDE AND PAWJUDICE" (Jane Austen pun, paw-substitution) — a tiny wooden direction post in the heather, painted clearly enough to read.

• A wisp of red string trails playfully along the ripples of one of the river ribbons — the recurring trail prop, looping over the white-water.

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted moorland palette (heather purple, gorse yellow, granite grey, bracken bronze, river-blue, sky blue). NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat. The board must read as a beautifully painted Dartmoor landscape FIRST and as a playable game SECOND — moor underneath, granite-edged numbered tiles set into it, painted tor-paths and river-ribbons as the connectors.

ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL RULES — re-read before painting:

1. 64 tiles, arranged in 8 rows of 8 tiles, boustrophedon order — Row 1 at the BOTTOM left-to-right (1→8), Row 2 right-to-left (9→16), Row 3 left-to-right (17→24), Row 4 right-to-left (25→32), Row 5 left-to-right (33→40), Row 6 right-to-left (41→48), Row 7 left-to-right (49→56), Row 8 at the TOP right-to-left (57→64). Tile 1 at bottom-LEFT, tile 64 at top-LEFT. This is the standard Snakes-and-Ladders numbering — do not get it wrong. 2. Every integer 1–64 appears EXACTLY ONCE. No duplicates. No missing numbers. No fake/squiggle numbers. Real, legible, large digits painted on each tile. 3. Adjacent tiles touch so the eye can trace 1→2→3→…→64 with no gaps. The grid is a clear granite-edged 8×8 chessboard set into the moor. 4. TORS connect a LOWER tile to a HIGHER tile by a painted scramble-path. Exactly five tors, at exactly these tile pairs: 3→22, 8→26, 17→38, 28→49, 41→60. Granite outcrop on the lower tile; cairn/marker on the higher tile; dotted scramble-path painted between them. 5. RIVERS connect a HIGHER tile to a LOWER tile by a painted blue-white river ribbon. Exactly five rivers, at exactly these tile pairs: 14→5, 24→11, 36→19, 47→30, 58→43. River source on the higher tile; calmer pool on the lower tile; flowing painted current between them. 6. No per-tile text labels other than the tile number, except tor names (tiny plaque at the tor base) and river names (tiny italic along the river ribbon). The rules panel carries all rule explanations. 7. Tile 1 = START with Finley standing on it. Tile 64 = Granny & Grandad's cottage (slightly larger), with two lion grandparents waving. FINISH banner over tile 64. 8. Painted gouache style throughout — no flat vector look, no photoreal. 9. TRIGGER TILES ARE INSTANTLY LEGIBLE. Tor-base tiles (3, 8, 17, 28, 41) are tinted warm sandy-orange with an ↑-tor icon beside the number. River-source tiles (14, 24, 36, 47, 58) are tinted cool blue-grey with a ↓-wave icon beside the number. Tor staircases are SOLID stone steps or rope ladders (clearly a thing you climb on foot). Rivers are continuous blue water ribbons. Staircases and rivers must NEVER cross or overlap — route around each other.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style, matching the rest of the book.

THIS IMAGE IS A SINGLE CONTINUOUS PAINTING. DO NOT paint a visible vertical fold line, crease, seam, page-edge, gutter shadow, double-spread join, or any kind of dividing strip down the middle of the canvas. The room walls, floor and ceiling paint straight across the centre with no visible break.

The scene: a softly painted birthday playroom seen from a gentle three-quarter view — warm cream wall running uninterrupted across the entire spread, painted wooden floorboards continuous across the entire spread, warm afternoon light. The room is composed so that every important item sits firmly on the LEFT page or firmly on the RIGHT page — NOTHING important is placed in the central ~14% vertical strip. That central strip is just continuous wall above a continuous patch of empty floor (maybe a soft shaft of light or a quiet stretch of patterned wallpaper) — visually continuous but content-empty.

THE LEFT PAGE — the party-table side. Place the following pairs here, all WELL INSIDE the left half of the canvas (their painted forms must NOT cross the central ~14% strip):

L1. A window on the FAR LEFT letting in afternoon light. L2. FINLEY THE LION CUB stands left-of-centre on the left page, in his navy FINLEY jumper, both paws raised in delight, eyes wide. He wears a tiny paper birthday crown with a painted '2' on the front. He is the focal character but sits firmly on the LEFT page. L3. Two red balloons floating side by side near the ceiling of the LEFT page, each painted with a clear '2' on it. L4. Two wellies by the door (left edge) — matching navy pair. L5. A low party table in the lower-left quadrant, carrying: – a small iced birthday cake with two birthday candles standing on it – two paper party hats beside the cake – two teacups on a small tray (mum & dad's) L6. Two wrapped presents stacked under the party table — one with a red ribbon, one with a blue ribbon. L7. Two small lion-cub bootees kicked off on a striped rug on the lower-left floor. L8. Two small toy mice on the rug beside the bootees. L9. Two birthday cards standing open on the windowsill on the far left.

THE RIGHT PAGE — the sitting-room / ladder side. Place the following pairs and the ladder here, all WELL INSIDE the right half of the canvas (their painted forms must NOT cross the central ~14% strip):

R1. A small armchair / two-seater sofa placed comfortably WELL TO THE RIGHT, with plenty of room around it — NOT close to the centre. Pulled across to the right page so it is fully visible inside the right half, with breathing room to its right too (not flush to the outer right edge — sit it in the right page's MIDDLE). R2. Two cushions on the sofa — matching pair. R3. Two slippers kicked off in front of the sofa — matching woolly pair, sitting in front of the sofa on the right page floor. R4. Two framed pictures hanging on the wall of the RIGHT page (clearly inside the right half, NOT in the centre strip) — one of Plymouth Hoe, one of Haytor (tiny callbacks to the journey). Hung side by side. R5. A side-table beside the sofa with a small lamp — decoration only, not a counted pair. R6. THE 2× LADDER — a painted wooden step-ladder leaning against the FAR-RIGHT-PAGE wall (the rightmost area of the right page), compact in footprint but with FIVE clearly painted rungs climbing up. On each rung sits ONE LARGE PAINTED NUMERAL — nothing else. NO friend vignettes, NO mackerel, NO crab, NO berries, NO feathers on the rungs. Just the number, painted as a big hand-painted storybook serif numeral filling most of the rung.

Reading from the BOTTOM rung up: - Rung 1 (bottom): a big 2 - Rung 2: a big 4 - Rung 3: a big 6 - Rung 4: a big 8 - Rung 5 (top): a big 10

The numerals are BIG — readable from across the room. Each numeral painted in warm terracotta or warm brown ink with subtle painted-paper texture, against the lighter wood of the rung. The ladder itself is small in the overall scene; the NUMERALS on it are the visual stars. A painted bunting flag strung at the top of the ladder reads 'BIG TWO!' in smaller hand-lettering.

RULES CARD — on the party table, LEFT PAGE, lower-left quadrant. Make this PROMINENT. Painted as a piece of birthday-themed card (cream paper with a hand-painted scalloped edge) propped up on the low table near the cake, well clear of the central area. The card carries the caption verbatim, each line on its own line, in clearly large, confident hand-lettered storybook serif — sized so a parent reading the book on the sofa can read it easily without leaning in:

Two by two — everything comes in pairs! Point to each pair as you count them out loud. Then climb the ladder: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 — how many can you do?

Roughly the size of a printed greetings card propped on the table.

TITLE — at the TOP-LEFT of the LEFT page (NOT centred across the spread, NOT in the centre strip), hand-lettered storybook serif: TWO BY TWO.

PRINT-SAFE COMPOSITION (the painting will be trimmed and bound):

• Paint the playroom ALL THE WAY to ALL FOUR edges of the canvas. No white margin, no painted frame, no inset border. ONE continuous painted scene. • Keep all pairs, the ladder, the rules card, character faces, framed pictures, sofa, slippers, and ALL text well inside these safe margins: at least ~4% in from the top, bottom, and outer edges; AT LEAST ~10% in from the CENTRAL FOLD on each side (so the central ~20% vertical strip is content-free — this is wider than usual because we've been losing things to the fold). • The central-fold strip is LOW DETAIL — a softly painted continuous cream wall, perhaps with a quiet stretch of painted wallpaper or a soft shaft of afternoon light, above a quiet patch of floorboards. NO pair sits in that strip. NO ladder rung in that strip. NO sofa, slipper, picture, table, cake or balloon in that strip. NO text in that strip. NO character face in that strip. The wall and floor paint continuously through it (no visible fold line).

Hidden details (smaller fun layer, NOT mentioned in the rules card):

• CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) palm-sized, in his PARTY outfit: a tiny pointy party hat and a little paper streamer trailing from one claw. Hide him peeking out from behind a present, or up on the windowsill.

• A pun signpost or framed needlepoint sampler hanging on the LEFT-page wall reads "PAWS FOR THOUGHT" (paw-substitution) — painted small, clearly enough to read.

• A wisp of red string (the recurring trail prop) loops gently between the two red balloons and trails down towards the cake.

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted palette (cream walls, terracotta accents, navy and sage), warm afternoon light. NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat.

ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL RULES — re-read before painting:

1. NO VISIBLE CENTRE FOLD, SEAM, CREASE, SHADOW STRIP OR DIVIDING LINE down the middle of the painting. ONE continuous painting. 2. The central ~20% vertical strip of the spread is CONTENT-FREE. It contains only a quiet continuous stretch of wall and floor. No pair, no character, no furniture, no text, no ladder rung, no picture frame, no signpost, no balloon, no cake item lives in that strip. 3. LEFT-page pairs: balloons, wellies, party table (cake + candles + hats + teacups), presents under table, bootees on rug, toy mice on rug, birthday cards on windowsill. Finley stands on the LEFT page. Window on the LEFT page. 4. RIGHT-page pairs: sofa + cushions + slippers + side-table (decor) + two framed pictures (Plymouth Hoe + Haytor) on the wall + the 2× ladder. The sofa, slippers and framed pictures must sit COMFORTABLY in the right page — pulled well across from the centre, not hugging the fold. 5. TWELVE pairs total, each clearly two of the same thing. 6. The 2× ladder has FIVE rungs, each carrying ONE BIG PAINTED NUMERAL ONLY: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. NO friend vignettes on the rungs. JUST the numbers. 7. The rules card on the LEFT-page party table is LARGE and its TEXT IS GENEROUSLY SIZED. 8. NO numbered tiles like spreads 16/17 — this is a quiet pairs spread, NOT a board game. The only numerals in the room are the ladder's 2-4-6-8-10 and the '2's on the red balloons. 9. Finley wears a tiny paper crown painted with '2'. 10. Painted gouache throughout — no flat vector look, no photoreal.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style, matching the rest of the book.

THIS IMAGE IS A SINGLE CONTINUOUS PAINTING. DO NOT paint a visible vertical fold line, crease, seam, page-edge, gutter shadow, double-spread join, or any kind of dividing strip down the middle of the canvas. The landscape paints continuously edge to edge.

The scene: a softly painted Devon countryside edge — far left is a riverbank with willows leaning over water; centre-left is a grassy lane with a hawthorn hedgerow; the centre of the spread is a QUIET STRETCH OF MEADOW (the gutter-safe zone) with low grass, a wildflower or two and a butterfly; right of centre stands a big spreading oak; right is the rowan; far right climbs gently into moor-edge with a Scots pine on the highest ground. Warm late-afternoon light. Painted in the book's gouache style.

LAYOUT — FIVE clearly painted Devon trees, spaced across the spread so NONE sits in the central fold zone, each labelled by a LARGE clear wooden plaque, each with a friend peeking out:

• TREE 1 (FAR LEFT) — WILLOW (a Devon riverside willow / goat willow). Leans over a painted river that runs along the bottom-left of the spread. Long drooping silver-green leaves, characteristic flowing canopy, rough furrowed bark. A LARGE painted wooden plaque at its base reads 'WILLOW' in big clear hand-lettered storybook serif — sized so the word reads easily from a normal reading distance, NOT a tiny label. MARVIN the mackerel splashes in the river right beneath the willow's hanging branches; SAMMY the salmon leaps from the water further out (both water-dwellers belong here — water-edge tree, water-edge friends).

• TREE 2 (LEFT-OF-CENTRE — well inside the LEFT page, NOT touching the central fold zone) — HAWTHORN (a low gnarly Devon hedgerow hawthorn — red haws, twisted dark bark, small jagged leaves). LARGE painted plaque reads 'HAWTHORN' in the same big clear lettering. CAPTAIN CRAB peeks out from the tangled base of the trunk, claw raised in his usual salute, looking faintly amused at being inland.

• GUTTER ZONE — THE QUIET MEADOW. Between the hawthorn (left page) and the oak (right page), the central ~14% vertical strip is a soft stretch of meadow grass with a wildflower or two and a single painted butterfly drifting through. NO tree trunk, NO plaque, NO text, NO character face, NO friend, NO signpost, NO caption — JUST quiet meadow. The landscape paints continuously through this strip (no visible fold), it's just visually empty of any important content.

• TREE 3 (RIGHT-OF-CENTRE — well inside the RIGHT page, NOT touching the central fold zone) — OAK (a big spreading English oak, lobed leaves, a sprinkling of acorns, mossy bark). Painted slightly larger than the other trees — the king of the spread. LARGE painted plaque reads 'OAK' in the same big clear lettering. FINLEY THE LION CUB in his navy FINLEY jumper stands proudly in front of the oak, looking out at the reader, paw raised in a small wave.

• TREE 4 (RIGHT) — ROWAN (mountain ash — slender pale-grey trunk, feathery pinnate leaves, bright clusters of red-orange berries). LARGE painted plaque reads 'ROWAN' in the same big clear lettering. ROBIN perches on a low rowan branch beside a cluster of red berries, head cocked, red breast catching the light against the matching red berries.

• TREE 5 (FAR RIGHT) — SCOTS PINE (tall, characteristic red-orange bark in the upper trunk, dark blue-green needles in clumps high up, distinctive bare lower trunk). The moor stretches behind it — heather, gorse, a hint of a distant tor. LARGE painted plaque reads 'SCOTS PINE' in the same big clear lettering. BRUCE the pheasant struts proudly in front of the pine, copper tail fanned, head held high, the moor as his proper home.

PLAQUE SPECIFICATION: Each name plaque is a painted wooden board roughly the size of a country-park footpath signpost — easily proportionate to its tree, easily readable from a normal reading distance. The lettering is BIG, BOLD, hand-lettered storybook serif in warm dark-brown ink on the pale wood. NOT tiny. NOT engraved-thin. Treat the plaques as proper signage, not curiosities.

SPACING: the five trees are spaced LEFT → CENTRE-LEFT → (quiet meadow) → CENTRE-RIGHT → RIGHT → FAR-RIGHT across the spread, with NONE of them in the central ~14% fold strip. The river-edge willow on the far left and the moor-edge pine on the far right give the spread its left-to-right geography (water → woodland → moor).

CAPTION PANEL — PLACED IN THE TOP-LEFT CORNER OF THE LEFT PAGE, NOT the centre. Painted as a torn page from a nature notebook, pinned to a wooden fence-post or a low branch near the willow, well inside the LEFT page (no part of it crosses or touches the central fold strip). Contains the caption verbatim, each line on its own line, in clear hand-lettered storybook serif sized for easy parental reading:

Who's hiding behind which tree? Five Devon trees — five friends peeking out. Can you spot oak, rowan, hawthorn, willow and Scots pine?

TITLE — PLACED ABOVE THE CAPTION PANEL IN THE TOP-LEFT CORNER OF THE LEFT PAGE. Hand-lettered storybook serif, slightly larger than the caption: TREES OF DEVON. The title sits clearly on the LEFT page — NOT centred across the spread, NOT in or near the central fold.

PARENT-LAYER LEAF CLUES — beside each tree's name plaque, paint a small botanical inset (a single representative leaf or fruit, painted in clean botanical-illustration style, larger than thumbnail — about the size of a postage stamp): a willow leaf for willow, a haw cluster for hawthorn, a lobed oak leaf with one acorn for oak, a rowan pinnate leaf with a berry cluster for rowan, and a pine-needle clump with a small cone for Scots pine. Each inset sits just beside its plaque — a gentle Ladybird-book nod for grown-ups.

PRINT-SAFE COMPOSITION (the painting will be trimmed and bound):

• Paint the landscape ALL THE WAY to ALL FOUR edges of the canvas. No white margin, no painted frame. ONE continuous painted scene. • Keep all five trees, plaques, character faces, leaf insets, caption panel, title, signposts and ALL text well inside these safe margins: at least ~4% in from the top, bottom, and outer edges; at least ~7% in from the CENTRAL FOLD. • The central-fold zone (~14% strip through the middle) is the QUIET MEADOW — JUST grass, a wildflower, maybe a butterfly. NO tree trunk in that strip. NO plaque in that strip. NO text in that strip. NO character face in that strip. NO leaf inset in that strip. NO signpost in that strip. NO caption in that strip. NO title in that strip.

Hidden details (smaller fun layer, NOT mentioned in the caption):

• CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) palm-sized, in his FORESTER outfit: a tiny green forester's beret, a little notebook tucked under one claw and a pencil in the other. Hide him perched on a low branch of the oak, or peeking from a tuft of grass at the base of the rowan — NOT in the central meadow strip.

• A pun signpost on the lane reads "FUR-EST WALK" (forest → fur-est, fur-substitution) — a small wooden direction post in the grass on the LEFT page (NOT in the central meadow), painted clearly readable.

• A wisp of red string (the recurring trail prop) trails from the willow branches, wraps around the oak's lowest bough where Finley stands, and loops once around the rowan trunk — the trail finding the friends even in the bonus games. The string is allowed to cross the meadow strip (it's a thin painted line, gutter-tolerant).

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted palette (sage greens, terracotta, hedgerow ochre, river blue, moor purple in the far-right distance). NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat.

ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL RULES — re-read before painting:

1. NO visible vertical fold line, crease, seam, gutter shadow or dividing strip in the painting. ONE continuous landscape. 2. EXACTLY FIVE trees, in this exact left-to-right order: WILLOW → HAWTHORN → (quiet meadow) → OAK → ROWAN → SCOTS PINE. 3. The central ~14% fold strip is empty of trees, text, plaques, character faces, leaf insets, signposts, captions and titles. It is ONLY quiet meadow. 4. Caption panel and TITLE both sit in the TOP-LEFT CORNER of the LEFT page — NOT in the centre. 5. Each tree's plaque is LARGE and its lettering is BIG and CLEARLY READABLE from a normal reading distance — sign-sized, not curiosity-sized. 6. Each tree is clearly different in silhouette, bark and leaf — distinguishable at a glance. 7. Each friend appears EXACTLY ONCE, with the right tree (Marvin & Sammy at willow, Crab at hawthorn, Finley at oak, Robin at rowan, Bruce at pine). 8. Botanical inset beside each plaque — one painted leaf / fruit each, postage-stamp sized. 9. Painted gouache throughout — no flat vector look, no photoreal.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style. This is a deliberately BUSY "Where's Wally" style search-and-find tableau — break the usual uncluttered-composition rule. Every corner of the scene should reward close looking.

Layout principles for THIS spread (different from the story spreads):

• ONE continuous panoramic scene of Plymouth's Barbican and Sutton Harbour on a bright summer afternoon — slightly tilted aerial / isometric view so we can see deep into the streets, the quayside, the boats, the rooftops.

• The scene is PACKED: dozens of small painted characters going about their day — fishermen unloading crates, a fish-market stall, an ice-cream queue, a pasty seller, children chasing a balloon, a busker on an accordion, a pirate-themed street performance, holidaymakers eating chips at quayside tables, gulls everywhere, cobbled lanes winding between Tudor-fronted shops, fishing boats moored along the quay, the Mayflower Steps visible at one end, white yachts further out in the harbour.

• NO large story-text pockets — instead: - A small caption box TOP-LEFT, painted to look like a chalk pub-sign hanging from a lamppost, containing the game caption. - A painted checklist scroll / banner running along the BOTTOM edge of the spread — looking like a hand-drawn treasure-hunt list pinned to a fishmonger's slate board, with each item written in clear storybook serif. The checklist is the spread's "text pocket".

• Both caption and checklist must be clearly LEGIBLE — large enough for an adult to read aloud while a child scans the picture.

THE SCENE — Plymouth Barbican, sunny summer afternoon, packed with life:

LEFT PAGE — the quayside end. Wooden fishing boats moored along the cobbled quay, ropes coiled, lobster pots stacked, nets drying. A pasty bakery with steam rising. The Mayflower Steps visible. Holidaymakers eating ice-cream, kids feeding chips to gulls (and gulls thieving them mid-air). Pavement chalk drawings. Bunting strung between Tudor-fronted shop fronts. NO fishmonger / fish-market stall on this spread — Marvin, Captain Crab and Sammy are the heroes of the story and must not appear as food.

CENTRE (lower-detail safe zone over the book fold): the harbour water itself, with a small rowing boat or two crossing the fold — uncluttered enough that the book-binding doesn't eat detail.

RIGHT PAGE — the cobbled-street end. Narrow lanes climbing slightly, a second-hand bookstall outside an antique shop, an ice-cream cart with a queue, an accordion busker, a pirate-themed street performer (peg-leg, parrot, sword), a cat dozing on a windowsill, lobster pots stacked outside a pub door (the pub sign hand-painted), a chimney sweep, hanging baskets full of flowers, a postbox.

THE HIDDEN HUNT ITEMS — all must be clearly findable but NOT obvious. Paint them small and embedded in the scene:

1. MARVIN THE MACKEREL (cheerful smiling silver-blue mackerel from the character sheet) — splashing happily in the harbour water beside a moored fishing boat, head poking out of the water with a grin, a fin raised in a little wave. He is alive, well, and visiting his old haunts — NOT on a stall, NOT on ice, NOT being sold as food.

2. CAPTAIN CRAB (the chunky red crab character with the captain's hat) — tucked beneath one of the stripy deck-chairs at a quayside table, peeking out.

3. SAMMY THE SALMON (large pink-silver salmon character) — mid-leap out of an open wooden barrel of brine, water droplets flying.

4. ROBIN (the red-breasted robin character) — perched on a chimney pot on the rooftop of one of the cobbled-street shops.

5. BRUCE THE PHEASANT (the magnificent copper-tailed pheasant character) — strutting absurdly through the crowd on the cobbles, head held high, completely out of place.

6. 6 cheeky seagulls stealing chips — exactly six distinct gulls each clearly mid-theft, chips in beak, scattered through the scene (over the chip shop, over a picnic, swooping near the boats, perched on a roof with a chip, etc.). Six, not five, not seven.

7. 3 red balloons drifting up into the sky — small bright-red helium balloons rising above the rooftops, well separated.

8. 2 dropped pearly shells on the cobbles — small iridescent shells lying on the stones, easy to miss.

9. CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) — palm-sized, wearing his BRETON SAILOR outfit (navy-and-white striped jumper and a small red sailor's neckerchief). Hide him somewhere clever — coiled in a rope on the quay, sitting on a lobster pot, peeking out from a fish basket.

10. A pun book on the second-hand bookstall with its spine clearly readable: "MOBY ROAR" (Herman Melville pun). Painted in clean serif lettering on a faded cloth-bound spine.

11. A SHEEP WEARING A NUMBER 7 TAG — one shaggy white sheep, somehow on the Barbican, wandering through the crowd with a clearly painted yellow ear-tag reading "7". Absurd cameo.

TEXT — the caption box and checklist banner:

Caption box (TOP-LEFT, painted as a swinging pub-sign or chalk slate hanging from a lamppost), in warm brown storybook serif, render verbatim, each line on its own line:

Back to the Barbican! All Finley's friends are home for the day — and the harbour is HEAVING. Can you find everything on the list?

Checklist banner (along the BOTTOM EDGE of the spread, painted as a long hand-drawn list pinned to a fishmonger's slate board or chalkboard sign, two columns), in clear storybook serif, each line on its own line, with a tiny tick-box □ next to each item:

□ Marvin the Mackerel — splashing in the harbour □ Captain Crab — under a stripy deck-chair □ Sammy the Salmon — leaping from a barrel □ Robin — perched on a chimney pot □ Bruce the Pheasant — strutting through the crowd □ 6 cheeky seagulls stealing chips □ 3 red balloons drifting up □ 2 dropped pearly shells on the cobbles □ Claude the Crab in his sailor jumper □ A book called MOBY ROAR □ A sheep wearing a number 7 tag

Text size: Caption and checklist must be LARGE and PROMINENT enough to read aloud easily — sized for a printed children's hardback. The checklist banner can be slightly smaller per-line than full story-spread text but each item still clearly legible.

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted palette, slightly more saturated for the seaside light. NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat. Dense but readable — like a Richard Scarry or Where's Wally page rendered in the book's gouache style. Crowds of small distinct characters, each with their own little story. CRITICAL: every item on the checklist must actually be in the painting and findable.

A children's picture-book BONUS SPREAD across both open pages — ONE continuous painted gouache scene. Wide 2:1 landscape format (2048×1024). Cosy modern British picture book style, matching the rest of the book.

THIS IMAGE IS A SINGLE CONTINUOUS PAINTING. DO NOT paint a visible vertical fold line, crease, seam, page-edge or gutter shadow down the middle of the canvas. The scrapbook page is one continuous painting.

The scene: the WHOLE spread is painted to look like a single big open page from a child's painted scrapbook — warm cream paper with a gentle painted-paper texture, hand-painted hairline border just inside the print-safe margin, a single piece of folded painted masking tape at each top corner.

LAYOUT — strictly print-aware. The spread divides into THREE horizontal zones:

• LEFT PAGE (the left ~40% of the canvas): the title, the caption panel, and the column of FIVE FRIEND PORTRAITS stacked vertically. Everything on this side sits comfortably inside the left half — clear of the central strip.

• CENTRAL ~20% VERTICAL STRIP (the wide quiet middle): CONTENT-FREE. Just continuous painted cream scrapbook paper. NO portraits. NO objects. NO sound words. NO text. NO matching lines. NO connecting dots. NO arrows. The eye crosses this calm gap from the friends on the left to the things/sounds on the right — that crossing IS the puzzle.

• RIGHT PAGE (the right ~40% of the canvas): TWO close-together columns sitting comfortably inside the right half — the LOST THINGS column (closer to the centre but still well clear of the gutter strip), and the SOUNDS column (further right). Both columns have FIVE items stacked vertically. Items shuffled differently between the two columns so neither set lines up with the friends row-for-row.

NO CONNECTING DOTTED LINES anywhere on the spread. No dots, no arrows, no curves between any of the items. The match is meant to be solved fresh by the reader; no hint-lines should pre-link anything.

LEFT PAGE — FRIENDS COLUMN (top to bottom, story order):

Each friend painted as a soft-edged oval portrait medallion with a hand-lettered name underneath in clear warm-brown storybook serif. The five portraits sit in a single vertical column on the LEFT page, evenly spaced, comfortably WITHIN the left page (NOT touching the central strip).

- L1 (top): MARVIN the mackerel — silver-blue, mid-glub. Name 'MARVIN' beneath. - L2: CAPTAIN CRAB — bright orange, navy captain's hat, one claw raised. Name 'CAPTAIN CRAB' beneath. - L3: SAMMY the salmon — pink-silver, mid-leap. Name 'SAMMY' beneath. - L4: ROBIN — plump, bright red breast, head cocked. Name 'ROBIN' beneath. - L5 (bottom): BRUCE the pheasant — copper-bronze tail fanned, head held proud. Name 'BRUCE' beneath.

RIGHT PAGE — LOST THINGS COLUMN (top to bottom, JUMBLED). Each item painted clearly on its own small cream paper patch, positioned in the LEFT half of the right page (i.e. inner-right — comfortably clear of the central strip but well inside the right half):

- M1 (top): A FAN OF PHEASANT TAIL FEATHERS — ten copper-bronze feathers arranged in pairs. (Bruce's.) - M2: A TANGLED FISHING NET — a small heap of rope-knot net. (Marvin's.) - M3: A CLUSTER OF RED BERRIES — six berries arranged in three pairs. (Robin's.) - M4: TWO PEARLY SEASHELLS side by side. (Captain Crab's.) - M5 (bottom): A SMALL PAINTED STRETCH OF RUSHING RIVER — a tiny blue-white ribbon of water with one ripple and a leaping silver fleck. (Sammy's.)

RIGHT PAGE — SOUNDS COLUMN (top to bottom, JUMBLED DIFFERENTLY). Each sound word painted BIG in warm hand-lettered storybook serif inside a soft speech-bubble shape, positioned in the RIGHT half of the right page (outer-right — comfortably clear of the outer-right trim margin):

- R1 (top): 'SPLASH' — with a tiny painted droplet beside it. (Sammy's.) - R2: 'TWEET' — with two tiny painted music-notes beside it. (Robin's.) - R3: 'BOK' — with a tiny painted exclamation flourish beside it. (Bruce's.) - R4: 'GLUB' — with a tiny bubble or two trailing from it. (Marvin's.) - R5 (bottom): 'SNIP' — with a tiny painted scissor-motion arc beside it. (Captain Crab's.)

THE CORRECT MATCHES (for reference — these are the ANSWERS to the puzzle. The painting must NOT pre-link them with any visible line. The matches are solved by the reader pointing and saying):

• MARVIN ↔ NET ↔ GLUB • CAPTAIN CRAB ↔ SHELLS ↔ SNIP • SAMMY ↔ RIVER ↔ SPLASH • ROBIN ↔ BERRIES ↔ TWEET • BRUCE ↔ FEATHERS ↔ BOK

CAPTION PANEL — TOP-LEFT CORNER OF THE LEFT PAGE. Painted as a torn scrap of cream notebook paper, taped (painted masking-tape) into the top-left corner, well inside the LEFT page. Contains the caption verbatim, each line on its own line, in clear hand-lettered storybook serif sized for easy parental reading:

Five friends. Five lost things. Five silly sounds — all jumbled up! Can you say which friend lost which thing — and which sound they make? Shout each sound out LOUD! Glub! Snip! Splash! Tweet! Bok!

TITLE — above the caption panel, top-left of the LEFT page (NOT centred across the spread). Hand-lettered storybook serif, slightly bigger than the caption: FRIENDS, THINGS & SOUNDS.

PRINT-SAFE COMPOSITION (the painting will be trimmed and bound):

• Paint the scrapbook page ALL THE WAY to ALL FOUR edges of the canvas. ONE continuous painting. • Keep all portraits, objects, sound words, names, captions and titles well inside these safe margins: at least ~4% in from the top, bottom, and outer edges; AT LEAST ~10% in from the CENTRAL FOLD on each side (so the central ~20% strip is content-free — wider than usual). • NOTHING crosses the central strip. No portrait, no name label, no object patch, no sound word, no caption text, no title, no decorative line, no thread of red string runs through the central strip. The thread of red string mentioned in the hidden details must stay on the RIGHT page only.

Hidden details (smaller fun layer, NOT mentioned in the caption):

• CLAUDE THE CRAB (small chunky cube-ish bright terracotta-orange crab with two large round black eyes and raised claws, matching the Claude reference sheet) palm-sized, in his HERALD outfit: a tiny rolled-paper megaphone held up to his mouth-area in one claw, and a small painted ribbon-sash across his shell. Hide him in the bottom-LEFT of the spread (on the LEFT page), looking up at the friend portraits as if announcing them.

• A pun signpost or hand-lettered scrap of paper somewhere on the LEFT page (taped under the title or beside the caption) reads "THE PAW-DCAST" (podcast → paw-dcast, paw-substitution) — a small gag for the parents.

• A wisp of red string (the recurring trail prop) loops gently through the RIGHT margin of the spread only, tying the five sound-word speech-bubbles together like beads on a thread. The string stays entirely on the right page — it does NOT cross the central strip and does NOT connect to the items column or the friends column.

Style: Painted gouache matching the rest of the book — visible brush texture, soft outlines, warm muted palette (cream paper, terracotta accents, sage greens, navy, warm brown ink for lettering). NOT photoreal. NOT digital-flat. Scrapbook feel — affectionate and hand-made.

ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL RULES — re-read before painting:

1. NO visible vertical fold line, seam or dividing strip in the painting. ONE continuous painted scrapbook page. 2. NO dotted lines, NO arrows, NO connecting threads, NO match-lines of any kind between the friends, the items, and the sounds. The puzzle is solved by the reader, not pre-traced on the page. 3. Three zones: friends on the LEFT page (left ~40% of canvas), wide quiet centre (~20% strip — empty), items + sounds on the RIGHT page (right ~40% of canvas). NOTHING important is in the central strip. 4. Friends column TOP-TO-BOTTOM (left page): Marvin, Captain Crab, Sammy, Robin, Bruce. (Story order.) 5. Lost things column TOP-TO-BOTTOM (right page, inner column): Feathers, Net, Berries, Shells, River. (Jumbled.) 6. Sounds column TOP-TO-BOTTOM (right page, outer column): SPLASH, TWEET, BOK, GLUB, SNIP. (Jumbled differently.) 7. NO 'ALL FOUND' STAMP anywhere on the spread — this is an unsolved puzzle. 8. Title and caption panel both sit in the TOP-LEFT of the LEFT page, not the centre. 9. Painted gouache scrapbook page throughout — no flat vector look, no photoreal.