Finding Serendipity

by Angelica Banks

  ‘All right,’ said Tuesday, not understanding. ‘But the coin – what is it for?’

  ‘Goodbyyyieee,’ sang the Librarian. And with that, she disappeared back into the great room of books, closing the doors behind her.

  Tuesday sighed. She turned the coin in her hand and examined it carefully. It had a lion’s head on one side and a mountain on the other and it appeared to be brand new.

  Chapter Six

  Through the doors the Librarian had indicated, Tuesday found a room that could easily have been a restaurant in a fancy hotel in the city. The tables were all set with white tablecloths, white plates, glassware and silver cutlery. Some of the tables were occupied; by writers, Tuesday assumed. Each of them sat alone. Some of them had a book propped open on the table while they ate, or a notebook that they were busily scribbling in. Several of them were simply staring out the window across the wide balcony beyond, with their spoon or fork halted in mid-air between their plate and their mouth. None of them took the least bit of notice of Tuesday or Baxterr.

  Tuesday spied Blake Luckhurst at a table by the windows. As she approached, she saw that he was attacking an enormous pile of bacon. From the discarded plates piled on his table, she gathered this was not the first course of his meal.

  ‘Hey,’ said Blake, as Tuesday approached.

  ‘Is it okay if I sit with you?’ Tuesday asked.

  Blake replied with a grunt.

  ‘How do we order?’ Tuesday said, sitting down opposite him. There didn’t seem to be any waiters. Tuesday waited for Blake to reply, but he only continued forking bacon into his mouth. Tuesday had to admit that the bacon did look, and smell, particularly good.

  ‘It’s all very confusing,’ she said.‘I came looking for my mother, but I still have no idea where to go, and now it seems I must have breakfast before I go anywhere.’

  ‘Over there,’ Blake indicated, waving his arm in the direction of a long buffet at the back of the room.

  There were glass jugs of milk, three kinds of juice and a row of silver domes. In front of each dome was a thick white card bearing words in elegant black writing. At the breakfast buffet of a fancy hotel, those cards might have announced veal sausages or baked beans or pancakes or scrambled eggs. But here they said things such as:

  Confidence Food

  It’s Going To Be A Very Long Day

  I’ll Be Home By Lunchtime

  I Eat Like A Sparrow

  I Could Eat A Horse

  and

  I’m About To Get Myself Into Trouble

  Then there was a basket at the end with a card that read:

  Food For The Road

  Tuesday lifted the silver domes to discover all manner of food. Under the lid of I’ll Be Home By Lunchtime she found a ruby grapefruit and two slices of toast with marmalade. Under I’m About To Get Myself Into Trouble she found a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, sausages and waffles. At the end, she stopped at the basket of Food For The Road. Inside were a variety of packets. These were filled rolls and sandwiches, dried fruit and nuts, chocolate bars, cookies and apples in shades of red and green. Tuesday glanced over at Blake, but he had his head down over his food and was paying no attention to her.

  She chose a roll filled with silverside and mustard, and then, thinking of Baxterr, she took a second roll. She selected a large chocolate bar for herself, and a packet of cheese and biscuits for Baxterr. She stuck these in her backpack along with two bottles of water. Then she went back along the sideboard to Confidence Food and lifted the lid. Underneath, on a blue-patterned plate, were two eggs, poached, on an English muffin with hollandaise sauce and bacon. It was exactly like Denis McGillycuddy’s Monday morning breakfast, so she took a plate. Hearing Baxterr whine beside her, she lifted up the lid of I’m About To Get Myself Into Trouble and took a plate from there, too. Rather loaded up, she returned to the table where Blake Luckhurst was licking his knife. She placed the I’m About To Get Myself Into Trouble plate on the floor and Baxterr devoured the contents before she had even started on her first egg. Meanwhile, Blake leaned back on his chair and surveyed her.

  ‘So, did she give you a coin?’ he asked in a rather smug tone.

  Tuesday wondered what had happened to the friendly boy who’d helped her through the mist. It seemed that he had evaporated and the annoying person she’d met at The Beginning had returned.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Tuesday mildly. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Was I ever this dumb? No, Yesterday, I don’t think I ever was,’ Blake said, rolling his eyes. ‘Whatever,’ he continued, and stood up. ‘I’m out of here.’

  ‘Wait!’ Tuesday protested. ‘Couldn’t you just stay for a minute?’

  She had wanted to ask him about all kinds of things, not least about the ball of thread that the Librarian had insisted Tuesday leave in her care.

  ‘It’s a big world out there,’ said Blake, pointing to the balcony where Tuesday noticed a row of mounted binoculars fixed to the railings at various intervals, like the ones at tourist attractions. ‘So you’d better start getting your head around the fact that there’s only person here who can help you. And that’s you. Sayonara, sister. Or, should I say, hasta la vista, baby.’

  With that he picked up his backpack and loped through the restaurant and out the door, leaving Tuesday alone with the greasy remains of his breakfast.

  ‘Fine,’ she muttered and patted Baxterr’s head. ‘I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I’ve imagined six impossible things before breakfast, and now I know what happens when you do. You get very hungry.’

  Tuesday finished her eggs. Then she neatly stacked her dishes, along with Baxterr’s, and returned them to an empty spot on the buffet. Feeling for the coin in her pocket, Tuesday examined it again. She thought of approaching one of the writers at the other tables, but it didn’t seem polite to disturb people who were clearly so preoccupied with their own thoughts. Tuesday glanced again at the misty balcony. She wondered if the coin had anything to do with the tourist binoculars. Calling Baxterr to follow her, she made her way out into the foggy surrounds.

  ‘What do you think, doggo?’ she asked Baxterr. ‘Shall we get a closer look at this mist?’

  Tuesday selected a pair of binoculars and located the coin slot behind the eyepieces. She slid her coin into it and turned a handle so that the coin clattered down inside the machine’s workings. She looked, but just as she’d expected, there was nothing to see but whiteness.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Tuesday said to Baxterr.

  ‘Ruff,’ said Baxterr, as if he thought it was obvious what she should do.

  Well, Tuesday thought, perhaps it was obvious. Binoculars were a device for looking, and she was indeed looking for something: her mother.

  She peered again through the binoculars and was surprised to see the mist clear a little. She could see a wide sea and dark jagged cliffs, and a ship sailing towards her out of a storm. But it was no ordinary ship. It was huge and rusted with green moth-eaten sails. It was The Silverfish, the most feared vessel on the sea, captained by the villainous Carsten Mothwood.

  Tuesday looked closely at all those on board the ship, but she could not spot her mother. Tuesday pulled back from the binoculars and blinked. Taking a deep breath, she looked through them once again. Everything was shifting and moving. The mist was clearing and the sun was hovering at the edge of a deep pink dawn sky. She could see a forest – a tall, dark forest – and far beyond that was a glimpse of the sea, but it wasn’t dark and wind-whipped as before. She realised that she knew that forest. She knew it almost as well as she knew the landscape of City Park. It was the Peppermint Forest, home to Vivienne Small.

  Tuesday once again pulled back from the binoculars, and opened her eyes in wonder. It was as if a wind had blown, although none had, and the deep mist around the Library had dissolved. Beyond the balcony was the world she had seen through the binoculars, as if it had always been there. The sun was rising out of a deep pink dawn. Far aw
ay to her left was the Peppermint Forest, a dark green mass beyond rolling fields. Beyond that and stretching all the way south was the Restless Sea, a shimmering expanse of cornflower blue tinted with silver.

  ‘Oh,’ Tuesday cried. ‘Look! Baxterr, can you see that? I just know we’re going to find Mum somewhere out there!’

  Baxterr pushed his nose through the balcony railing. His tail wagged frantically and he barked in great excitement.

  ‘Not bad,’ came a voice beside Tuesday. ‘Not bad at all, for a first try.’

  Tuesday spun around. The Librarian was standing at the railing beside her and peering out over the landscape that had materialised around them.

  ‘Did I … do that?’ Tuesday asked, stunned.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said the Librarian calmly. ‘The power of the imagination is a magnificent thing. Here, whatever you can imagine, you can make real.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ said Tuesday.

  Beyond the railing, a curving staircase led steeply down into this strange and beautiful world. Tuesday could hardly wait to get going. But the Librarian reached out a small hand and grasped Tuesday firmly by the wrist.

  ‘There’s one small problem with this world that you’ve made, is there not, Tuesday McGillycuddy?’

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Unless I am very much mistaken, this world is not yours, is it? By my infallible recollection, this is the world of Vivienne Small – a world created by one Serendipity Smith.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘You’ve expressed an interest in Ms Smith’s works, but I’m sure you know that your story needs to be original. Though I must say that I’m rather astonished,’ the Librarian continued. ‘I have never before seen a writer so vividly conjure up the world of another writer. Miraculous.’

  Tuesday wished that she could tell the Librarian exactly why she should be able to perfectly imagine this world. She’d had Vivienne Small stories read to her all her life. She could picture every facet of the world down to its tiniest detail.

  ‘I simply cannot have you dashing off into some other writer’s world,’ the Librarian continued sternly. ‘What if Serendipity Smith were to come back and find some other writer meddling in her story? I cannot answer for the consequences if you intrude into the world of another writer! And I don’t imagine you’d like it if I allowed anyone to go stomping around in a world of your creation now, would you? Hmmm?’

  ‘But …’ said Tuesday.

  ‘No “buts”. I will tolerate no “buts”.’

  ‘But …’ said Tuesday, almost bursting with the desire to explain to the Librarian that she simply had to go into that world, and no other, because that was where she would find her mother. That she, Tuesday, had been present when her mother had created this world. That there had been times when her mother had asked Tuesday for ideas about how Vivienne Small could possibly escape her latest predicament and several of these ideas were in the Vivienne Small series. But how could Tuesday tell the Librarian any of this without revealing the secret that she was the daughter of Serendipity Smith?

  Then, from across the balcony, came the sound of thumping, followed by a torrent of curses uttered in a thick Texan accent. The man in the white cowboy hat that Tuesday had seen working at a desk in the Library was standing at one of the other sets of binoculars, banging it with his fist in frustration.

  ‘Madame Librarian,’ he called out. ‘What in tarnation! It done swallowed my coin!’

  ‘Silver Nightly! Would you kindly stop mistreating my binoculars,’ the Librarian said sternly.

  But the man in the white hat took no notice. He retrieved a book from the pocket of his grubby white coat and used it to give the binoculars another hearty thwack.

  ‘That is a Library book!’ the Librarian screeched, setting off at a trot to rescue the book and the binoculars.

  ‘Dang thang’s plumb broke,’ the man continued. ‘Shoot, Madame Librarian, s’bout time you got these sorry antiquities replaced.’

  Tuesday winked at Baxterr. ‘What can she do to stop us, doggo?’ she whispered.

  Baxterr blinked and twitched his ears before quietly scampering off along the balcony away from the Librarian and the irate cowboy. Tuesday followed silently. In a few moments they had reached the staircase that descended into the world of Vivienne Small and Carsten Mothwood. As they began running down the stairs, Tuesday heard the Librarian above calling her name.

  ‘Come on, doggo,’ Tuesday urged him, ‘faster!’

  Nothing was going to stop her from finding her mother. Nothing and no one.

  The staircase wound down and down and Tuesday and Baxterr didn’t stop until they arrived at the last of the great stone steps and saw the land spread out before them. Tuesday’s mind boggled with the extraordinary possibilities before her. She closed her eyes, threw her head back and smelled the air. It was just as she had always imagined – crisp and cold and fresh and ever so faintly minty. She bent down and brushed her hands over the long grass, which was greener than any grass she had ever seen. It was a truly deep green, and a little iridescent as well. Yellow flowers blooming out of the grass were as dazzlingly yellow as the grass was green, and the dawn sky overhead was giving way to royal blue with three long high clouds. It was the most beautiful place that Tuesday had ever been. She was astonished and amazed, and yet not surprised at all.

  ‘Look, Baxterr!’ she cried, pointing excitedly. ‘That’s the River of Rythwyck! And way over there, on the far side of the Restless Sea – those are the Mountains of Margolov. And there – there is the Peppermint Forest. If anyone can tell us how best to go on, and the quickest way to The End, then it’s Vivienne Small. Mind you, I have no idea if she’ll be home.Who knows what might have happened in Vivienne Small and the Final Battle. But if she is home, she is the one person who can help us find Mum. And if she’s not there, she may have left a clue about where Mum might be. Imagine that, Baxterr – we might be about to meet the real Vivienne Small!’

  Tuesday turned to take a last look up at the Library, only to find it had vanished. There were only high green hills that stretched all the way up the sky. With a little sting of fear, Tuesday realised how far she was from any place – or anyone – that she knew. Had she made a terrible mistake entering her mother’s world against the Librarian’s wishes? And how would she ever get back to it? How would she reclaim her ball of silver thread? Whether or not you can see it, the Library is always here, the Librarian had said, and Tuesday supposed she would simply have to believe that this was true. At that moment Baxterr gave a sharp bark and his body quivered.

  ‘What’s the matter, doggo?’ Tuesday asked. But Baxterr continued quivering. Then he barked and took off at a trot, indicating to Tuesday to follow him.

  ‘Baxterr? Baxterr! Come back!’ Tuesday called.

  Baxterr stopped long enough for Tuesday to catch up, then he barked sharply again as if to tell her that something was terribly wrong.

  ‘Is it Mum? Is it Vivienne?’ Tuesday asked, trying to soothe him.

  But Baxterr barked again urgently and set off at a run towards the Peppermint Forest.

  Chapter Seven

  Meanwhile, back at Brown Street, Serendipity Smith sat down on the chair at her desk.

  ‘Do you know how rare it is to get lift-off the very first time you try?’ she said to Denis, her eyebrows scrunched together in a deep frown. ‘If I wasn’t so worried, I’d be incredibly proud of her. But there’s so much she doesn’t know. So much that could happen.’

  ‘Perhaps I should have grabbed her leg and pulled her back in,’ said Denis. ‘But I was so happy for her. I didn’t expect you to miss one another. I expected you both home for breakfast.’

  ‘Well, we shall be, with any luck,’ said Serendipity.

  She inserted a fresh sheet of paper, and began. Under her fingers, the keys rattled and clicked. But although she willed the words to wisp up into long silvery tendrils that would wrap around her and take her away, they didn’t. They stayed, blac
k and blunt, on the page. There was no lift-off. None at all.

  Serendipity ripped the page out of the typewriter, crumpled it up and threw it impatiently into the bin under the desk. She inserted a second fresh page, and began again, typing as fast as ever in her life. But still, she stayed glued to her chair.

  ‘It’s not working! I can’t get any … lift,’ she said. Serendipity felt a tide of panic rising.

  ‘What do you need?’ Denis asked.

  ‘A beginning,’ Serendipity said.

  ‘What kind of beginning must it be?’

  ‘It must be the beginning to a story that ends with a daughter being found. But it must be intriguing and interesting, or it will never fly.’

  ‘Once upon a time … ?’ Denis offered. ‘A story can still begin that way, can’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Serendipity.

  ‘Well then,’ continued Denis, ‘once upon a time there was a child. A delicious, delectable, dear, darling daughter. How am I doing?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Serendipity, frowning a little.

  ‘Oh, you know I’m no good at this.’

  ‘Never mind that now. Just go on. Help me.’

  Denis continued,‘She had golden hair and blue-green eyes, never was rude and never told lies.’

  ‘I’m not sure…’ said Serendipity.

  ‘Rhyming’s not right, is it?’ Denis asked.

  ‘But I think there’s something in it,’ said Serendipity.

  And then her fingers reached for the typewriter keys and she tapped away.

  Once upon a time a child was born on a Tuesday. She had eyes the colour of the ocean and feet as smooth as marble, with not a line or crease upon them.

  ‘Ah,’ said Denis. ‘And then a bad fairy put a spell on her?’