Finding Serendipity

by Angelica Banks

  ‘Tuesday!’ they both yelled, their faces alive with relief and surprise. ‘Baxterr!’

  Tuesday sat up and grinned.

  ‘I’ll get better at the landings,’ she had time to say before her parents were upon her, crushing her in enormous hugs.

  ‘You did it!’ said Serendipity.

  ‘You made it!’ said Denis.

  ‘We made it,’ said Tuesday, pulling Baxterr into the fold of their embrace.

  ‘I’m so pleased to have you home,’ said Serendipity as they slowly untangled themselves from each other. ‘And look at that thread!’

  ‘Mum, Dad, it was amazing,’ Tuesday said, and without getting up from the floor, her parents sat and listened as she told them all that had happened to her. Serendipity rolled her eyes as Tuesday described Blake Luckhurst, and smiled when Tuesday told her about the book in the great Library that had the name Tuesday McGillycuddy on its spine. Denis shuddered with fear when Tuesday described how Baxterr had nearly drowned and sighed with relief at the part when Vivienne revived him. Serendipity shook her head sorrowfully in the part where Mothwood came back to life, and clutched Tuesday’s hands when she told of Baxterr being captured and hobbled on the deck. Denis chuckled with pride when Tuesday explained how she had bested Mothwood in a game of rhyming couplets. He had her repeat the one about food four times, and said that it was the best of the lot, and that truly, she had deserved to win. Baxterr barked excitedly when Tuesday described how he had taken to the skies to catch the thread and then caught the girls on his back as they jumped from the crow’s nest.

  And when the story came to an end, Denis jumped to his feet. ‘You must be starving,’ he said.

  ‘I am hungry,’ said Tuesday. ‘Very hungry.What time is it? I feel as if a week has gone by.’

  ‘Well,’ said Denis, consulting his watch,‘technically, it’s lunchtime, but as the night has been long and your victory hard won – and a story all done – I think blueberry pancakes are in order. C’mon, Baxterr, let’s see what we can find for you too, doggo.’

  As Denis galloped downstairs with Baxterr trotting hungrily at his heels, Tuesday and Serendipity looked at one another. Serendipity sat down on the chair at her desk and took her daughter in her arms.

  ‘You’ve done something wonderful,’ her mother said. ‘Now all that remains is for you to write it down. Was Mothwood terrifying?’ she asked, as she stroked Tuesday’s hair.

  ‘He was terrifying,’ Tuesday said. ‘Especially since he was only half alive.’

  ‘I’m afraid that was my fault,’ said Serendipity. ‘I was trying to get to you, in whatever way I could. I wrote him back to life, because I thought that if I kept Vivienne Small and the Final Battle going somehow, then I’d be able to return to the world of the story and bring you home. I shouldn’t have tried to interfere in your story – it was a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I made a mistake when I went looking for you in the first place. I thought you were stuck. But I guess you were here for almost all the time I was there!’

  ‘I’m sorry I was so late home, but I so wanted to finish my book. I felt absolutely compelled to push on to The End,’ Serendipity said.

  ‘Baxter and I made a wish at the fountain on the way home from school,’ said Tuesday.

  ‘Ah,’ said Serendipity. ‘Wishes are very powerful things.’

  ‘But if you hadn’t stayed late, then I’d never have gone at all,’ said Tuesday, smiling.

  ‘And when coincidences happen at precisely the right time,’ said her mother, ‘that is what you call …’ ‘Serendipity!’ called Denis from downstairs. ‘Tuesday! Breakfast in ten minutes!’

  Serendipity and Tuesday looked at each other, and laughed.

  And then a thought occurred to Tuesday, and her face grew grave.

  ‘Mum, did you know that the Librarian knows our secret? She knows that you’re my mother. I didn’t tell her, she already knew. But I did tell someone. I told Vivienne. I had to. I was so desperate to find you.’

  ‘It’s all right, darling. I hardly think the Librarian, or Vivienne, are going to have it splashed on the front page of the newspaper, do you?’

  ‘Mum, there’s one other thing that’s puzzling me,’ Tuesday said. ‘About Vivienne.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When I talked about you with Vivienne she seemed to think you were an imaginary friend.’

  ‘Hmmm, that’s a good way of putting it. Do you know what I think?’ mused Serendipity, looking out the window that was still open to the day. ‘I think that characters in stories have their own lives to live, and we are not important in those lives. When we are with them, we are as real to them as they are to us, and they allow us to share in their adventures. But when we leave, we slowly fade away from their minds. Not entirely, of course. To them, we become something like a dream, or a distant memory. I think that while it is our business to keep them vivid in our hearts and minds, it is not their business to do the same for us.’

  ‘But if you fade away into Vivienne’s dreams, will I, too?’

  ‘I expect so, my love.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tuesday, feeling a little crestfallen.

  ‘Don’t be sad, darling. You can meet her all over again, whenever you want to. That’s the wonderful thing about it.’

  ‘And what about Mothwood? You meant for him to die at the end of your book, but then you changed it.’

  ‘I did, and those terrible changes I made are right there in the bin.’

  ‘But we both know that more happened after that!’ Tuesday protested.

  ‘Yes, my love, but that’s part of your story, not mine. So, let’s deal with the ending of Vivienne Small and the Final Battle story, properly and finally, shall we?’ said Serendipity.

  She drew the manuscript towards her and picked up the last page. This she threaded into the typewriter. Tuesday read aloud the final lines Serendipity had written there.

  ‘Vivienne lay down in her hammock to sleep, although her right ear, the one with the pointed tip, remained as tuned as ever to the call of adventure,’ it concluded.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Tuesday said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Serendipity flipped open the little silver box that sat beside her typewriter and delicately plucked out the short thread of words that lay within.

  ‘You love writing, don’t you?’ asked Tuesday.

  ‘I do,’ said Serendipity.

  ‘It felt so real, but did all of those things truly happen to me?’ asked Tuesday.

  ‘When it’s done well,’ said Serendipity, ‘it can feel as real as sunshine on your face. It can taste like mint on your tongue. It can sound like lightning, or the scream of someone you love dearly. It wouldn’t be a good story if we, the writers, didn’t totally believe in it, would it now?’

  ‘Do you think it will ever happen to me again?’ Tuesday asked, as the smell of pancakes wafted up four flights of stairs.

  ‘Well,’ and here Serendipity touched Tuesday’s ball of thread on the desk, ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. You can start writing it all up over the holidays if you want to.’ Serendipity smiled at Tuesday. ‘But right now is not the time for a beginning. For now, it’s …’

  Tuesday nodded as she looked at the page sitting in the typewriter.

  ‘Here. Why don’t you do it?’ asked Serendipity.

  ‘Really?’ said Tuesday. She rolled the paper down a line or two so there was a blank space below the final sentence her mother had written. Lifting the two small words off her mother’s hand she slipped them onto the page. The letters didn’t turn to silver thread and loop around her hands. They sat there nice and black and steady on the page.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  WE WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE all our children for the myriad ways they inspire and amuse us. For this book we must especially thank Isabelle and Xanthe, who modelled for Tuesday and Vivienne, listened to various drafts and made brilliant suggestion
s when we were stuck. And Byron who offered wonderful insights into the nature of adventure. We thank the readers (of all ages) who told us what they thought along the way: Lily McCann, Milton Kapelus, Isobel Andrewartha, Hannah Warwarek and Jessica Hancock. We would also like to express our gratitude to the many members of our extended families for love, support, food, humour and encouragement. And to John and Rowan, for being there at our own versions of Brown Street, when we come in to land at the end of a long day.