PRAISE FOR THE TUESDAY MCGILLYCUDDY SERIES
BLUEBERRY PANCAKES FOREVER
‘Reading this book is just like playing a great computer game. You cannot take your eyes away.’ — Lawrence, age 10
A WEEK WITHOUT TUESDAY
‘A stimulating read that validates and encourages the creative impulse – highly recommended.’ — Kirkus Reviews
‘This is a complex fantasy adventure rich in language, crazy names, and wild imaginative situations.’ — Reading Time
‘Finding Serendipity and A Week Without Tuesday are highly recommended for readers who enjoy clever, quirky stories filled with adventure and wonderful characters.’ — Kids’ Book Review
FINDING SERENDIPITY
‘This is a beguiling tale that celebrates the power of the creative spirit. The pace is brisk and the characters appealing … The story is a delight.’ — Magpies
‘A middle-grade fantasy about the magic in writing stories … An original, wholehearted affirmation of the written word and the imagination.’ — Kirkus Reviews
‘With cinematic imagery and keen wit, the authors construct an inventive novel that raises intriguing questions about the relationship between authors and their characters, and reaches “The End” all too soon.’ — Publishers Weekly
First published by Allen & Unwin in 2016
Copyright © Heather Rose & Danielle Wood writing as Angelica Banks, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978176011 0451
eISBN 9781952534058
Author photo: © The Mercury, Hobart
Cover & text design by Design by Committee
Cover illustration: Josh Durham
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
For BAFFIX
Nothing you can imagine is ever truly lost
In honour of good fathers everywhere, including ours
And in memory of Isla who loved to read
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY–FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY–EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY–NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY–FOUR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A NOTE FROM ANGELICA BANKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
This is how it is when winter falls. The sun rises, but a little later than it did yesterday and a little earlier than it will tomorrow. Each night is longer, darker and colder than the one before.
Back at the beginning of winter, Vivienne Small had lined her hammock with fur and covered herself at night with an extra blanket. She had collected wood to burn in the potbelly stove on her verandah, and spent the long evenings sitting close beside it, whispering to her black rat Ermengarde about the things they would do when springtime came. But although weeks passed, and months too, the winter did not turn. Instead it grew steadily deeper.
The snow on the Mountains of Margalov crept lower and lower, and the upper reaches of the River of Rythwyck turned to ice. The Golden Valley was no longer golden but white, and the five Cities of Luminosity were buried beneath snowdrifts. Plants no longer grew, but instead lay dormant beneath the frosty earth. Hibernating animals slept on and on. The birds of the air laid no eggs; chrysalises never broke open. The creatures of the world were starving, and Vivienne could do nothing but watch as the world inched closer to complete and absolute darkness.
On a particularly bitter morning, Vivienne woke beneath a pile of blankets, a woollen hat pulled down over her ears. Despite her coverings, she was cold and the tip of her nose was numb. The only pool of warmth was at the back of her neck, where Ermengarde was asleep beneath Vivienne’s dark, tangled hair.
Vivienne sat up and opened her wide blue wings, releasing a shower of ice crystals. Ermengarde emerged briefly, squinted disapprovingly at the morning, and retreated once again. Vivienne shook the ice off her long leather boots and pulled them stiffly onto her feet. She wrapped her arms about herself tightly as she stood at the railing of her verandah, and stared out over the angry charcoal waves of the Restless Sea. The sky above was no friendlier.
The long and terrible winter had begun with an earthquake that had shaken every tree in the Peppermint Forest from the depths of their roots to the tips of their leaves. It had caused giant waves to crash against the shores, eating away at cliffs and scouring the sand from beaches. It had ruptured hills and valleys, and reduced parts of the City of Clocks to rubble. Then winter had come, and had not departed. There was speculation in every wild and tame place, among strangers and friends, that the world had been shaken so violently it had come loose from the turning of its seasons. Many said spring would never come again, and that the winter would deepen, day by day, until it had frozen the entire world and everything in it.
For a long while, Vivienne had scoffed at such an idea. But as the weeks unravelled, growing ever darker and colder, a tiredness had stolen over her. She had begun to wonder if winter was here forever, and this truly was the end of the world as she had known it. She leaned wearily on the railing and her stomach growled. But there was no point even looking in her pantry. She and Ermengarde had shared the last of her final store of nuts and a remnant of dry cheese two days ago. She had long since visited her other homes and stores, bringing any remaining supplies back to the Peppermint Forest, and now her tree house was completely empty of anything edible. She shivered.
‘It’s about time we had some sunshine!’ she called to the invisible sun, trapped behind layers of stormy clouds. ‘This can’t go on forever!’
‘Forever is a long time,’ came an eerie, otherworldly voice from behind her. ‘A long, long time.’
Vivienne caught the scent of dank earth, but before she could turn to see who had spoken, she felt in her shoulder the sharp stab of a dart. She saw a flash of vibrant green, then her knees buckled and everything faded to black.
Chapter Two
Along a rocky stretch of coastline, where cliffs soared to the sky and seabirds soared even higher, there stood a lighthouse. Perched on a grim knuckle of stone, it was the loneliest of places, lucky to be visited by two or three ships each year. And yet, on this particular day, it was surrounded by a flotilla of fishing boats. On their decks were photographers and reporters with their camera lenses trained on the red door of the lighthouse. Right on midday, it opened.
Out of the lighthouse stepped a woman dressed in a vivid blue coat and carrying a bucket. The buffeting wind made her long red hair fly about as if in a blender. The long skirts of her coat flew up, revealing a pair of spectacular red boots. After waving to the assembly of fishing boats, the woman made her way along a rough, sloping path that led to the water’s edge where she crouched to carefully fill her bucket. That done, she caught up a thick cable of rope and began to haul on it, hand over hand.
The fishing boats attempted to edge closer, but the crashing waves and maze of half-submerged rocks deterred even the most valiant skippers. Several of the journalists put megaphones to their mouths and began calling questions over the wind:
‘Serendipity, can you tell us what you’re writing?’
‘Serendipity, is Vivienne Small going to feature in the new series?’
‘Serendipity, when are you coming back to the city?’
‘Serendipity, do you know that Vivienne Small and the Final Battle is now the best-selling children’s novel of all time?’
‘The Mirage Hotel is keen to have you back. They’re asking do you need crème brûlée shipped in?’
‘Serendipity, do you have a message for your young readers?’
But Serendipity simply waved, and when at last the lobster pot she had been hauling in emerged at the end of the rope, she inspected its contents. Rolling back her sleeve, she plunged in her hand and brought out a marvellous orange-speckled lobster, its arms and legs waving like those of a space monster. She held it aloft for a moment and imagined the flurry and whirr of equipment as the media captured this image and sent it around the world.
Then she lowered the lobster into her water-filled bucket and clipped on the lid. Walking more slowly this time, and leaning slightly from the weight of the bucket, she made her way back to the lighthouse. At seventeen minutes past midday, she gave a final wave to the assembled fleet, then disappeared inside.
Several of the journalists shook their heads.
‘We must be able to get onto the island,’ one said to the ship’s captain.
‘Not likely,’ the captain replied, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. ‘It’s simply impossible to visit until we can send a rowboat across, and that is only possible on the lowest of tides.’
‘Well, when will that happen?’
‘They come once a year. The next one’s only six weeks away.’
‘Six weeks! We can’t wait six weeks.’
‘Take it up with the moon,’ the captain said.
The journalist thought for a moment, stared up at the dull grey sky that showed neither sun nor moon, and sighed.
‘She’s been out here alone for months and months,’ he mused, trying a different tack. ‘It must be hard for her, not having anyone to talk to.’
‘She speaks to Constanza, by radio,’ said the captain, with a wry smile.
Constanza was the proprietor of the only shop in the tiny village that clung to the mainland’s cliffs and overlooked the lighthouse. It was Constanza who took Serendipity’s weekly grocery order and organised the helicopter to make the delivery.
‘Constanza is hardly a conversationalist,’ the reporter said. He had used every tactic imaginable to convince the taciturn Constanza to let him travel on the helicopter, or at the very least use the shop radio to contact Serendipity at the lighthouse. But with no success.
‘Have you considered that maybe Ms Smith doesn’t want to talk to you?’ said the captain.
‘But surely she misses her fans?’ the reporter said.
‘My own mother was a writer,’ said the captain, somewhat wistfully. ‘She used to say that you could never be lonely with your characters beside you.’
‘So that’s it? She won’t come out again until … until when?’
The captain shrugged.
‘There’s got to be something we can do,’ the journalist said. ‘The whole world is desperate for news!’
‘Well,’ said the skipper with a sigh, ‘if you want to, you can pay me and we’ll sit here all day, every day, watching and waiting. It’s your money. But I assure you, she’s gone for today.’
And so, one by one, the fishing boats turned away from the lighthouse and made their way back to the village in the distance.
On the rocky outcrop the wind continued to blow, whistling through a narrow crack under the lighthouse door, and between the windowpanes. Inside, a red wig lay in a tangle on a table and the electric blue coat had been hung on a peg. The red boots had been unlaced and discarded.
At the sink stood Miss Digby in a pair of sheepskin boots, her usually tidy hair ever so slightly dishevelled from being tucked up under the wig. Through the thick glass of the narrow window, she watched the retreating fishing boats. Each day, they were edging closer, becoming bolder. She knew they’d eventually find a way onto the island. That simply wouldn’t do. She could lock the door, but sooner or later, she’d have to come out and face their probing lenses and endless questions.
Miss Digby shuddered at the thought, then turned her attention to the bucket in the sink. She removed the lid and was greeted by a host of coral-coloured claws and legs, all waving.
‘I am sorry, Gerald,’ she said as she gingerly lifted the lobster out of the bucket and lowered him into a large aquarium tank full of seawater. ‘I know it’s inconvenient, but you needn’t fear. We both know the drill.’
Gerald landed on the pebbles on the floor of the tank and scuttled behind a large frond of seaweed. There, he would hunker down, in a mild sulk, until darkness fell and Miss Digby would pop him back into his bucket, walk down to the shore and release him into the sea. They had been through this catch-and-release routine every few days since the media had discovered her whereabouts. Miss Digby thought Gerald would have learned to avoid the lobster pot, but it seemed that he found her oyster and tuna baits irresistible. Truth be told, she was grateful for his company, even if he was given to sulking.
Miss Digby fixed herself a cup of tea and a cheese-and-pickled-onion sandwich. She ate, all the while feeling troubled. When she was done, she walked a circle around the tiny room, then slumped into a chair beside the aquarium and peered into its watery gloom.
‘Why isn’t she answering my calls, Gerald?’ Miss Digby said. ‘Gerald? Gerald?’
But there was no reply.
Miss Digby sighed and reached for the radio. Not that she expected to get much more of a response from the radio than she did from the moping crustacean. She cleared her throat and, in her best Serendipity Smith voice, said, ‘Good afternoon. Constanza, are you there?’
‘Sí,’ came a flat voice.
‘Constanza, I wonder could you try the Brown Street number again?’
‘Sí, Senora Smith,’ said Constanza, pronouncing it Smeet.
Miss Digby could hear the phone ringing. The ringing went on and on and on. But no one answered. She sighed.
‘I’ll try again tomorrow, Constanza,’ said Miss Digby, trying to not sound too despondent. ‘Gracias.’
‘Adiós, Senora Smeet,’ said Constanza.
It had been more than three months since Miss Digby had spoken to the woman she was impersonating, the world’s most famous author Serendipity Smith, and longer still since she had seen her in person. For a year now, Serendipity had been out of contact with the world. Although requests continued to pour in from schools and libraries, bookstores and television shows, for visits and interviews, everyone who sought Serendipity’s attention received the same response:
Th
ank you for contacting Serendipity Smith! At present, Serendipity is busy creating a new series of books. She is unable to give any interviews or attend any public events during this time. She thanks her readers for their patience and hopes they are continuing to discover many wonderful stories, both in their own lives and in the books they read.
As well as impersonating Serendipity, Miss Digby was managing the famous writer’s affairs by correspondence. Each week by helicopter, along with groceries, there came a huge pile of redirected mail carefully packed in cardboard boxes. From the bank statements, Miss Digby could tell that Serendipity was hardly leaving the house. There were sporadic home deliveries of pizzas, noodles and curries. But there were no shopping trips or books or movie tickets. Surely Tuesday had needed shoes when school had resumed? Had there really been no trips to the museum, no afternoons of ice-skating or new winter coats?
Miss Digby thought again of the phone ringing on and on in the hallway at Brown Street. Once, that hallway had always smelled of something freshly baked. With a troubled sigh, she wondered what it smelled of now.
Chapter Three
It was winter and the branches of the trees that lined Brown Street were entirely bare. Although the sun had been up and about for a few hours, little patches of the night’s frost lingered in the shadows on the ground. In the middle of Brown Street, the McGillycuddy place was as tall and narrow as ever. And yet the house appeared altered. As if it had lost confidence and no longer wanted to be seen.
It had the same number of steps leading up to the front door, the same number of storeys, and the same number of windows, including the single large window on the very top floor. As you know, that large top-floor window looked into the writing room of the most famous writer in the world. Very few people knew this fact, however, because Serendipity Smith preferred to spend most of her life as an ordinary woman called Sarah McGillycuddy.
One long year had passed since the last of her Vivienne Small books had been published, and it was longer still since Serendipity Smith had announced that she was starting work on a new adventure series. The days and weeks and months had slipped by, but no new book had appeared, and readers were getting impatient.
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