A Week without Tuesday

by Angelica Banks

  In the taxi that took her home, the radio announced overnight news of a girl called Tuesday McGillycuddy who had been missing since Sunday afternoon. Serendipity recognised the voice of her next-door neighbour, old Mr Garfunkle.

  ‘They’re a very quiet family. Tuesday is a lovely girl and her dog never digs up my garden like some of the dogs in the street do. I want whoever has taken her to bring her back immediately. It’s outrageous to think that a child can’t take her dog for a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon without something going wrong.’

  Serendipity had never realised how much she liked Mr Garfunkle until then.

  ‘The police search began in earnest at midnight last night and will continue today,’ the newsreader said, and gave a description of Tuesday and a number to call if anyone had information. After the report, the taxi driver turned down the volume, and Serendipity could barely hear the rest of the news, which was about the latest writers to have been discovered in Mongolia and Beirut and the remote island of Tristan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

  ‘Terrible about that young girl, isn’t it?’ the driver said as he turned the corner into Brown Street.

  Before Serendipity could answer, she saw something that filled her with horror. Outside her home was a flotilla of journalists and camera people, their tripods set up on the footpath, their lenses trained on her curtained windows. Serendipity handed a bunch of notes to the driver and scrambled out of the cab and up her front steps. As she fumbled with her key in the lock, she was assailed by the clicking of cameras, the sudden flares of flashes, and the hubbub of twenty or more people asking questions all at once. She was quite accustomed to media attention, but she was usually dressed for it as Serendipity Smith in a long red wig and high-heeled boots and a glamorous velvet coat. She was not used to facing this sort of thing with a bare face and in her crumpled black Sarah McGillycuddy clothes that she had been wearing since Sunday.

  ‘Where is your daughter, Mrs McGillycuddy?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?’ another journalist asked.

  ‘Have you got any clues at all? Mrs McGillycuddy? Mrs McGillycuddy? Mrs McGillycuddy?’

  Serendipity offered no comment, and at last made it through the front door to stand, panting, on the other side of it. And there in the hallway, twisting her hands together nervously, was her assistant.

  ‘Miss Digby, what have you done?’

  Miss Digby, it turned out, had done quite a few things. Miss Digby had called the City Police, and set off a city-wide search for Tuesday. Through the night, no park bench or paddle boat had been left uninspected. Every pathway, tree, rocky outcrop, cave and underpass was scoured for signs, then scoured again. Several people, Miss Digby advised, hearing the overnight news, had come forward to inform the police that they had seen Tuesday and Baxterr walking through the park on Sunday afternoon. Someone even remembered seeing her at the phone booth. But no one could say where she had gone after that.

  ‘I came here, as planned, to make dinner,’ Miss Digby explained. ‘I waited and waited. I called the school principal and was told Tuesday had not attended classes yesterday. I called you at the hospital, but you were asleep, and there had been no other visitors, so clearly Tuesday was not with you, nor was she here, nor had she been here, it appeared, for two nights.’

  ‘You called the school?’ Serendipity confirmed.

  ‘Absolutely. She is missing, Serendipity. You do know that, don’t you? I can only assume that Denis’s condition is causing you to behave in this most unorthodox way. I’m sorry – I could no longer stand back. I had to take action. So a police search is underway. And they are on their way here. They will want to question you, and they will want to search the house.’

  Miss Digby went on to say that she had also put out a press release to advise that Serendipity Smith, world’s most famous author, had been delayed from returning to the Mirage Hotel, but that she was perfectly well and exactly where she was meant to be. Serendipity Smith is not missing. She is currently engaged in fruitful research towards her new series of adventure novels, the release had said.

  ‘I have a small problem,’ said Miss Digby. ‘You see, I can’t leave the house. Not with all these reporters are here! Of course, I’ve been most careful to have all the curtains drawn, so none of them could know that I’m here, or make a connection between me and the very famous you. But I can’t go anywhere at all.’

  Serendipity led the way to the kitchen, where she saw that Miss Digby had done a truly incredible job of cleaning up. There was a pie on the bench. Serendipity thought it may be chicken. She realised she was famished. Serendipity lifted back one corner of the kitchen blind to discover that Miss Digby was absolutely correct. There was no way out of the house that wouldn’t take her past curious reporters and very long, probing camera lenses.

  ‘So, what do you suggest that we do next?’ she asked Miss Digby.

  Before Miss Digby could reply, Serendipity plopped into a chair at the kitchen table and began to cry.

  After Miss Digby had fed Serendipity pie (it was chicken, and very good, and despite it being breakfast time was the perfect thing to eat), and made cups of tea, and issued several handfuls of tissues, and sent her upstairs for a shower, the police arrived. Serendipity came out of the bathroom to find four police officers in Tuesday’s bedroom, going through every drawer and cupboard. After their search, the police interviewed Serendipity and Miss Digby, separately and together.

  ‘We’ll need to go to the hospital to interview Mr McGillycuddy,’ said an officer.

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ said Serendipity.

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ the officer said.

  Serendipity began to protest, but the officer interrupted.

  ‘You know, it doesn’t look good for you,’ he said. ‘Your daughter goes missing, and you don’t even report it. It takes your friend here to raise the alarm. I think you’d better come back to the hospital with us, in case we have more questions. Please get your things.’

  The sight of Serendipity being marched from the front door of her house to a waiting police car was enough to draw all the journalists from the back of the house around to the front. And this gave Miss Digby time to dash across a temporarily empty backyard and let herself out the back gate.

  It wasn’t until the police officers were standing right at the door to Denis’s hospital room – thankfully, the nurse with the tennis shoes wouldn’t let them go any further – that they believed what Serendipity had been telling them: that Denis was unable to be questioned.

  The officers went away, but two others came to the hospital later that afternoon to see if Denis had woken. Finding that he hadn’t, they interviewed Serendipity all over again, this time in a small office along the corridor from Denis’s room that was used to store towels, boxes of plastic gloves and large containers of pink handwash. Serendipity said, as she had said before, that she didn’t know where Tuesday was, that Tuesday had gone for a walk on Sunday afternoon, with her dog, and hadn’t come back.

  ‘So why didn’t you call us on Sunday night?’

  ‘Well … um …’ Serendipity said, knowing how hopeless she sounded. ‘I can’t really answer that.’

  Serendipity wondered if she would eventually have to tell the truth. But each time she imagined how that would go, she bit her tongue and kept quiet.

  ‘So, you’re telling us that your daughter has gone to a mysterious, other worldly place that writers go to write stories?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how exactly do you know this?’

  ‘Oh, because I’m actually Serendipity Smith, the most famous writer in the world, and I’ve spent a great deal of my life there.’

  ‘I see. So why don’t you go and find her and bring her home?’

  ‘Well, it’s very dangerous out there at the moment, and since Tuesday has a Winged Dog with her, she’s actually much safer …’

 
She would sound like a complete lunatic.

  Serendipity longed for Denis to wake up. She longed for him to open his eyes and say, ‘Hello, my love.’ She longed for him to ask for tea and toast. She also worried about what the police would do when Denis did wake up. Would they charge him with some crime in relation to Tuesday going missing?

  That evening, Serendipity sat watching Denis sleep, the bandage around his head, the tubes and drips, and the machine breathing for him with its rhythmic rush of air in and out.

  ‘You know she’s there, Denis, don’t you?’ Serendipity whispered, when there were no doctors or nurses around to hear. ‘She’s not really missing. She’s probably having the time of her life. But I need you to come back. Please, please come back. Please be Denis again. Please come back from wherever you’ve gone.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The City of Clocks had one thousand and one spires with nine hundred and one clocks. There was debate about this figure, some people insisting the precise number of clocks was exactly nine hundred, and others insisting it was nine hundred and two. There were some who believed there were actually nine hundred and twenty-three clocks, but they were considered mad radicals and very few people paid them any attention.

  What everyone agreed was that it was impossible to know the number of cats in the City of Clocks. In fact, many a visitor to the city said the city had been misnamed. Never had there ever been a place so congenial for cats. The Mabanquo River fed the city by a series of pumps and tanks, bringing not only water but fish up into the city. Residents thought it good luck if a fish came out of their tap. So, wide-mouthed taps were an enduring fashion and no effort was ever made to change the plumbing. There was plenty for everyone to eat, and lots of bones.

  Cats had come from far and wide to live in the City of Clocks. And as you know, where there are two cats, soon enough there are seven, then forty-seven, then one hundred and seven. Stalking along every roofline. Stretched out upon every sunny doorstep, sitting on every sunny corner, by every fireside, on every fence post. But these were not just any old cats. The cats of the City of Clocks were the most beautiful cats in the world. In any world. They were sleek and shiny, with beautiful eyes and perfectly shaped ears. They had deep, rumbling purrs and if they had white patches, these were always perfectly placed: on their paws, or under their chins, or angled exquisitely across one eye. The cats were smoky grey, polished brown, dappled tortoiseshell, rippling orange, pristine white and midnight black: every one of them as beautiful as a drawing.

  You can probably imagine that these superb cats were not pleased when they spied a dog entering their city. Some of the most well-travelled cats remembered wilder lands where Winged Dogs had once flown. But the existence of dogs lurks in the knowing of all cats, as does the existence of mice.

  Some of the cats raised their hackles at the sad brown dog trudging beside the small wild-haired girl. The day had already brought them a good deal of surprises and terrors. At dawn that very morning, it had become obvious to everyone in the City of Clocks – human and feline alike – that another world had collided with theirs and was spilling its freezing ocean into the Mabanquo River. Then the City of Clocks had been attacked by giant birds who had perched on some of the city’s very finest spires and screamed such terrible things to everyone below that many people had taken to their beds and were yet to rise again. Not only that, but the birds had done untold damage when they had done what birds do on many significant clock faces, leading to a rush of concerned citizens carrying ladders, buckets and cloths up all those stairs.

  When Baxterr saw the first cat, his whiskers prickled. He did not as a rule like cats, but he was a dog of manners. He had learned that cats, being creatures of overwhelming self-importance, were best ignored. When he saw the second, third, fifth and fifteenth cats, a shiver ran down his spine. Something twitched in his brain. Then one of the cats on a nearby wall arched its back and hissed at him.

  Maybe if the day had not gone from bad to worse. Maybe if he hadn’t nearly drowned in a freezing rush of water from above, then been attacked by vercaka. Maybe if his beloved Tuesday hadn’t been snatched from him, without him being able to do a single thing about it, things might have gone differently. But to have one of these cats hiss at him after all that! Baxterr took a flying leap at the cat on the wall.

  Startled, the cat attacked, jumping onto Baxterr’s shoulders and digging in its claws. Baxterr howled with pain and took off down the street, attempting to shake the cat from his back. He spun about corners and rolled into walls, but the cat held on, and every cat Baxterr passed was excited into pursuit. Soon there were cats leaping across fences, bounding along awnings and gutters, scarpering down laneways and racing down roads. Despite his best efforts, Baxterr could not unsettle the feline on his back.

  Faces were appearing at every window, people were stepping out of their doorways, all of them wondering what on earth was causing this hullabaloo.

  Vivienne had been hoping to make a very discreet entrance to the City of Clocks, to locate this door that supposedly led to a gardener – who could apparently solve the whole mess with the vercaka and the mountains and the colliding worlds. She hadn’t wanted anybody in the City of Clocks to even know that she was here. Instead, she was sprinting through the streets and winging her way around lampposts, down alleys, past people selling fabrics and fruit, herbs and hanging lamps, paintings and pot plants, bottles and bath salts. Most people were cheering for the cats, but some were barracking for the dog. At last, Baxterr ran out into a huge square, in the centre of which was a towering statue of Letitia Mabanquo. Her long hair flowed like sculpted liquid around her shoulders. One massive, stony arm was pointing to the sky, and a mighty jet of water arced high above her from one side of the fountain to the other, creating a permanent rainbow. Vivienne knew, almost before Baxterr did, what he was about to do.

  ‘No, doggo!’ she shouted.

  Baxterr ran towards the fountain, the cat still clinging on for all it was worth, and a thousand cats behind giving chase. Vivienne saw Baxterr leap into the air, she saw his wings spread out, she saw him fly straight for that huge arc of water above the statue. She saw the whole square come to a grinding halt: men, women and children and a thousand cats all screeched to a stop to watch the dog soar through the pluming rainbow. As they hit the jet of water, the cat gave a tremendous howl and tumbled off the dog’s back into the pool below.

  If it had ended there, Vivienne felt sure that everyone would have remembered the wings that Baxterr discreetly tucked back into his sides as he landed deftly on four paws, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and a satisfied expression on his face as he turned to see the waterlogged cat clambering from the fountain, looking not the least bit elegant, superb or dignified. Baxterr might have become the subject of extraordinary scrutiny if something had not happened at that moment which eclipsed even the image of a flying dog.

  Two of the strangest creatures anyone had ever seen were descending from the sky on what appeared to be very large dragonflies. Each of the riders was dressed in white, with shell-like helmets upon their heads and everything about them shimmered even more brightly than the rainbow over the Letitia Mabanquo fountain. It was the second time that day that the residents of the City of Clocks had been confronted with unusual creatures in their skies. Nervously, they shied away from the winged creatures, the crowd pushing out to the edges of the square.

  Vivienne Small stepped forward and waved. Even while the creatures still hovered above the statue, Vivienne heard a musical voice chiming inside her mind.

  ‘We are pleased to see you again, Vivienne Small,’ said Harlequin from afar.

  The flying steeds came in to land, and the crowd watched in amazement as the two riders alighted from their farouche and stepped across the square to shake hands with a small blue-winged girl who was known to none of them.

  ‘Harlequin, Tarquin,’ Vivienne said.

  ‘Our enemy plagues your skies,’ Tarquin said, and Vi
vienne heard his eerie doubled voice from his mouth and in her head.

  ‘They are even more horrible than I imagined,’ Vivienne said. ‘They took my friend. I think she’s dead.’

  ‘We are here to help, Vivienne Small,’ said Harlequin.

  Vivienne, sensing the tension in the crowd, fluttered up onto the stone rim of the fountain and called out in the loudest voice she could manage.

  ‘People! Cats! Please don’t be afraid. This is Harlequin and this is Tarquin. They come to us from another world, where they are the sworn enemies of the vercaka, the terrible birds that attacked your city. These two … they have come to help you rid your city of these birds forever.’

  As the people of the city stirred and murmured uncertainly, Miranda Templeton, the Mayor of the City of Clocks, swept from the Town Hall at the edge of the square, wearing a magenta-feathered hat of surpassing elevation. Baxterr emerged from among the legs of astonished onlookers and sat quietly beside Vivienne, while the cats of the city resumed their daily rituals of grooming and yoga, and pretended that the dog did not exist.

  ‘Clockians, one and all,’ Miranda Templeton said in her compelling yet mellifluous voice. ‘Let us welcome these newcomers with our usual grace and generosity.’ She tipped her spectacular hat to each one of the visitors in turn and invited them to follow her in the direction of the Town Hall.

  ‘I propose that we convene the council at noon precisely,’ she said. She turned to Harlequin and Tarquin and added, ‘And when I say noon, I—as the Mayor—take my time from the Town Hall clock, which, as you can see, is mounted on the highest and most elaborate of our dreaming spires, and is also the largest and loudest of any clock in the city.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Vivienne said, craning to look up at Miranda, who would have been tall even without her very tall hat. ‘Could we have a word in private?’

  Miranda leaned down to the small girl with the fierce green eyes and blue wings.

  ‘What is it?’ she murmured.