Finding Serendipity

by Angelica Banks

  ‘Well, thank you for that illuminating insight into the basic structure of a story,’ said Tuesday, ‘but I don’t want to write a story. I told you, I want to get to The End and find my mother because that’s where she’s stuck. Can you at least tell me – am I close? Is it far?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ said Blake, ‘you’re nowhere near The End. This hillside here, this is The Beginning.’

  And suddenly Tuesday understood. She understood that she was in the place where stories happen because somehow she’d been mistaken for a writer. And she had no idea how to go on, or how to get back again. Just thinking about how far she was from home made Tuesday’s throat tight and her eyeballs prickly. She gulped and blinked in a valiant attempt not to cry, but despite her very best efforts, one fat tear escaped from each eye and ran down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Blake awkwardly. ‘Boy, I am glad I never had sisters. Look, you can’t cry. Not on your first day. It’ll be all right. Really … I mean, you’ve begun. Look at your thread. C’mon.You’ve done something that’s incredibly hard to do. You got lift-off. Now you just have to go on.’

  ‘But how?’ said Tuesday, her voice quavering.

  Blake sighed. ‘Look, I’ve got a deadline, right? So this has to be quick. Listen up.’

  Sensing things had changed, Baxterr released Blake’s jeans.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Blake, ‘getting to The End can take years. Of course for me, it usually only takes eight to ten weeks at the longest.’

  ‘Weeks?’ Tuesday cried. ‘I can’t take weeks. I need to be home by breakfast.’

  Blake sighed. ‘Hey, chill. Time here and time at home are different. It’s like, you know, Narnia. Sometimes you get home thinking you’ve been away for weeks, and you find no time has passed at all. Other times, you get home and realise you actually have been gone for days. That freaks people out, I can tell you.’

  ‘Well, can I fly to The End the same way I flew here?’ Tuesday asked hopefully.

  ‘Nope,’ said Blake.

  ‘So, how do I get there?’ Tuesday asked.

  ‘Do what everyone does. Make it up as you go along. If you’re good enough, you’ll get there.’

  ‘And if I’m not good enough?’ Tuesday asked, frowning.

  Blake flicked his fringe out of his face and shrugged nonchalantly.

  ‘I’ve never had that problem.’

  Tuesday felt tears gathering.

  ‘Okaaaay,’ said Blake, ‘I don’t think you’re getting it.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll take you to the Librarian. After that, I’m gone. Got it?’

  ‘The Librarian? There’s a library here?’ Tuesday asked.

  ‘Yep, one giant library. Right out of my way,’ said Blake, ‘but the Librarian would never forgive me if I left you here.’

  He scrutinised Tuesday’s pyjamas.

  ‘You might want to get changed first.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Tuesday in a small voice. ‘I didn’t bring anything else to wear.’

  Blake flicked his hand again. ‘Talk to the tree. I’ll wait over there. But hurry up.’

  Blake strode away. Baxterr followed close at his heels with the clear intention of making sure Blake did not leave without taking Tuesday with him.

  Tuesday hurried back to the tree. ‘Hello,’ she said in her politest voice. She felt silly talking to a tree, but she continued.

  ‘I need … um …’

  But what did she need? What clothing did you wear to go in search of a lost mother? If there were to be snow-capped mountains, then possibly she might need furs. If there were islands and beaches, she might need bathers and a large hat. If there were castles and royalty, then a ball gown might be more appropriate. Tuesday simply had no idea, but somehow she doubted that she’d need the ball gown.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea what my journey might involve, so I’m hoping you might find me something appropriate,’ she said.

  The tree rustled its leaves, as if in a light breeze, and Tuesday’s pyjama top changed into a blue t-shirt. Her pyjama pants transformed into a pair of faded blue cotton shorts that were already soft and comfortable. Tuesday squeezed her ball of silvery thread into a front pocket. Then she watched in delight as a branch of the tree sprouted a russet pod that rapidly unfurled into a red jacket; and then another bloomed into a backpack that was neither too big nor too small, but just the right size. She had nothing to put into it, but she picked it up anyway.

  Then, out of a hollow in the tree shot a pair of emerald green shoes that were the same shade of green as the rollershoes lying beneath her bed, back in her house in Brown Street. But since these shoes had no wheels in the heels, Tuesday gathered that her journey was not going to be particularly smooth. Nevertheless, she slipped them on and tied the laces securely. They were a perfect fit and very comfortable.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tuesday to the tree, which rustled its leaves a little more vigorously in response.

  She hurried down the hill to the edge of the cloudbank where Blake was waiting impatiently with a vigilant Baxterr watching over him.

  ‘Stay close,’ Blake said as he took a long stride into the misty whiteness.

  Almost instantly he disappeared.

  ‘Blake!’ Tuesday called.

  He reappeared.

  ‘I said stay close,’ he said.

  ‘Could I hold your hand?’ Tuesday asked. ‘I can’t see anything!’

  ‘You really are pathetic, aren’t you?’ he said, but he grinned as he held out a hand that Tuesday took gratefully in hers. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been here plenty of times so we won’t get lost.’

  ‘Okay’ said Tuesday, and the three of them set off into the cloud.

  The mist was not unpleasant to walk through. It was neither wet nor cold, and Tuesday fancied that it smelled faintly of cinnamon. The ground beneath her feet was a pathway of sorts, made of stone, and the path was wide enough for the three of them to walk side by side. Despite the thickness of the mist that if Tuesday were alone would have had her putting her hands out in front of herself and hoping she wouldn’t run into anything, Blake strode along at a good pace.

  ‘How do you know we’re not going to fall off a cliff ?’ Tuesday ventured.

  ‘Because, as I said, I’ve been here before. This will all look very … different … to you … next time.’

  But there won’t be a next time, Tuesday wanted to say. Once I find my mother I’m going home and I’ll never come here again. But instead she concentrated on keeping up with Blake, and trusted he was keeping them on the path.

  For a little while they strode along in silence. At last Blake said, ‘So,Yesterday Mcwatchamacallit, who are your favourite writers?’

  ‘Serendipity Smith,’ Tuesday said, a little cautiously. ‘Have you heard of her?’

  ‘Heard of her? Are you serious? Of course I’ve heard of her,’ Blake said condescendingly. And then, in quite a different tone, he said, ‘And yeah, she’s actually pretty cool.’

  ‘Well, Serendipity Smith is …’

  Baxterr gave a low growl and Tuesday stopped herself, just in time, from blurting out the secret that she’d kept, utterly and perfectly, for more than half her lifetime. She shook herself a little. What had she been thinking? Was it the strangeness of being here, the mist, the unreality of everything that had happened since last night that had made her for a moment almost blurt out the one thing she had sworn never to say?

  ‘… my favourite author of all time,’ she finished.

  Never before had Tuesday wanted so badly to let the secret out. She had to clamp her lips together and catch her tongue behind her teeth. But Blake, who was a dark shape in the whiteness beside her, noticed none of this.

  ‘Except for her endings,’ said Blake. ‘I mean, why is Mothwood still alive? If it were me, I would have iced him at the end of the first book. But, you know, that’s just my style.’

  Tuesday rolled her eyes. But she smiled, because even if Blake was irritating and arrogant, he was also holdi
ng her hand in the fog and taking her to the Library, and Tuesday felt certain that at last she was getting somewhere.

  Chapter Four

  And now we must return to Brown Street, where all the houses stood shadowed in the deepest dark of night.

  Only one house, the tallest and narrowest on the street, showed any sign of activity. It might almost have been mistaken for a lighthouse, for while most of its windows were dark, the topmost window was brilliantly lit. It was as if someone was at work in there. But there was no one at work. There was no one in the room at all, and the only movement came from the deep red curtains that caught the moonlight as they drifted in and out of the window with each gentle breath of wind.

  What happened next happened fast, and you would only have seen it if you had been watching extremely carefully. A thin strand of silvery thread slipped silently over the sill of the open window, and pooled on the honey-coloured floorboards. Swiftly, the thread gathered itself up, and spun itself into a ball. As more and more thread slithered into the room, the ball grew larger. At first it was the size of a golf ball. Then it was the size of a tennis ball, and finally – when the ball was almost as big as a grapefruit – the very end of the thread snaked over the sill. It was attached, quite firmly, to the hand of a slender, dark-haired woman, who glided in through the window and touched her feet down quietly on the floor.

  Who was she? Why, it was none other than Serendipity Smith, the most famous writer in the world. Of course, she didn’t look at all like Serendipity Smith. Her brown eyes were not framed by the most elaborate Lucilla La More spectacles. She wore comfortable black clothes, not a gorgeously tailored velvet coat lined with paisley silk. Her feet were clad in sensible black runners, not knee-high boots of the finest plum-coloured leather. But still, as you know, it was Serendipity Smith.

  Serendipity stretched and sighed and yawned, rubbing her fists into her tired eyes. Pulling a pencil from behind her ear, she used its tip to scratch an almost unreachable itch on her back, then she turned her gaze to the ball of silvery thread, which lay, quivering slightly, at her feet. She scooped it up and placed it on her desk, beside her typewriter, then settled down at her chair.

  From the pile of paper on the right-hand side of her desk, Serendipity took the top sheet and slid it into the typewriter. It was the same piece of paper to which Tuesday had tried to stick The End only a few hours before. Slowly, Serendipity began. Click, clack, went the keys of her typewriter. Click, clickety, clack. She gathered speed, the look upon her face changing with each new scene she described upon the page. Sometimes she smiled, and sometimes she scowled, sometimes she looked positively frightened, and for a while there, it looked as if she might cry.

  When she had filled each page, Serendipity inserted a fresh sheet into her typewriter. And then another, and another. As the words appeared on the page, Serendipity thought back over the events of her long, long day. Had it truly been just that morning that Vivienne and Mothwood had fought their final battle? Page after page were filled as these two archenemies fought to the death. Mothwood had executed one final cruel trick, but his plan had backfired and he had tumbled to his death.

  ‘Oh, Mothwood, my old foe,’ Serendipity whispered.

  Serendipity had thought, and indeed hoped, that perhaps the fifth and final book in the Vivienne Small series would not end with Mothwood’s death. She had wanted to believe that even after all his evil deeds, maybe, just maybe, he was capable of something noble – heroic, even – that would redeem him. In the end, however, despite her best attempts to save him, Mothwood had proved himself a villain to the very core.

  ‘Goodbye, Mothwood,’ Serendipity said, as the words on her page told the story of his final moments. ‘I shall miss you, vile as you have always been.’

  She threaded one last page, on which she wrote the scene where Vivienne Small returned safely to her secret tree house in the Peppermint Forest, under cover of darkness. Finally, she came to the very last sentence: Vivienne lay down in her hammock to sleep, although her right ear, the one with the pointed tip, remained tuned – as ever – to the call of adventure.

  Serendipity sighed. It was, she hoped, an ending that her readers would find satisfying. She rubbed her stiff neck and looked out the window into the darkness of the night. It was very, very late. It was so late that it was actually quite early. In just an hour or so the sky would lighten and birds would sing their morning songs. But she had done it. She had finished. She had finally written the last sentence of the last Vivienne Small book ever.

  She checked her watch. It was Saturday morning and today was the first day of Tuesday’s summer holidays. Eight whole weeks stretched out before them; weeks where Serendipity didn’t have to write, or think about writing, or wear purple boots and long coats and pretend to live in an apartment on the top floor of the most famous hotel in the city. In a few hours she would rouse Tuesday from her bed. And then, at breakfast, Serendipity and Denis would surprise Tuesday with the news that tomorrow they would all be going to a tiny, ramshackle shack on the most remote island in the whole Pacific Ocean, where they could snorkel and sail every day. There would be just Serendipity and Denis and Tuesday and Baxterr. No book signings, no television appearances, no radio interviews, no literary festivals. Just reading and dreaming and snorkelling and sailing and playing Cluedo and Scrabble and cards.

  Wearily, Serendipity reached for the silver case containing The End. Flipping open the tiny box, she was surprised to see that the words were not, as they usually were, laid out in their tidy, curling script. Instead they were all scrunched up and unreadable, as if they’d been blown about in the wind.

  ‘That’s very odd,’ Serendipity said.

  But, being too tired to give it any further thought, she simply lifted out the silvery thread and was about to place the words down at the bottom of her page, when she stopped.

  ‘No, not yet,’ she whispered. ‘Best to sleep on it.’

  For Serendipity knew what all writers know: that once The End has been set down at the bottom of a page, that’s it. It’s over. The story is absolutely, quite definitely finished. Serendipity told herself that she would return to her writing room later in the morning, after breakfast, and check over the manuscript one last time. And then, if she was happy, she could add The End.Yes, she decided, The End could wait until then. It was time to sleep.

  Serendipity pulled the window closed, latching it securely. The ruby beads hanging from the lamp on the table tinkled as she switched it off. She flicked off the main light too, wondering vaguely who had left it on, and suspecting that Denis must have done this to welcome her home. The door clicked closed behind her and she padded quietly down the stairs.

  But before she went to bed, there was something she had to do.

  And perhaps you know what it is. Or perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you don’t actually know that long after you have drifted off to sleep, your mother or father or someone else who loves you will invariably tiptoe into your room. They will pull your covers up over your shoulders if it’s cold, or fold them at the bottom of your bed if it’s hot. They will turn your light down, or off, and pick up that pair of shoes you’ve left lying in the middle of the floor. And do you know what they do next? For the briefest moment, they will watch you sleeping. They might stroke your cheek, or kiss your head, or whisper a good dream into your ear. Or perhaps they just stand there and think how lovely you are, and blow you a kiss, and leave you to your sleep.

  Like most mothers, Serendipity loved to look in on her daughter before she went to bed herself. And so, tired as she was after her long, long day, she had a gentle smile on her face as she tiptoed down the stairs to Tuesday’s bedroom. As usual, Tuesday had gone to sleep with her light on, and her bedroom door ajar, so there was light spilling out of the room onto Serendipity’s feet as she carefully pushed open the door. But what Serendipity saw was not at all what she expected to see.

  In Tuesday’s bed, there was no Tuesday. Instead, face down, half und
er the covers, in his dressing gown, and with his slippers still on, was Denis. Serendipity stared at him. Frowning, she slipped across the room and shook him. Denis’s eyes flew open.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Serendipity asked. ‘Where’s Tuesday?’

  ‘Back already?’ Denis said, coming slowly to his senses. ‘How did it go? Did she find you all right?’

  ‘Did who find me?’

  ‘Well, Tuesday.’

  ‘Tuesday!’ said Serendipity, startled. ‘Why on earth would Tuesday…’

  ‘She went to find you,’ said Denis, bewildered, his hair mussed, his hand searching about for his glasses on the bedside table.

  ‘Find me? How could she possibly find me?’ Serendipity said, starting to sound shrill. ‘Why isn’t she here with you?’

  ‘Well, because, she went to find you,’ Denis repeated, also starting to sound a little angry. He sat up, put on his glasses and looked keenly at his wife.

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ said Serendipity, sitting down beside him. ‘You know that’s impossible.’

  ‘Not if she started a story that would take her there,’ said Denis.

  ‘But she’s a child. Surely, she couldn’t …’ ‘But she did,’ said Denis, a little more calmly. ‘Here, look.’

  And he drew from his dressing-gown pocket the story Tuesday had begun on the typewriter. He unfolded the single page and handed it to Serendipity, who slowly took in the words.

  ‘And Baxterr?’ she asked, when she had finished.

  ‘With her.’

  ‘There was nothing … different about him?’ Serendipity asked, frowning.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Serendipity. ‘She really did it.’

  ‘The only problem is,’ said Denis, ‘she’s gone looking for you there, and now you’re … here.’

  They sat there together for a moment in silence, both staring at the sheet of paper. Then Serendipity jumped up and said, ‘I have to go. I have to find her.’