Vivian Key is four years old and halfway through scarfing down a bowl of applesauce when her mother says, “Vivvy, don’t play with your food.”
Vivian pauses in the middle of waving her (unused) spoon around like a wand and pouts. “Why?” she asks, scooping up another glob of applesauce with her fingers. “I’m a fairy.”
Her mother hands her a napkin and looks down her long, regal nose at her. “Because you’re not. You’re Vivian.”
Vivian’s frown deepens, but she puts the spoon down and silently plows through the rest of her applesauce.
When Vivian is eight, it’s Author Day at her school. She can hear the excited whispers around her as each class files into the auditorium, can feel the thrum of anticipation running through them all-- even her, despite
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She pauses for several seconds, then meekly whispers an apology at the heap of pages.
The notebook seems to challenge her apology, asking, “If you’re so sorry, then why don’t you pick me back up and apologize more convincingly?” Vivian shakes her head, partially in a refusal of the notebook’s imaginary request, partially trying to erase the (unrealistic) idea of a talking notebook from her mind. It only sends several more strange thoughts tumbling loose, each one weirder than before.
So she picks up the notebook. Picks up a pen. Decides then and there that if she’s to get this ridiculous spark of imagination out from her head, she had better let it loose so it doesn’t annoy her anymore. “Somewhere in an alternate universe,” she writes, nearly carving the words into the page, “I exist, probably with the same classes and responsibilities and all that, but maybe I’m a world-famous author. Or I’m a universally-acknowledged artist. Maybe I got into music! I mean, if alternate universes are different, there shouldn’t be a limitation on how different they can be! Maybe I’m a cat instead of a human. I could be my mom’s pet cat in another universe, how weird is that? Or