Mrs Fielding laughed.

“Not at all. You made up the names. You made the discovery. Nobody renamed America after Columbus on either of our worlds, I’m sure.”

“Columbus?”

“Christopher Columbus. Is it different on your world?”

“I dropped history at the end of year 8.”

“Well anyway, we wouldn’t want Earth Single to mean two different things from our two perspectives. It’s an honour to think of myself as a Double,” said Mrs Fielding, “You must have been so crushed to have lost the chance to see Lynda. My daughter has a double on another earth. It’s amazing.”

“At that point, the loss of Lynda was taking a back seat to the fact that I wondered how everything seemed to be so big, and how Swain Gardens had moved from Killara to Turramurra. It wasn’t until I got to the counterpart of my house that I realised my family didn’t seem to have doubles on this world, and that was when I knew I was on a world of double sized people and things. Once I understood, I knew it would be fun to come back here. I picnicked in Swain Gardens Double on the Sunday of that weekend, met the youth leader Jenny Wilmer and got invited to join the group.”

He saw no point in spoiling the story by taking the focus away from her daughter and onto his string of now redundant disappointments with the girls in the youth group. He had not increased his size at all in 1997, but had grown up in maturity concerning the diplomacy and methods of dating. Rule One: Make sure the girl likes you, before you contemplate a journey to her street. Rule Two: Make sure the girl’s mother likes you, when you tell her you’re from a parallel universe.

He suddenly thought of Rule Three: Make sure the girl’s mother knows that you prefer the girl to her parallel counterpart, even though the version from your own earth is your own size.

“She invited Melendy in March, but Melendy didn’t seem interested back then.”

Now he had his chance to make the most vital point.

“I’m so glad she came this week,” said Lewis, “I like her more than Lynda. It’s nice, you Fieldings being bigger than me and still liking me.”

Mrs Fielding beamed at him.

“I’ve just realised how wrong it would be of me to ask you if I could meet your world’s version of my daughter,” said Mrs Fielding, “It would expose that Lynda to the knowledge that you have chosen to be with Melendy instead. You’re a very wise and sensitive young man.”

Suddenly everything was working out well for him.

“When would you like me to show you the way to my Earth?” he asked.

“Melendy had suggested watching videos with us, but I’m going to suggest an afternoon tea in Swain Gardens,” said Mrs Fielding, “Will you help me keep your secret from her a little longer, so we can surprise her?”

He began to see from whence Melendy (and presumably Lynda) got their sense of harmless mischief.