The Frederickson Family quickly settled down to a happy and contented life together.

“Mommy, look at me!” giggled Rapunzel, holding up her hands, covered in paint. "Look at me, Mommy!"

She had paint on her face as well.

“Oh, honestly!” Ellie laughed, picking her up to wash her off. “You’re meant to put the paint on the paper, not you, Rapunzel!”

“She’s making herself a work of art, Ellie,” Carl replied, causing her to laugh again.

“Daddy, can I be an artist someday?” asked Rapunzel as her mother washed the paint from her hands and face.

“Of course you can, honey. You can do anything you like if you believe hard enough.”

Rapunzel took him at his word and went about the years painting whenever she could – although neither of them were too happy when she tried to paint the fireplace. “It needed repainting,” she insisted, and that made them forget their anger as they both laughed at her.

Rapunzel learned at a very young age that it was her mother’s childhood dream to go the Paradise Falls in South America, like her and her husband’s childhood hero Charles Muntz, and so they saved every spare penny they could get in a jar marked Paradise Falls they kept on the side table in the living room. As she got older, Rapunzel resolved to try and help them in any way she could. Most children her age sold lemonade from stands outside their houses, she knew, but she was better at making pictures than drinks, so she sold those instead. She didn’t know exactly how Paradise Falls looked, but her fanciful paintings of colourful waterfalls topped with rainbows and spouting bubbles often sold, although mainly to other children. Adults didn’t take her seriously as an artist, other than her parents.

However, it didn’t matter how much spare change they managed to save up, because things always seemed to get in the way; like the car popping a tyre or her father breaking his leg or a tree crushing the roof in a storm. Rapunzel remembered that one; it had been one scary storm.

“Mommy, Daddy, I’m scared!” she had squealed, running into their room, moments before the tree had fallen and shaken the whole house along with the thunder and lightning.

It had been alright in the end, of course, they had managed to get the roof fixed, but each of these incidents cost a great deal of money, so they had to keep breaking into the Paradise Falls jar.

“It’s alright,” Ellie convinced her when Rapunzel pointed out that they had used up all the money in the jar fixing the roof. “We’ll just start saving up again.”

“Are we ever going to get to go to South America, Mommy?” Rapunzel asked.

“Of course we are. Your father promised me and he always keeps his promises.”

As time wore on, however, it started to look less and less likely that they would ever go, as soon the jar was forgotten. But it didn’t matter. Ellie told her daughter than just living with her and her father was an adventure in its own right. And, when Rapunzel grew old enough to appreciate romance, she could see what her mother meant. They were such a sweet couple together, and Rapunzel adored them both. She grew up, still in a world of art and creativity, as she learned to knit, to sew, to cook, to sculpt and even how to make candles. She never wanted for anything, her parents saw to that, and she grew into a beautiful, kind, spirited and curious young woman.

Time still wore on and whilst most of the people around her moved from their parents’ houses and into homes of their own, Rapunzel couldn’t bring herself too. For a start, she didn’t have another house to move into, and for another thing she wanted to stay with her parents, where she was perfectly happy.

“That Rapunzel Frederickson ought to have left home by now, surely?” she once heard a gossipy old woman saying to her companion as they trotted along past the house as Rapunzel sat outside on the front porch, painting a landscape of the houses around them as a present for her parents. It had been her eighteenth birthday the day before and she had been given a brand new sketchbook and a box filled with paints, pastels, watercolours, oils, chalks, coloured pencils, ordinary pencils, felt tip pens all colours of the rainbow, brushes, a palate, a sharpening knife, an eraser, a ruler and a pot for water; from her parents, along with a large cake shaped like a smaller version of their own house and a birthday feast. “It’s like she’s too scared to leave the house or something.”

“Daddy, is it weird that I haven’t left home, yet?” Rapunzel asked him later that evening as they cleaned the living room together.

“No, of course not, honey,” he replied, polishing the windows. “You leave when you’re ready to.”

“But I don’t think I want to leave for a long time,” Rapunzel said. “I like being with you and Mom. You’re much better than people my own age.”

Carl was glad that she had said that. He did sometimes worry that their daughter was growing up too fast, but if she was perfectly happy to live with them for as long as possible, then it didn’t feel like they were losing her.

As he passed by the mantelpiece he picked up a picture of Ellie as a child, wearing goggles and the Muntz-style hat. Rapunzel looked over his shoulder. “Mom looked so funny then.” She glanced out of the window where Ellie was cleaning the windows on the outside. She had aged well; she still looked as pretty now as she did when she was younger. She sighed. “I wish we could have taken her to Paradise Falls.”

Carl looked thoughtful for a moment. “We will.”

“Really, Daddy?”

“Yeah. I’ll dip into the building society; we should have enough for three return tickets in there.”

“Oh, my God!” Rapunzel gushed. “Yeah! And if you need more, I can give you my money from selling paintings. I was saving it to buy new paints, but now I don’t need to! Yay!”

Carl laughed. “Alright, but let’s make it a surprise, right?”

“I won’t breathe a word!” Rapunzel promised.


Still she smiled to herself that evening as she sat knitting by the fire whilst her parents danced like they were still young. “We’re going to Paradise Falls,” she sang inside her head.

Carl bought the tickets a few weeks later, whilst Rapunzel ran about trying to organise everything without her mother finding out what they were up to. It wasn’t easy.

“What are you doing, sweetie?” Ellie asked her, leaning over her shoulder.

Rapunzel promptly shut the library book on Southern American food she had picked up that morning. “Oh, nothing, just checking out some new recipes.”

Packing proved to be equally as difficult, as she had to wait until her parents were distracted downstairs before she could transfer their clothes from their room to hers, where she had dragged all their suitcases, and pack them all. Of course, Ellie noticed when her favourite dress was missing, but both Carl and Rapunzel managed to convince her that it was probably lost around the house somewhere and that it would turn up in time. Later Rapunzel giggled to herself, imagining what the look on her mother’s face would be when she unpacked in South America and found the dress there.

“Surprise!” she and Carl would both chorus and laugh together with her.

But just when everything seemed to be all worked out, tragedy struck.

Carl had planned a picnic on the hill in the park, their favourite spot, for the three of them and then he and Rapunzel could give Ellie the tickets. So, together, up the hill they went. However, Ellie stumbled halfway up and couldn’t seem to go on.

“Mom!” Rapunzel cried, diving down to help her. “What is it?”

“Oh, I’m just tired, love,” replied Ellie, bravely, as Carl came racing to help.

A trip to the hospital proved otherwise, however. Ellie was dying. Both Carl and Rapunzel were struck dumb, momentarily, by the revelation.

“But I don’t want Mom to die,” whispered Rapunzel.

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Frederickson,” said the doctor, sympathetically. “But your mother’s very ill, and we’re doing all we can, but it doesn’t look very hopeful.”

Rapunzel didn’t cry. She knew her mother would want her to be brave. But how would she and her father go on without Ellie?

Ellie asked for them to bring her Adventure Book to the hospital. It was an old scrapbook from her childhood in which she had pasted a picture of Paradise Falls with their house on top of it, and a map of South Africa she had “ripped right out of a library book.” She spent a long time looking at it before Carl and Rapunzel ventured into the room.

“Mom...” Rapunzel stammered, trying not to cry.

Ellie smiled and patted her hand. “It’s alright, darling. I’ll be fine.”

She pushed the scrapbook beneath Carl’s hand and then touched his face. “I love you, Carl,” she said, softly.

“I love you too, Ellie.”

“I love you, Mom,” Rapunzel put in and then she did start crying.

“And I love you, my darling,” Ellie told her, giving her a hug as Carl kissed her forehead.

“Why did no one come?” Rapunzel whispered at the funeral, which was attended by only her, Carl and the local vicar. To her mind, her parents were the greatest people in the world, so why didn’t the rest of the world think so?

Carl didn’t reply; he just sat sadly on the step with Rapunzel next to him, crying her heart out for her mother over and over again.