Page 11 of A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street
‘I knew that stove was on the blink.’ She raises the cake in a toast. ‘Here, give me two more, will you, I’ll have another and take one back for Darcy.’
We’ve got pop-up cardboard boxes for takeaways and I grab one and load two cakes into it, and refuse the ten-pound note Marnie gets out of her pocket. ‘Opening day special for best friends who happen to work on Ever After Street.’
‘Awww.’ Marnie admonishes me but takes the box appreciatively and rushes back over the road to A Tale As Old As Time.
I continue making my sandwich, aware of Bram’s presence. ‘Don’t tell me off for giving my friend a couple of cakes on the house. I wouldn’t be working here if it wasn’t for Marnie. She’s helped me out so much. The least she deserves is a couple of cakes.’
‘Marnie’s great. She runs a bookshop – it’s humanly impossible to dislike someone who runs a bookshop.’ He looks up and tries to catch my eyes. ‘I’m not here to judge anyone for anything. I don’t know why you think I am.’
‘I don’t.’ I didn’t intend to look into his eyes, especially when I’m telling a lie, but they’re deep and brown and impossible to look away from. That whole direct line to the head of the local council thing has made me think he’s going to report back to them. If I do something I shouldn’t, he’s going to mention it, isn’t he? And if he finds out I’m serving supermarket-bought cakes, it would be the end of this dream for good.
The shop is empty for the first time today, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to eat something resemblinglunch, and I press the upper slice of bread onto my sandwich, cut it in half, and turn around to throw the knife into the sink, and in the seconds that my back is turned, a hand sneaks out and steals half of it.
‘Bram!’
He shoves it into his mouth and grins around it. ‘Cheers!’
‘You cheeky beggar,’ I mutter, pretending to be angrier than I am. He hasn’t had lunch yet either, and his mischievous grin makes it impossible to scold him without laughing.
He sits on one of the stools and leans his elbows on the counter and takes a more civilised bite, and I back up to lean against the unit behind the counter opposite him.
‘Marnie made me realise who you are,’ I say casually. ‘The magician who operates the carousel and entertains bored children while their parents are busy shopping, which explains how you were so good with that lad this morning.’
‘My father would tell you I’m good with kids because I have a similar mental age. To be fair, that four-year-old was probably alotmore mature than I am.’
The underlying bitterness in his tone intrigues me. It sounds like he’s trying to make a joke out of something he doesn’t find funny.
I’ve seen him from a distance. I’ve always really wanted to go on the carousel, but every time I’ve thought about it, it’s been full of screaming children and I’ve felt too old. ‘Your hair is usually dark, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ He twists a finger of his free hand around one of his blue spikes. ‘But if you can’t have blue hair when playing the Mad Hatter, when can you?’
I don’t know why it makes me laugh, but it does. ‘Fair point.’
‘A few vats of colour stripper and bleach later, here we are. My hair is blue and no one told me how much blue dye bleeds, so noweverythingelse in my house is also blue. My bathroom looks likeEiffel 65 live there. You know, “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”?’ He sings the earworm song from the Nineties, which will now undoubtedly be stuck in my head for the rest of the week.
I know he goes to the Ever After Street staff meetings because Marnie’s mentioned him, but my involvement with the street until now has only ever been casual, helping out if the bookshop is busy, so I’ve never been to one of the meetings where everyone who works here gathers outside and there’s tea and cake. ‘Why have you left the carousel?’
He thinks before answering. ‘My plans changed. I was going to do something else but it fell through at the last minute and they’d already hired my replacement, so I couldn’t go back either. The council were looking for a Mad Hatter, and I’m the obvious choice, you know, being totally mad and all that.’ He winks at me, although I’m not sure that being first choice for a character who’s known for being off their rocker is the greatest compliment.
‘Will you miss the carousel?’
‘Yes and no. I love the old-fashioned magic of the ride, the way something so simple creates such wonder, no matter your age. But the hours are long and unpredictable. I don’t close until long after the shops do, and I’ve got to be “always on”, you know? I’m there to entertain anyone who wants to be entertained, whenever they want to be entertained. Some days can leave you feeling like a commodity being pawed at from all sides. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now and I was ready for a change. Something a bit more serious.’ He flashes both dark eyebrows at me. ‘Something to keep me out of trouble.’
It makes me feel like a headteacher dealing with a naughty schoolboy who’s been sent to my office for the umpteenth time. ‘Do you get in trouble a lot?’
His grin is as bright as his lime greenjacket, and when he answers, it’s the nasally Hatter voice again. ‘Depends on who’s asking and whether they want me to.’
He’s got crinkles and smile lines around his eyes, making him look like he smiles and laughs a lot, and I can’t help smiling at his cheekiness. ‘I think we’ll have enough trouble around here without you causing more.’
‘I’ll be on my best behaviour, I promise.’ It’s said with that overly cheerful pitch again that does absolutely nothing to reassure me.
Somehow, I think we might have very different definitions of ‘best behaviour’.
5
Bram stayed late last night, washing up while I mopped the floor and wiped down all the tables and chairs until long after closing time, and unsurprisingly there’s no sign of him when I arrive before 7a.m., with bags of shopping over my shoulder, bought on a clandestine trek around the local supermarket late last night.
There isn’t space to do much in the caravan, but the space in the food preparation area in the tearoom is generous and I have plenty of room to make packet after packet of supermarket-bought goods look homemade.
