Page 18 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
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‘This isn’t funny, Warren!’ I stand looking at the empty display plinth where Cinderella’s glass slippers usually are, but this morning, they’re nowhere to be seen. My instant assumption is that Warren has taken them in another attempt to replace them with the pink plastic monstrosities he’s already been firmly rebuffed for.
He’s arrived early this morning. At least, there’s a fancy black supercar in the Ever After Street car park and no one else around here owns a car like that.
I shout his name again because he isnotreplacing those glass slippers on my watch, and when I still don’t get a response, I stomp up the stairs towards the office. ‘Warren!’
I’m halfway up the second flight of stairs before he appears on the landing above me, his mouth full of something he’s munching on. ‘Did you say something?’
‘No, I’ve only been shouting at you for the last ten minutes. Where are my shoes?’
He glances downwards. ‘On your feet, I wouldn’t wonder.’
‘Notthoseshoes, the glass slippers.’
‘What glass slippers?’ He’s good at pretending not to know what I’m on about.
‘Cinderella’s gla—’ My eyes fall on what he’s eating and I gasp in shock. ‘Why are you eating that?’
He holds up the toffee apple he’s already taken several bites of. ‘It’s very nice. Thank you.’
‘It’s Snow White’s poison apple!’
His face turnswhiterthan Snow White’s porcelain skin. ‘It’s not really poisoned, is it? Because I know you don’t like me but that would be a cruel trick if it is. Was I supposed to recognise it and find it funny?’
‘What?’
‘You left it on my desk! I thought it was a breakfast-shaped peace offering!’
‘I did nothing of the sort! And no, of course it’s not bloody poisoned, it’s just a red apple with green candy mixture poured on through a stencil so it’s got the Evil Queen’s skull motif on it. You’re eating one of my exhibits!’
‘Oh.’ He glances down at the apple, and then shrugs and takes another bite. ‘And very nice it is too.’
‘Warren! This is not funny! Where have you hidden the glass slippers?’
‘I haven’t touched the glass slippers. Why, what’s happened to them?’
‘They’re not where I left them last night and you’re the only other person here. And you certainly have no qualms about tampering with my exhibits!’ I jerk a hand towards the apple he’s taking another bite out of.
He brandishes it at me. ‘You left this on the kitchen table beside my stuff. I assumed it was for me.’
‘No, I didn’t! It was displayed in a box in the Princess Suite when I last saw it yesterday!’
‘Well, it was on my desk when I arrived this morning.’ He motions for me to go back down the stairs as he follows me.
I march into the Princess Suite and point out the empty display box where Snow White’s apple usually stands, with a plaque explaining how the Evil Queen disguises herself as a haggard old woman and tricks Snow White into taking a bite, and then I turn around and point to the empty plinth where the glass slippers have disappeared from.
‘Maybe a Fairy Godmother turned them into lizards overnight.’
‘She turned the lizards into footmen, not shoes, and— Oh, for God’s sake, this has nothing to do with the Fairy Godmother!’ I snap as my frustration gets the better of me. He’s obviously been messing around with things and is trying to get out of it now he’s been caught. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’
He goes to reply, but a noise makes its way to my ears and I hold up a finger to shush him. ‘Whatisthat noise?’
‘What noise?’
We both listen to the usual silence of the museum at this time of morning, but today it’s interrupted by a… sort of whirring noise. ‘Thatnoise? Like a droning… burring… noise. You don’t hear it?’
He shrugs and gives me a blank look.
