Page 4 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘All good for the fishtank, Mr Berrington!’ one of the workmen interrupts by bellowing across the lobby. ‘It will fit here nicely, as you thought, sir.’

‘Fishtank?’ I stand up straighter. ‘Why would you want a fishtank? And why would it be so big that you need two men and two stepladders to measure up for it? We’ve tried a fishtank before, it had a blue-and-yellow angelfish in it, like Flounder, and the poor thing died and a child found it before I did, and well…

let’s just say that child was probably traumatised for life and I decided not to do living creatures again after that. ’

‘Ah, but this fishtank won’t be housing a fish. It’ll be housing a mermaid.’

I flick my head like I’ve misheard him. ‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news but mermaids aren’t known for existing.’

‘No, but have you seen those shows where swimmers dress as mermaids and can hold their breath underwater for an astoundingly long time? Everything you do here is so small. You need to think bigger. We need things that are a spectacle. Things that people will come to see.’

‘I thought we needed “budget fine-tuning” and you want to install a giant fishtank for a fake mermaid?’ The clicks of my foot tapping on the black and white chessboard floor echo through the old building.

‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think we’d struggle to find a real one.’ He deliberately repeats my own words with a sarcastic smile.

‘No. I mean, you can’t do that. It’s not real.

I take pride in every single exhibit being faithful replicas of items from fairytales.

The entire point of this museum is so children leave here believing their favourite stories are real.

That if the things in them are real-life objects that they can pick up and hold and connect to, then magic must be real too.

Mermaids aren’t real. That clashes with my entire raison d’être.

People are going to know it’s just a person in a monofin flipper tail. ’

‘Yes, but the point is, they’ll pay an admission fee before they do. That’s something else we need to address – the absolute pittance you charge for admission. It’s laughable. A fiver per person or tenner per family is nothing less than an insult to the exhibits here.’

I’m surprised by how much that sounded like it was partially a compliment.

Is it quite nice that he thinks my exhibits are worth more?

‘Do you know how difficult it is to find places to take children that are affordable? Some people are struggling to put food on the table. People are behind on bills for essentials like electricity, heating, and hot water – they can’t afford big days out, the theme parks and other places children want to go, but they still need to keep their little ones entertained.

Everyone on Ever After Street has made it a priority to keep things affordable.

The shops keep things reasonably cheap, the attractions charge small. It benefits us all in the long run.’

‘I’m not here to fix Ever After Street as a whole, although I’ve only been here for half an hour and I can already give them an extensive list of things that need improvement.’

‘Nothing needs improvement!’

‘The attitude of someone who doesn’t realise that times are changing and businesses need to change with them to stay relevant. If your fellow shopkeepers feel the same, no wonder this street is stuck in the dark ages.’

‘No one on Ever After Street needs your help. People like you don’t get it and you never will. Not everything is about profit. It’s about love and dreams and community.’

‘As a side note, I would like to clarify that Berrington Developments do not accept love, dreams, and community as payment towards the rent, so might I politely suggest that profit inserts itself into the equation somewhere?’ He’s using that saccharine sweet voice again, and I glare at him for long enough that he rolls his eyes and steps back with a sigh.

His voice changes to something softer and more genuine.

‘Look, Lissa, you and I are in this together whether we like it or not. I’m here to give your museum a fighting chance.

I’ve been allocated a small budget that I’m willing to plough into certain improvements if I believe them to be worthwhile.

You can either work with me towards our shared goal of making your museum better and helping it to thrive, or I can walk away right now, and you can book your moving trucks for the first of March, because that’s when my company will be along to start the demolition process. ’

The thought makes me shudder, and a feeling of uneasiness floods me. I can’t trust him as far as I could throw him. All he’s interested in is profit, and that’s never been the overarching importance on this little street. How can I ever make someone so businessy appreciate that?

I wait for him to say something else, still trying to get my head around this turn of events, because I feel like my life has been turned upside down six times in the past twenty minutes, and I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that today was just another lovely autumnal Monday like any other in September, and then this happens. He happens.

‘Do you know anything about running a museum?’ I ask when, instead of saying anything else and without putting the tablet down, he’s also got his phone out of his pocket and is one-handedly typing something on it.

‘Nope. That’s where you come in. You can show me what you usually do and then I’ll suggest ways to do it better,’ he says without looking up from his screens.

I stomp down the diatribe I want to bark at him.

Who does he think he is – coming in here and taking over, and now he’s suggesting that I have to teach him how to do my job so he can tell me how many mistakes I’m making, and the urge to literally push him out of the door and down the steps, ideally so he lands in a heap at the bottom with the damn tablet cracked on his head, and his workmen not far behind is overwhelming and so very, very tempting.

But, apart from potential criminal charges for grievous bodily harm, what would it achieve except dooming this place for good? I have to believe that he means what he says – that I have a chance of saving Colours of the Wind if I can do things his way for a while.

If I can get that five-year lease again, I can get him out of here and put things back as they were, and at least I’d have time to prepare myself before the next reassessment, and surely anything is better than cinema complexes and moving trucks next spring?

‘And you? You’re… staying here, are you?’ I can barely bring myself to vocalise the words. Is this for real? I’m suddenly going to be sharing my job with someone who looks like he’s never stepped out from behind his desk before?

‘Hmm?’ he mutters like he hasn’t heard me, probably because he still hasn’t looked up from his screens.

‘Oh, yes, that’s right.’ He answers without looking up after I repeat myself. ‘I’ll be working on my other jobs remotely while I’m here, so I can give this my all until the end of the year. If you could direct me to your office so I can get set up?’

Ah. Slight problem there. ‘Define office?’

He looks up from his tablet and his dark eyebrows furrow. ‘If I need to define it, we might have an issue. I would suggest it’s a small room where you do important things like paperwork. There’s probably a computer, filing cabinets, a printer, strong WiFi coverage…’

‘I don’t exactly have an office…’ I um and ah, trying to think of the best way to frame it.

Even though how I manage my space is up to me, I know he will find fault with it.

He seems like the kind of man who considers nothing more important than an office.

‘I turned it into a workshop because I don’t have the space at home and the exhibits need to be made somewhere, so now the office is the kitchen table. ’

His raised eyebrow says it all.

‘At least the kettle is easily accessible for tea?’ I offer optimistically.

‘And there are no other staff, so it’s not like you’ll be disturbed.

An office really wasn’t an optimal utilisation of our limited space.

’ I throw in a couple of words that sound like they might be on his wavelength.

He seems like an ‘optimal utilisation’ type of man, and I can’t describe the sense of dread that’s settled over me at the thought of letting him run amok in my museum, although I get the impression of someone so uptight that his interpretation of running amok would probably involve nothing more than a slight loosening of his tie…

The end of the year seems a lifetime away, and I have no idea what he’s planning, or how on earth Colours of the Wind could ever conceivably earn more than a state-of-the-art cinema complex, and the tendrils of dread twist outwards, making this feel like a fight I can’t possibly win.

Am I sentencing myself to a few very frustrating months where I will lose the museum anyway at the end of them?

If there’s one thing I do know, it’s that you can never trust a company with ‘Developments’ in its name.

And yet the alternative is unthinkable. I’ve never in a million years imagined that Colours of the Wind wouldn’t continue indefinitely.

I’ve never even entertained the thought of being evicted or of leaving Ever After Street and all my friends here, but if I don’t go along with this, what option will there be?