Lana felt her heart leap. No parents meant the perfect opportunity to tell Harrison about her plan.
* * *
It was still quite early, and Lana and Harrison arrived to find the store with all the lights on, but completely empty, with the doors locked.
‘Hmm,’ said Harrison, looking at his watch and squinting at the signs on the door. ‘It looks like, they don’t open for another nine minutes.’
‘Harrison…’ said Lana. ‘Have you ever seen a fairy?’
‘No,’ said Harrison firmly. ‘Because there’s no such thing.’
‘Yes, there is,’ said Lana. ‘There’s one in there. I saw her.’
‘There’s a fairy in the supermarket?’ snorted Harrison.
‘Well, not exactly, but there’s a trapdoor,’ Lana explained. ‘In the pick ’n’ mix. I slid down a chute from the sherbet lemons tub and landed in a castle, Briar Rose’s castle to be precise.’
‘Whose castle?’
‘Briar Rose. She’s from a fairytale called Sleeping Beauty.’
‘Lana,’ said Harrison, with the air of someone with a lot on their mind, none of which involved trapdoors to fairytales, ‘do you think you might possibly have made that up?’
‘It’s true! If you don’t believe me, come and look.’
Suddenly the doors rattled, and they turned to see the little old man on the other side, wrestling with a large bunch of keys. He was dressed as a security guard this time, with a curly mop of ginger hair and a large bushy beard.
‘That’s the man who pushed me down the chute!’ Lana hissed to Harrison. ‘He seems to be the only person who works here.’
Finally, the little old man found the right key, and the doors slid open.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Probably not,’ said Harrison. ‘My sister says there’s a trapdoor in the pick ’n’ mix.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ said Lana, furious that Harrison had just given away what was quite obviously a secret.
‘Yes, you did. You said it leads to Briar Rose’s castle.’
The little old man began to laugh uncontrollably.
‘A trapdoor!’ he hooted. ‘That’s a good one! What a fabulous imagination you have, little girl.’ He leant forward slightly and looked Lana right in the eyes. ‘What do you know about Briar Rose, anyway? I hope you haven’t been reading Sleeping Beauty. Because that is clearly much too scary a story for you.’
‘It’s not!’ objected Lana, who was getting more than a little fed up of being told what was too scary for her.
‘How can a fairytale be scary?’ asked Harrison. ‘They’re just full of princesses and balls and happy-ever-afters. Boring!’
‘Trust me,’ said the little old man, ominously. ‘Fairytales are anything but boring.’
‘Anyway,’ said Harrison, ‘I told her you didn’t have one.’
‘One what?’ he asked.
‘A trapdoor to a fairytale world in your pick ’n’ mix,’ replied Harrison.
‘Oh, of course not!’ scoffed the little man. ‘Goodness, the very idea! As I say, what an imagination your sister has! But we do have many of the popular football kits, if that’s of interest?’ Then he looked around, as if to check no one was watching, and ushered them inside.
Once again, he allowed himself a tiny smile.
Chapter Eight
Harrison brushed past Lana and headed into the store.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’ she asked her brother. ‘The pick ’n’ mix is this way.’
‘I’m going to check out the football kit. I don’t have time for your silly stories.’
‘It’s true, Harrison! I promise!’ called Lana.
But Harrison had already turned the corner. Lana, however, wasn’t that easily deterred. She made her way straight to the pick ’n’ mix, determined to prove that she was telling the truth.
After making sure that no one was watching her, she borrowed a big plastic box of Lego from the toy section, and stood on it to reach the tub of sherbet lemons.
There was the little cluster of yellow sweets, stuck to the bottom of the tub, just as before. But when she pushed against the hard plastic, it was completely solid. The trapdoor had vanished.
What was going on? Was Harrison right? Had she imagined the whole thing?
‘Can I help you?’ said a familiar voice, so close it made Lana jump. The little old man’s ginger wig and beard were gone, and he was once again wearing his maroon boiler suit, with a matching gold-trimmed hat.
‘Where’s the trapdoor gone?’ demanded Lana. ‘And why did you tell my brother I was lying?’
‘Brother?’ repeated the little old man, with an air of bafflement. ‘I’ve never met your brother.’
Lana felt her temper rising. ‘Yes, you have,’ she said accusingly. ‘These disguises don’t fool me. You met him two minutes ago, when you were pretending to be a security guard. You know there was a trapdoor, because yesterday you pushed me into it. And don’t say you didn’t, because you did!’
‘Okay, okay,’ hissed the little old man, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Keep your voice down. I didn’t push you. It takes a little force to open the portal, that’s all.’
‘I knew it! I knew I had travelled to the castle! So where has the… portal gone?’
‘Nowhere. It’s still there, it’s just closed.’
Lana narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not explaining very well.’
‘Each of these sweet tubs is a portal. But they aren’t always open, and they don’t all lead to the same story. To know when they are open, and where they lead, you need this.’ As he spoke, he fished the red-leather booklet from his top pocket and held it up.
‘What is that?’
‘A timetable,’ he replied.
‘Like for a bus?’ asked Lana.
‘Exactly. Let me see… liquorice allsorts. Closed now but in–’ He checked his pocket watch – ‘fifteen minutes, that will lead to the beginning of Rapunzel. Perhaps you know it?’
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!’ chanted Lana.
‘Precisely,’ said the little old man. ‘Though that’s later in the story. The beginning is about a pregnant woman, who asks her husband to steal some lamb’s lettuce from a witch’s garden. If you want the “let down your hair” bit, you’ll need the fizzy snakes at half past three on Saturday.’
‘What about Briar Rose?’ asked Lana.
‘What about her indeed?’
‘How do I get back into her story?’
The little old man grinned, as if he had finally cornered his prey.
‘Remind me, where were you last?’
Lana had a strong feeling he knew the answer, but she replied anyway. ‘The bit where she pricked her finger.’
‘Yes, of course, Briar Rose’s fifteenth birthday, I remember. The next stop, I believe, is the arrival of the first prince.’ He licked the tips of two long-nailed fingers, and began to flick through the pages of the timetable. ‘Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty… Ah, you’re in luck. There’s a portal opening any second.’