He was grinning at me. I hadn’t seen him before, so I guessed he must go to a different school. He was black, my age, athletic-looking, with a cheeky sort of face that certainly seemed to be friendly, although appearances can be deceptive.
“I’m OK, thanks,” I muttered, bowing my head and heading off again.
Lemon Boy (unlikely to be his name, but would have to do for now) whistled. “Man! What does a guy have to do to sell some lemonade around here?”
I vaguely shrugged, and flashed him the briefest of apologetic smiles. The fact is I don’t actually like fresh lemonade. I’ve got a seriously sweet tooth and it’s usually too sour for me.
“I am so gonna get fired,” he sighed.
OK, great, so now I felt sorry for him. You should know there’s only so much I can take, in terms of guilt trips. I made the mistake of glancing at Lemon Boy again, and his eyes lit up with so much hope I just couldn’t disappoint him. I swallowed and approached the lemon.
Lemon Boy watched me, shook his head and smiled. “Bad day?”
Huh. I guessed he’d noticed the little cloud of rain that perpetually follows me around.
“Know what’d help?” he said.
A guardian angel? A genie in a bottle? Frankly, I’d settle for a fairy godmother right now, even the hilariously useless type who accidentally turn pumpkins into pigs in tutus, or whatever.
“Lemonade,” he said.
Well, I should have guessed. “OK, then.”
Lemon Boy worked his magic and placed a plastic cup of lemonade on the counter. “Straw?” he asked.
“Straw,” I said, demonstrating the extent of my charisma and repartee by just repeating his words back to him. I watched as Lemon Boy tried to insert the straw into the tight little hole in the top of the lid. A couple of failed attempts, and the hole finally yielded. In it went, but he must have been squeezing the cup too hard, because a shot of lemonade squirted out of the top.
“Easy, tiger!” he laughed.
The one thing in life I am grateful for is that mind reading is not an actual thing. If you could see what went through my head sometimes, I think you’d be pretty disappointed in me.
“Give it a try,” he said, pushing the lemonade towards me. “You’re my first customer, I wanna check it tastes OK.”
I gave the straw a tentative suck. The bitter sourness hit the sides of my tongue, and I had to seriously fight the urge to wince. I swallowed it down, my mouth stinging. “Mmmmm.”
Lemon Boy raised his eyebrows. “Nice?”
“So nice.”
He looked pleased. “It’s my first batch.”
I took another painful acidic sip, my left eye starting to water as I swallowed. “Nice,” I croaked as my throat constricted. I hadn’t the heart to tell him the truth, although maybe that was just cruel. Maybe he needed to know this stuff seriously needed more sugar. If he got the sack, maybe that would be my fault now.
I put my hand in my pocket to get some coins, but he said, “On the house, mate!”
“Oh, really, but—”
“LADIES!” Lemon Boy shouted as he saw two girls over my shoulder. “Fancy a nice refreshing glass of the best home-made lemonade you’ll ever taste?”
The girls giggled to each other and came over. I wasn’t sure what to do. It felt rude, just slinking off, but I didn’t have any reason to stay. Worse, every moment of indecision and hesitation was making this whole situation a million times more difficult to remove myself from.
“Two glasses, yeah?” Lemon Boy smiled at the girls. He turned back to me and caught me just staring at him. “Anything else, mate?”
“Oh, er, no,” I said, looking quickly away.
Lemon Boy suddenly grinned. “Oh! I know what you want!”
“Huh? No, I—”
He produced a lemon ice lolly from his freezer and handed it to me. “He’s having a bad day,” he explained to the girls, who gave me sympathetic smiles.
I nodded a thank-you because I didn’t want to interrupt him with any of my stupid words, and backed away from the lemon.
“Make sure you tell your mates!” Lemon Boy shouted after me. “There’s a hot new lemonade maker in town!”
The girls giggled again. I held up my ice lolly like I was toasting him (should have used the actual drink, it would have made more sense), and nodded.
I didn’t mention I hadn’t got any mates to tell. I think it would have overly complicated the situation, and if he felt any more sorry for me, I think he’d just have given me the whole stand.
What little confidence I’d mustered for this job hunt had ebbed away. I needed half an hour to do something else, build it up again. I very nearly turned left and walked down the pier, but I didn’t fancy any of the fairground rides at the far end, and all the sideshows required either throwing something or aiming something, neither of which are skills I really possess. Also, there were already quite a lot of people milling about down there, and you know, crowds. I sighed and turned the other way, and despite myself, a smile crept across my face.
Wonderland: it occupied the biggest retail unit on Newsands’ seafront – a monstrosity of austere architecture that I think was built in the sixties, but was done up like some sort of fantasia. A huge pink-and-yellow plastic frontage was studded with lights that glittered and twinkled, with golden ones making the name “Wonderland” in the middle. Right outside the entrances were the kiddie games – the mini cars and fire engines you could ride for fifty pence, a row of claw grabbers, stuffed with cuddly toys and an assortment of shiny trinkets (some of which may or may not have been iPhones), giving passers-by a little taste of the delights within. Neon signs above the doors advertised “Air-Conditioning Throughout” and “Play to Win” – and there was a handy ATM in the wall at the side, just in case you needed some cash, and you would need some.
Yeah, it was tacky. And, yes, it was gaudy. But Wonderland was an escape – like junk food when you’re feeling low. There was something magical about those flashing little bulbs outside, the electronic music from the machines, and the occasional sound of an avalanche of coins from a jackpot win. The rows upon rows of games always made me giddy: Pirate Treasure, Pharaoh’s Fortune, Jungle Fever, Titan Cash Vaults, the old-school arcade machines and the brand new 4D and VR experiences. Hell, even the change machines twinkled at you like they wanted you to come over and play with them. Put a quid in the slot, and Zoltan will tell you your fortune, delivered on a small printed card at the base of the machine. Another quid gets you the worst hot dog you’ll ever experience, or a bag of candyfloss, or a pink-and-white striped paper bag of popcorn. Or there’s the Mirror Maze, or the bingo, or pinball or Dance Dance Revolution or Mario Kart or just good old retro Pac-Man. Once you were in, you had no idea if it was light or dark outside, you were just suspended in time, the lights glittering like crystals, like this place was a million dollars. Like you were a million dollars.
Maybe it was some sort of sorcery, but it calls you in.
It called me in, anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
Listen, I’m not an idiot. I knew this place was as crooked as they come. It’s not that the games are gaffed as such, it’s just they work in such a way that you never really win. Everyone knows if you win a bit on the coin pushers, you’re gonna put it straight back in again because it always looks like a whole heap of coins are about to fall off that moving ledge. They never do, but it looks like it. And then a lot of the games churn out streams of golden tickets that you can collect and put towards something from the prize booth. Even if you’re crap at a game, you’ll usually get a few tickets, and a mediocre performance can easily net you fifty. Never mind that a tiny toy rabbit is five hundred tickets, you quickly have fistfuls of the things, and you feel like you’ll surely be able to buy a Porsche.