The Two American Tourists

That same Halloween, Cynthia and Tobias Chimes were standing outside the Sands of Time Hotel in Bayswater. It was between a Chinese restaurant called The Blue Oyster, and a French restaurant called The Parisienne.

It was 8.30 in the morning and Tobias and Cynthia, who were on holiday from Brooklyn, New York, were waiting for a taxi to take them to Wiltshire. They wanted to visit the historical sites of Salisbury, Stonehenge and Avebury, and they also hoped to go to a medieval fayre. They were so excited as they waited on the steps in front of the revolving hotel door.

They both looked left and then right, and Cynthia did a double take and looked left again when she saw a shop that she knew for sure wasn’t there the night before. If it had been there, they surely would have been in it, as they were looking for souvenirs to take back and it was exactly the kind of shop they had been looking for. It was sandwiched between the Sands of Time Hotel and the French restaurant. They both looked at the shop, then looked at each other.

“Wow!” they said simultaneously. “Wow!” they said again.

They looked at the shop and the name of the shop (the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop) and they looked at each other, and they were flabbergasted. Lots of things happen in a big city like New York, but they’d never seen anything like this.

They both spun round and rushed back inside the hotel through the revolving doors to ask the hotel owner, Claude Monet, if he knew there was a Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop next door.

The hotelier stopped painting for a while and said, “I don’t think so.” Claude Monet was French and he shrugged his shoulders in a very French way. “But anything is possible in London,” he said. “Even the rain can rain upside down!”

Tobias Chimes said in his very loud and broad New York accent, “Well, I’ll be blown away by that, but there it is now - right next door.”

“Maybe you should take a look around. Tomorrow it may be gone - just like the clouds that sail by,” said Claude, and he turned away to finish the painting he was painting.

He wore a beret, a moustache which curled up, a stripy shirt like the ones mime artists wear and trousers with braces. The painting looked like the street outside, complete with the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop next to the French restaurant. It also showed the Chinese restaurant on the other side of the hotel. Claude’s painting was very good.

The American duo took out their cameras and rushed back outside. They decided there and then to postpone the trip to Stonehenge. Tobias phoned the taxi company, who answered straight away.

“Hey, is that the taxi company, Travelling Light?” asked Tobias.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, Toby and Cindy Chimes won’t be going to Stonehenge today. Something unexpected has turned up - real unexpected. We’ll put it on ice for a few days.”

“OK, as you wish, Mr Chimes. Have a great day,” said the man from the taxi company.

Tobias and Cynthia decided to wander around the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop for a day or two - or possibly three or four. It occurred to them that they might never come out and that they could end up being whisked up in the shop to another galaxy. They had heard of musty old police boxes that flew through space and travelled far and wide, and they didn’t see why a shop shouldn’t do the same. Suddenly they wanted a whole new life, travelling around the galaxies and to other universes and maybe travelling back in time. Their imaginations were running riot.

The American duo - ‘Calamity Cindy and Tricky Tobias Chimes’ - were an adventurous couple. Tobias was a freelance photographer and Cynthia was an artist. She was very creative, and she had studied art, design and drama. Tobias had studied photography and graphic design. They worked for themselves, and recently they had decided to take a year out to gain new experiences. As they travelled, Cynthia sketched and painted and Tobias took photographs. London was the ideal place - enigmatic and lovely. Tobias took some amazing photographs, even in the pouring rain. Londoners didn’t bat an eyelid when he took pictures of them.

Tobias had a theory that clones were infiltrating society. He had other theories too. He was quite a philosopher.

He had tousled sandy-blonde hair and glasses, and he had a bit of a tummy on him. With his photography equipment slung over his shoulder, his hat, his baggy trousers and his T-shirt, he looked like a typical New Yorker.

Cynthia had thick blonde hair in a pageboy style and a very nice complexion. She had been brought up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia. She used to go horse-riding regularly, but owing to the easy life of painting and drawing, and of course the fridge being too handy, she had put on a few pounds. She loved cakes, cookies, candy ... in fact, anything sweet, so she was a bit on the plump side.

She had decided to do some very gentle exercises when she got to London - when she had the time, of course. She had devised an exercise plan and a healthy-eating regime. The exercises were brand-new ones she’d devised after she’d read a t’ai-chi book. From the very simple Chinese exercises detailed in the book, she had created her own system, which she called the Simple Secret Exercise Plan. For example, an exercise for bingo wings (that is, flab on the upper arms) and flab on the front and back of legs was named ‘Hitch a Ride’ and she explained it like this: firstly, form a fist with both hands as if you are thumbing a lift (fingers tucked into palms and thumbs upright). You get the meaning so far? Then bring your forearms upwards to literally bounce off your upper arms. As you do this action you bend your legs and drop your backbone down - easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

Every now and then Cynthia would do about ten Hitch a Ride repetitions - gentle enough and simple enough to do whilst waiting in the hotel lobby - for instance, whilst Tobias popped out to buy the London Times.

It was surprising how the exercises cottoned on with the staff in the hotel, and all the staff seemed to want to learn.

There was also an exercise named ‘The Clap’ where you clap in front of your leg and then lift up your leg and clap behind your leg. And then there was another exercise named ‘The Digger’ where you make your hand and arm into the shape of a digger. Your hand would be like a shovel going towards the ground.

Then there was the ‘Pluck a Grape from a Vine’. Just imagine this: you have a grapevine and you pluck imaginary grapes from it. Then of course you could crush the grapes, stomping on them. That’s good for your feet.

Another good exercise for your feet was ‘Roll a Pencil’. You have to imagine you have a pencil under your foot. Cynthia would say, “Imagine you have a pencil under your left foot or right foot and you are rolling the pencil very slowly with your foot. This exercise is for balance. When you get better at it you can imagine you are rolling with a stick of Blackpool rock or even a church candle and see whether you can keep your balance.”

Then for neck exercises - so you don’t end up with a turtleneck - you can blow a French-style kiss. That is, you move your head as if you were kissing someone on both cheeks. You have to imagine you are kissing a famous person, such as a beautiful pop star (imagining the person in front of you will keep you focused).

Cynthia also had an exercise called ‘The Funky Chicken’. You have to walk like a funky farmyard chicken, strutting up and down. At the same time you can sing, “Walk like a funky chicken, drop your backbone down, even though you look ridiculous, you may lose weight and look stupendous.” Cynthia would strut up and down in the lobby of the Sands of Time Hotel, and soon enough all the staff and guests would be joining in, strutting up and down like funky chickens. They all thought Cynthia was hilarious.

In this way Cynthia was beginning to lose weight. Every day she was a little bit fitter than before.

Tobias also took part in the exercises. It was amazing how contagious they were.

Cynthia was always cooking up something new, and she was thrilled to think her figure would soon be slimline. Her hair was her best feature - thick and shiny and a lovely shade of blonde. Her skin was glowing - she definitely had good-quality skin and she had lovely twinkling eyes. She thought to herself, ‘I’m not a cheap cut of meat.’

Tobias was handsome despite being overweight. He was addicted to anything sweet. He took five sugars in his tea. He definitely had a sweet tooth - or rather, many sweet teeth. He had thought of using honey instead of sugar, but it was just a thought. He loved chocolate, cakes (especially sponge cakes), custard pies and flapjacks.

When he worked as a freelance photographer in New York, he sometimes worked late into the night - sometimes working with other shutter bugs and having late-night snacks at late-night cafés and eating a lot of chocolate bars in the late-night cafés. New York is the city that never goes to sleep. He also loved anything greasy, such as burgers and greasy chips from greasy-spoon cafés. In short, he loved junk food. He thought he should maybe see a hypnotherapist to help him lose weight. He was eating non-stop and it was getting on his nerves.

He hoped that a year’s holiday would get him to change his lifestyle and get him away from the American dream of constant cream cakes and chocolate cookies. He needed some self-discipline. He had seen Londoners in films and on the television, and they all seemed so slim in their pinstriped suits and bowler hats and brollies. He had never seen a fat man in a pinstriped suit and bowler hat and carrying a brolly.

Cynthia loved to make quiches and pies. Cherry pie and apple-and-rhubarb pie were particular favourites. She also baked lovely cakes, and her blueberry muffins were especially good.

Cynthia and Tobias were both in their thirties and they hadn’t had any children. They both came from large families. Cynthia’s grandmother had eighteen children and her parents had nine children; Tobias was the youngest of thirteen children. They wanted a life before they had children - or, at least, they wanted an adventure.

Their house, however, was always full of other people’s children. The only pets they had were fishes, which they kept in a large aquarium. Their third-floor apartment in New York had a panoramic view of the city, and the apartment was full of Tobias’s photographs and Cynthia’s paintings. When they came to England, they rented their apartment out to two New York fashion designers called Francesca Florence and Dune Passion, who promised to look after their tropical fish.

Tobias reminded the fashion designers that fish only had a three-second memory.

“Oh,” said Dune, “is that why they suddenly change direction - because they can’t remember where they are going?”

They all laughed, and the two fashion designers wished Cynthia and Tobias a brilliant vacation in England and a safe journey.