Three
Trolls turned out to be shorthand for patrols, Fairyland’s in-house rent-a-cops, who perused the park in dark-green jumpsuits and snappy caps on the lookout for lost kids, dropped gum wrappers, and, I suppose, the occasional Mouse Mole (spies who worked for the Mouse). Not for nothing was Fairyland rated #1 in Safe Theme Parks, though after the hassle the trolls gave me at the elevator to the Queen’s office, it seemed they might have had a leeeetle too much power in their white-gloved hands.
I took the elevator to the fourth floor. It opened to a stark white hallway at the end of which was a frosted-glass door marked simply:
PINELAND, NEW JERSEY
Behind the door was your average, everyday office painted a calming sage green and with three chairs, a coffee table littered with magazines, a potted fern, and a blue watercooler.
The only difference from my dad’s boring accounting office was that here the walls were lined with framed photos of park highlights—the princes and princesses dancing on the stage outside the Princess Palace; Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall talking to a group of children; Hansel and Gretel pushing a witch into the oven; all seven of the dwarfs hugging Snow White at her cottage; and, front and center, Cinderella and her Prince Charming, cheek to cheek.
A huge plaque that read Fairyland Kingdom . . . Wow!™ in glittering gold letters hung over the large desk where a woman with short brown hair and a flowered shirt sat picking at a blueberry muffin on a napkin. She was the spitting image of Mrs. Herman, our high school’s attendance person.
“Excuse me. I’m Zoe Kiefer,” I said, unsure as to whether this was the dreaded Queen. “Andy told me I should see you.”
The woman brushed crumbs from her desk. “I didn’t ask to see you. You probably mean . . . her. Let me buzz.”
“So you’re not—”
“Lord, no. I’m just Evelyn, her secretary.” She emitted a light titter and said into the phone, “Ma’am, I have someone here to see you. A Zoe . . . Yes. I’ll send her right in.”
There was a buzzzz, and a part of the wall slid open. The door had been completely hidden, like something out of a spy movie.
“Good luck!” Evelyn said.
I wish people would stop saying that, I thought as the hidden door closed behind me and I stepped into mission control. That was what popped into my brain when I saw the wall of monitors displaying every aspect of the park in black-and-white. Five rows of ten. Fifty in all. And in front of them sat the strangest figure in a high-backed, black chair poring over a stack of papers at her glass desk.
She said nothing, and I remained standing with my hands behind my back, since Andy had said I shouldn’t sit until she gave me permission, though that didn’t seem to be coming any time soon. In fact, it was difficult to discern if this creature knew I was there, so engrossed was she in sorting through the piles of paperwork, her spidery fingers slipping in and out of the pages as if she were spinning a web.
Her gown was a luminescent shade of deep violet. A gold crown was perched on a tasseled red pillow nearby. Her hair, sleek and black like a cat’s, had been cut in a downward bob probably to minimize her freakishly long white neck on top of her stick-thin body. The room smelled oddly of overheated electronics, tea, and rosewater perfume.
I cleared my throat, and she lifted a finger. At last she went, “A-ha!” and removed a manila file marked Kiefer, Zoe. She flipped it open and ran her black lacquered nail over what I recognized with some trepidation as my application. Now and then she’d go, “Hmmm” or make a note with a red pen in the margins. Every two seconds she twirled to check the screens before twirling back to her desk, whereupon she continued to read. It was very unnerving because she was reading about me.
There was a tiny yip! from a fluffy white dog no bigger than a hand puppet that was curled on a purple satin pillow with a matching purple bow in her hair. This must have been the famous Tinker Bell.
The Queen snapped the file shut and whipped off her half glasses to reveal a pair of black eyes under similarly black arched eyebrows. Her lips were painted in two tones of crimson and violet. “Zoe Kiefer, let me have a look at you.”
I stepped back and she said, “Hmm, hmm. Do you exercise?”
“Not lately. Except for gym class.” (And not even then if I can help it.)
“Lately. You mean since your mother died.” This was said matter-of-factly, as if we were discussing that it might rain.
“Yes . . . ma’am.”
“Pity, that.” She bit the end of her glasses, scrutinizing. “It says in your application that when you were small, your mother took you to Storytown, and that it was your most favorite place on earth. Is that true?”
Before there was Fairyland Kingdom, there was Storytown, a rinky-dink nursery-rhyme theme park with a petting zoo and swan boats for the juice-box-and-animal-cracker set. We’d go on Wednesday afternoons when New Jersey residents could get in free, and Mom would read me fairy tales by a willow overlooking the moat around Cinderella’s Castle. I’d written my application essay on those trips and how I remembered them as the happiest moments with my mother before she got ill. It was sappy, but there you have it. Storytown would always hold a treasured place in my heart, even though it had been bulldozed over long ago.
I nodded. “Yes. I loved that place. I’m sorry that it’s gone.”
She pointed at the gold necklace at my throat with its single pearl. “Is that your mother’s?”
Absently I reached for the chain. “Yes. My father gave it to her the day I was born.”
“Hmm, hmm.” She nodded and stood. I was surprised to see she had me by a good two inches. “Zoe Kiefer, I approve. You will be my lady-in-waiting or, in the bland vernacular of the hoi polloi, my personal assistant. Each morning you shall fetch me my breakfast and newspapers, filter my mail, retrieve the complaints, and do whatever bidding I decree.”
I swallowed hard, since this was not exactly how I’d envisioned spending my summer, in a darkened control room acting like Igor serving some evil master. Also, the dog. Nevertheless, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“It is a great honor and privilege to be my assistant, Zoe.” She winked at her reflection in an ornate mirror that hung on the opposite wall. “As such, you will be present among my closest circle of advisers and therefore part of an elite club that is privy to restricted information. I will need assurances that you can maintain my strictest confidence.”
I couldn’t keep a secret to save my life. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Of course you will be required to read, understand, and commit to memory all two hundred and seventy Fairyland rules.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Finally, you will accompany me daily in the four o’clock parade dispensing sugar-based snack products to the clamoring juveniles while deflecting any perishable produce that may or may not be thrown in my direction.”
Catch, don’t duck. “I understand.”
“I will need you to proceed posthaste to Wardrobe so you may be fitted with the appropriate gown. As perhaps you have learned during orientation, Rule Number Six states that no cast members may be present in the park during hours of operation sans costume, and with all your upcoming running hither and thither, you will be no exception. Are we clear?”
I nodded.
“You may go. I expect to see you at eight a.m. tomorrow with my breakfast and newspapers. In the meantime do devote yourself to memorizing the rules.”
She returned to her monitors and said nothing else. It was unclear if I was truly free to go.
“Wait. I nearly forgot!” She opened a drawer and rummaged around until she found an iPhone. Clicking it on to make sure it was charged, she nodded in satisfaction and handed it to me along with a heavy brass key.
“This is a master,” she said, referring to the key. “It opens any door in the park. Use it with discretion. And this is your telephonic device.”
“But I thought we weren’t allowed to have anything electronic.” That was one of the more disturbing revelations of the internship—no Wi-Fi, no phones, no laptops. In other words, nothing that could be used to communicate with the outside world aside from pen and paper.
“Tut, tut! No arguing.” She tick-tocked her index finger. “I do not suffer truculence lightly.”
“But I wasn’t—”
“This handheld telephonic device is so I may contact you at any hour wherever and whenever I am in need. This summer you will not be your own person, Zoe Kiefer. You will be mine, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”
The door slid open, and I was officially dismissed. When I looked back, I could have sworn she was kissing Tinker Bell. On the lips.