A Girl's Guide to Fairy Tales

Chapter Six (part 2)

I picked up the pace as I reached the top floor office where I worked and stormed through the door like a woman on a mission. I had grabbed a load of papers on the way up from the Family Law team’s recycling bin to make it look like I’d been doing something constructive for the last fifteen minutes.

The quicker you rushed around, the busier you appeared and no one asked you to do anything else for them. It was something Issie had taught me and it worked like a charm. I even employed it when leaving the office to go to the toilet and when crossing the room to pick up freshly printed cake recipes or icing tips I couldn’t wait to try out at home.

As I settled myself at my desk, I looked around at the various characters in the office.

Glenda flashed me her usual Cheshire Cat grin with a Buttermint bulge in her cheek, Lesley ‘The Duchess’ Green sat next to her, sipping tea out of a china cup, while my very own Mad Hatter, Geoff, kept a look-out for the squirrel he had adopted, which paid daily visits to the fire escape.

Geoff had a heart of gold and was the only person I could email with questions about how to do my job correctly.

He was a bumbling delight and walked around the office like a pregnant woman, with his hands wrapped around the base of his back to support the weight of his two-stone stomach. I suppose I hadn’t helped by making him a squirrel-shaped cake for his birthday a few weeks ago, covered in marzipan and icing, which I had spent ages trying to mix to the right shade of reddish-brown.

‘He’s here! I’ll get my nuts out,’ said Geoff as he waved his finger frantically towards the metal staircase outside.

Yes, the squirrel had returned and so all was right in Geoff’s world.

Sitting opposite me was the youngest member of the group, Craig. He was the dormouse in my Wonderland world without a doubt. He would usually have a thirty minute snooze during lunch as a result of endless nights out on the town and I think he knew even less about the job than I did.

Finally, sat in the corner were Tweedledum and Tweedledee or the Looking Glass Twins as Issie referred to them now.

Grace and Danielle spent at least five minutes of every hour reapplying makeup and everyday Grace managed to wear a bra completely the wrong colour for her top, despite having a whole spectrum of lingerie.

The pair of them gossiped all day long and when they weren’t talking, you could hear their computer keys rattling away in bitchy conversation as they emailed each other. That was one of the main reasons I hadn’t mentioned my newly acquired single status as it would have spread around the building like wildfire.

Come to think of it, I’d not even changed my relationship status on Facebook yet. Perhaps it was time.

I logged on but as soon as I had, two engagement announcements from old University friends pounced on me. And of course they were accompanied by pictures of fingers flashing glittering rocks. Yuk.

I scrolled down to get away from anything marriage related and instead found more tedious posts from first time, expectant mothers or countdowns until a couple said ‘I do’.  It was these sorts of posts that had led to last night’s Facebook cull of people I hardly remembered, had never really liked or those who were just deliriously happy with life and posted about every mind-numbingly boring incident in their day-to-day lives.

I started to listen in again on Grace and Danielle’s conversation like a super sleuth - or just someone who was bored to the point of tears. As a result, I learned how Danielle’s sister was contemplating getting both nipples pierced and had a crush on Chris Moyles, how her mum had been diagnosed with a wheat intolerance and was now according to her a ‘celeriac’ rather than a celiac, which just proved how dumb the girl actually was and that Grace’s old school friend had just moved to the area from London.