The story so far…
Squire Teflon has helped Mistress Bones with funding for her dream to bring a world record beating Olympic-sized combined swimming pool and ice rink to Smalltown, in return for a favour or two or 16,000. They have agreed to keep their relationship a secret from significant others, friends and the residents and electorate of Smalltown.
Following a hugely unsuccessful opening event, which attracted huge amounts of Town Council funding and small crowds, the world record beating Olympic-sized combined swimming pool and ice rink opened and has now closed again.
The dynamic duo are now hard at work making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.
Chapter Thirteen.
“Oh my Squirey Squirelyness I missed you so much last night. I wanted to be in your arms, spooning together and feeling your love-rod pressing into my back.”
“You can feel it now if you want to?”
“Later. First we need to dream up some ideas for our next ice rink event.”
“Ok. What can we dream up?”
“Refreshments. We could sell soft drinks and coffees”
“What about all the cafes in the area? Won’t that take away their trade?”
“Who cares? I suppose we could say we will offer money off vouchers for use in local cafes? Soften the blow a bit.”
“I’ve got it! Narnia!”
“What?”
“We can call it ‘The Narnia Experience’. We get a load of old wardrobes, dump them in the car park and the visitors can walk through a wardrobe into a winter wonderland experience, with an opportunity for photographs. We can charge extra for the photos.”
“Now that really is a wonderful idea. What else?”
“Well, now we have our ‘Seasonally adjusted’ figures I think we can get away with saying that at least 2000 people used the rink. If we get a bigger rink we should be able to double the amount of people, but we really need something to attract teenagers. What about ice-skating discotheques? Saturday Night Fever was a huge hit when I was a teenager. No reason that a disco wouldn’t be popular with the local youths.”
“I suppose so, they can’t all be hanging around in Chateau Gardens. Some of them might like a disco.”
Squire Teflon thought long and hard for a few seconds, then “And. Oh this is genius. How about an Ice Hockey team? I’m sure an Ice Hockey team would love to practise on our small plastic ice rink! We could say that they will put on display matches as well.”
“Have we had an Ice Hockey team ask to use the rink?”
“No. But no one else knows that, do they? So we can easily say that they have.”
“This sounds like it’s shaping up to be an incredible second event. Even better than the first one! But what if Councillor Fencesitter makes a fuss about losing all the money?”
“I’ve thought of that. This will be the final line of the presentation.”
‘It was worth spending the £16,000 to see the smiles on the children’s faces.”
“Only an old grump can argue with that and Fencesitter wouldn’t dare.”
“That’s brilliant. Let’s celebrate.”
Mistress Bones pulled Squire Teflon into her stock-room. “Get your love-rod out” she said, as they closed the door behind them.