An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street (The Ever After Street Series) by Jaimie Admans

Author:Jaimie Admans [Admans, Jaimie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2024-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

13

‘You want to what?’ I say into the phone receiver, surprised by the request of the man on the other end. My tone probably sounds like he’s just asked me something unforgivably rude, but I can’t get my head around what I’ve just heard.

‘Two tags on the pay-it-forward board, please. Ten pounds each. Such a precious thing to do. Can you give me your PayPal address?’

I reel off the shop’s email account that’s associated with the online payment platform and thank him, bewilderedly, as he transfers the money while still on the line.

Why is a total stranger phoning up from the other side of the country to put money on the pay-it-forward board? How has he even heard about it? I write his two requested tags out in a daze and thank him profusely as he hangs up.

I’m just about to take them over to the board when the phone rings again. ‘Can you put your friendship form online?’ A woman’s voice comes through from the other end. ‘I’d love to be matched with a new bookish friend, but I’m not local enough to attend the friendship nights.’

I take the receiver away from my ear and squint at it. How do people know? Was the friendship date night really so much of a success that people have been sharing their experience of it far and wide?

‘We’re, er, thinking about it,’ I stutter down the line.

Before she hangs up, the woman insists on giving me her name and email address so I can let her know when friendship-finding goes online, and insists on sending a photo of herself, despite the fact I reassure her that a photo isn’t necessary.

It’s been the most bizarre of all bizarre mornings so far, and it’s only five past nine.

I take the tags over to the pay-it-forward board and the phone rings again before I’ve stuck the second pin in, and I rush back to answer it.

‘Hello, could you put a fifteen-pound voucher on your board for me? Who do I make the cheque out to?’

This is madness, I think to myself as I give her our details and write another tag with the hand not holding the phone. Good madness, but madness all the same. How do they know?

I’m just about to go online and see if there’s been some big influx of hits on the Ever After Street website or something when Cleo bursts in, thick blonde hair flapping behind her. ‘Have you seen this?’

She’s waving around a copy of The Wye Word, one of those free local community magazines that are distributed in stacks on buses and in shops for anyone to take. ‘It’s been picked up by the main news aggregator sites and shared online thousands of times.’

‘What?’

In the magazine she puts down on the counter is a two-page spread about A Tale As Old As Time.

The headline reads: Lonely bookseller bringing friendship to Ever After Street.

‘Well, that’s insulting,’ I mutter. ‘Lonely or not, I didn’t need the whole world to read it in twenty-two-point Book Antiqua.

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