Cynthia woke up to be met by an orange sky. Was it setting already? She got up and walked over to the counter to find a pink letter and the pamphlet Eva was talking about. She read the letter out loud: "Hi Denny, I won't be coming back tonight and probably most of tomorrow either. Business has come up with the boss and I'll probably be at work all night. I left food for tonight and tomorrow in the fridge for you. I made you a beet and feta salad for your lunch on the go in case you are going for an interview with that place I suggested." "Hmmm yeah....'business." She said, making bunny ears with her fingers. Just then she noticed the clock. "Six am!?" She screamed. "I slept for a day and a night!?" She looked down at the pamphlet. "9 am. Okay, I have enough time to get ready and get there. Wait a minute..." She inspected it closer. "This is the place from yesterday, I remember the blue rabbit girl thing."
Two hours and forty five minutes later she was walking down the road in her pencil skirt and black jacket, carrying a businessy looking purse containing a box of salad and raspberry macaroons. She got to the pizzeria and crossed, looking both ways very thoroughly. Her heels made a clopping noise as she trotted across the carpark in a hurried manner. Eventually Cynthia made it to the double glass doors. She took a deep breath and walked through the automatic doors. She was met by a bored ginger woman sat in a bored position in a side room with a hole in the wall to her left. "I'm sorry ma'am but the pizzeria isn't open yet, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." She droned. "Oh, I'm here responding to a job application you sent out." The ginger clerk's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together. "Ock aye lass, go down the corridor through the main hall then just before you hit the parts and service room go right and there'll be another corridor. The first door on the left is the staffroom, the first door on the right is staff toilets, then it's the break room and the staff kitchen and at the end of the hallway is the manager's office." She said quite fast in her subtle Scottish accent. "Ok , thank you." Cynthia replied, pretending to understand everything she said. She went through the main hall and entered the main hallway. She heard something about service so went over to the door marked that and tried to open it. It wouldn't budge, a strange sort of noise came from the other side. Cynthia brushed her hair back and pressed her ear against it. It almost sounded like...creaking. Suddenly she heard a voice causing her to jump. "What're yer doin'?" It was the ginger woman from earlier. "I can tell yer didn't understand me accent. It's just straight trough tat door." She said opening the staff only door and pointing right to the end of the large corridor." "Oh, thank you. Again." Cynthia replied, smiling, before walking down the corridor and stopping outside the door.
She knocked and waited. "Come in!" Was the muffled reply she got and she opened the door to be met by a red carpeted office with a large window on the far wall and bar with coffee, mugs and alcohol by the far right wall with a woman in a white poodle skirt and pink Ascot serving coffee. Cynthia could only see her black hair as she was facing away from her. In the centre of the room was a large desk with a man sat behind it. The man himself had dark blonde hair that went wild across his forehead and covered half of one of his blue eyes. He was slightly tanned and had perfect white teeth that he showed off in his devilish grin. "Please, sit down." He said, pointing to the chair in front of his desk, Cynthia cautiously sat down and put her hands in her lap. The woman at the coffee turned around and noticed Cynthia from behind the manager's back. Cynthia looked up and noticed the woman who was now frantically waving at her and mouthing. It was Eva. Cynthia and her both had a mouthing argument. "You set me up!?" Cynthia hissed silently through clenched teeth. Eva shook her head. "You wanted a job didn't you?" She mouthed back. Just then the manager looked up from Cynthia's papers causing them both to jump slightly. "Your coffee sir, with the foam art as you requested." He looked down into his cup. "Eva you never cease to amaze me, now please could you hand these out to all the staff in the staff room, pin this up on the bulletin board, put this calendar up in the entrance's office and check to see if Foxy's alright and set up." He said handing her a mass of paper covering her face. "Right away sir." She grunted, waddling out of the door and closing it behind her with her foot. "Sorry about that, as you can see we have a lot to set up for our grand reopening." He said, stirring the foam love heart in his coffee. "So what do you think you can bring to our restaurant?" "Well, I live about five minutes walk away from here and i always get up at seven so I would definitely be a reliable worker, I also love working with children and I'm not half bad with a wrench." "That's all I needed to hear. I'm afraid I don't have time to check your CV or past records because we're a bit short staffed considering it's our grad reopening, so you're hired. Get your uniform from the staff room then go over to find Eva. She'll know what job to give you, I swear she knows this place better than me at the best of times. He chuckled. "Oh thank you sir, you won't regret this." She said excitedly, getting up and moving to the door.
After putting her stuff into her locker excluding her lunch, she went into the lady's bathroom and changed. When she came out she examined herself in the mirror. "Hmph!" She huffed. "The red and yellow scheme sort of makes me look like a pizza." Cynthia walked out of the bathroom and headed back to the main hall to find Eva, salad in hand. Eventually she spotted her, shouting at one of the staff members by the merry go round. "What do you mean you forgot, how do you just forget to paint the pupils on the creatures that kids are meat to sit on for fun. I mean look at this!" She yelled, pointing at the eyeless rides. "I would not let my kids near that, never mind mount it, and another thing, you painted Foxy red?! We don't want to bring our customers memories of the old place Joseph! It should be white with pink highlights!" "Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am." He said. Cynthia walked up to them. "Eva, can I have a word?" Eva looked at the red Foxy ride and back at Cynthia before wrapping her arm around her and leading her away. Before she left Eva turned around to Joseph. "I want that painted for tomorrow, before the boss gets wind of it!" She shouted back to him. "So Cynthe, you got the job I assume." "Yeah, but..." "Great!" Eva interrupted. "Let's get you a job!"
They came to a corner of the room lined with bare red shelves and had a single chair and red bar going in front with a till and ticket counting machine. Next to it was a large white box with a green cross on each side representing a present. The top was shut but four wires came out of the top and led up to the ceiling where more crossbeams and wires were attached. "Okay Cynthe. Here we go, you'll be working here for today, first of all unbox those prizes and display some of them on the shelves, some on the counter with their price tags and the rest by your feet. You use the ticket machine easily enough just put all the customers ticket in and it will shoot out a slip with the total written on it, they then use this to collect whichever prize they want. And if they win a big prize then I hope you don't mind having to put on a little, let's say, show for the kids." "A show!?" Cynthia exclaimed. "Not like on the stage or singing or anything. You just knock on this box three times and go, ahem: Oh Mari, we've got a big winner, why don't you come on out with one of your special prizes? Or something like that. Just some one liner that'll make the children feel really special." "And who's Mari?" "Oh that's right. You haven't met who you'll be running the prize corner with. Cynthia, meet Marionette or Mari for short." She knocked on the box and waited.
Suddenly the strings tightened and the box flaps opened to reveal a slightly humanoid figure representing a marionette puppet with a strange smiling\crying expression on its face. "He's one of our more, shy animatronics, aren't you Mari?" She said rubbing his head. He nodded slowly and turned around to Cynthia "Urm, hi..." She said awkwardly. He waved and leant towards her. "Well I'll leave you two to it then, oh and Cynthia." "Yes?" "Welcome to the family." She cheered, walking off. Mari blew a party streamer causing Cynthia to jump. He saw this and mimed laughing, clutching his tummy and pointing at her. "Do you not talk?" Cynthia questioned. He shook his head and mimed a zip being closed across his mouth before shrugging his shoulders and getting back inside his box. "Well, I better start unloading these prizes, we'll be opening soon."
