Grimm Read Free

made clear the high regard that Rory was now held in:
    “Your impact on Zizz has impressed us greatly …”
    “We believe you can help us with the challenge of positioning our product better in the marketplace …”
    Rory soon yearned for a normal quiet life, but this was proving a bit difficult for the boy who now had his very own post van delivery every day.
    His desire for anonymity was also because his so-called “marketing genius” — the phrase used in any article that featured him — was based on him having overheard someone else. Call it a niggle or a prick of conscience, but the success didn’t sit comfortably with Rory and he still waited for the day when the skipping girl from the café would re-appear saying “that’s my song … you nicked it.”
    Rory decided that the best he could do was to quietly let the Zizz campaign run its course. As a result, he gave polite refusals to each of the requests that came in and developed the response that “he wasn’t taking on any new clients at the moment.” In the back of his mind he was pretty sure he would never do another marketing job. He reckoned that the safest approach was for Zizz to be a one-off and for early retirement to be as far as his marketing career would go.
    And then the letter arrived.

     
    Twinkle twinkle Hotel Grimm
    Wish your lights would just go dim
    Up above us in the town
    Always feel you’re looking down
    Twinkle twinkle Hotel Grimm
    Wish your lights would just go dim
    Children’s Song

5. The impossible challenge
    Poised to crumple it up and throw it away, Rory forced himself to look at the letter one last time. The top of the page had the same snarling wolf’s head emblem as the now-broken seal from the envelope. The spidery script seemed to have been scratched onto the paper by a sputtering fountain pen.
    Granville Grimm looks forward to receiving Mr Rory McKenna for a meeting at Hotel Grimm on Saturday 1st June at 10.30am precisely. The project for discussion is “Rebranding Hotel Grimm,” which Mr McKenna has been chosen to manage.
    Rebranding Hotel Grimm?
he thought shaking his head for the umpteenth time. He had given up groaning about it because his throat was getting too sore from doing so.
How could anyone successfully come up with a new name and image for something as unspeakably awful and downright dangerous as Hotel Grimm?
    As far as Rory could recall, anyone who had ever stayed there in his lifetime had emerged in a coffin-shaped box, or gone on to die a horrible death elsewhere.
    All in all, a delightful place for a holiday, he thought. How would you advertise that?
    Need to get to your grave that little bit faster? Come and stay at Hotel Grimm!
    Ever wanted to disappear and not come back? Try our 2 nights for the price of 1 Special Vanishing Deals!
    Whilst the challenge of rebranding Scrab Hill’s notorious establishment was a major concern in itself, what presented Rory with his biggest worry was another phrase in the letter.
    “… Mr McKenna has been chosen to manage.”
    What do they mean by
“has been chosen?”
thought Rory, breaking out in an uncontrollable hot sweat.
Surely it’s up to me to choose who I work with … or not?
he despaired.
    In the back of his mind, however, Rory knew that this was not the way that things worked with Hotel Grimm. Not only did the place spoil the view like a carbuncle on the landscape, but it cast a shadow over the town in a much more sinister way. The hotel’s disastrous record on looking after its guests in recent years, meant that it had become the neighbour that no Aberfintry resident wanted anything to do with.
    Given recent stories, Rory knew without a doubt that everyone in the town would agree at the moment, that the only thing worse than going to a meeting at Hotel Grimm would be the possible consequences of not going. The latest edition of
The Chronicle
said it all. Rory could picture it lying on the coffee table downstairs.
“Say “No!” at Your