The Castle Tour

Fergus was a history student in Edinburgh, and every summer he worked as a tour guide at Glenmorran Castle, a gray stone building on a hill above a quiet lake. The job was easy. Every morning he read his script, a thick folder full of dates and names, and every afternoon he repeated it to groups of tourists. He had done it so many times that he could almost say it in his sleep.

One Saturday in July, he woke up late, ran to the bus and arrived at the castle just in time for the first tour. Only when twenty tourists were standing in front of him did he realize something terrible: the folder was still on his kitchen table. And his memory, for some reason, was completely empty.

"Welcome to Glenmorran Castle," he began, smiling. "This castle is believed to be... very, very old." The tourists nodded. Encouraged, Fergus pointed at a small door. "It is said that a king once hid behind this door for three days." A woman from Ohio gasped. "Which king?" Fergus thought for a second. "A Scottish one."

After that, the stories came easily. In the great hall, he explained that the long table was thought to be the oldest table in Scotland. In the kitchen, he said that the castle cook was reported to have invented a famous soup. In the tower, he told them that a ghost was believed to sing every night at midnight, but only in Gaelic, and only if it was raining.

The tourists loved it. They took photos of the door, the table and the window where the ghost sang. But at the back of the group, there was a boy of about twelve with a phone in his hand, and he was frowning. "Excuse me," he said. "It says here that the castle was built in 1824. Scotland hadn't had its own king for two hundred years."

Everybody turned to look at Fergus. His face went as red as his hair. "Well," he said slowly, "it is said that the king was... on holiday." Some people laughed. The boy kept reading. "And it says the kitchen was a gift shop until 1990." More people laughed. The woman from Ohio was laughing so much she had to sit down on the oldest table in Scotland.

Fergus took a deep breath and told the truth. He had forgotten his script, and he didn't remember a single real date. To his surprise, the group cheered. "Best tour I've ever been on," said a man with a camera. "Tell us about the ghost again!"

That evening, Fergus's manager called him into her office. He was sure he was going to lose his job. Instead, she showed him a new online review: "Five stars. Almost nothing the guide said is true, and it was fantastic." She was not smiling, but her eyes were. "Next Saturday," she said, "you're doing the evening ghost tour. And this time, bring the folder."