Meredith Dufresne came to Prague with a library science degree, a backpack bearing the maple leaf patch her mother had sewn on "so people know," and a condition no doctor in Thunder Bay, Ontario, has ever managed to explain.
One-on-one, Meredith, 26, sounds like what she is: a polite, slightly anxious Canadian who once apologized to a revolving door. Put her in front of a group, though, and something else takes the wheel.
"It started in Grade 2," she would tell anyone who asked. "Show and tell. I brought a rock from my uncle's cottage. I meant to say it was a nice rock."
What she said instead, according to a note her teacher sent home, was that it was a beautiful rock, a perfect rock, possibly the best rock anyone had ever brought to show and tell, and that many people were saying so. Nobody was saying so. It was a rock.
Her parents, who considered politics an impolite dinner topic, took her to a speech therapist. He listened to her read a paragraph aloud to three volunteers, made a note on his pad, and showed it to her mother. The note said: "Huh."
She skipped her university convocation. She delivered her best friend's maid-of-honour speech by email. She chose library science, she said, "because of the shushing."
She is not political. She does not follow American news. When people ask whether she's doing a bit, she says no, very sincerely, and apologizes.
The trouble began, as trouble in Prague often does, at a hostel pub quiz.
The Golden Pretzel in Žižkov runs one every Thursday. Meredith's team, a Swede, two Australians, and a quiet Dutch couple, needed someone to read the answer to question seven out loud, and her new bunkmate Priya, a nurse from Leeds, volunteered her before she could object.
Meredith stood. Eleven tables turned to look.
"The capital of Australia," she began, in her normal voice. Then she felt it rising, like a sneeze. "Folks, it's Canberra. Not Sydney. Everybody thinks Sydney. Wrong. Very wrong. Canberra is a special city, very underrated, nobody talks about it, but we're talking about it tonight."
The Australians rose to their feet and applauded. Someone bought her a beer. At the bar, a man in a fleece vest set down his Pilsner.
Radek Novotný has run Prague Panorama Walking Tours for eleven years. In that time he has been outcompeted by ghost tours, communism tours, absinthe tours, and a pub crawl that ends in a nuclear bunker.
He found Meredith on the hostel's back patio the next morning.
"You are a natural," he said.
"I'm really not," she said. "It's a... I don't know what it is. It just happens."
"Exactly. Authentic. Tourists want authentic." He slid a business card across the table. "Two tours a day. Old Town, Charles Bridge, the castle. I pay cash."
"I don't really know the history."
"You have a library degree. You will read."
"I get nervous in front of groups."
"Good," said Radek, and then, seeing her face, "I mean, good that you are honest. Very healthy. Canadians."
Priya, who had followed her out with two coffees, said, "She needs to think about it."
"Of course," said Radek. "Take all the time you need. The first tour is at ten."
Meredith looked at Priya. Then at the card. Then at her bank balance, which she had checked that morning and decided not to tell anyone about.
"I could maybe try one," she said.
"One is perfect," said Radek, who was already texting his nephew to set up an Instagram account.
She stayed up until two reading about the Hussites. She told Priya she felt good about it, which Priya noticed she said four times.
At ten o'clock, twenty-two tourists gathered beneath the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. Meredith held a folded umbrella aloft.
"Hi everyone," she said. "So this is the Prague Orloj, installed in 1410, which makes it the oldest astronomical clock in the world still in..."
Twenty-two faces. Forty-four eyes. One man was already filming.
"...still in operation, folks, and it's a tremendous clock. Maybe the best clock ever built. Every hour the skeleton rings his bell, every single hour. Very reliable skeleton. Other clocks call this clock. They say, how do you do it? Vienna has a clock. It's fine. Nobody's flying in to see it."
At the Jan Hus Memorial, a banjo, a double bass and a washboard struck up behind her mid-sentence. She finished the history of the Hussite reformation in four-four time.
They crossed the Vltava through the Old Town Bridge Tower.
On the Charles Bridge, she stopped at the statue of St. John of Nepomuk.
"They threw this guy off the bridge in 1393," she said. "Into the river. The king wanted to know what the queen said in confession, and he wouldn't tell him. Wouldn't say a word. Very loyal guy. Tremendously loyal. And now he's got five stars around his head. You don't get five stars by talking, folks."
Several tourists photographed the statue with new respect. One rubbed the plaque twice.
On the far side of the river, at the Lennon Wall, she explained that the communists had painted over it again and again. "Didn't work, folks. Every time, it came back. You can't stop it. Nobody can stop it."
At the end, a Danish man shook her hand with both of his and said it was the best tour of his life. A teenager asked for a selfie. Meredith said, "Sorry, yes, of course," and then, to her horror, gave a thumbs up.
Back at the Golden Pretzel, she lay face down on her bunk.
"How was it?" asked Priya.
"Bad," said Meredith into the pillow.
Her phone buzzed. It was Radek. The text read: TOMORROW TWICE.
The red caps arrived Monday.
Meredith asked whether they could be blue. Radek said he would look into it and then did not look into it. The caps read TRUMPETTE TOURS across the front in gold thread. She had not agreed to the name. She remembered him saying it once, during a conversation about scheduling, and remembered herself saying "Haha, okay," which, she now understood, had been the contract.
Radek's nephew posted a ninety-second clip of her explaining the Defenestrations of Prague. "They threw them out the window, folks. Out the window. In 1419, and then again in 1618. Nobody does windows like Prague. Nobody."
It got 4.1 million views. A remix set to the washboard band from Old Town Square got eleven million. In week three, an American late-night host did four minutes on her, including an impression of her doing an impression. She was not doing an impression. Bookings from the United States tripled, and Radek printed a new sign that said AS SEEN ON.
He launched The Greatest Castle Walk, Maybe Ever, and The Very Strong Beer Tour, though Meredith mostly drank lemonade. He bought her a portable amplifier, because, he said, the people in the back deserved to hear.
On a Thursday in week four, he caught her in Lesser Town Square, beneath the plague column, ten minutes before the Greatest Castle Walk.
"Don't worry," he said. "But today an inspector from the Czech Tourism Board is joining us. For the license."
"What license?" said Meredith.
"The important one," said Radek.
"Oh. Okay. Which one is he?"
Radek nodded toward the back. Behind ninety people in red caps stood a young man in an oversized blazer, holding a clipboard. He did not look up.
She had copied the facts onto an index card in her neat librarian handwriting, to keep the voice out of it. She read the first line in her normal register: "The Holy Trinity Column, built in thanksgiving after the plague of 1713." So far, so good. Then the inspector wrote something down. Then he underlined it. She looked up from the card.
"This is a plague column, folks. Big plague. Terrible plague. When it ended, they built this to say thank you. And they put gold on top. A lot of gold. That's how you say thank you. Very classy."
Afterward, she asked how the inspection had gone.
"Very promising," said Radek. "He will need to come back." He was already texting his nephew.
He came back the next day, in a gray blazer. And the day after that, in a brown one. The only constant was Radek, leaning against a lamppost at the back of each group, mouthing the word tremendous like a prayer.
At the castle gate, beneath two stone giants clubbing two other giants, Meredith told ninety people it had "the best security in Europe. Nobody gets in. Nobody."
Outside St. Vitus Cathedral, she explained that it had taken almost six hundred years to finish. "Six hundred years, folks. Worth it. So worth it."
That night, Priya told her to quit.
"I know," said Meredith.
"Then quit."
"He said he's really struggling," said Meredith. "He has a nephew."
"Your inspector is the nephew," said Priya. "I've seen his Instagram."
"I know. I'll talk to him after the weekend."
She did not talk to him after the weekend. On Monday, Radek announced franchise inquiries from Budapest.
The email arrived on a Tuesday, at 6:14 a.m. Prague time, while Meredith was brushing her teeth in the shared bathroom.
The subject line read: Invitation: Office of Scheduling, The White House.
Dear Ms. Dufresne,
The President has seen your videos and would very much like to meet you. We are proposing a small event, with some press.
Expected attendance: approximately 200.
cc: Radek Novotný, Manager
She read it twice on the edge of the sink. Radek had, it turned out, listed himself on the Trumpette Tours website as her manager. He had already replied all.
She walked back to the dorm. Priya was sitting up on the top bunk, hair in a towel.
"What's wrong?" said Priya.
Meredith opened her mouth. Only one person was listening. Her own voice came out, small and Canadian.
"I think," she said, "I have to say no."
She sat down on her bunk and opened a reply. She typed, Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I don't think... and deleted it. She typed, Sorry, I think there's been some kind of mistake... and deleted it. She typed, Sorry.
The cursor blinked.
Her phone rang. It was Radek. She put him on speaker, because Priya was listening, and two people is a group.
"Washington!" said Radek. "Two hundred people! I am already looking at flights. As your manager, I take the aisle."
Meredith felt it rising, like a sneeze. For once, she did not try to stop it.
"Radek," she said. "Folks. Let me tell you something. You are a bad manager. A very bad manager. Maybe the worst manager in the history of Prague, and Prague has had a lot of managers, believe me. The inspector? That's your nephew. In your blazer. Everybody knows it. You're fired."
There was a long silence on the line.
"Can we use that clip?" said Radek.
She hung up. Then she deleted Sorry., typed No, thank you in its place, and pressed send before she could apologize for it.
Meredith Dufresne now works at the Thunder Bay Public Library, where for four months she did not address more than one person at a time. Trumpette Tours continues under new management. Its new guide, Radek's nephew, now does a Trump impression. It is not very good. Bookings are down 94 percent.
Then, last Tuesday, a tour group wandered into the library. Meredith looked up from the circulation desk and, in a voice that was entirely her own, asked all twenty-two of them to keep it down.
Fictional disclosure: Fake Travel News publishes fictional travel stories inspired by real places. I have fun inventing impossible events, but I also love travel and the very real magic it grants to the human experience. For real-world travel details, see The Best Things to Do in Prague: A First-Timer's Guide - Bon Traveler.
