McGrave's Hotel

by Steve Bryant

  Looking lovely as always and almost solid, the Beaumonts were next among the queue exiting the facility.

  “We’ve had such a wonderful time,” Mrs. Beaumont said. “We must stay here again some time.”

  “The next time we are in town, for certain,” said Mr. Beaumont. He tipped his top hat to bid farewell to the onlookers.

  The Beaumonts entered into the flow of the revolving door. Surprisingly, as it completed its full circle, they popped right back into the lobby again.

  “What a charming place this is,” said Mrs. Beaumont, sweeping her eyes over the expanse of the Grand Lobby. “I think we might enjoy staying here.”

  “Say, there’s a fellow,” said Mr. Beaumont to James. “Can you show us where to check in? And what’s the word on the cocktails?”

  James was pleased, as always, to direct them to the Front Desk and to recommend the cocktails.

  James failed to recognize the next gentleman leaving the building, a handsome man in sunglasses, wearing a sweater and dress slacks. He could have been mistaken for the young movie actor Cary Grant. The man hurried through the lobby and the door, shielding his face with his hand, apparently with no desire to be recognized.

  James felt a decided chill as he watched the departure, causing him to shiver. Surely it wasn’t …

  Next striding toward the exit came Mr. Wu, his eyes scanning the crowd with the intense gaze of a professional bodyguard. At the door, Mr. Wu stopped, turned, and awaited his young charge.

  Fawn followed. Her traveling clothes consisted of a white blouse, a gray skirt, and black Mary Janes with knee socks. Over this ensemble she wore her navy blue winter coat, and she carried a small valise. She set the valise on the floor and looked about.

  “Boy!” she called out when she saw James. “Fetch my bag.”

  James jumped at the request and retrieved the valise. He thought she looked beautiful, but he was too shy to give her the hug he wanted to.

  “Hi,” she said. “You know we have to leave. Dad’s finished here, and I’m afraid we’re bound for Europe. I wanted to do something before we go.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “I’m going to kiss you.”

  Her words surprised him. What a weird thing for her to offer. Weird, but a keen plan nonetheless. Absolutely perfect. Of course, there was still the matter of who she was.

  “Will I die?” he asked. “If we kiss?”

  “Would it matter?” she said.

  He thought it over. Suddenly, her kissing him seemed the most important thing in the world.

  “No.”

  “Relax, then,” Fawn said. “I’m not Death. I’m just a bad flu.”

  James’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Kidding!” she said. “Hold still.”

  Her face sailed up to his, and their lips merged. There was fire in the moment, but she was who she was, and so her lips also conveyed traces of ice. The kiss made James dizzy. A pair of slender arms wrapped round his neck and held him steady.

  The other bellhops whooped in delight. Roderick stared in open-mouthed wonder. Spats and Joey made goofy faces, using their hands to make their lips look like fish kisses. Mick and Duke sang the requisite chant: “James and Fawn, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  The eyes on the Christmas tree skull ornaments seemed to widen in amazement.

  Mr. Nash turned to Miss Charles. “Remind me to send James to the hotel tailor on Monday for alterations. He’s looking taller lately.”

  Mr. Wu approached the embrace and gently took the valise from James and took Fawn by the hand. “Thank you, Master James,” he said. “It has been honor knowing you.”

  He and Fawn turned and vanished into the spinning door, taking James’s heart with them.

  Through the glass, everyone could see more cars alighting in the forecourt.

  Dr. Otto walked over to the door for a better view. He removed his watch from his pocket and synchronized it with the great clock on the wall. “McGrave’s Hotel,” he said. “Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with my previous novel, Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show, I extend thanks and love to the amazing ladies who made this book possible.

  First, thanks to Anna Olswanger, my agent, who found the perfect home for my work. It is an honor to be part of Anna’s team of esteemed authors and illustrators, who all know that Anna’s work on their behalf only begins on a work’s acceptance. None of us could wish for a better champion.

  Second, to my principal editor, Tara Creel, for her notes, encouragement, and assistance with the overall design of the story; and to my copy editor, Nichole Lavigne, for her hard work in the trenches. Each has brought McGrave’s Hotel much closer to the work I envisioned.

  Third, to the wonderful multitasking Georgia McBride, on behalf of the authors and readers everywhere who have found their way to Month9Books. It’s the home we dreamed of when first facing those blank pages, the home we are so proud to represent.

  I also thank my parents, not only for encouraging my early reading and stabs at creativity, but for introducing me to the very world of McGrave’s Hotel. Theirs was that brash, boozy, big band era played out in hotels and night clubs. Theirs was the Dashiell Hammett world of glamorous dining and dancing and danger. Of course, their danger lay in the tough guys whose clubs Nick and Nora Charles frequented, whereas the danger in McGrave’s lay in denizens of the undead.

  Speaking of spooks, I also found inspiration at the movies, especially the Saturday matinees of my childhood. I particularly loved the classic black and white horror movies that featured multiple monsters, sometimes Frankenstein’s monster, Count Dracula, and the Wolf Man all in the same feature. It is no wonder that I would one day write a story that contained vampires, mummies, oversized spiders, and assorted ghosts and ghoulies. I hope everyone has as much Saturday-afternoon-type fun reading it as I did writing it.

  Steve Bryant

  Steve Bryant is a longtime performer of spooky magic, a veteran author of books of card tricks, and the author of the novel Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show. In the 90s he founded The Little Egypt Gazette, a 40-page online magazine for magicians containing news, reviews, magic tricks, humor, and fiction. The Gazette eventually became a popular blog that has appeared monthly for twenty years along with Steve’s frequent contributions to the country’s two leading magic journals (a recent piece: “Zombieland,” the true story of Dr. Blood’s Zombie Show).

  SAMPLE CHAPTERS:

  ARTIFACTS

  FLEDGLING

  Chapter One

  My name is Jax Murphy, and I’m twelve years old. I live in a small town near Charlotte, North Carolina, and my friends and I are less than two weeks from our last day of sixth grade. We have a big summer planned that should be exciting … and exhausting. Only two more weeks!

  But first, I have to sit through boring days of class after class where all the teacher does in that looooongest forty-five minutes ever is tell you how the school year was harder on him than it was on you. I’ve heard that before!

  I feel like I’m going to explode, and sitting through class these next few days just might kill me, but it’ll all be worth the wait. Don’t take my word for it. Just look around my room.

  Camp brochures are … everywhere!

  Scattered across the bed and floor, unfolded and tacked to my wall, and stapled to the back of my door. Spread out on my desk, numbered from one to fifty depending on which activities I wanted to do first … and starred for how many times I wanted to do them … all the time.

  Only two more weeks!

  I shot a look at the calendar and the first Saturday of summer. The Saturday with the gigantic red circle drawn around it and two of the most awesome words I’ve ever read inside it: Camp Runamuck. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Exclamation point.

  “You might as well go ahead and kiss it, J
ax,” Korie Cecchetti said, crawling through my window. Korie’s a crack-up. Well, she cracks me up. That’s why we’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember.

  “Wait! What?” I jumped back, pretending not to know what she was talking about.

  Korie laughed. “You’re staring at that calendar like you’re in love with it.”

  “Dork,” I said, more embarrassed she had caught me than mad she said something about it. And, of course, I foolishly tried to defend myself. “What do you expect? The five of us are about to have an awesome time at Camp Runamuck running … amuck.”

  I had to be careful to remember how many times I was using the word amuck.

  “It might not be the five of us,” Korie said.

  “What?” I said. I felt like the coyote when catapulted into the side of the cliff when he tried to get the Road Runner.

  Korie shrugged. “Crunch may have to stay behind and go to summer school English.”

  “Crunch is great in English.”

  “Crunch handed in a couple of his brother’s old reports on the books Bartholomew assigned us to read,” Korie explained. “It looks like he’s great at something, but it’s not English.”

  “Holy Hannah!” I said, the room spinning as fast as my whole plan was swirling down the drain. I reached out for the calendar and Korie slid a chair over to break my fall.

  James Bartholomew teaches sixth grade English like a warden runs a prison. It’s his way or the highway, and I was afraid Bartholomew was going to leave poor Crunch splattered like road kill before he was done with him.

  “Is there anything we … I mean he … can do to change it?”

  “I don’t know,” Korie said. “He and his parents have a meeting at the school this morning.”

  “Jax!” my mom called up the stairs. “Are you ready for breakfast?”

  “Be there in a minute,” I yelled down. “You’ve got to get out of here,” I whispered to Korie. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  “And bring Korie with you,” Mom added. “I saw those black high tops pass by my window. Please remind her that next time she comes over, we do have a perfectly good front door for her to use.”

  I nudged Korie. “We do have a perfectly good front door.”

  “Come on.” She elbowed me on the way out of the room and we thundered down the stairs to breakfast.

  “Morning, Mom,” I said, running behind her and kissing the air somewhere in her general direction so Korie didn’t think I was weird.

  “I hope you kids are hungry,” Mom said.

  “Toad,” I said, smacking my younger brother in that big, fat head of his.

  “Good morning, Korie,” Mom said.

  “Morning, Mrs. Murphy,” Korie said, sliding into the chair next to me. “It’s so nice of you to ask me to stay for breakfast.”

  “You stay for breakfast every day.” My dad laughed, coming into the kitchen, kissing my mom and smacking both Toad and me in the back of the head. “Every morning we watch you climb up the trellis outside the kitchen window and into Jax’s window. Hey, next time you go up that trellis, remind me to give you a paintbrush so you can touch up a couple of spots for me.”

  Korie smiled. “Will do, Mr. M.”

  Dad laughed. “Yeah, that just kills me. Once you get caught, you two come rumbling down the stairs like a herd of elephants, pretending like it never happened.”

  Korie looked at him. “Pretending like what never happened?”

  Dad cracked up. “Good girl!”

  “You talking about Jax?” my older sister Dana asked, stumbling down the stairs. “I pretend like he never happened all the time.” She paused. “And we won’t have to pretend if you sign those papers for boarding school I left out for each of you. And I do have copies in case you threw them out. Oh, hi, Korie,” she said sweetly. Then she turned to me. “Creeper.”

  I smiled. “Sister Creature.”

  “Jax, don’t talk to your sister like that,” Mom said.

  “Oh, and Creeper was so much better?” I turned to Dana. “Why are you so nice to Korie and I get Creeper?”

  “I like her,” Dana said. “And she’s not related to me.”

  I fell into her trap. “Which means?”

  “Which means nothing coming out of her mouth can embarrass me,” Dana said. “And everything coming out of your mouth embarrasses me. She’s so cool and you’re so …” She shivered and squirmed rather than answer.

  “I’m … what?” I wasn’t letting this go, but I have to admit I may have forgotten Korie was still in the room.

  Dana snickered. “You’re … you! You dance around the house with your favorite Pixar movies. You’ve watched Goonies and Home Alone like a bazillion times! At least Korie tries to act a little grown up, but …”

  “Butt.” Korie cracked up and fell into me.

  “There goes that argument,” Dad said.

  Dana groaned and went back to her breakfast.

  “You kids finish up,” Mom said. “You’re going to be late.”

  There was a crash at the back door. Followed by a thud, a series of rants and raves, some very loud grumbling and rumbling, and what sounded like a lot of pushing and shoving.

  “The Wahoo brothers,” I told Mom, jumping off the chair and running to the door, trying to get there before they broke it off the hinges.

  The moment I turned the knob, the door flew open and slammed against the side of the cabinet as the Wahoo brothers tumbled into the kitchen.

  Tank and Mouth Wahoo are twins who were born at nearly identical times, but there’s absolutely nothing identical about them.

  Mouth is the smaller, quirkier, and louder of the two. He spends most of his day annoying the crap out of us … and the rest of it running from Tank.

  Tank is ginormous. Nearly five-feet-ten and one hundred and seventy pounds, he’s the biggest kid at our school and has the strength of about five middle schoolers rolled into one.

  It takes a lot to make Tank mad, but if you do, you’d better run.

  And Mouth was usually running … a lot.

  “Hey,” I said, watching them roll around on the floor, struggling to get back to their feet. Finally, Mouth pushed up off Tank’s back and stood up.

  “You gonna lay around there all day?” Mouth said to his brother.

  Tank stood up and glared at Mouth. The glare was followed by a grumble, and that usually meant the battle was going to start again.

  “Why can’t you just meet them at school so my kitchen door doesn’t always get bashed in?” Dad asked.

  “It doesn’t start out that way,” Mouth said. “But Tank’s such a dope, that’s how it usually ends. You should see us at home.”

  “Are you kids excited for the end of school?” Mom asked.

  “End of school nothing,” I said. “We’re ready for the beginning of two weeks away from everybody who makes our life terrible.” I shot a look at Dana.

  Korie smiled. “It seems like we’ve been waiting to go to Camp Runamuck forever.”

  “And Jax, it won’t be long before you and Dana are in high school together.”

  “Oh, kill me now,” Dana said, dropping her head to the kitchen table.

  Toad leaned over to whisper in her ear. “And I’m right behind him.”

  “Come on,” Dad yelled. “Let’s go. Everybody out. School’s not going to wait for you. I want everybody who’s not related to me through that door so I can finish my breakfast in peace. Remember, smiles on your faces and learning in your heart.”

  “Learning in your heart?” Mom asked.

  Dad laughed. “It sounded good in my head.”

  “Dad, I …”

  “You too.” He waved me off. “Get out!”

  Korie and I scrambled toward the door as fast as we could and barely made it out before the rest of them followed.

  Mornings were the most fun part of the day. I could always count on Korie showing up, the Wa
hoo brothers making an entrance that made you feel like you were watching the WWE or roller derby, and I loved when my dad kicked us all out, pretending like he hated every second of it when I knew that he couldn’t live without it.

  Chapter Two

  Stumbling off the porch, Korie, Mouth, Tank, and I jumped on our bikes and rode toward the school. It was going to be a really long day for Crunch and we wanted to make sure we were there to support him.

  Crisscrossing back and forth across the road, Korie and I talked about the next two weeks of school, Camp Runamuck, and how we were going to get Crunch to pass English. We both knew Bartholomew, so even though we were sure there was a way to get Crunch out of it … there’d be a really high price to pay for it.

  The Wahoos were being very Wahoo-like and spent most of the ride arguing and yelling and trying to run each other off the road.

  “I still can’t believe Crunch took his brothers’ reports and handed them into Bartholomew,” I said. “Are we sure that really happened?”

  “No,” Korie shrugged, “but the only other answer would be that his brothers switched their reports for his, knowing he’d get into trouble.”

  “Crunch’s brothers are idiots,” Mouth said. “Sort of like mine.” Mouth swerved waaaaay out to the side to avoid Tank’s reach. “There’s no way they could have come up with a plan to set Crunch up like that.”

  “Yeah,” Tank agreed. “Idiots. They probably copied the papers to start with and then Crunch was dumb enough to copy the copied papers.”

  Crunch’s dad’s car pulled past us. Crunch was sitting quietly in the backseat staring out the window. He half-waved to us and then quickly pulled his hand down before he got caught.

  “He looks like he’s on his way to prison,” I said.