by Lisa Nicol
‘You’re okay, Min,’ he said, holding her to his chest and stroking her. ‘My name’s Vincent.’ Min looked right at him with her big brown eyes and furrowed brow. Her tiny tail wagged like crazy against his hand.
If Vincent’s time at The Grandest Hotel on Earth had ended then and there, he still would have been the happiest boy in the world.
‘Rrr-righto, if everyone’s selected their pocket dogs, we’ll head off to Guest Transport, shall we? This way.’ Rupert trotted down the front steps of the hotel.
Vincent popped Min in his top pocket, slurped on a drink till his straw made rude sounds and, humming with excitement, headed off with the group.
CHAPTER 5
THE GRAND TOUR AND ABANDONED DREAMS
‘That’s it, everyone. Come on in, there’s plenty of rrr-room. Now because there’s a lot of ground to cover on a grand tour we like to use jet packs.’ Rupert gestured to a wall lined with racks of space-age-looking, rocket-shaped backpacks. He used his cabin-crew double-hand signal again as if pointing out the overhead lockers. Rupert seemed to enjoy hand signals immensely. ‘Luckily rrr-riding a llama comes quite naturally to most of our guests,’ said Rupert. He flicked both his hands across to the other side of the room where a line of shaggy llamas sat chewing on clumps of grass. The long-necked creatures stared at the guests, who were now staring back at them. ‘But jet packs can be tricky,’ continued Rupert, flicking both hands back again, which really did seem like overkill as it was hard to imagine any guests might still be confused as to which was a jet pack and which was a llama.
‘Without a bit of jet-pack practice we end up with guests dropping out of the sky like Santa Claus in a cyclone.’
A member of the transport staff began fitting out Vincent with his jet pack. He had to keep reminding himself what was really happening. I am about to fly! I am actually about to fly! He placed his forearms along the armrests, which jutted out the front, and wrapped his hands around the control sticks. The jet pack was so light! Not much heavier than his schoolbag.
‘Don’t push any buttons or move the control sticks till we’re outside,’ instructed Rupert and almost on cue Max shot up to the ceiling and stuck there, like a dragonfly trying to escape through a skylight.
‘Aaargh!’ cried Max, who was for some reason now pedalling as if he was riding a bike.
‘Oh, quick! Somebody help him!’ cried his mother, who immediately started moving the control sticks in both her hands every which way, sending herself flying about the room like a rapidly deflating balloon.
Vincent and the guests ducked.
The llamas looked up.
‘Excuse me,’ said an annoyed-looking businessman, clutching his phone over his head, ‘how long’s all this going to take? I’ve got calls to make.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Rupert, crouching on the floor with his hands over his bald head, ‘you’ll have time for that later, Mr Cash. Now, Max, move the stick in your left hand towards you. Slowly.’
Max dropped straight down onto the floor like a drone with a flat battery. Luckily, the floor was soft. Probably for this type of incident. There’s always one. More often two.
‘Slowly,’ repeated Rupert, turning to the boy’s mother, who was now stuck up in the far corner of the room, facing the wall.
‘Left hand towards you, madam. Gently now!’
Slowly, Max’s mother sort of slid down the wall like a blob of something runny. (I was hoping to leave what sort of blob up to your imagination, but my co-author is in my ear saying that I should just call a ‘blob of snot’ a ‘blob of snot’ and be done with it. He’s probably right.) Vincent offered Max’s mother a hand up. The poor woman looked like she wanted to curl up and go to sleep and never wake up.
‘Rrr-right we are then,’ said Rupert. ‘Let’s get out into the open and have a go, shall we?’
Once outside, the guests placed their pocket dogs on the lawn and started practising. Vincent noticed a young girl with a patch over one eye and a very wobbly walk. She looked particularly delighted as she flew around free of her wobbles.
‘Just rrr-remember, left hand up and down, rrr-right hand all around and you should be fine,’ instructed Rupert through a megaphone, which he seemed to be enjoying almost as much as his hand signals.
For someone who’d never even ridden a bike, Vincent got the hang of it remarkably quickly. Before long he’d mastered take-offs and landings and was flying around in circles a few metres above the ground. The feeling was unbelievable. I’m flying! I really am flying!
Vincent tried to help the ski-jump-for-a-nose boys as they shot up and down like plump frogs attached to backyard fireworks.
‘Waaagh!’ Clunk.
‘Waaagh!’ Clunk. Thump.
‘Waaagh!’ Clunk. Thump. Clunk.
But they ignored Vincent and instead became extremely annoyed.
‘These jet packs suck,’ complained one of the boys. ‘They don’t work properly!’
‘Yeah!’ said another. ‘And we’d know. We’ve flown jet packs millions of times on Battle for Beejaa III.’
‘In which case I think a discount is in order,’ insisted their father.
Rupert explained that flying a jet pack in a game was quite different to real life.
‘You’re just too FAT!’ yelled Max.
‘Oh! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry so,’ babbled Max’s mother, incoherent with embarrassment.
‘You should be!’ screeched Mrs Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose. ‘My boys may be a little on the chubby side, but your son is a fully fledged lunatic.’
While the hotel was otherworldly, Vincent felt like the guests were all too familiar.
Once the squabbling died down and everyone was able to use their jet packs reasonably well, The Grand tour got underway. With Rupert in the lead the guests took off and fell into a V formation just like a flock of geese. Once they’d reached the far side of the lake Rupert signalled for everyone to land.
‘Marvellous! Just a few wet feet.’ Rupert twiddled his blown-about moustache back into position. ‘Now this beautiful island in the middle of the lake is called Fin’s Island. And it’s quite unique! Due to a freakish yet most fortunate coming together of rrr-rare climactic irregularities, it has developed its own microclimate. Despite being almost 3500 metres above sea level, it’s a very small tropical rrr-rainforest. Completely unheard of at this altitude. We’ve had all sorts of botanists and biologists and climate scientists here and none of them can explain it. Which is exactly how we like it at The Grand. There’s nothing grander than a mystery. Who wants everything to be explainable, I ask you?’
‘I do. I hate mysteries,’ declared Mrs Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose. ‘I prefer to know absolutely everything.’
‘Quite. Now the island is home to over fifty orangutans,’ continued Rupert, ‘and a large colony of sloths.’
‘Sloths! OMG, I love sloths. Daddy, can I swap my pocket dogs for a sloth, can I?’ Chelsea pulled the two dogs out of her pocket and roughly shoved them into her father’s chest.
‘The sloths stay on the island, I’m afraid,’ explained Rupert. ‘They’re complete homebodies and not the least bit fond of travelling.’
Chelsea snatched back her pocket dogs and pulled a face.
‘I sympathise with you, Chelsea. We’re all big sloth lovers here at The Grand,’ said Rupert. ‘Make sure you get along to one of our “Find Your Inner Sloth” classes rrr-run by our sloth-keeper, Fin. They start most days around three. You can pedal across or canoe.’ Rupert pointed to a gaggle of white swan pedal boats and Indian-style canoes.
‘Rrr-righto, everyone. Let’s move on. We’ve got lots of ground to cover.’ Rupert and the guests took off again. As they flew along, Rupert pointed out some of the 350 species of bird and 1300 animals that called The Grand home. The variety of inhabitants was far more weird and wonderful than any African game park. There were giraffes, kangaroos, gazelles, camels, bears and now hippos. Rupert explained how all the animals had come from illegal zoos or be
en snatched from the clutches of poachers. Apparently Florence’s Aunt Jane, a famous animal-rights warrior, had single-handedly rescued each and every one. ‘The climate here means she can bring in animals from almost anywhere on Earth.’
‘She can’t be that famous,’ interrupted Chelsea still sulking about the sloths, ‘I’ve never heard of her!’
‘Well, Aunt Jane is not one to blow her own trumpet, Chelsea. In her line of work it doesn’t pay to be rrr-recognised. When you’re trying to outrun a pack of rrr-rhino poachers with AK-47s, it helps if you can blend in with the crowd.’
‘Why’s that man vacuuming the grass?’ asked Max, pointing to a person below. Vincent looked down. There was a man and he did appear to be vacuuming the grass.
‘He’s not vacuuming,’ explained Rupert. ‘He’s one of our pooper-scoopers.’
‘Pooper-scoopers?’
‘Yes. Pooper-scoopers. You’ll see them all over the hotel because there’s just nothing grand about stepping in poop! Particularly elephant poop!’
Vincent switched his jet pack onto autopilot and looked down through his binoculars. While he would have taken any job he’d been offered at The Grand, he felt a mild flush of relief that he was going to be shining shoes and not scooping up elephant poop.
‘Elephant poo! Hahahahah! Elephant poo! Can I have a go?’ laughed Max. ‘I’d like to suck up a big sloppy elephant poo and then slam it into reverse and shoot it into the sky! What a poo storm that would cause! Hahahahaha! Get it? POO STORM … Hahahaha!’ Max made a noise that sounded like a cross between a plop and a machine gun. PLOO PLOO PLOO PLOO PLOO PLOO!
‘MAX!’ screeched his mother.
‘Elephant poo’s not sloppy, Max, it’s quite firm. Now did I mention the birdwatching here at The Grand? It’s Absolutely spectacular!’ said Rupert, obviously eager to steer the conversation away from poo. ‘Hence the binoculars! See that meadow of wildflowers?’ Double hand signal to the right. ‘That’s Hummingbird Heath. If you look closely, you’ll see it’s absolutely thick with hummingbirds. In summer the humming’s so loud it sounds like a motorcycle grand prix.’
On they flew over orchards filled with exotic fruits, a huge skate park and go-kart track, an ice rink, roller rink and every sort of court and field you could imagine. A huge outdoor chessboard with pieces the size of well-fed toddlers. A series of swimming pools with waves, waterfalls and slides tossing children into the air like pizza dough. A fun park, hot springs, giant swings, trampolines and trapezes and the surrounding mountains themselves full of hiking tracks, boulders to climb and slopes to ski. There was even a platform halfway up for hang-gliding, parachuting and any other reckless activities that involved hurling yourself off the side of a mountain.
After a banquet lunch at Tenzing – the rotating glass restaurant at the top of Mount Mandalay – and afternoon tea with dozy snow monkeys at the hot springs, Rupert thought it was almost time to get everyone settled in their rooms. ‘Rrr-righto,’ he said, ‘we’ve time for one last stop.’
What else could there possibly be? wondered Vincent.
Vincent and the other guests followed Rupert on foot to a faraway field.
‘Here we are,’ declared Rupert.
Where’s here? thought Vincent, swatting away overgrown grasses that were tickling the backs of his knees like annoying flies. All he could see were rusty old bits of machinery and piles of rubbish.
‘What is this place?’ spat Mrs Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose nervously. ‘Why on earth have you brought us here? It’s nothing but a dump.’
Vincent found himself agreeing with Mrs Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose. Why would Rupert bring us to the hotel dump?
‘I’ve no reception!’ whined a ski-jump-for-a-nose boy.
‘Me neither,’ said another.
As the guests expressed a chorus of dissatisfaction, Vincent walked around. He started noticing that what at first glance had looked like piles of rubbish were in fact small shrines. Pyramids of beautifully balanced stones and deadwood and broken things. Some had flags on top fashioned out of faded bits of clothing. Others a rusted toy robot, an old dog collar, a large button cracked by the sun. Vincent felt a strange sensation, as if something passed through him. He shivered. Must be a cold breeze coming off the mountain.
‘This is our Junkyard of Broken and Abandoned Dreams,’ declared Rupert. ‘Here you can find new dreams or lay some of your old ones to rrr-rest.’
Most of the guests looked as if they had just been presented with a detailed explanation of intergalactic black holes. Including Vincent. He couldn’t imagine at all how a junkyard of dreams could possibly work. Or why a fancy hotel like The Grand would have one. How do you get rid of dreams? And why would you want to? Weren’t dreams a good thing? Vincent thought the hours he whiled away dreaming were often the times he enjoyed the most.
And then he felt it again. That strange sensation of something passing through him. Right through him. Could it be a dream? Could I have walked through someone’s discarded dream? The thought unnerved Vincent. He found it a little creepy and strange and he was keen to move on.
‘You call this grand?’ screeched Mrs Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose. ‘You’d have to have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock to call this dump grand! I don’t care how big the buffet breakfast is. Boys, we’re leaving!’
‘Not without a full refund,’ chipped in Mr Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose.
‘I know it doesn’t look very grand,’ Rupert reassured everyone, ‘but that’s because we make the mistake of thinking grand is all about size or luxury. When rrr-really grand has nothing to do with either and everything to do with soothing the soul. Which is why we like to say sometimes everyone deserves a bit of grand.’
Vincent remembered what Florence had said at the station: You can’t understand how we do grand until you experience it for yourself. His mind rumbled and churned like a tropical storm cloud.
Rupert fired up his jet pack and ascended a few metres into the air. ‘Rrr-right we are then. Let’s head back and get you lot settled.’
CHAPTER 6
ROOMS
Back at the front desk, Rupert began allocating rooms for the new guests. ‘How we do this is I make suggestions and you pick whatever rrr-room appeals,’ he explained.
‘First, Mrs Peters. I think you and Max might enjoy our Inflatable Rrr-room.’ Rupert always recommended the Inflatable Room to families with children who couldn’t be left alone for a second without wreaking havoc and raining down disaster upon everyone. Then their parents could take a load off and have a small drink in the lounge, knowing their darling little hellraisers were safe and sound and not getting up to any mischief that might break the bank of China. ‘Every piece of furniture is inflatable. Max, you can bounce off the walls as much as you like in there. Alternatively there’s the Fluffy Rrr-room where everything’s fluffy. Or the Pouch Rrr-room. Both wonderfully calming.’
‘THE INFLATABLE ROOM! THE INFLATABLE ROOM!’ yelled Max.
A completely frazzled Mrs Peters looked relieved and decided the Inflatable Room would be perfect. Rupert winked at her and leant across the front desk. ‘Did I mention it is completely fireproof too?’ he whispered. ‘He could throw a Molotov cocktail in there and nothing would so much as smoulder.’
Mrs Peters exhaled and did her best to arrange her exhausted face into a smile. It had been so long her facial muscles struggled to recall what to do.
A porter scooped Max up onto his shoulders, grabbed their bags and off they went. Max could be heard yelling ‘Giddy up!’ and ‘Faster faster!’ until they disappeared out of sight.
Next up were an old man and his granddaughter. Vincent couldn’t help but notice they had the saddest eyes.
‘Ah, Grandpa Peach and lovely Lily. Oh, how we love grandparents at The Grand! I guess that’s stating the obvious. Now how about the Levitation Rrr-room? Incredibly uplifting! Or the Laughter Rrr-room? As long as you’re not wearing tight clothing or you’ll burst your buttons. Oh no,’ said Rupert, consulting the book
ings book again. ‘You’re here for a week. More than a night in the Laughter Rrr-room is exhausting. What about our Sparkles Rrr-room? You’ve never seen anything quite as sparkly. And the bathroom’s full of lovely sparkly things – sparkly lip gloss, sparkly shampoo, even the bathwater twinkles. It’s phosphorescence, all natural. Just switch off the lights before you jump in. And there’s sparkly bathrobes too of course.’
The sparkly bathrobes clinched it and Grandpa Peach and Lily practically twinkled themselves as they headed off to their room.
Next up was the little girl with the wobbly walk and her mother, who clutched her hand tight as a bird’s claws on a branch in high winds.
‘Ah, April! I have just the rrr-room for you,’ said Rupert. ‘It’s the Baby Memories Rrr-room, where you can rrr-remember absolutely everything since the minute you were born. Your first cuddle, your first warm bath, the first time you heard a bird! Wondrous!’
Vincent thought remembering meeting his mum and dad for the first time would be incredible! I wonder what I was thinking?
Rupert bent down and whispered in April’s ear ‘It’s one of our most special rrr-rooms only available for our most special guests.’
April smiled and looked up at her mum, who nodded.
‘Oh look, here comes Polly,’ said Rupert. ‘She’ll take you to your rrr-room.’ A tiny pony trotted over. She had on a large headdress – a dramatic pinwheel of red and turquoise beads and magnificent eagle feathers. April wrapped her arms around the pony’s neck. An attendant appeared, lifted her up onto Polly’s back and off they trotted to the Baby Memories Room.
Next up was the D’Silva family (previously known as the Ski-Jump-for-a-Nose family, which – I’ll admit – was a tad rude and disrespectful but, as my co-author pointed out, frighteningly accurate.) None of the D’Silvas had been the least bit impressed with The Grand. The boys barely looked up from their phones while Mr and Mrs D’Silva seemed to find a problem with pretty much everything. Apparently they’d stayed in every single one of the world’s most expensive hotels – a piece of information they were extremely skilled at dropping into every conversation. You could have asked them for the time and their answer still would have begun with: ‘Well, when we were staying at The Royal Palace in Morocco … Blah blah blah.’ You get the idea, right?