Alice-Miranda in the Alps (4 page)

The children hurried into the reception area, eager for directions to the hotel swimming pool and to find out if there was a games room too. A concierge looked up and greeted them with a smile. ‘Hello there. How may I help you?' he asked.

‘Hello,' Alice-Miranda said. ‘We were hoping to find the pool.'

While they waited for the man to draw them a map, Millie gazed around admiring the decor in the hotel foyer. Her eyes came to rest upon something
shiny poking out from the base of a huge ceramic pot beside the concierge desk. She bent down to pick it up.

‘What's that?' Sloane asked.

Millie shrugged. ‘It looks like a coin, but I don't know where it's from.' She turned it over in her fingers. There was a mountain goat on one side and a cross on the other.

‘You'd better hand it in,' Alice-Miranda suggested.

Millie hesitated for a second. It was so pretty and shiny. ‘Excuse me, sir, I just found this on the floor,' she said, holding up her treasure.

The concierge took it from her and examined the little gold disc. ‘It must have been attached to a box of chocolates. See, there is the goat of the mountains and the cross for the Swiss flag – the symbol on Fanger's Chocolate.'

‘May I keep it?' Millie asked.

‘Of course,' he said, dropping it back into the girl's hand with a friendly smile.

Millie grinned and put it into her jacket pocket. ‘Maybe it will be my good-luck charm.'

The children thanked the man for his help before weaving through the enormous lounge area with its timber ceilings and comfortable leather couches.
There were several groups of tourists enjoying a late afternoon tea.

They followed the concierge's map to a staircase at the far end of the room and scampered down several flights, where they found the entrance to the hotel spa. Huge glass doors led into a cave-like grotto with a gigantic swimming pool. Along its farthest side were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a magnificent view of the lake and the Alps.

‘Look, there's another pool outside,' Sep said as he spied steam rising amid the snow-covered outdoor furniture.

‘Wow – we should try it later,' Sloane said.

‘It's supposed to be really good for you to run through the snow and then leap into the hot water,' Alice-Miranda said.

Millie shivered at the thought. ‘No, thank you.'

Alice-Miranda grinned at her friend. ‘Maybe we could ice-skate on the tennis courts instead. Daddy said they freeze over in the winter, so it's impossible to play, and they use it as a skating rink instead.'

The children walked into the pool area to take a closer look.

‘It must be boiling.' Millie leaned down and dipped her hand in. ‘Yup, it's sort of like the
onsen
in Tokyo except we'll get to keep our clothes on this time.'

Jacinta cringed. ‘Don't remind me. That was the most embarrassing day of my life.'

‘I wish I could have been there,' Sloane said.

‘Trust me,' Millie replied, ‘that's one experience you wouldn't mind missing out on.'

Sloane and Sep sat down on two of the reclining lounge chairs beside the pool. The other kids quickly joined them.

‘Who wants to go for a swim after dinner?' Jacinta asked.

There was a chorus of yeses as hands shot up in the air.

‘Maybe we could go ice-skating tomorrow night,' Alice-Miranda suggested.

‘We should visit the Cresta Run tomorrow too, because they don't do it every day,' Sep added.

Alice-Miranda nodded. She glanced at the clock above the door and was surprised to find it was already quarter to six. ‘Oops,' she said, jumping up. ‘We'd better get going. We have to meet the adults in ten minutes.'

‘That looks like a short cut,' Jacinta said. She pointed to a sign on a door labelled ‘Lounge', just to the left of the spa reception.

‘Are you sure?' Millie said doubtfully. ‘What does it say on the map, Alice-Miranda?'

‘Well, I can't really tell,' the child replied, trying to decipher the concierge's scribbles.

‘We might as well give it a go,' Lucas said, heading for the door.

The rest of them followed him down the passage to a door where a man in black had just walked through. The boy caught the handle before it closed. They scooted inside, none of them noticing the ‘Private' sign which had fallen off and was lying facedown on the floor.

They walked along an empty hallway, the decor having deteriorated significantly from the beautifully panelled walls and luxurious light fittings.

Sloane fidgeted nervously. ‘Maybe we should just go back the way we came,' she whispered.

‘Why? Are you scared?' Jacinta teased.

The girl lifted her chin. ‘No. It's just that this doesn't exactly look like the rest of the hotel,' Sloane replied.

The children walked to the end of a hallway and turned left. Halfway along the passage they came upon a lift and piled inside.

Millie frowned at the four buttons on the panel. ‘Which level do you think we're on?' she asked.

‘Well, our rooms are on the eighth floor,' Alice-Miranda said, ‘but I think Daddy mentioned that reception is on the fourth. So …'

‘Let's try the top one,' Sep said just as his sister hit the button for the second floor.

The doors closed but, instead of going up as they expected, it felt like they were going down. The lift soon shuddered to a halt and the doors peeled back to reveal a large storeroom. There were green sacks piled up in one corner, and crates of wine and champagne, foldaway beds, discarded furniture and various bric-a-brac crammed in all over the place.

‘Hold the door and I'll try to figure out where we are,' Lucas said, stepping out of the lift.

‘I don't really like it down here,' Sloane said, biting on her thumbnail.

Sep rolled his eyes at her. ‘Well, then you shouldn't have pressed the button.'

‘We're in the loading dock,' Lucas called back to them. ‘I think this is where the chocolate is delivered.'

‘How do you know that?' Jacinta asked.

‘There's boxes and boxes of it,' the boy replied.

At the mention of chocolate, Millie shot out of the lift and around the corner, with Alice-Miranda
and the others following close behind her. Stacks of large white boxes bearing the Fanger's Chocolate logo sat alongside crates of champagne.

Jacinta grinned. ‘My mother's two favourite things.'

‘These must be the award-winning carriers,' Alice-Miranda said, studying the temperature controls on the side of the sturdy-looking boxes.

‘Fancy another taste?' Lucas asked as he undid the clip locks on one of the carriers. Inside were rows of beautifully wrapped chocolate bars. He reached in to take one. ‘Whoa, look at the size of them.'

‘Lucas!' Alice-Miranda scolded. ‘They're not for us.'

The boy looked at his cousin and then at Jacinta, who shook her head at him. He sighed and put the lid back on. ‘I guess we couldn't eat that much chocolate, anyway.'

Millie wrinkled her nose. ‘I'd have given it a try,' she muttered.

‘Come on, we should go,' Sep said. The parents would be wondering where they had got to, and he was beginning to think guests probably weren't supposed to hang out in the loading dock.

As the children turned to leave, the large roller-shutter at the end of the room sprang to life. The
beeps of a reversing vehicle filtered in from outside. Panicked, Jacinta grabbed Lucas's hand and ran to the lift. ‘Let's get out of here!' she whispered.

‘Keep your hair on,' Sloane said, scampering after the pair. ‘I thought I was the one who was supposed to be scared.'

Alice-Miranda, Sep and Millie quickly hid behind the mountain of chocolate boxes and watched as the tail-lights of a van came into view. A tall man with a spindly moustache wearing a thick parka and grey beanie jumped out of the driver's seat. He was talking to himself in German and he didn't sound happy.

‘
Wo ist die blöde Kuh?
' he grumbled as he opened the back doors of the van.

‘Hurry up, you lot,' Jacinta hissed from inside the lift.

The man spun around and peered into the storeroom. ‘
Wer ist da?
' he called out. ‘Frau Doerflinger?'

Millie grimaced. ‘I really don't want to see that woman again, and I have a feeling she won't be thrilled to see us down here, either.'

The man grunted, then turned back to the van and began to unload the chocolate boxes.

Millie, Sep and Alice-Miranda silently crept towards the lift to join the others. The doors closed,
and before anyone could work out which button to press, the lift jolted into action. It came to a halt just one floor up. As it stopped, the children could hear a familiar voice outside.

‘I have told you I am about to make an offer he cannot refuse,' the woman said confidently. ‘Of course I am aware of what will happen. I do not take kindly to threats.'

The doors sprang open and the children came face to face with Frau Doerflinger. The woman looked as if she had just seen a ghost – or six of them.

‘What are
you
doing in here?' she rasped.

Recovering quickly, Alice-Miranda smiled. ‘Hello Frau Doerflinger. We thought this might be a short cut to the lounge but I'm afraid we're a little lost.'

The veins in the woman's neck seemed to be pulsating with her every breath. ‘This area is private!' she said accusingly. ‘The doors are marked as such and they are locked too.'

‘I'm so sorry, but we didn't see a sign on the door downstairs,' Alice-Miranda explained. ‘And it was open.'

‘Liar.' Delphine suddenly remembered the phone in her hand and raised it to her ear. ‘I will call you back. I have some
children
to deal with first.'

The way she said ‘children' sent a shiver up Jacinta's spine.

‘Alice-Miranda's not a liar!' Millie objected. ‘There wasn't a sign and the door wasn't locked. Was it, Lucas?'

The boy shook his head, though it occurred to him that perhaps he'd caught it before it had closed properly.

‘This is
my
hotel and you will play by
my
rules,' Delphine snapped, her face fast taking on a crimson hue.

‘What happened to “the customer is always right”?' Sloane quipped.

Delphine recoiled. ‘You are
not
my customers. You are spoiled brats whose parents pay for everything. When you make your own money and stay in my hotel, then I will consider you my customers.'

Sloane gulped and Millie blanched. Frau Doerflinger clearly wasn't to be messed with.

‘Where have you been?' the woman demanded.

The children exchanged glances. Lucas stepped forward, keen to diffuse the situation before they ended up on the street for the night. ‘We're terribly sorry if we are somewhere we shouldn't be. We just rode the lift down and back up again.'

‘And we saw –' Sloane began before Millie swiftly elbowed her in the ribs. ‘Ow! What did you do that for?'

Millie made a face at her, willing the girl to keep quiet.

Frau Doerflinger narrowed her eyes at them. ‘What did you see?' she demanded.

‘Nothing,' Sloane squeaked, shaking her head vigorously.

‘Honestly, Frau Doerflinger, there was no sign or we wouldn't have come this way. If you could show us how to get back upstairs, we'd be most appreciative.' Lucas flashed her his winning grin.

Delphine's lips twitched and she sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. ‘For a start, you can get out of that lift,' she snapped.

The children obediently spilled into the hallway. Frau Doerflinger waited for the doors to close before leading them up a staircase at the end of the passage. She flung open a door into a lobby that none of the children recognised.

‘Where are we?' Jacinta asked.

Delphine Doerflinger closed the door and pointed at the word ‘Private' printed on it in large black letters. ‘There was no sign, was there?'

‘There wasn't one downstairs,' Jacinta retorted, unrepentant.

The woman huffed and walked off along another timber-panelled corridor.

‘Where's the door?' Sloane muttered as they reached the end of it. She was beginning to think Frau Doerflinger was actually leading them to some sort of dungeon.

Delphine waved a white card over an invisible sensor and the panel pivoted.

‘Whoa,' Sep marvelled, impressed. He wondered if all hotels had secret passageways like this. It probably helped the staff move around without being noticed.

The children found themselves in the hallway near the concierge desk. Alice-Miranda's parents reached the bottom of the staircase just as the children appeared.

‘Goodness, where did you lot come from?' Hugh said, blinking in surprise. ‘I could have sworn you weren't there a second ago.'

‘We got lost and Frau Doerflinger kindly helped us find our way back upstairs,' Alice-Miranda explained.

Delphine Doerflinger's face melted into a smile as she approached Hugh and Cecelia. ‘The poor little
mites had got themselves so confused,' she said with a laugh.

Sloane glanced at Jacinta, who shrugged. The woman was clearly unhinged.

‘Thank you, Frau Doerflinger. I hope they didn't cause you any trouble,' Hugh said. He did his best to give the children the hairy eyeball but he wasn't very good at it.

‘There you are, my darling,' Otto Fanger sang out, waddling into the room. ‘I've been looking for you all over the place.'

‘I'm afraid the children are to blame,' Cecelia apologised.

‘Please, Madame Highton-Smith, Delphine would not have minded one little bit. She loves children. Don't you, my petal?'

‘Newsflash,' Millie whispered. ‘No, she doesn't.'