A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  We were all relieved to get back to the warmth of the playroom, but nobody except Carolyn was in the mood for sitting around quietly doing arts and crafts. It wasn’t long before a scissor fight broke out between Don and Gracie, in which Gracie lost a lock of hair and Don one of the tails of his untucked shirt. Gracie used all sorts of swear words I was sure her mother had no idea she knew.

  Once we’d finally managed to separate the two brawlers (and confiscated the scissors), Don came out with one of his ominous threats. “Gracie Barnbrooke shouldn’t think she’s going to get away with ruining my shirt like that. She’s going to wish she’d never been born.” He glared at me. “Tell her that!”

  I turned to Gracie. “Don says he’s glad he came to the playroom today, otherwise he’d never have got to know you. And he’s very sorry about your hair,” I translated rather freely.

  Gracie crossed her arms. “Fine. Tell him I accept his apology. Because he’s got nice eyes, and I think good boys are boring anyway.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “This is where pink tulle and purple glitter gets you. You fall in love with a bad boy, you get your heart broken, and you end up in the place where feminism goes to die.” She really was in a bad way.

  I turned back to Don. “Amy says Gracie may look cute, but in the playground this summer she broke a boy’s shoulder when he tried to pick a fight with her. And then there was that time she broke a little girl’s nose. But Gracie says that was an accident.”

  “Really?” Don gulped, visibly affected by this news, as Gracie batted her eyelashes.

  “He can teach me some swear words if he wants,” she offered. “My mom can’t stop me saying words she doesn’t understand. Ask him how you say ‘horseshit’ in German.”

  I turned to Don again. “Her mum’s afraid she’ll never be able to manage her temper and will end up killing someone one day, but Gracie says she’s got it under control. And she asked me to ask you how to say ‘horseshit’ in German.”

  There was nothing more I could do for Gracie. But that was probably enough to put Don off his revenge schemes for the time being. He was looking at Gracie with a lot more respect now, anyway. And he was clearly confused by the way she was smiling at him with her head on one side, coquettishly twiddling a lock of hair around her finger. Lost in thought, he rubbed his shoulder.

  “It’s all a question of communication,” I told Amy contentedly. “Perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding between you and Aiden.”

  But I didn’t get a chance to explain my theory because at that moment Gordon Montfort appeared in the doorway, together with the Yegorov family. Their bodyguard wasn’t with them; he must have been waiting outside somewhere. I’d noticed he was extremely discreet—he was so good at staying out of sight that I’d never even seen him with the Yegorovs. But presumably that was all part of the job description for a bodyguard.

  Ben’s dad entered the room without saying hello, while Viktor Yegorov gave us all a friendly nod as he came in. Stella Yegorov positioned herself decoratively in the doorway.

  I hadn’t seen Ben’s dad since Christmas Eve, not even from a distance, so I was rather alarmed to suddenly find myself in the same room as him. The things he’d said on Sunday, and the profound contempt with which he’d said them, came flooding back to me. I realized I was instinctively trying to make myself smaller in the hope he’d ignore me, as he’d always done before.

  “This,” he said in English, with a sweeping gesture around the room, “is our little playroom. Liz Taylor’s offspring played here, you know.”

  Really? Or had he just made that up? Stella Yegorov didn’t seem particularly impressed. She still had her little dog with her, this time stuffed into a silver crocodile-skin handbag that matched her silver stilettos. Together with her elegant backless jumpsuit, it was the perfect outfit for the red carpet at the Oscars.

  The little dog gave a shrill yap, and Faye and the thriller writer’s sons, who had been chasing one another around the table, stopped abruptly and stared at it in fascination.

  “Does it have batteries?” Elias asked, but Stella Yegorov clearly felt it beneath her dignity to reply. To be fair, she hadn’t understood a word he’d said.

  Little Dasha gripped her father’s hand as hard as she could and pressed her curly head against his leg.

  “This rocking horse dates back to 1898,” Montfort explained in his booming voice. “It was made especially for the hotel.” The playroom was indeed a treasure trove of vintage toys: the doll’s house, the carved wooden Punch-and-Judy puppets, the out-of-tune piano, and the various tin toys were all antique. Collectors would have been horrified to see our children actually playing with them.

  “Hello.” Carolyn had stood up from her child-sized chair and was brushing glitter off her pants. “What can I do for you?”

  Gordon Montfort turned toward her for a moment. “This is our brilliant education professional, Ms.…”

  “Imhoff,” said Carolyn. “We always say hello, by the way, when we come into the playroom.”

  “Quite right.” Gordon Montfort cleared his throat and then, turning to Viktor Yegorov, continued: “Ms. Imhoff is a qualified kindergarten teacher and highly experienced. She has excellent credentials.”

  Viktor Yegorov nodded and smiled, and carried Dasha over to the rocking horse. His wife gave a deep sigh and drummed her long fingernails on the wood of the door frame.

  “The thing is, Ms.—er—Imhoff,” said Gordon Montfort. “The … um … Smirnov family needs a qualified education professional to look after little Dasha. One-on-one.”

  Carolyn frowned. “Does the little girl have a physical disability or learning difficulties?”

  “What?” Gordon Montfort sniffed. “No, of course not! She is just a very special child of very special parents, and she needs very special care. Which you can provide.”

  “She can come and join our motley crew,” said Carolyn amiably. “I’m sure she’ll like it here.”

  “No, no, no.” Gordon Montfort was clearly getting frustrated with Carolyn’s failure to understand him. “First of all, the girl can’t speak any German—she only speaks Russian—and secondly she’s not used to other children.”

  “I wouldn’t be any use when it comes to Russian, I’m afraid,” said Carolyn politely. “And from a pedagogical perspective, it really isn’t advisable to isolate a child in that way. At her age, she needs to be spending time with other children. Fortunately, children have a universal language among themselves, so they can understand each other no matter where they come from.”

  “I’m afraid you are missing the point!” cried Montfort. “You will be working with the girl on a one-on-one basis. Naturally, Mr.—er—Smirnov will pay you extra for your services. You will make yourself available to the family as a private nanny from nine in the morning until, let’s say, ten at night. Is that so hard to comprehend? You should feel flattered and be grateful to the Smirnovs.”

  But nothing could have been further from Carolyn’s mind. “What about the other children?” she wanted to know.

  The dreaded vein of rage on the hotelier’s head began to swell. But at this point, Viktor Yegorov, who was pushing Dasha on the rocking horse, shot us a puzzled glance, and Gordon Montfort’s face smoothed out as if by magic, his mouth twisting into a benevolent smile.

  “This is not your own private kindergarten, Ms.—er—,” he went on, in such an effusively friendly voice that anyone who didn’t speak German would have thought he was paying Carolyn a gushing compliment. I had no idea how he managed it. He certainly was a very accomplished actor. “You don’t make the rules here. I do. And if I say you will look after Dasha one-on-one, I don’t expect you to argue with me in front of the guests, but to nod politely and be grateful for the extra income.”

  Carolyn raised both eyebrows and was about to reply, but Gordon Montfort lifted his hand and said, “I’m not finished. As for as the other children, the intern can take over here for the time being.” He cocked his chin at m
e, and I flinched as if he’d hit me.

  Carolyn’s eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hair.

  In the meantime, little Faye had also gone skipping over to the rocking horse. “I want to ride, too!” she chirped. With a smile, Viktor Yegorov lifted her up behind his daughter, and both girls squealed with joy as the horse started rocking.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying, Ms.—er—Imhoff?” Montfort had lowered his voice even further. Although he was still smiling, the look in his eyes was chilling. I had to clamp my teeth together to stop them from chattering.

  “Yes, I understand.” Instead of recoiling from Montfort, Carolyn leaned forward slightly and looked him straight in the eye. “But I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. On no account will I work as a private nanny for people who stuff dogs into handbags, no matter how much they’re paying me.” She spoke quietly but firmly, and the smile slowly faded from the hotelier’s face. “You employ me to work in the playroom from nine till four thirty, and I’m not willing to do any more than that. In fact, the only reason I’m doing this job over the holidays is because my mother worked for your mother, and she’d be sad to think I wasn’t carrying on the tradition. She loved Castle in the Clouds.”

  At the other end of the room, the oligarch was lifting Dasha and Faye off the rocking horse and kneeling on the floor with them, but everybody else in the room was following the exchange between Montfort and Carolyn with great interest. Only Stella Yegorov looked deeply bored as she examined her fingernails.

  “You really want to start an argument with me? Do you know how many kindergarten teachers would jump at the chance to work here?” Grouchy Gordon couldn’t control himself any longer. The vein of rage was bulging on his forehead again.

  “Go on, then! Fire me.”

  Carolyn was my new idol. She was without a doubt the bravest person in the world. I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

  Gordon Montfort was absolutely stunned. His hands grabbed the empty air in front of him as if throttling an imaginary neck. I had no idea what he would have done next in his fury if Viktor Yegorov hadn’t appeared at his side. Smiling, he pointed to his daughter, who was sitting on the floor with Faye, feeding a doll with an imaginary spoon. Would it be all right to bring Dasha here tomorrow to play with the other children for a couple of hours, he inquired politely, since she was having such a lovely time?

  Don spoke for all of us who’d been following the showdown between the hotelier and the kindergarten teacher when he let out a short “Ha!” Stella Yegorov muttered something in Russian that I assumed was “Can we go now?” Meanwhile, Gordon Montfort had somehow managed to get the vein of rage to subside and had plastered on a beaming smile. “That was going to be my next suggestion!” he cried enthusiastically. “I’m sure these little rascals will be only too glad to welcome Dasha to the playroom and help make her feel at home.”

  The little rascals—those of them who understood English, anyway—nodded eagerly. Carolyn smiled obligingly, and the Yegorovs left with Dasha, who waved good-bye happily as she went. Gordon Montfort followed them. But just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he turned to face us again.

  “You may think you’ve won, Ms.… er … But this is not over,” he said quietly. “I won’t tolerate rebelliousness in my staff.” His icy gaze fell on me. “And you! What are you thinking, turning up to work in your own clothes? Go and get changed immediately, or you can pack your bags.” With that, he went on his way at last, and I slumped into my chair, exhausted.

  17

  The next day, when things truly began to go wrong, I would have remained calm, I really would have. After all, it wasn’t the first time I’d mislaid a pair of children while on day-care duty. Anyway, Monsieur Rocher had told me lost things always turned up again sooner or later at Castle in the Clouds—and everybody knew Monsieur Rocher was always right. Plus, it wasn’t as if the children had run away from me personally. They’d just disappeared under rather unfortunate circumstances that nobody could possibly hold me responsible for. Nevertheless, I was the one who’d suggested the game of hide-and-seek, and the fact that we hadn’t found them yet was probably thanks to the excellent tips I’d given them. There were hundreds of hiding places in this hotel, even for adults. When it came to small children, the possibilities were endless.

  Like I said, I would have remained calm. If it hadn’t been for that thriller writer piping up with his kidnapping theory and sending me into a total panic.

  The day had started badly. As usual, the hyenas had gone into the bathroom before me and taken showers of epic proportions—not only had they used up all the hot water but they’d also left the window open so that I literally had icicles forming on my nose while I was brushing my teeth. I hadn’t thought I’d ever get tired of the snow, but now even I was starting to feel like it had gone on long enough.

  On the first day, we’d still been able to see the outline of our beautiful dragon alongside the ice rink, on the second day it was just an undulating bulge in the snow, and today you’d never know there’d been anything there at all. Everything was blanketed in snow. Jaromir and Old Stucky had a job just keeping the entrances to the hotel clear and the main pathways to the stable and the road at least passable. The cars in the lot had turned into huge white mounds, gradually melting into one another and looking rather like the meringue decorations on Madame Cléo’s tarte au citron.

  Every day—and sometimes twice a day—the skylight and the roof space (which I’d secretly nicknamed “the waltz terrace”) had to be cleared because the snow covered the glass structure like a blanket, blocking out what little daylight there was. Until now, the road up from the valley had also been cleared every day so that the postman, delivery drivers, and hotel staff who drove in from the next village (like Carolyn) had always been able to get through. But during the night of the twenty-eighth of December it had snowed so much that even the dogged newspaper delivery man hadn’t shown up. This only ever happened about once every ten years, according to Monsieur Rocher.

  Because of the weather, the pace of life at Castle in the Clouds had slowed right down after Christmas. Most of the guests had relished this at first, but their enjoyment of the enforced peace and quiet was gradually giving way to nervous tension. Many of them seemed to have developed cabin fever from having to stay indoors all the time. At breakfast, the pharmaceutical executive and the Ball Bearings Baroness’s lover had got into a fight over the last few raspberries on the fruit platter, and Gracie said one or the other of them certainly would have drawn blood if Gutless Gilbert hadn’t stepped in. The politician’s husband sent back his soft-boiled egg because it wasn’t the perfect shape, causing the chef to chase poor Pierre all the way across the kitchen. Don’s mother alerted the staff because there was a horrible smell in the Large Tower Suite, at which Fräulein Müller set out at once with three cleaning carts, practically with blue lights flashing.

  Shortly afterward, Don came shuffling into the playroom in a bad mood, probably frustrated that he had nothing left up his sleeve but unimaginative stink-bomb tricks.

  Myself and Carolyn (who’d made it to the hotel by following the snowplow, thank goodness, just in time to receive little Dasha from the arms of her anxious father) were similarly at a loss as to how to keep the children entertained. We’d done so many arts-and-crafts projects that you could have filled an entire auditorium with our creations; the Punch-and-Judy show we’d written had had its premiere in front of seventeen attentive stuffed animals; and we’d gone through pretty much all the children’s games Carolyn knew, from Simon Says to I Spy to Duck Duck Goose.

  But what the children needed more than anything was a bit of exercise and a change of scenery. Which was why Carolyn had agreed to my request that we all go out into the corridor to play hide-and-seek. The children were under strict instructions, though: The rooms were out of bounds, as were the elevators, and they all had to stay on the third floor and make sure they didn’t disturb any of
the guests or the staff.

  The children were incredibly creative when it came to choosing hiding places. Faye was the only one who made it easy for us; she thought she was invisible as soon as she closed her eyes. Little Dasha, on the other hand, turned out to be a cunning hider, and her frilly red knitted Dior dress proved surprisingly useful. It blended in perfectly with the velvet curtains, so that all Dasha had to do was crouch down behind them and wait contentedly to be found.

  The children crawled under the tables, wedged themselves into the gap between the piano and the bookshelf, buried themselves in the toy chests, and laid down flat on the shelves. Gracie somehow managed to squeeze herself inside the dolls’ carriage, pull a doll’s lace bonnet over her face, and cover herself up with a blanket, thereby winning second prize for Most Original Hiding Place. The first prize had to go to Don: He succeeded in climbing inside the laundry bag on Anni Moser’s cleaning cart, where he would probably never have been found if he hadn’t started giggling.

  Viktor Yegorov, who stopped by every now and then to have a quick peek at what we were doing, was amazed to see his daughter playing so happily with the other children.

  At lunchtime, everything was still hunky-dory. Apart from Elias spilling his glass of lemonade, as he did every day, and Don balancing a meatball on Gracie’s head, the children were less trouble than the adult guests, who were keeping Ben, Monsieur Rocher, and the kitchen staff very busy with all their special requests.

  But after lunch, one thing led to another, and the disaster began to unfold. It all started when little Faye banged her head on the edge of the table and wanted to be taken to see her mummy. Although we offered to kiss it better and Carolyn even managed to rustle up a Band-Aid with ponies on it, Faye was adamant that she wanted her mum, and by this time her nose was running more than ever. Amy offered to take her down to the first floor and drop her off at the Fabergé Suite. Dasha was determined to accompany her new friend, so we let her go, too. Gracie joined the little group, saying she needed the toilet. Don announced that he wanted to go with them; Faye was a fascinating case study for his long-neglected photo project Fifty Shades of Snot.