CHAPTER 3
From The Alchemists Of Vra, Chapter 6
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In which Oscar arrives at a hotel so spectacular that he narrowly avoids leaving evidence of his awe as a puddle in its foyer, before struggling to confirm his reservation at a desk only marginally less impressive.
Inside hotel d’Plempt, such concerns left him and he gawked at the sort of opulence that leaves interior designers snapping their pencils and wondering what to do for the rest of their lives.
The foyer was stunning.
Not just in a visual sense. Or even an architectural one. It was also stunning in a very literal sense, too. It was stunning in an agricultural, political and culinary sense also, but these weren’t apparent from the foyer.
It was large and gilded in pink marble. From its ceiling an enormous chandelier hung, with several others in orbit. Their lit glass painted a soft white across a vast ceiling space, and made the pink marble shine in translucent rose. At the foyer’s far end, two graceful arcs of staircase wound up to floors above, which overlooked the foyer to render it an atrium. Upon walls either side, huge throws of burgundy velvet cascaded from the ceiling like waterfalls, and hanging plants dripped beside them in a frame of deep, shiny green. Besides being stunning, the hotel was also busy. Animals scissored across its foyer like a poorly coordinated finale of musical spectacular. Some waited at an enormous curve of desk that wound halfway along a wall, while the opposite housed lifts which pinged softly when pausing to spill animals across the floor. Upon staircases and balconies, animals meandered, apparently used to such splendour in that they weren’t passing out and falling from them.
Oscar, however, wasn’t used to anything of the sort. As a Velvet Paw of Asquith, he was trained to blend into any environment—which in Plempt wasn’t difficult considering it was blanketed in snow. But in a foyer as opulent as this, he had no idea how to, especially when he’d just thrown himself across its driveway.
“Can I help you at all?”
He turned to a cat in a smart uniform with the sort of smile that had probably booked a suite.
“Well, yes, rather,” Oscar said. “I believe I have a room booked in the name of Dooven.”
With a nod, she gestured that he follow her to the massive curve of desk. When she wandered some length behind it, Oscar followed on its other side until she stopped and rummaged through things upon it.
“Is that Dooven spelt with a G?” she asked.
Oscar blinked. “A what?”
“A G.”
“Er, no,” said Oscar. “I shouldn’t think so. Dooven is spelt with a D, as in dangerous.”
The cat looked down at the desk again. “Dooven,” she repeated.
He nodded helpfully.
“And definitely not with a G?”
“How could Dooven be spelt with a G?” he asked.
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”
“It is not spelt with a G, I can assure you.”
The cat looked down at the desk again and did some more thinking, before saying, “Look, can I just ask again—for the sake of clarity—that the name Dooven is not spelt with a G?”
Oscar sighed. “Look. My name is Dooven. Oscar Teabag-Dooven.” He spelt it out for her.
“So there’s really no G in there at all,” the cat said.
“Not unless your spelling is atrocious.”
“Is your spelling atrocious?”
“What?”
“Is your spelling atrocious?” she said. “If it is, then it explains why it might be spelt with a G.”
“No. My spelling is excellent. Especially considering it’s my name.”
She frowned at more things behind the desk. “Are you certain it’s your name?”
He stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m just trying to ascertain what reasons might lie behind Dooven not being spelt with a G.”
Oscar put his little suitcase down and placed both paws carefully upon the desk. “There’s only one reason Dooven is not spelt with a G,” he said, “and that’s because it isn’t.”
“How old were you when you learnt to spell your name?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Well, can you perhaps try? Otherwise this could go on all night.”
“I think it already has.”
Some animals arrived at the desk nearby and checked in with no trouble whatsoever.
“Listen,” said Oscar, leaning closer. “It really isn’t complicated. I’m sure my office has booked a room in the name of Dooven. After all, they managed to arrange a taxi to pick me up from the station.”
“Ah, but a taxi doesn’t have a desk.”
“No, but it does have wheels.”
“Are they spelt with a G?”
Oscar pulled at his ears and missed. Which gave him an idea.
“G?” he asked, in feigned realisation. “Yes—of course; G. Sorry, I thought you said M.”
“So Dooven is spelt with a G?”
He nodded and tutted at his own ineptitude, before pointing at the top of his head, “I don’t hear very well, you see.”
“So, Dooven with a G then?”
“What?” he said, to prove the fact.
“Dooven spelt with G?”
“Yes.”
The cat looked down at the desk again. “I’m sorry. We don’t have any reservation of Dooven spelt with a G.”
“I’m sorry—what?”
She looked up at him. “We have no reservation under the name Dooven spelt with a G.”
“Then why have you been banging on about it?”
“Because this is the G counter. If your reservation is made under a name beginning with G, then it would be here.”
“The G counter?” Oscar asked, bewildered.
“Yes.”
“You have a counter specifically for reservations that begin with G?”
“Of course. Hotel d’Plempt is a very busy hotel, especially during the Assembly.”
Oscar took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “Then why didn’t you mention this when we met?”
“I did,” she said. “I specifically asked you whether Dooven is spelt with a G.”
“But Dooven sounds like a D! Did you not think so? Did you not think to yourself, ‘Dooven—hmm, sounds a bit like a D’?”
The cat looked at him as though used to animals being unreasonable. “It could have been a silent G.”
Oscar raised his paw to stop the conversation before something serious happened to one of them. “Look,” he said. “Perhaps we can start this again, but over at the D counter.”
“Certainly. Good idea.”
When Oscar tried for that direction, the animal remained where she was.
“Are you not coming?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I work on the G counter.”
He stared again, before enquiring, “Tell me, this place isn’t managed by a certain Percival S. Minton by any chance?”
She shook her head, saying that she’d never heard of the animal.
Having found his room, which was not under D after all, but under T for Teabag-Dooven—which was academic in the end as they didn’t have a pen either—Oscar changed into his extra-fluffy, black pantaloons with matching scarf. He wandered, along with what appeared to be the majority of Plempt’s population, into the hotel’s main auditorium for the D’dôdô-Sette’s recital. It was nearing nine and he wondered what proportion of the audience cramming themselves into the place was part of the Affable Nations’ Assembly, and how many were attending just to hear the silly cat’s rantings.
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Hotel Scenes from the Velvet Paw of Asquith Novels Page 5
