The Nothing to See Here Hotel

by Steven Butler

  For Brenda Ogden,

  My BRILLIANTLY rambunctious English teacher.

  This is all your fault!

  SB

  For my effervescent Aunty Jill and Uncle Keith X

  SL

  NOT ALL OLD LADIES ARE NICE

  THE NOTHING TO SEE HERE HOTEL

  GRANNY REGURGITA

  A FLASH IN THE DARK

  QUICK!!!

  THE SKY DOOR

  MANGLEJAW

  YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR!

  THE NEXT MORNING

  A PRINCELY PARTY

  THE GOBLINS ARRIVE

  THE PARADE

  PRINCE GROGBAH

  A RIGHT ROYAL PAIN

  PSSST!

  FROM BAD TO WORSE

  A PRINCE ON THE LOOSE

  THE BEACH

  THE PLOT THICKENS

  WHOOMMFF!

  BONES IN A BOX

  THE CURSE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES

  GET ’EM!

  WHERE IS GROGBAH?

  GRUNCHED

  WEIRD IS THE NEW NORMAL

  NOT ALL OLD LADIES ARE NICE

  Let’s talk about grandmas . . .

  In storybooks, grandmas or grannies or nannies are sweet and short dumplings of fun that give you extra pocket money when your mum and dad aren’t looking, and need to be rescued from the occasional big bad wolf.

  BUT . . . this isn’t a storybook. This is really-real life, and my grandma isn’t anything like that. My granny would terrify the big bad wolf. She’d beat him to a pulp. She’d gulp him down, chewing and slobbering as she did so, and belch out his bones before breakfast.

  Oh . . . I should probably tell you . . .

  My granny is a TROLL.

  A mean one.

  THE NOTHING TO SEE HERE HOTEL

  Phew! Now I’ve told you the truth about my granny, the rest of what I’m about to tell you won’t sound quite so bonkers.

  My name is Frankie, by the way . . . Frankie Banister. Hello!

  I know you’re probably already thinking that I’ve had my brains scrambled or I’m loop-de-loop crazy – a troll for a granny?! But we’ve only just started: keep reading and I’ll explain everything, I swear. You’ll begin to believe me in no time . . . my granny really is a hulking, stinky great troll, and not a single word of what I’m about to tell you is a lie.

  Go on, just a few more pages . . .

  Ready?

  Here we go . . .

  MY GRANNY THE TROLL

  About a hundred years ago, back in the olden days when people wore tall hats and everything was in black and white, my great-great-great-grandad, Abraham Banister, went for his usual morning walk along the beach and KAPOW! he changed the history of our family FOREVER.

  Right out at the far end of the seafront, near the rocks, my gramps spotted something strange. Something VERY strange and VERY large.

  According to my dad, Grandad Abraham was a collector of rare plants and animals. He used to travel the world, searching for weird and exotic things . . . so what he spotted on that black-and-white morning must have made his curly moustache twistier than EVER.

  Abe spotted a troll girl (a trollette) doing her laundry in the open mouth of a huge sewer pipe and having a good old sing-song to herself.

  You guessed it: that troll girl was my great-great-great-granny, Regurgita Glump, and before anyone could scream, ‘NO! WAIT, ABE! SHE’S HIDEOUS!’ the two of them fell madly in love, ran off and got married in a proper slobberchopsy troll ceremony down in the sewers under Brighton high street.

  DON’T PANIC! The rest of the story isn’t all gross and lovey-docious, I promise.

  Fast-forward a hundred years and here I am: Frankie Banister, the newest member of the bunch.

  You can imagine our family tree is a crazy one. It’s dotted with trolls and humans and harpies, with the occasional witch and puddle-nymph thrown into the mix. My uncle Stodger is a bogrunt!

  My dad, Bargeous, is what’s known as a halfling, and my mum, Rani, is completely human, so that makes me a quarterling, I suppose. I know that I’m one thirty-sixth troll.

  You probably wouldn’t notice I wasn’t fully human at first glance. My hair is always messy and it hides my pointy ears most of the time, so the only thing that really gives it away is the colour of my eyes. Just like Dad and all my other relatives going back up the family tree to Granny Regurgita, mine are copper-coloured, like shiny pennies. It’s the first sign of having troll blood.

  Anyway, I really want to tell you all about where I live.

  One hundred years after my great-great-great-grandparents built it, my family still live and work in The Nothing To See Here Hotel. It’s the best secret holiday destination for magical creatures in the whole of England. You weren’t expecting that, were you?

  Poor old Grandad Abraham popped his clogs years and years before I was even born, but Granny Regurgita is still about. Trolls live hundreds of years longer than people.

  My granny calls herself the manager of the hotel, but she hardly ever leaves her bed, so me, Mum and Dad do all the hard work. Every day we run around like human bumper cars, trying to keep a bunch of magical creatures from wrecking the place. Weird is normal to the Banister family.

  Are you starting to believe me? Ha! I thought you might . . .

  I could spend hours and hours telling you about the hotel and describing what it looks like, but you’d probably get super bored and throw this book across your bedroom, screaming, ‘I HATE FRANKIE BANISTER!’ so here’s a map instead. Maps are WAY more fun and you’ll find out loads more later in the story.

  I know what you’re thinking . . .

  How can the hotel be that much of a secret if it’s so MASSIVE? Anyone with half a brain would spot something strange going on in seconds if they walked past. But that’s where a little bit of troll magic comes in . . . You see, the front of the hotel looks just like any other you might find by the seaside and that’s the only part that human eyes can see, so no one suspects a thing! The rest of the hotel is enchanted by Granny Regurgita and is completely invisible.

  The only time there’s ever a clue that a huge, magical hotel is standing in plain sight at the end of Brighton seafront is when a seagull flies into one of the invisible towers. It’s pretty funny. If someone was looking hard enough, they might spot a seagull come swooping over the town, heading for the sea, and WALLOP! The poor bird stops in mid-air, then squawks off in a whirl of feathers, looking more confused than a T-rex in a tutu.

  But no one ever notices. All the people that come and go along the seafront are way too busy buying ice creams and splashing about to pay any attention to surprised seagulls. That’s how the hotel has managed to stay secret ever since Abe and Regurgita opened it all those years ago.

  We also use a couple of crafty tricks to stop any human tourists from wandering in by mistake. First of all, the visible part of the hotel is always kept shabby and old-looking. The windows NEVER get washed and the outside hasn’t had a lick of paint since the place was first built.

  Then there’s a spell on the front steps that fills the noses of any non-magical person who stands on them with their most hated smell in the world. It’s brilliant! Let’s imagine that the smell of dog poo is the worst thing you can imagine. If you put even one little toe on our front steps, your nostrils would instantly be full of the strongest stink of it. Ha! Humans soon think twice before ringing our doorbell.

  As if that wasn’t enough, Mum and Dad’s final trick is to pretend to be angry guests of the hotel. They call the local newspapers once a week and rant about how horrible and dirty the rooms are, or how disgusting the food is, and put rubbish reviews up online.

  Dad is so proud of all our ‘
ZERO STAR’ reviews that he frames them – they’re all hanging above the reception desk.

  So . . . here we are on page sixteen. You’ve read this far so by now you must believe me. You’re probably thinking that to be a human kid living in an invisible hotel with magical creatures must be BRILLIANT, and I suppose I can see why. Things can be downright crazy around here, which is fun, but it’s not ALL fairy wishes and sparkly crowns and stuff.

  Don’t get me wrong. I love my weird home and being part troll is pretty great, but it’s easy to forget all of that when you’ve been helping Mum clean up after Mr Vernon, the Stink Demon, has been to stay for the weekend . . .

  Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. The REALLY exciting stuff started on the night of the HUGE storm.

  I was climbing the three hundred and ninety-nine steps to Granny Regurgita’s tower bedroom, and things at the hotel were about to get interesting . . .

  GRANNY REGURGITA

  Visiting Granny always gives me a gloopy, nervous feeling in the bottom of my belly. Granny Regurgita is just plain terrifying; even Dad gets twitchy whenever she hobbles down from her tower once in a blue moon to see what’s going on in the hotel.

  When Granny’s in a bad mood (and she always is), she can make a blood-crazed tiger look like a cute little kitten.

  Three hundred and ninety-seven . . .

  Three hundred and ninety-eight . . .

  I finally got to the top and stopped to catch my breath. Outside, rain was lashing against the windows, and this high up in the tower everything creaked and groaned. I was half expecting the whole thing to topple over in the wind so I didn’t want to hang about.

  ‘Just get it over with,’ I whispered to myself, then gulped and knocked on Granny’s bedroom door. There was a long silence, and for a minute I thought I was in luck and Granny was already asleep. Fat chance!

  ‘Come in, boy,’ she finally croaked from the other side.

  I nudged the door open with my foot and her familiar stink of mould and rotten vegetables wafted out onto the landing. It’s sour enough to sting your eyes and make you sick, I swear. No matter how many times I brought Granny Regurgita her food and bedtime mug of pondweed tea, I’d never get used to the disgusting pong of that wrinkly old husk.

  Inside Granny’s bedroom, everything was inky dark. I stood in the light of the landing and squinted my eyes, trying to spot her in the gloom.

  ‘Hurry up, you useless carbuncle!’

  I could hear the sound of her slug lips smacking together.

  ‘Granny’s hungry . . . What have you brought me?’

  Just then, lightning flashed outside and I caught sight of her copper-penny eyes glinting in the darkness.

  ‘GET ON WITH IT, YOU LITTLE SNOT!’

  I took a step inside her bedroom and shuffled towards the spot I’d seen her eyes flash seconds before.

  One of the perks of being the great-great-great-grandson of a troll is that I can usually see in the dark, just like it’s daytime – it’s one of the cool things about being a human kid with troll blood in your veins – but this was magical darkness filling the room . . . thicker, colder and blacker than the normal kind. Granny Regurgita loves to wrap herself in it like a blanket. Even when it’s daytime and her windows are wide open, Granny’s room is like the inside of a deep cave.

  ‘I can’t see, Granny,’ I said. ‘Can you put the lights on?’

  ‘No!’ she barked. ‘I like it dooksome and dungeonly.’

  ‘Please, Gran—’

  ‘NOOOO!’ A bent spoon from last night’s dinner sailed out of the gloom and bounced off the top of my head with a painful TUNK.

  ‘Ow!’ I yelled.

  ‘OH, stop your griping,’ Granny hissed, ‘and GIVE ME MY GRUB!’

  ‘I’m going to drop it!’ I knew that would work. Magical creatures are SO greedy and the thought of missing out on food or drink terrifies them.

  Granny Regurgita grunted in the dark. She snapped her crusty fingers, and hundreds of candles in jam-jar lanterns suddenly lit themselves. The room twinkled into view and there she was, my enormous, grizzly grandma, hunched in her bed like some slobbering, hairless buffalo.

  She was a monster to look at. A grey-green hulk in a filthy nightdress, with fat scarlet toadstools sprouting across her shoulders and head. Her eyes glinted copper as another bolt of lightning flashed outside.

  ‘Hello, Granny,’ I said, trying not to look too scared. (Don’t forget, she’s the size of a bear and grumpier than a yeti with a headache.)

  ‘FOOD!’ she yelled, reaching for the plate in my hand. ‘NOW!!’

  I took another step closer and Granny’s pet thistlewump, Gurp, uncurled at the end of the bed and growled at me. I hate thistlewumps, and I especially hate Gurp. It’s a football-sized ball of thistles and thorns, with twiggy feet sticking out at the bottom and very sharp teeth. I’d lost count of how many times the horrible little shrub had bitten me. Now, it just blinked its yellow eyes at me, then scampered across the blanket and snuggled under Granny’s arm.

  ‘Gurp, my twigling,’ Granny said, chuckling and cooing.

  Before Gurp had come along, Mum and Dad tried out a few pet cats to keep Granny company, but they kept disappearing. For ages we thought she’d scared them off and they’d made a quick getaway across the rooftops of the hotel, until she belched up a huge ginger furball one morning. How were we supposed to know that Granny had a taste for tabbies on toast? That’s why Mum and Dad settled on a thistlewump. It’s the only thing too prickly to chew.

  ‘Here you are, Granny,’ I said. I held out the plate of cockroach quiche and she snatched it wildly from my hands. I barely had time to blink before she threw back her head and emptied the whole thing down her gullet, plate and all.

  ‘DRINK!’ she barked as soon as she was done chewing.

  I handed her the pondweed tea and she did the same thing, pouring it straight into her huge mouth, followed by the mug.

  ‘Delunktious!’ she sighed.

  Once she’d finished licking her lips and picking her teeth, she lowered her eyes back towards me and stared. For a minute I wasn’t sure if she was going to say anything, so I waited. You never know . . . maybe today would be the day she’d actually say thank you.

  ‘Don’t just stand there oogling, you little pimple,’ she finally said. ‘Bog off!’

  I didn’t need telling twice. I spun round and ran for it.

  But . . . I told you that things got really interesting when I was visiting my Granny Regurgita in her tower bedroom and, as you must surely know by now, I don’t tell lies.

  Just as I reached the door, Granny gasped.

  A FLASH IN THE DARK

  ‘Boy!’ Granny practically spat the word at the back of my head.

  I turned and saw her sitting bolt upright, copper eyes wide, and ears twitching backwards and forwards like she was straining to hear something. She snatched her rusty ear trumpet from beside the bed and jammed it into one of her ears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, watching her face crease up with concentration.

  ‘Shhhhh!’ she hissed. ‘I thought I just heard—’ She gasped again, then hurled herself out of bed, dropped the ear trumpet on the floor and clomped to the window. Granny could move pretty fast when she wanted to, but it was normally only when she was scrambling for leftovers.

  ‘What?’ I ran and joined her at the window. With the jam-jar lanterns all burning brightly, it was hard to see anything except our own mismatched reflections staring back at us. ‘What did you hear?’

  Granny ignored me. She clicked her crusty fingers for a second time and every candle in the room instantly extinguished itself. Suddenly the outside world rushed into view far below. There, in the light of the street lamps, were the other hotels and restaurants that lined the seafront. Peering out of the window, I could see the waves thundering up the beach, and every flash of lightning cracked the sky in two, lighting up the raindrops like stars.

  ‘What did you hear?’ I ask
ed again, but she was still ignoring me. Her eyes were fixed on the night sky above the ocean.

  ‘There!’ she suddenly yelled and pointed into the storm.

  I squinted and tried to see what she’d spotted.

  ‘There, boy! LOOK!’

  Another flash of lightning lit up the sky and I finally saw what Granny was pointing at. High above the sea was a huge black raven frantically beating its wings against the wind and rain. It whirled upwards, then vanished back into the night.

  Another bolt of lightning flashed and I saw the raven was closer this time and . . . and . . . there was something riding on its back. A small figure, hunched forward and holding on for its life.

  ‘What is it, Granny?’ I asked. ‘A fairy? A pook?’

  ‘A goblin,’ Granny said. ‘It’s a messenger.’

  All the hairs on the back of my neck tingled with excitement. Who was sending us a message by Goblin Post?

  ‘QUICK, BOY!’ Granny barked at me. ‘It won’t last long out there. Run and let it in!’

  QUICK!!!

  I leaped down the tower steps, two then three at a time.

  Down and round the corner,

  down and round the corner,

  down and round the corner . . .

  ‘Come on, Frankie,’ I huffed to myself as I sprinted.

  My brain started racing. The storm outside was getting worse: it looked like something from my Real-Life Adventures of Captain Plank books. What if the goblin messenger gave up and flew away?

  I wasn’t about to miss out on the chance of some real excitement. Only BRILLIANT things arrived by Goblin Post.

  I reached the door at the bottom of the tower steps and barged through it without checking if anything—

  ‘UUUGH!’ Before I could stop myself, I ran straight into Nancy, the hotel cook. She screamed with fright and toppled backwards onto the carpet, waggling her legs in the air. All eight of them.

  This is probably a good time to tell you that Nancy is a giant spider – and I mean a really giant one! An Orkney Brittle-Back to be precise. She’s the last of her kind, and has been working at the hotel ever since it opened.