by Lisa Nicol
‘I’m awake!’ growled Vincent. He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.
‘Get up, Vincent! It’s our first day at The Grandest Hotel on Earth. We can’t be late!’
Vincent sat up. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s 5.30 already! And I still need to wash my hair, paint my nails and somehow decide what I’m going to wear.’
‘You’re not coming, Rose,’ he said, a mixture of irritated and half asleep.
‘MARILYN!’ she screeched.
‘Marilyn then! But you’re still not coming.’
Rose insisted on being called Marilyn. She had big plans to become a movie star and thought Marilyn a far more suitable name than Rose. She also insisted on wearing a blanket everywhere, like a cape, in case she was spotted by one of her fans or the paparazzi. Or ‘paps’ as Rose called them. Although there were no ‘them’!
‘But, Vincent, there’s bound to be some big-time movie producers staying at the hotel. All I need to do is lurk around and get spotted. It’ll be the big break I’ve been waiting for my whole life!’ she said, pressing her hands together and squeezing her eyes shut as if she was praying for world peace.
‘I’m going to the hotel to work, not lurk. And you’re not going there to do either!’
Rose stopped praying. She folded her arms and bit her top lip. She paused dramatically then leant in. ‘Why would you want to stand in my way? What have I ever done to you?’ She glared at Vincent, as if trying to peer into his soul. ‘You’re jealous!’ she declared, turning in a theatrical swivel, cape flying and stomped out of the room. ‘This town’s fine for someone ordinary like yourself, Vincent, but SOME of us are meant for bigger things.’
Vincent rubbed his eyes. He looked at a postcard of The Grandest Hotel on Earth he’d found on the street, now sticky taped to the wall beside his bed. He’d been awake half the night imagining what the place might be like. He’d heard plenty of stories. The Grandest Hotel on Earth was the kind of place stories swirled around. Bizarre tales of dancing turtles and flying llamas were sworn by some to be true while others dismissed them as absolute nonsense. And the Wainwright-Cunninghams were the kind of people stories swirled around too. And not all the stories were nice. Polite people described the family as ‘eccentric’, while less-polite people called them crazier than a soup sandwich. But Vincent was determined to put aside all he’d heard and make up his own mind. He leapt out of bed and got dressed. He was so excited he felt sure the needle on his thrill-o-meter must be nudging past Christmas!
Vincent’s father was already up and busy. He was at the kitchen sink, filling up a saucepan.
‘Morning. If you don’t want eggs, you’ll have to get your own breakfast. Mum’s been up all night with Thom. She’s trying to grab twenty winks before I head off.’
Thom was Vincent’s little brother. He was four and a half and had not yet spoken a single word. The way things were going Vincent’s mum and dad thought Thom would probably need to go to some sort of special school. Although they tried their best not to let on, Vincent could tell it caused his parents a truckload of worry. There were always appointments to go to and tests to be taken. And despite spending every cent they had, so far no one had been able to tell them what exactly was wrong with Thom. He was the reason Vincent had recognised Florence’s boots were playing Bach. Classical music was the only thing that calmed Thom down when he was having one of his terrible tantrums, which could go on for hours if he got stuck in a groove. But as soon as he heard Bach or Beethoven or Stravinsky or Shostakovich he immediately stopped screaming and lay on his back – a bit like a starfish – and listened. Unfortunately, he was none too fond of sleeping, so when Thom woke long before dawn, his mum and dad would put on the longest symphony they could find and go back to bed. Gentle swaying piano music coming from the other room was always a telltale sign of a rough night.
‘You sure you’ll be all right staying overnight at that hotel by yourself?’ asked his father, trying to step into his big black rubber workboots and light the stove at the same time. ‘I wish I could take up their offer to join you, but you know I can’t miss a shift. We’re saving every cent we can right now so we can send Thom to see the specialist in town. And there’s no way Mum can leave your brother.’
‘I’ll be fine, Dad,’ reassured Vincent, trying to hide his disappointment. ‘Who knows, if things go well, maybe there’ll be a job there for you too.’
Vincent’s dad worked at FishyKittys, a cat-food factory on the outskirts of town. Everyone in Barry worked there. And the smell was the only thing people who came to Barry ever remembered. Most days, from around midday, a disgusting pong drifted into town and sat there till long after dusk. The sort of brown, pongy fog created when 500 kilos of rotting prawns and fish is mishmashed up with a bit of jelly and baked in an oven. Luckily, people in town were used to it. When you breathe in something your whole life, eventually you just don’t notice it.
‘That’d be nice. Better than shovelling rotten prawns, I bet, but probably as likely as Rose going anywhere without her cape.’
Meaning it just wasn’t going to happen.
But if Vincent knew anything, it was that his parents were no good at dreaming. Ever since Thom came along, dreaming had become a luxury item they could no longer afford and getting your hopes up had been reclassified as a dangerous activity.
‘I’d better go. I’m late already. Eggs are on.’
Vincent sat down at the kitchen table and watched the sand run through the egg timer. They always had eggs for breakfast. Eggs were the only food Thom ate. Everything else he threw at the wall.
Rose stomped into the kitchen and sat down. She plonked her stripy-socked legs and fluffy plastic slippers, which she loved because they had a bit of a heel, up onto the table. Vincent ignored her. As the very last grain of sand slipped through the hourglass, he got up and lifted the heavy saucepan off the stove. The boiling water swooshed from side to side.
‘Ouch!’ yelled Vincent, as a wave of hot water rose up the side and splashed onto his hand.
‘What did you expect? It’s just come off the stove, you dodo!’ said Rose, helpfully. She combed her eyebrows with a toothbrush and tried to look menacing.
‘No, really?’ said Vincent, sarcastically. He fished an egg out of the pot, knocked the top off and put it down in front of his sister.
‘Do you know how many feelings I can do with just my eyebrows?’ Rose covered the bottom-half of her face with her cape and moved her eyebrows up and down and all around like two hairy caterpillars having some sort of fit. ‘Hundreds!’ she declared.
Vincent rolled his eyes.
Rose looked down at the perfectly cooked egg. ‘I’m not eating THAT!’ she said, shoving it away. ‘It’s too runny.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Vincent. He made his mum a cup of tea and tiptoed down the corridor to his parents’ room. Thom was asleep on a mattress on the floor. Vincent still remembered the day his mum and dad came home and let him hold his brand-new baby brother. He was so excited. There was nothing Vincent wanted more than to be a big brother. Of course he already was a big brother to Rose, but Rose didn’t seem to want one. She liked to do everything all by herself. And I mean everything. Her first words were ‘Me do it!’ and that was how it was. Me do it! So the idea of a little brother he could hang out with and teach stuff to and look after sounded to Vincent like a hit song. Unfortunately, Thom wanted a big brother even less than Rose did. In fact Thom didn’t seem to know he even had one. Almost as if Vincent was invisible.
And that was probably the hardest bit of all.
So hard Vincent never gave breath to those words.
Not to anyone. Not even to himself.
Deep down he hoped if he ignored that truth, maybe it would go away.
His mum, still half asleep, put a finger up to her mouth, shushing Vincent to be quiet. She looked tired – more tired than usual – as she stepped over Thom and tiptoed into the hall.
�
�Don’t bring hot drinks into the bedroom,’ she whispered sharply, grabbing the cup of tea and heading off to the kitchen. ‘You know what your brother’s like.’
That was another sure sign of a bad night: cranky parents.
‘Feet off the table, Rose,’ she said, plonking her tea down.
Rose, still combing her eyebrows with the toothbrush, did as instructed while trying to lasso Vincent’s gaze and drag it over to her egg now teetering half off the other side of the table.
Vincent refused to give her the satisfaction and pretended not to notice.
‘Right. Let me take a look at you,’ said his mum, pulling her long beautiful hair back into a low bun. She never wore it out these days. In case Thom got a hold of it.
Vincent stood up tall and pulled his shoulders back as she looked him up and down. He tugged at his shirtsleeves that ended just below his elbows. ‘They’re a bit short.’
‘Roll them up. No one will notice,’ she suggested.
As Vincent rolled up his sleeves, a crashing sound like something large falling followed by a heavy thud came from the bedroom.
And then another one. THUD.
‘Oh no. What on earth’s he done now? There’s nothing left to break in there, I swear!’ Vincent’s mum hurried back to the bedroom.
‘Phone us to let us know you’re all right, won’t you, Vincent?’ she called. ‘There should be some money for your bus fare in the bottom of my handbag.’
Vincent dug around till he found enough coins and then dropped them into the plastic bag with his pyjamas. As he did he noticed something was missing.
Vincent lunged across the table.
‘ROSE!’
He snatched his toothbrush out of her hand and shoved it back in his bag. Rose mimed a whooping evil laugh and mouthed ‘SUCK ON THAT!’ at Vincent. For a seven-year-old, Rose had a potty mouth something shocking. Vincent shot her the death stare. Steam rose from his mother’s cup of untouched tea, which would almost certainly go cold.
Not quite the send-off he’d hoped for.
Vincent picked up his bag and shoe-cleaning kit and headed out the door.
CHAPTER 3
THE GRANDEST HOTEL ON EARTH
‘The Grandest Hotel on Earth!’ yelled the bus driver.
Vincent peered out the window. And sure enough, there it was. At the far end of the Mabombo Ranges, perched on the lower slope of Mount Mandalay – The Grandest Hotel on Earth. It looked just like his postcard. Glowing golden yellow in the morning sun, it reminded Vincent of a giant majestic lion watching over its pride.
‘You don’t go any closer?’ he asked, eyes locked on the hotel, which was still quite a fair way off.
‘’Fraid not,’ said the bus driver. ‘This is it, boyo.’
Vincent got off the bus. He watched as it turned around and drove back down the winding road towards Barry. He took a deep breath in. The fresh, clean mountain air was a lovely change from the fishy pong of Barry’s streets. It made Vincent realise just how stale the air at home had become.
Although it was a little windy, Vincent didn’t mind having to walk. As his parents frequently liked to remind him, most things in life rarely turn out to be as good as the time you spend looking forward to them. Even though he thought that was a dreary way of looking at the world, he figured the longer he spent anticipating being a guest at The Grandest Hotel on Earth, the better.
Surrounded on all sides by a chain of mountains, Vincent rolled down his too-short sleeves and walked into the wind. He had to put his head down to stop it drying out his eyeballs. As he walked along, Vincent set about daydreaming of the day that lay ahead. I wonder if we’ll get cake for afternoon tea. Or doughnuts! There’ll definitely be ice-cream. You couldn’t call yourself The Grandest Hotel on Earth if there was no ice-cream! And there’s bound to be a pool. I bet it has a diving board! Or a slide! Oh, I hope there’s a slide! While Vincent was having a ball imagining the day ahead, he kept thinking how much more wonderful it would be if his dad could have come. Or his mum. How cool would it be to take them to The Grandest Hotel on Earth! Vincent tried to remember the last time he’d done anything fun with either of them. Or had one of them all to himself. Apart from doing the shopping. Vincent used to enjoy a trip to the supermarket. It meant a guaranteed packet of bubblegum or a Push Pop or anything else he could slip into the trolley without his mum or dad noticing. But not these days. It was excruciating watching his dad try to add up the cost of all the items in the trolley and count the money in his wallet, or his face at the check-out when he got his sums wrong.
In fact they never went anywhere anymore, even as a family. Which Vincent wasn’t entirely sad about. While Thom was bad at home, going out he was a total nightmare. And Barry was a small town. If he did something weird or had one of his epic meltdowns, in no time at all the whole town knew about it. Like the first time they took Thom to the pet store to look at the animals and he started shaking the parrot cage and making weird whooping noises like a gibbon. And neither their mum nor the pet-shop lady could get him to stop. Eventually the parrot just dropped off his perch and lay there, beak down, on the bottom of the cage. Motionless. It must have had a heart attack or something. Vincent had wished he himself was beak down when he saw his classmate Josie run from the pet shop yelling, ‘It’s dead! He killed it! Vincent’s brother just killed a parrot!’ He knew by Monday morning everyone in the whole school would have heard all about it and Thom’s method of execution would have mutated from shaking the cage into something far more sinister, like biting the parrot’s head off.
Most of the way across the plateau, Vincent couldn’t see the hotel at all. Either his view was obscured by trees or he was looking at his feet. But after an hour or so of putting one foot in front of the other Vincent looked up. It was like suddenly finding himself on the very edge of the horizon, just as the massive morning sun was rising.
The wind dropped completely.
So did Vincent’s jaw and his tongue flopped out like a piece of defrosted steak. He let go of his shoe-cleaning kit, which thwacked onto the ground yet Vincent hadn’t heard a sound. As if all his other senses had switched into power-saving mode so his eyes could take in the full magnificence of the vision before him. The hotel was more beautiful, more majestic, more splendid, than Vincent could have ever possibly imagined.
While he knew it was going to be big, he had failed to realise how big until he was up close.
Vincent counted.
It was sixteen storeys high and had what looked like a thousand arched windows and a thousand arched balconies.
And the light!
The air itself was the colour of honey. Some dream-like brew of sunshine and hope. Vincent was so overcome by the blinding beauty of the hotel that he had to prompt himself to do all the things his body usually did without instruction.
Breathe, Vincent.
Blink, Vincent.
Swallow, Vincent.
Put your tongue back inside your mouth, Vincent.
Whatever you do don’t pee, Vincent!
Once his brain regained control of his basic bodily functions, Vincent picked up his shoe-cleaning kit and walked through the gates of The Grandest Hotel on Earth.
Surely this must be what the lost paradise of Shangri-la looks like. Or heaven.
In gardens ablaze with colour, everywhere he looked Vincent saw exotic creatures taking in the warmth of the morning sun. White peacocks ambled and twirled across bright green lawns like gigantic snowflakes floating on the breeze. Elephants flapped their ears in unison underneath large trees laden with mangoes. Vincent nearly tripped when a knock-kneed pair of ostriches cut across his path, a bunch of chicks in tow, before disappearing into a grove of trees. He loped after them to catch another glimpse of the birds as big as horses. Maybe those stories of flying llamas are true! As he neared the grove his ears filled with the sweetest birdsong. He looked up to see branches full of nightingales and toucans, macaws and kookaburras, and dozens of other foreign fea
thered fowl perched side by side, preening and singing. Running through the grove was a deep mountain stream so clear Vincent could see fish swimming and otters and platypuses tumbling about. He knelt down. An otter, head out of the water, rolled and swam towards him. ‘Aww. Hello, little fella!’ He pushed up his sleeve and tickled its belly. The otter seemed to like it.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ called out a voice accompanied by low seesawing cello strokes.
Vincent looked up to see Florence, her long cinnamon hair swishing from side to side as she ran briskly towards him. She was wearing the same emerald boots as yesterday at Barry Train Station.
‘You made it! I’m sorry, Vincent. I meant to send a car to collect you. We’re so out of the way up here.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Vincent. ‘It’s not every day I get to tickle an otter.’
‘True,’ said Florence, still puffing. ‘But still. No excuse!’ She put her hands on her hips as if exasperated with her own incompetence. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me lately. I seem to be forgetting things all over the place. You see most of our guests come by hot air balloon. In fact the last one for this morning should be arriving just about now.’ Florence turned and looked over her shoulder and, sure enough, drifting down between two mountains was a huge yellow balloon. ‘Much quieter than cars and buses. Traffic noise would destroy the peace and tranquility. And we try not to remind our guests of their day-to-day lives. It’s kind of the whole point really. Of course with a hotel of this size we can’t rely solely on hot air balloons. There’s a tunnel about halfway up the mountain. It runs straight to the basement. For deliveries, that sort of thing.’
Vincent nodded and smiled in an effort to mask the heavy processing going on inside his brain.
‘Can I ask a question?’ he asked, without realising he already was asking a question.
‘Of course,’ replied Florence.
‘Is that a hippo?’ Vincent pointed to a very large creature bounding along the bottom of the stream as if it was wearing spring shoes or walking on the moon.
