Sandapalooza Shake-Up

by Chris Grabenstein

  “But we’ve got to stay here,” wailed a teenaged girl. “This is where they shot Beach Party Surf Monkey!”

  “Is it?” said her dad. “Or are they lying about that, too?”

  “Liars and thieves?” said a lady.

  “Those jewel thief brothers stayed here!” said someone else. “Remember?”

  “What’s wrong with these people?”

  You guessed it. Within an hour, half of our guests had trooped into the lobby, demanded refunds, and checked out.

  Worse, a dozen of them had written about their “horrible experience” on the TripAdvisor website.

  Gloria and Grandpa helped me bellhop everybody’s luggage out to the parking lot and roll it next door to the Conch Reef Resort, which had plenty of empty rooms.

  Of course, now the Wonderland did, too.

  For the first time in months, Grandpa had to flick off the “No” neon in our No Vacancy sign.

  The next morning, Saturday, the jumbo video screen in front of the Conch Reef Resort was flashing all sorts of “The Safest Rooms on St. Pete Beach” ads.

  They’d even taken out radio ads boasting, “We’re so safe we have safes in every room.”

  “Plus,” the cheesy announcer promised, “unlike at some local motels, at the Conch Reef Resort, our maids go through a fourteen-point screening process. They’re so honest many are former nuns or FBI agents. Some were both. Maybe that’s why there hasn’t been a reported room theft at the Conch Reef Resort since the day we opened, which is more than our neighbors can say. Especially our next-door neighbor. The small motel with all the goofy statues. We won’t mention the motel’s name, but it’s a wonder they can land any guests at all.”

  “Can they legally say that?” I said to nobody in particular.

  Gloria and I were sitting on stools at the Banana Shack counter, listening to Jimbo’s radio, which, of course, was tuned to the station that played the most Jimmy Buffett songs.

  “Doesn’t matter if they can say it, man,” said Jimbo. “They already did. The bad vibes have leaked into the ozone, dudes. Bummer.”

  “We need to go into heavy-duty damage-control mode ASAP,” said Gloria. “If we don’t spin this story our way soon, their version will gain traction and turn into a zombie.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Huh?”

  “We won’t be able to kill it!”

  “You know what, P.T.?” said Jimbo. “You should, like, go next door and politely ask Mr. Conch to, you know, chill. Tell him and his minions to stop saying mean stuff about your motel, man. Especially on the radio. He’s ruining my groove.”

  Gloria and I both stared at him.

  “Seriously?” said Gloria. “P.T. should go over there and ask Mr. Conch to play nice?”

  “Yuh-huh. Totally.”

  Gloria shook her head. “Sorry, Jimbo. This is business, not nursery school. Nobody plays nice.”

  “Maybe it’ll blow over,” I said. “Next week, the royal family will be gone. They’ll leave St. Pete Beach and head to Disney World.”

  “Without their priceless tiara?” said Gloria.

  “Okay. Maybe they’ll just head home.”

  “Without their priceless tiara?” said Jimbo.

  It was like that was all anybody knew how to say that morning. Except for the radio.

  “This just in,” reported a newscaster. “Lord Pettybone, the visiting English marquess—which, by the way, is higher than an earl but lower than a duke—will be holding a press conference in fifteen minutes at the Conch Reef Resort to discuss his royal family’s efforts to recover the stolen Twittle-ham Tiara, which was set to go on display at Walt Disney World early next week. The priceless diamond-and-pearl-studded tiara, said to have been worn by the legendary queen Guinevere, went missing at St. Pete Beach’s famous, and now infamous, Wonderland Motel….”

  I snapped off Jimbo’s radio. This wasn’t the kind of publicity we’d been hoping for from the tiara.

  “We need to go next door,” I told Gloria. “There’s a zombie on the loose over there!”

  As we hurried to the luxury resort—walking past our now-empty pool and our even emptier Banana Shack—I had a feeling that all the negative noise about the missing tiara might be able to do what evil bankers and conniving Conches couldn’t.

  This scandal could destroy the Wonderland.

  When we hit the Conch Reef Resort lobby, Gloria’s dad was already there, wearing his navy-blue WTSP blazer. So were about two dozen other reporters and camerapeople.

  “Sorry, P.T.,” said Mr. Ortega. “But channel ten needed someone to cover the impromptu press conference. And as the legendary ballplayer Yogi Berra once said, ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it!’ ”

  “Dad?” said Gloria. “Go easy on the sports jargon. This is a news conference.”

  “Check. I’ll keep my eye on the ball.”

  Mr. Conch and his annoying daughter, Veronica, hustled around the resort’s mirror-lined lobby, passing out cardboard crowns they must’ve gotten from Burger King. Mr. Conch went to the podium and its cluster of microphones.

  “Good morning, everybody,” he said, pouting his lower lip. “My daughter, Veronica, and I wanted to personally give you a royal welcome to the most amazingly spectacular five-star resort complex in all of St. Pete Beach. People tell me all the time, ‘Edward, you run the finest establishments anywhere, including Florida.’ It’s true. I do.”

  Finally, Lord Pettybone stepped up to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said His Lordship, “although we have solid suspicions about who it was that purloined our beloved Twittleham Tiara, I have prevailed upon the Pinellas County sheriff not to arrest our prime suspect. Not yet, anyway.”

  What? I thought. He still wants to throw Clara behind bars?

  “If the chambermaid who stole our family’s priceless heirloom shall return it to us by Monday, no questions will be asked. No charges will be pressed. However, should Mrs. Clara Rodriguez fail to take us up on this generous offer, rest assured she will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!”

  Lord Pettybone stepped away from the microphone.

  Mr. Conch rushed in to take his place.

  “And don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen, that crooked maid works right next door at Walt Wilkie’s Wonderland Motel, where there are always lies to be told and personal belongings to be stole!”

  It was a lame rhyme, but it worked.

  By noon, another dozen guests had checked out of the Wonderland.

  “So what are you kids going to do now, man?” asked Jimbo, slapping a pair of burger patties on the grill for Gloria and me—his only customers.

  “Well,” I said, “I know what we won’t be doing: giving any behind-the-scenes movie tours.”

  “Or selling more Surf Monkey merch,” added Gloria.

  “Or doing our Freddy the Frog bit,” I said sadly. “Or hosting a metal-detector treasure hunt.”

  “We were going to do that?” said Gloria.

  I shrugged. “If we did, at least Jack Alberto would be here. Maybe he’d bring his little brother Nate. We could sell them both a Sproke.”

  A Sproke was a soft drink Gloria and I had created with Jimbo’s help at the Banana Shack. It was basically fountain Coke mixed with fountain Sprite. You could also get an Orange Sproke or a Root Beer Sproke. Grandpa tried to mix Cel-Ray with Sprite once. The cup nearly exploded.

  “You know what?” I said to Jimbo as he flipped our sizzling burgers and flames flared up their sides. “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Me neither,” said Gloria.

  “Dudes, just think how Clara must feel,” said Jimbo, sliding our hamburgers off the grill. “I heard that press conference on my radio, man. Lord Bossypants tore into her something fierce. Totally uncool behavior, man. Dude needs to drink a little more Mello Yello, if you catch my drift.”

  (We didn’t.)

  “He’ll probably keep going after Clara,” said Gloria. “He currently c
ontrols the narrative.”

  “Huh?” I said, because Gloria had lost me.

  “He’s the one telling the story, P.T. Therefore, he’s the one shaping the ‘truth.’ ”

  “Then we need to do something,” I said.

  “Such as?”

  “We need to give this story a happy ending. We need to find the missing tiara and clear Clara’s name. Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Upstairs! We should investigate the scene of the crime!”

  “Um, the sheriff’s deputies already did,” said Gloria.

  “Yeah, but they don’t watch half as many CSI shows as we do! I could tell.”

  “Good luck,” said Jimbo. “If your investigation needs any, like, you know, food or beverage analysis, I’m here for you.”

  He thumped his chest and shot us a peace sign.

  Gloria and I headed up to the second floor.

  “I’ll check the keyhole,” I said when we reached the door to room 226.

  Since we still use old-fashioned metal keys instead of snazzy plastic swipe cards, someone could’ve picked the lock to gain entry. If they had, maybe there’d be scratch marks.

  I found scratches!

  About a billion of them.

  Because guests had been jabbing their keys at the poor lock for decades, and sometimes they missed. So there was no way of knowing for certain whether someone had used sharp tools to pop open the lock.

  As head bellhop, I had a master key that would open any door in the motel. It was the same kind Clara and our other housekeepers had.

  “We need to put together a list of all the maids who were working Friday,” I said, slipping my key into the lock.

  “You think one of them stole the tiara?” asked Gloria.

  “No. But they all have master keys.”

  “So do you.”

  “Fine. We’ll put me on the suspect list, too.”

  “Did you do it, P.T.?”

  “No! Why would I want to wear a diamond tiara? It would give me hat hair.”

  We stepped into the empty suite of rooms.

  “Any evidence was probably disturbed when the Pettybones packed up and left,” said Gloria.

  “True. But we should at least look around. This room was Lady Lilly’s. Her parents were next door in 225. Digby, the butler, was in 227.”

  “Let’s check out Digby’s room first. He was the one in charge of the lockbox.”

  “Good idea!”

  So we went into the butler’s bedroom.

  And guess what? We actually found something!

  “Ewwww,” said Gloria. “Gross.”

  There was a balled-up black sock on the floor. Gloria bent down to examine it.

  “It smells like bad cheese.”

  “What’s that next to it?” I asked.

  “Um, sand.”

  “That could be a clue!”

  “This is Florida, P.T. We’re on the beach. There’s sand everywhere. Digby probably got some on his shoes.”

  “But it’s a pretty big pile. Like a miniature ant mound almost. Plus, does Digby, with his black suit and shiny shoes, strike you as the kind of dude who’d take long, leisurely strolls along the beach?”

  “Not really.”

  “Hang on.” I went to the dresser and took the plastic liner out of the ice bucket. Then I grabbed a Wonderland notepad off the bedside table and flicked its pages like a brush to sweep the sand sample into the evidence bag.

  “Very CSI-ish,” said Gloria as I sealed up the bag. “Props on that, P.T.”

  “Thank you, Gloria.”

  We looked around the rooms for a few more minutes and didn’t really find anything.

  Except, ewwww, Digby’s other black sock.

  We spent some time poking around the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the dinette. The only other things we found were some of the driest, dustiest cookies we’d ever tasted. Something called digestives. In England, they call cookies “biscuits.” Probably because they need gravy. Or at least some butter and jam.

  “Can we please get out of here?” said Gloria after guzzling water straight out of the tap to wash away the taste of the cardboard-flavored cookies.

  “Definitely. But first, let me stir-fry an idea in your think-wok.”

  Yes, sometimes I pick up on Gloria’s business-wiz lingo. Especially the goofier stuff.

  “Go for it,” she replied.

  “Who was the last person in the suite with the tiara?”

  “Lady Lilly. Her mother, father, and butler had all gone downtown to the art museum.”

  “And Lilly said she was certain the tiara was secure in Digby’s room when she left to go check out the sand sculpture competition.”

  “Do you think she stole it?”

  “Not really. It’s a family heirloom, so it’s already hers. But she might be able to give us some more information.”

  “Excellent suggestion, P.T. Only one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, to get that information, we’ll have to talk to her. And I wouldn’t be surprised if her parents told her not to talk to anyone from the Wonderland until we turn over the tiara.”

  “But,” I countered, “Lilly would probably love to talk to two friends of Pinky Nelligan, star of her favorite surf monkey movie.”

  “Um, there’s only one surf monkey movie, P.T.”

  “So far, Gloria. So far.”

  I pocketed my sand sample and we left the room, making sure the door was locked behind us.

  “We might be able to tempt Lilly with a souvenir. Do we still have any of those autographed photos of Pinky?”

  Gloria grinned. “A few.”

  “Are you two here for the buffet?” sneered Veronica Conch when she saw us trying to sneak across the glitzy lobby of the Conch Reef Resort. “If so, help yourself to all the crow you can eat!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But why, exactly, would anybody want to eat crow?”

  “I believe it is an idiomatic expression,” said Gloria. “To ‘eat crow’ means you must publicly admit a humiliating mistake or defeat.”

  Sometimes when I’m hanging out with Gloria, I wish I had a dictionary app on my phone.

  “Thank you for that stupid definition, brainiac,” said Veronica, propping a fist on her hip. “We also have humble pie for dessert.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m sure the humble pie is way better than your key lime, which, last time I had it, tasted like lime shaving cream.”

  “Why are you even here?” Veronica demanded with an exasperated huff. “We’re very busy right now, because everybody from your sad little motel just moved into our spectacular world-class luxury resort, and Daddy’s making me put chocolate mints on everybody’s pillows.”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “One of your new guests left some personal property over at our place.”

  “You mean the diamond tiara your housekeeper stole?”

  “Clara didn’t—”

  Gloria raised her hand because she could tell I was about to explode. It would’ve made the shiny lobby messy.

  “Lady Lilly left behind a treasured possession of her own,” Gloria calmly explained, flapping the envelope we’d slipped Pinky’s autographed glossy into.

  “Give it to me,” said Veronica, thrusting out her grubby chocolate-smeared hand. I think she’d been helping herself to a few of those pillow mints. “I’ll take it to her.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Since I didn’t have a good answer, I made one up. “Hotel Bellhop Code. Article fourteen, subsection C. ‘Any and all articles entrusted to a bellhop must be delivered directly into the hands of those for whom they are intended without the use of intermediaries or ancillary agents.’ ”

  “Well, how the heck am I supposed to know all that stuff?” whined Veronica. “I’m not a bellhop. We hire people to do that kind of junk for us. Too bad you guys can’t hire anybody t
o do anything anymore. Daddy says you’re basically going out of business! Soon! Like this week.”

  “Have you seen Lady Lilly?” asked Gloria.

  “She’s at the pool. You can’t miss her. She’s wearing neon-green shorts.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Whatever,” said Veronica. Then she flicked her hand at us like we were flies she needed to shoo away from her potato salad.

  We exited through the rear doors of the lobby and headed for the ginormous swimming pool, where a lot of guests I recognized from our pool were splashing around and having fun.

  “There she is,” said Gloria, pointing to a chaise lounge in the distance.

  It was Lilly, all right. Her shorts were fluorescent green, like the reflective vests that road crews sometimes wear.

  And believe it or not, she had on a sparkling crown!

  It glinted in the sun whenever she moved her head.

  “Wow,” I said. “Maybe she did steal her own tiara!”

  Gloria and I made our way around the pool.

  I’d almost forgotten that the Conches had installed a towering poolside pirate statue to compete with all our fiberglass figurines.

  As we approached Lady Lilly, her crown shot blinding beams of light straight into my eyeballs every time she jiggled her head. The thing was covered with bling. All those diamonds from Queen Guinevere were sparkling in the sunshine.

  I started wondering if the whole reported theft was a publicity stunt, a headline-grabbing story to give the Twittleham Tiara a little extra sizzle and pizzazz. You know: “Come see the royal tiara so super special it was almost stolen on its way to Disney World!”

  Grandpa taught me a long time ago that the story is what sells an attraction. Stories are what make Disney World so popular. Why do so many parents plunk down thirty bucks for a stuffed snowman doll? Because the second their kids see his floppy carrot nose and googly eyes, they know it’s Olaf from Frozen and they start singing his song.