Alice-Miranda in the Alps Read Online Free PDF Page B

friendly,’ Sloane said as she watched the woman disappear through a door marked ‘Private’.
    â€˜Perhaps Frau Doerflinger has a lot of things on her mind,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Running a hotel must be a very busy job.’
    â€˜Yeah, except that I thought service was the name of the game,’ Jacinta pointed out. ‘Her husband seemed nice enough, but did you notice that she only paid attention to the adults? I have a feeling she doesn’t like kids very much at all.’
    Alice-Miranda lingered in the hallway as the children piled into the lift. She had a strange feeling that someone was watching them, and turned to see that the door Frau Doerflinger had gone through was slightly ajar. She peered at it and could have sworn that someone was there.
    â€˜Hurry up, Alice-Miranda.’ Jacinta beckoned as the lift doors began to close.
    Lucas reached out and pressed the button to reopen them.
    â€˜Coming,’ the girl called, looking back again to find that the door marked ‘Private’ was now firmly closed.

The children hurried into the reception area, eager for directions to the hotel swimming pool and to find out if there was a games room too. A concierge looked up and greeted them with a smile. ‘Hello there. How may I help you?’ he asked.
    â€˜Hello,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘We were hoping to find the pool.’
    While they waited for the man to draw them a map, Millie gazed around admiring the decor in the hotel foyer. Her eyes came to rest upon somethingshiny poking out from the base of a huge ceramic pot beside the concierge desk. She bent down to pick it up.
    â€˜What’s that?’ Sloane asked.
    Millie shrugged. ‘It looks like a coin, but I don’t know where it’s from.’ She turned it over in her fingers. There was a mountain goat on one side and a cross on the other.
    â€˜You’d better hand it in,’ Alice-Miranda suggested.
    Millie hesitated for a second. It was so pretty and shiny. ‘Excuse me, sir, I just found this on the floor,’ she said, holding up her treasure.
    The concierge took it from her and examined the little gold disc. ‘It must have been attached to a box of chocolates. See, there is the goat of the mountains and the cross for the Swiss flag – the symbol on Fanger’s Chocolate.’
    â€˜May I keep it?’ Millie asked.
    â€˜Of course,’ he said, dropping it back into the girl’s hand with a friendly smile.
    Millie grinned and put it into her jacket pocket. ‘Maybe it will be my good-luck charm.’
    The children thanked the man for his help before weaving through the enormous lounge area with its timber ceilings and comfortable leather couches.There were several groups of tourists enjoying a late afternoon tea.
    They followed the concierge’s map to a staircase at the far end of the room and scampered down several flights, where they found the entrance to the hotel spa. Huge glass doors led into a cave-like grotto with a gigantic swimming pool. Along its farthest side were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a magnificent view of the lake and the Alps.
    â€˜Look, there’s another pool outside,’ Sep said as he spied steam rising amid the snow-covered outdoor furniture.
    â€˜Wow – we should try it later,’ Sloane said.
    â€˜It’s supposed to be really good for you to run through the snow and then leap into the hot water,’ Alice-Miranda said.
    Millie shivered at the thought. ‘No, thank you.’
    Alice-Miranda grinned at her friend. ‘Maybe we could ice-skate on the tennis courts instead. Daddy said they freeze over in the winter, so it’s impossible to play, and they use it as a skating rink instead.’
    The children walked into the pool area to take a closer look.
    â€˜It must be boiling.’ Millie leaned down and dipped her hand in. ‘Yup, it’s sort of like the