The Hotel Under the Sand Read Online Free PDF Page B

the book when she heard an unexpected noise.
    It was a creaking, and a little pattering clicking, and a heavy footstep. It wasn’t coming from the Bar, where she could hear Winston sweeping up broken glass. It was coming from the opposite direction.
    Emma turned her head. In the hall leading off to the right of the Lobby, she could see a flight of stairs leading downward. A sign over the stairway said TO THE KITCHENS .
    Someone, breathing heavily, was coming up the stairs.

6
T HE C OOK
    E MMA GRIPPED THE pen until her knuckles were white, but she did not scream. She watched the stairway, as the noises grew louder, and in a moment she saw who had been making them.
    It was a middle-aged lady, rather stout, with a round red face. She wore long skirts and a shawl over her shoulders, which wasn’t surprising to Emma. Her hair was fastened up with long pins in an old-fashioned way, which wasn’t surprising either. But the black eye-patch she wore
was
a bit startling. A little dachshund scrambled up the stairs after her.
    “I think something must have happened, Shorty,” she was saying to the little dog. “Where has everyone gone?”
    The dachshund spotted Emma and ran forward, barking ferociously. The lady peered at Emma with her one eye.
    “Behave yourself, Shorty, it’s only a child,” she said. “Hello? What are you doing there, child?”
    Winston, who had heard the barking, came running in with the broom and dustpan. “Mrs. Beet!” he exclaimed. “I thought you got out with everyone else! Did you die too?”
    “I
beg your
pardon?” Mrs. Beet’s face paled to a salmon pink. “I never! I was working late in the Kitchens, to get ready for today. Just settled down to put my feet up for a moment, after I put the last loaves of bread in the oven. And I suppose I, er, must have dozed off. Had the most horrid dreams that the bread was burning. Couldn’t seem to wake up for ages.”
    “It
was
ages, I’m afraid,” said Emma. “You must have been frozen in time with the hotel!”
    “Frozen in time? Whatever do you mean, child?” said Mrs. Beet.
    “Well…” Emma wondered what was the best way to break the news. “Your bread’s been in the oven for about a hundred years. But at least it didn’t burn.”
    “What!”
    “Perhaps you’d better sit down, Mrs. Beet,” said Winston tactfully. “We need to explain a few things.”
    Poor Mrs. Beet! When everything had been explained to her, she was so shocked that she became quite faint, and in a feeble voice begged Winston to fetch her a drink of rum from the Bar. He kindly brought it for her, and in no time it restored her natural color, which was a delicate shade somewhere between brick red and boiled lobster.
    “Dear, dear, what a dreadful thing!” she said, looking sadly at her empty glass. “I’ve been marooned in time! This is just the sort of thing that keeps happening to me!”
    “It does?” said Emma.
    “Yes,” said Mrs. Beet, waving her empty glass until Winston got the hint and refilled it for her. “I’ve had a most unusual life, you know.”
    “I guess you must have,” said Emma, trying not to stare at her eye patch.
    “It didn’t start out that way,” said Mrs. Beet.
    “Were you an orphan, like Winston?” Emma asked.
    “What? Why, no. There were the most appalling crowds of babies in my family, and not enough food to go around. So when I was a little girl, I was put into service. I became an under-backstairs chambermaid for a rich family with a lot of spoiled children. I scrubbed the little spaces between the stair railings, and crawled under furniture to dust the back legs, and other things small hands were needed for. I used to sneak into the nursery at night, when the children of the family were asleep, and play with their toys.”
    “Did they mind?” said Emma.
    “I suppose they would have, if they’d ever noticed. But they were given new toys so often they never even looked at most of them. I thought it was very unfair, and