A Castle in the Clouds Read online

  The children came flying over the top of the wall, too, and fell in a heap on top of me. If their exhilarated laughter was anything to go by, they hadn’t done themselves any harm. I wasn’t so sure about myself, though. But before I could check to see if I was still in one piece, I heard the screech of brakes. And a moment later, a furious voice shouted, “Are you out of your minds? I nearly ran you over!”

  I shoved a twin’s leg out of my face and tried to lift my head. Just a few feet away from us was the bumper of a car. It was a small, dark green car with a Zurich license plate. The door was wide open and the driver, a boy not much older than me, was standing over us. He looked scared to death, and I could understand why.

  Now the shock of it all made my teeth start to chatter. That really had been a close shave.

  “Is anyone hurt?” asked the boy.

  I picked myself up, surprised to find that my body was still working properly. It had been a hard landing, but my padded coat and thick gloves had saved me from grazes or anything worse. “I don’t think so,” I said, and gave the twins a quick once-over. No blood, no twisted limbs, and their front teeth had been missing already. They were all shining eyes and rosy cheeks: the picture of happy children.

  “Again!” they cried. “That was so much fun!”

  Just to be on the safe side, I grabbed hold of them by the hoods of their still snow-white parkas.

  “That was incredibly stupid and dangerous,” scolded the boy. “You could all have been killed.”

  God, yes. “You’re absolutely right,” I stammered, between chattering teeth. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that once you start sliding down the hill, it’s practically impossible to—”

  “And it would have been my fault,” the boy broke in. He hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said and was clearly speaking more to himself than to me. He stared grimly past us into the distance. “There would have been a trial and all the witnesses would’ve been dead and I would probably have had to go to prison and I would’ve lost my driver’s license and my dad would have—” He broke off with a shudder.

  I cleared my throat. “Well in that case, I guess we should all just be thankful we’re still alive!” My teeth weren’t chattering quite so hard now, and I ventured a smile. I would have liked to put my hand on his arm, too, to bring him back from his bleak vision of a parallel universe in which we were all lying dead in the road, but I didn’t dare let go of the children. “Like I said, I’m really sorry we gave you such a shock. Could you possibly do me a huge favor and give us a lift up to the hotel? That is where you were going, isn’t it?” Of course that was where he’d been going. It was the only building for miles around. He was probably one of the six extra waitstaff the hotel had taken on to work in the restaurant over Christmas.

  “You guys are from Germany, right?”

  “Yes, cress, pinklepress, pinklepankle, ponkle, fess,” said Ash. Or perhaps it was Jayden. They were absolutely identical. The boy nodded as if that explained everything. He opened the back door for the two kids. Just to be on the safe side, I didn’t let go of their hoods until they were firmly strapped in.

  “Phew!” I closed the car door with great relief and gave the boy a grateful smile. “Child lock! The best invention since the printing press.”

  “Your brothers like running away, do they?”

  “Oh, they’re not my brothers. I’m not a hotel guest—I’m the intern, here on a one-year placement. And today’s my first day on babysitting duty.” I laughed. “Not the best first day, as you can see. Me and children are not a good combination. I actually preferred working in the laundry, to be honest, even though I burned myself on the rotary iron the very first day. And ruined a monogrammed napkin.” I wasn’t usually so talkative with strangers—it must have been the shock I’d just had and my sheer joy at still being alive to tell the tale. And the boy had a trustworthy sort of face. “Just don’t tell anyone these kids nearly got run over on my watch, will you? Or I’ll definitely get fired.” I took off one of my gloves and held out my hand to him. “I’m Sophie, by the way. Sophie Spark.” I very nearly added “high-school dropout,” so well had Don Burkhardt Jr. succeeded in getting inside my head.

  “Ben.” The boy took my hand and shook it. My chattiness seemed to have calmed him down a bit, and he even managed a smile. “Ben Montfort.”

  “Oh, that’s funny,” I said. “The owners of the hotel are called Montfort, too. Gordon and Gilbert Montfort. They’re brothers…”

  Oh, God. Oh, God. I stared at him in horror. “Please, please tell me you’re not related to them.”

  Ben shrugged apologetically. “Sorry,” he said.

  2

  I was sorry, too. Sorry for myself, I should say. As if it hadn’t been bad enough getting catapulted into the road along with the two little kids who’d been entrusted to my care, it had to be the son of one of the hotel owners, of all people, who’d nearly run us over.

  As I walked glumly around the car to get into the passenger seat, I replayed in my head everything I’d said to Ben just now. I’d already provided him with two white-jacketed reasons to fire me, plus a scorched monogrammed napkin. But it could’ve been worse. If, for example, I’d said Montfort—like the owners of the hotel? Gilbert and Gordon, or as I call them: Gutless Gilbert and Grouchy Gordon.

  There was a paper bag full of carrots on the passenger seat, which I lifted onto my lap as I sat down.

  Ben must be the son of Grouchy Gordon, the elder of the two brothers. I knew Gordon had a son from his first marriage who lived with his mother in Zurich, but I’d pictured the son as a small boy, not a nearly grown-up man. Gutless Gilbert didn’t have a family—he lived alone in a small apartment under the eaves on the fifth floor of the hotel. As Denise from Reception had told me, it was common knowledge that he’d lost the love of his life in tragic circumstances when he was young, and since then he’d lived like a monk. What those tragic circumstances were, Denise didn’t know, but the story certainly explained Gilbert Montfort’s drooping, hunched posture and troubled look. He always nodded in a friendly way when you ran into him around the hotel, though, and had a melancholy smile for everyone.

  His brother Gordon’s smile, on the other hand, was reserved exclusively for hotel guests. If you were an employee, he’d either completely ignore you (if you were lucky) or go ballistic at you (if you were unlucky). The most trivial thing could set him off. So far, he’d always studiously ignored me, but ever since September I’d been dreading the day I might fall victim to one of his rages.

  Perhaps today would be that day. If Gordon Montfort could yell at someone for fifteen minutes just for having a speck of toothpaste on their uniform or fire an employee for leaving cigarette butts outside the back door of the hotel, what on earth would he do to someone who launched the children of hotel guests into the path of his son’s oncoming car?

  As Ben started the engine, I shot a sideways glance at him. A certain family resemblance was undeniable: blue eyes, high forehead, strong nose, firm chin, thick brown hair—all just like his father. But a younger version. And a nicer version. Even from the side he had a trustworthy sort of face.

  In spite of that—or perhaps because of it—I felt I should proceed with caution. I mustn’t let myself think he was harmless just because he had a nice face. He might still be planning to rat me out to his dad. Like father, like son and all that …

  Perhaps he’d forget what had happened if I could distract him with my sparkling conversation. I rustled the bag of carrots. “That was good thinking, bringing a few snowman’s noses with you. Especially as there’s supposed to be more snow coming this evening.”

  He promptly smiled again. “The snowman’s noses are for Jesty and Vesty.”

  Oh dear—he really did make it difficult to be suspicious of him. Now it turned out he was an animal lover, too!

  Jesty and Vesty were the hotel horses, a pair of friendly Norikers whose full names were Grand Gesture and White Vesture. In the summer mo
nths, they galloped across the mountain meadows, their pale manes streaming out behind them. When it came to idyllic Alpine clichés, they gave even the fluffy cows with bells around their necks a run for their money. In the winter, they pulled the vintage sleigh that Old Stucky had polished up to a beautiful shine. They loved taking the guests out for sleigh rides, so I was told. I was still hoping my internship would include some time in the stables because Jesty and Vesty were by far the friendliest horses I’d ever met.

  “Oh, they’ll like that,” I said. “Old Stucky’s put them on a diet—he says they’ve put on too much weight while they’ve been in the stables.” I was probably partly to blame for that. I’d been known to bring them bananas now and then, which they loved. And they loved me, too. They snorted happily as soon as I entered the stables, and I always felt mean if I didn’t have anything to give them. “But they’re going to have plenty to do over the next few weeks—Monsieur Rocher has already taken loads of reservations for sleigh rides.”

  “And I always worry hauling a sleigh full of people will be too much for them.” Ben sighed. “When I was little, I could hardly bear to watch—I used to wish I could have pushed the sleigh instead of them having to pull it.” As we drove up the mountainside, he steered the car around the bends so slowly that the twins in the back called “Faster, plaster, minklemaster, minklebunkle, bonkle, blaster!” and put their heads together, giggling.

  “So you’re visiting your dad?” I continued, a little more boldly now. “I don’t think he’s there today.” Gordon Montfort didn’t live in the hotel but with his girlfriend in Sion, about a forty-five minutes’ drive away. (I’d gotten that from Denise, too.) Because he didn’t work regular hours, you never knew whether and when he was going to turn up at Castle in the Clouds, or how long he was going to stay. I hadn’t seen him yet today. Another reason to be thankful: What if I’d fallen in front of his car?

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m here for the whole holidays,” said Ben.

  “Here? But not in the hotel!” I exclaimed.

  “Day and night.” He cast a sideways glance at me. “Is that a problem?”

  No, of course not. I just wondered where he was going to sleep. Perhaps in his uncle’s apartment? The hotel was completely full for the Christmas season. Every single one of its thirty-five rooms and all the suites were booked. We’d even had to put extra beds in Rooms 212 and 213. And the staff accommodation was full, too, with all the temps who’d been brought in.

  “Do you know which room you’re in?” I inquired cautiously.

  Ben laughed. “Yes, of course. I’ve booked the Duchess Suite,” he said sarcastically. “Don’t worry, I’ve always managed to find somewhere to sleep. And anyway, I’m not here to sleep, I’m here to work—as my dad would say.”

  “To work?” I echoed.

  “Yes, to work—go figure!” Ben sounded rather irritable now. “On my vacation. As usual. This is my last Christmas break before my exams. Everyone else is going to be sleeping late and going to parties and getting spoiled rotten by their parents, while I’ll be waking up at five thirty every morning and not even getting paid for it.”

  “I know the feeling,” I murmured, but Ben was so worked up by now that he didn’t even hear me.

  “You may be here on a one-year contract, but I’m here on a lifetime one. Uncle Gilbert has me down to cover for Denise at Reception this time, but I can chlorinate the swimming pool and change the beds, too, if necessary. And I know how to operate a rotary iron—even Big Edna.”

  “Oh,” I said, impressed. Big Edna had rollers five feet thick and—along with Tired Bertha, a washing machine dating back to the previous century, whose drum could comfortably have housed a small family—was the inner sanctum of the laundry room. “Pavel must think a great deal of you.”

  “He does.” Ben smiled proudly, and I decided once and for all that I liked him, even if he was Grouchy Gordon’s son. A warm feeling of friendship came over me. Any friend of Pavel’s was a friend of mine.

  Pavel was master of the washing machines, dryers, mangles, and folding machines in the basement of the hotel. He was a tall, burly, bearded bald man with arms covered in tattoos of skulls, snakes, and pentagrams. It was easy to imagine him working as a bouncer in some dingy hellhole of a nightclub. Until you saw him lovingly ironing the collar of a chambermaid’s uniform, that is, and singing “Ave Maria” at the top of his voice. Pavel had a lovely clear baritone, and his cantatas and operatic arias were legendary. Sometimes I’d just listen; other times I’d sing along. By the end of my time in the laundry, we’d pretty much nailed Papageno and Pamina’s duet from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, accompanied by six washing machines on spin cycle.

  Ben took the last bend a little faster, and we came out of the shadowy woods at last. Ahead of us, on the sunlit plateau, lay Castle in the Clouds in all its glory, with its many high windows, its turrets and stone ledges and balustrades. As always, the sight took my breath away for a moment, and I got the feeling it was the same for Ben. Or perhaps there was another reason for his deep sigh.

  He drove past the entrance to the underground parking lot, and, instead of taking the winding road to the doorway, he stopped in the lot at the side of the hotel. “I can drop you right outside the front door if you want, of course.” He shot me a sideways grin.

  I grinned back. “That’s very kind of you, but we can walk from here, can’t we, boys?”

  “Look, there’s stupid Don.” The twins were pointing to Don Burkhardt Jr., who was standing in the sun in front of the half-moon fir tree with his arms crossed, seemingly waiting for something.

  For us, to be precise.

  I groaned. “You have my permission to stick out your tongues at him,” I said, and the twins did so immediately with great gusto. They also took the opportunity to lick the windows of Ben’s car.

  “You’ve got this babysitting thing down to a T.” Ben squinted at Don. “Is that the Burkhardts’ little brat?”

  “The very same.”

  Don had spotted us now and was ambling toward us, looking inquisitive.

  “They’ve been here nearly three weeks already while they have some work done on their house. I just keep wondering how they managed to take their child out of school for so long. It wouldn’t be easy to do that in Germany.”

  Ben shrugged. “Old Burkhardt probably bribed the headmaster. And if that didn’t work, he’d probably have just bought the whole school. He buys anything he can get his grubby little hands on.”

  He sounded rather bitter, and I would have loved to ask why, but the children had already undone their seat belts and were now climbing out of the car. I hurried after them and instinctively grabbed hold of their white hoods.

  “Don rhymes with prawn and yawn, by the way,” I said.

  I heard Ben laugh out loud. “You really do love children, don’t you?”

  I stuck my head back inside the car. “Maybe not. I do have a knack with Tired Bertha, though. Just ask Pavel!” I would have liked to shake Ben’s hand again, but my fingers were buried in the twins’ hoods, so I just lowered my voice and said, “Thank you. For not running us over. And for not telling your dad.”

  For a moment he looked back at me just as earnestly. “Of course I won’t. We interns have to stick together.”

  I beamed. I knew it: Anyone Pavel trusted with Big Edna couldn’t possibly be a bad person.

  “I’m glad you’re so nice even though you’ve got such an awf—” I began effusively, but then bit my tongue. However nice he was, perhaps it was still a bit too soon to tell him I was glad he didn’t seem to take after his awful father. “Even though you must have gotten a shock just then,” I finished rather lamely, as I closed the car door.

  “Oh, look. It’s Sophie Spark and the children she was meant to be looking after, getting out of some stranger’s old rust bucket of a car with no car seats.” Don had caught up with us now. He watched Ben’s car as it turned onto the road that led to the stables. Ben clearly wan
ted to hand over the carrots right away.

  Don turned back to me. “I wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Bauer will think about this. Do you want to ask them, or shall I? Here they come now, look.”

  With a malicious grin, he pointed to the Bauers’ snow-white Mercedes, which was pulling up as he spoke and soon came to a stop beside us. Mrs. Bauer got out and waved her white Dolce & Gabbana handbag cheerily. “Yoo-hoo! There you are, my little snowflakes. What perfect timing! Did you have fun with the nice babysitter?”

  “Nice babysitter indeed! Just be glad your sons are still alive,” said Don, but Mrs. Bauer couldn’t hear a word he said because one of the twins was crowing loudly, “Don, yawn, pitterpawn, pitterpatter, potter, prawn!” and the other was shouting, “Agaaaiiiin!”

  Mr. Bauer had also gotten out of the car and now pressed a rolled-up banknote into my hand with a jovial smile. “Thank you for looking after our little monsters so well.”

  “Ha ha ha,” scoffed Don. “That’s like thanking a shark for only eating your little toe instead of biting your whole leg off.”

  Luckily, Mr. Bauer wasn’t listening because his sons were both hanging on to his legs and gabbling something about a supersteep mega-slide.

  “It was a pleasure,” I assured Mr. Bauer, and at that moment I actually meant it. I watched fondly as—damn it, what were their names again?—climbed into the car with their parents and drove off, waving to us as they went.

  Once they’d disappeared around the first bend, Don let out a disappointed sigh. “You’ve got a pine cone in your hair by the way, Sophie Spark, and it looks really weird,” he said.