The Hotel Under the Sand (14 page)

“We’d better go tell Winston, then,” said Masterman.

But when they told Winston, he looked worried.

“It’s certainly a good idea to move the Grand Wenlocke to a safer place,” he said. “We do need a bigger staff, and I’d love to hire a band so we could have dances in the ballroom. But how are we going to move the hotel when it’s got guests staying here? Some of them have paid for months and months ahead.”

“I know what we’ll do,” said Emma. She told her plan to Winston and Masterman, who agreed that it was a good one. So Emma and Masterman went out to the verandah where Mr. Eleutherios and his lady friends liked to relax.

“Excuse me,” said Emma.

“Yiasou!”
said Mr. Eleutherios cheerily.

“Excuse me, everyone! The staff and management of the Grand Wenlocke would like to make an announcement. In just a few days, you will all receive a fabulous complimentary sea cruise to a beautiful tropical paradise. You won’t even have to leave your rooms!”

Mr. Eleutherios and the ladies just stared at her. Masterman cleared his throat and began to translate what Emma had said into Greek. Emma could tell when he had finished, because Mr. Eleutherios shouted
“Opa!” and
began to play a dance tune on his guitar, and all his ladies smiled broadly and shouted
“Opa!”
too.

“That went pretty well,” said Emma, picking grapes out of her hair as they left.

“I hope the others take it as nicely,” said Masterman, untwining a twig of grapevine from his lapel.

They went next to the Theater where the beautiful people were, but they had to turn off the projector and turn on the lights before the beautiful people would notice them. Emma repeated her announcement and Masterman translated for her once again. It sounded a lot like Greek too, except that every sentence seemed to begin and end with the word
dahhhhhhlings
. When he had finished, the beautiful people all looked blank and then began shouting questions. Emma could tell that Masterman was answering as best he could, but he looked flustered and angry by the time they were able to leave the theater.

“What did they want to know?” asked Emma.

“All sorts of things,” said Masterman. “Like would they still be able to use their hair dryers, and could we positively guarantee no newpaper photographers would bother them, and could we please hire more servants to come work at the hotel. Especially a plastic surgeon.”

“Well, maybe we can find one on the tropical island,” said Emma.

Next they went to the Natatorium, and Emma made her announcement to the People of the Sand. They all swam to the edges of the pool as she spoke, to give her their full attention. Even the camels seemed to be listening intently. When Masterman translated for her, in a language that sounded like the hissing of wind across the Dunes and gusts thundering up into the sky, they turned to one another and conferred among themselves. At last one of them asked a question. Masterman’s reply was short, and seemed to satisfy them, for they went back to swimming laps.

“They wanted to know if there would be sandy beaches where we’re going,” Masterman explained to Emma as they left the Natatorium. “I told them of course there would be. All tropical islands have sandy beaches, don’t they?”

“Some only have rocks,” said Emma. Masterman waved his hand dismissively.

“We’ll just pick one with sand,” he said.

The last place they went was the Conservatory, where the Freets were basking in the warmth. Emma didn’t bother to make the announcement this time, but let Masterman make it, in the strange twittering language spoken by the Freets. Mr. Freet responded with a question, and Masterman replied. The Freets nodded, and reclined once more on their lounge chairs.

“They just wanted to know if there would be flowers there,” Masterman told Emma.

“If there aren’t any, we’ll plant some,” said Emma.

Captain Doubloon got very busy, bringing oil drums and steel cables from his boat. He spent the next few days going round and round the outside of the verandah, lashing the drums into place so that they would keep the hotel afloat at sea. Winston got all the spare clothesline from the Laundry, and carefully put a few safety loops about the bigger pieces of furniture, so that they wouldn’t fall over if the hotel encountered rough seas on its journey.

But he wouldn’t go outside to help Captain Doubloon carry oil drums from the ship. “Why in blazes not?” demanded Captain Doubloon. “It ain’t like anything could hurt you, what with you being dead and all.”

“I don’t know why,” said Winston, wringing his hands. “I just have this sort of feeling that I’m not supposed to leave the Grand Wenlocke. I’ve tried going out on the verandah, and I felt so insubstantial it gave me quite a nasty turn. I’ll work extra hard looking after the guests, if someone else can go out for me.
Out there—
” He shuddered. “That’s just sand and dreams, shadows and fog. I might blow away like mist,
out there.”

“That’s all right,” said Masterman. “I’ll go out and help you, Captain.”

Emma looked at him in astonishment. Masterman had certainly improved from the haughty little creature he had been when he first came to the Grand Wenlocke.

“Well, thank ‘ee, lad, but a shrimp like you ain’t going to be much use,” grumbled Captain Doubloon.

“I’ll go too,” said Emma. “If we both try, we can lift a barrel between us.”

“We’ll see,” said Captain Doubloon, but he didn’t sound as though he believed they could do any good.

All the same, when Emma and Masterman walked out through the Dunes to the beach, they found it easy work. The oil drums, being empty, weren’t very heavy—they were just awkward. Emma found an old fishing net that had been lost from some trawler. She and Masterman worked out a way to fill it with several barrels at a time and drag it behind them, with Shorty gripping a piece of the net in his jaws too and running beside them. They dragged the barrels all the way to where the captain was digging under the hotel. He took the barrels and chained them in place.

The children made a lot of trips back and forth, managing to get the rest of the oil drums up from the beach in a few days. Though they were very, very tired when night came, Mrs. Beet always fixed a nice hot supper for them. And Winston, true to his word, worked twice as hard and saw to all the laundry and the cleaning for the guests.

At last everything was ready. Just after sunrise, on a morning when the wind was blowing hard from inshore, Captain Doubloon went out to his boat with Emma while Masterman and Mrs. Beet went once around the outside of the Grand Wenlocke to make certain that everything was fastened tight. Winston shepherded the hotel guests into the Bar, where they eagerly awaited the sea voyage. Then Masterman went up to Emma’s turret room with a pistol that Captain Doubloon had given him, and waited.

Emma climbed out of the rowboat and up the rusty ladder to the deck of Captain Doubloon’s ship. There was certainly a lot of rust, but she knew it wouldn’t be polite to say so. “What’s the name of this ship?” she asked instead.

“She’s the
By-the-Wind-Sailor,”
said Captain Doubloon, puffing and panting as he came aboard. “Don’t look like much, do she? But she’s got a powerful strong engine. She used to work as a tugboat, hauling them big cruise liners in and out of harbors. When one of ‘em would get stuck on a sandbar, why, they’d radio for the
By-the-Wind-Sailor
, and she’d pull ‘em free in less time than it takes to sing ‘Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest’! That’s why I, er, saved up and bought her. If any boat could pull a hotel across the sea,
By-the-Wind-Sailor’s
the one to do it, by thunder!”

He handed Emma a spyglass. “You watch that little lubber up in the turret, now, and tell me when he’s ready to give the signal. I’ll get the engines warmed up.”

Emma opened the spyglass and looked back across the Dunes to the Grand Wenlocke. There was her turret room, with the seaward window wide open, and Masterman leaned out of it with the pistol cocked and held up in the air for safety, as though he were a miniature spy. He was watching the horizon keenly.

“He’s ready, Captain,” Emma shouted, over the roar of the
By-the-Wind-Sailor’s
engines.

“Right then!” Captain Doubloon shouted back. “See that there gun on the port bow? You get ready to fire it off when I gives the word!”

Fortunately Emma knew that the port side was the left side of the ship, because
port
and
left
both have four letters. She ran to the little signal cannon there and took hold of its firing cord. The engines roared louder and louder, and water foamed like white lace all around the ship’s hull. A moment or two they rose and fell on the surge, and then Captain Doubloon shouted, “FIRE!”

Emma pulled sharply on the cord, and the cannon fired a shot that echoed across the rolling water. She grabbed up the telescope and peered through it just in time to see the puff of white smoke rising as Masterman fired his pistol, letting everyone in the hotel know it was time to brace themselves.

Captain Doubloon took the wheel of the
By-the-Wind-Sailor
and let her out, and she headed out to sea. Emma, watching over her stern, saw the cable chain rise dripping from the water as it pulled taut. It jerked, and jumped tight as a guitar-string, sending drops of water flying everywhere.

“The hotel is beginning to move!” cried Emma, watching through the spyglass as the Grand Wenlocke jolted forward a foot or so. Only a little further, and it began to slide across the sand. It moved so easily that Emma wondered if it hadn’t been designed to travel all along. She could see a little of the foundation under the Difference Engine now, and it seemed to be smooth and curved, like the hull of a ship. Perhaps that had been why it had sunk under the sand in the first place.

But, just as everything seemed to be going well, Emma heard another pistol shot. She swung the spyglass up to look at the turret room. There was no sign of Masterman, though she could see Mifficent the doll. Was she waving her arms? Or was that Emma’s imagination?

Emma searched with the spyglass and spotted Masterman. He had run down to the verandah, and Mrs. Beet was beside him. They were both waving their arms and shouting. Shorty ran around and around their feet, barking like mad. Emma couldn’t hear them, but it looked like something was wrong.

“We have to stop, Captain!” she yelled.

C
APTAIN
D
OUBLOON LOWERED
the rowboat from the
By-the-Wind-Sailor
again, and he and Emma climbed down and rowed quickly ashore. Emma jumped out and splashed up the beach. She ran quickly ahead of the Captain to the verandah of the Grand Wenlocke. To her dismay, she saw that Mrs. Beet was crying. Shorty was whimpering and trying to jump into her arms.

“What’s the matter?” Emma shouted.

“It’s poor Winston!” said Mrs. Beet. “Everything was going so well, and the hotel had begun to move, when suddenly he gave a dreadful shriek and—and—”

“It was like something pulled him through the wall!” said Masterman.

“But where is he?” said Emma.

“We don’t know!” said Mrs. Beet, holding a handkerchief to her eye. “We asked all the guests, but they haven’t seen him.”

“Then let’s look for him!” said Emma, and she ran along the verandah calling for Winston, as Masterman ran with her.

They had run halfway around the building, hearing only their hard shoes pounding on the wooden planks and the soft wailing of the wind across the sand, when Emma noticed what appeared to be a wisp of fog. It was hovering right over the gigantic track the Grand Wenlocke had left in the sand. Emma stopped short, and Masterman collided with her.

“Watch what you’re doing!” he said angrily. But she held up her hand.

“Listen!” Emma said. They listened, and they heard a faint sad noise, very much like the sighing of the wind, only with words they couldn’t quite make out. It was coming from the foggy shape. “That’s Winston!”

“Oh, no!” said Masterman. Emma scrambled over the rail of the verandah and dropped down on the sand to run to the shape.