‘Fine.’ He sighed grudgingly. ‘Stop looking at me like that. You’ll damage your eye sockets.’
‘YES!’ I whooped. ‘Thank you. You won’t regret it.’
‘Wanna bet?’
‘When do we start?’ I asked eagerly.
‘We need to ask all the different team managers when it suits them for us to shadow,’ Cal informed me. ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve sorted a plan.’
‘Cool. Great idea. I’m excited to . . . you know . . . get to work.’
‘Right, I’m sure,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
I followed him back out into the corridor at the exact moment Mr Grindle happened to be walking past from the library. He stopped in his tracks and observed us emerging with a stunned expression on his face.
‘Trust me, Mr Grindle.’ Cal sighed, walking past him. ‘You really don’t want to know.’
‘No, not this one.’
Cal and Amy, one of the housekeeping staff, shared a glance.
‘What do you mean?’ Cal asked.
‘Can’t we do another room?’
‘No,’ Cal answered. ‘Amy needs to do this room, so this is the one we’re helping her with. What’s wrong with the Sapphire Suite?’
‘Ohhh,’ Amy said, her eyes widening in understanding. ‘This was Prince Gustav’s room.’
Cal laughed and put his hand out for her to pass him the heavy, old-fashioned room key.
‘Come on, Flick, it’s not like it’s haunted.’
He was still chuckling to himself as we walked through into the large suite. I shuddered at the memory of the last time I’d been here, when those burly security men had dragged me out.
‘Want me to go and get your selfie stick so you can vlog about this moving experience to your millions of followers?’ Cal asked, chucking the keys on the dressing table.
‘Whatever,’ I huffed, glaring at him. ‘I can’t vlog now I’m grounded, can I? Vloggers are meant to have interesting, glamorous lives. I’m stuck in here with you.’
‘So grateful,’ he murmured, sharing a look with Amy.
I settled myself on the sofa and kicked off my shoes as Amy began to unload the pile of linen from her trolley and on to the bed.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Cal asked me. ‘You need to help Amy with the sheets.’
It was only the first day of him showing me the ropes and I already felt VERY tired of the whole thing. It was also obvious that he was revelling in the opportunity to boss me about.
Cal had thought it a good idea to start my ‘Royale education’, as he pompously put it, with the housekeeping team on Saturday morning, so I could learn how everything looks so perfect all the time. He introduced me to Amy, who told me she’d worked at the hotel for three years, which was weird as I’d never noticed her before, and then we’d spent ages in the laundry room while Amy yapped on about her daily routine at Cal’s request. I had stuck it out even though the laundry had an overpowering lavender smell, and I even managed to only yawn once the whole time she was talking, which was wildly impressive considering the topic.
I didn’t really think it was necessary to shadow her for the rest of the afternoon, when I’d already heard what she did in way too much detail, but Cal insisted that doing the job myself would be the only way I could really learn about it. All I did was roll my eyes when he said that and he went off on one, saying this was my idea in the first place and that I wasn’t going to impress my mum with that attitude. I went, ‘Calm down, Grandpa,’ and that just made himmoreannoyed and he made me push the stupid linen trolley the whole way to the room, which was really difficult because it had a dodgy wheel. It did however give me an excellent excuse when I accidentally-on-purpose rolled it sharply into the back of his ankle.
‘Amy, I think you’ve made a mistake,’ I pointed out, lifting one of the folded sheets off the pile as she stripped the bed. ‘There’s only one bed in here but you’ve put out enough linen to do the whole hotel.’
She smiled, as she shook the pillows out of their cases. ‘No, that’s all just for one bed. There are a lot of layers involved. Right, shake out the bottom sheet.’
‘Which one’s the bottom one?’ I asked. ‘They all look identical.’
‘Not at all, some of them are patterned,’ she said, coming over to show me. ‘You see this detailed stitching here in the corners?’
