Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 8: Bill's Antiques

Me and Sophie raced downstairs. She beat me to the office. I didn't know if there would be anything there – perhaps the typewriter was a one-off. But there was something there. A clock.

It seemed like a nice clock, I thought, but I wasn't good on clocks.

I tried to grab it off her but Sophie wouldn't let me hold it. I told her she was a selfish bitch. She told me if I kept being so childish I'd break the clock.

"Fuck the clock," I said. Still, I couldn't help looking over her shoulder as she examined it.

It was the kind of clock you sit on a shelf. It had decorations all over it, old-fashioned curly things – I don't know what they're called – made out of clock-metal and painted bright colours. It wasn't going, but Sophie when turned the key on the back off it went.

"Where's the note?" I said.

"There isn't one."

"Do you think it's from -"

Sophie shrugged. But it must have been from Katy and her Dad. Well her Dad at least – five-year-olds don't own clocks.

"We can put it in the lounge room," I said.

"Yeh, but we need other stuff, and you have to pay those people back." She called them Those People because she didn't like how I called them Chinas. Big deal. Those People was a stupid thing to call them. It could have meant anyone.

"You know what I think?" she said.

"What?" I said. I wasn't really listening. I was looking at the clock. I turned it over and there was a date underneath. 1790 AD.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?" Sophie said.

"I am. 1790," I said, pointing at the date.

"What I think we should do," she said, rolling her eyes, "is sell the clock."

I had to admit it was a pretty good idea.

"Okay," I said, rolling my eyes. "I'll sell the bloody clock."

So I went upstairs and got my bag and stuffed the clock inside, and kissed Sophie goodbye, and went off into the hot morning.