When I got back to Ambrose Sophie was in the bath. I knew this because she was singing, and splashing in time with the song. It was the one about in the jungle the lion sleeps tonight. It was pretty funny to listen to. There's no way she would've done it if she knew I was listening.
When she got out I told her about my trip to the city and showed her all the stuff I'd got. Then I showed her the poster. I had to piece it together on the kitchen table so she could read it.
She just looked at it for a while, biting her lip. "We need to be careful," she said. She glanced at me, then looked away again. And that was all we said about it.
Later on I wandered into the lounge room to check the TV again, wondering if Katy and her Dad were doing anything, but they weren't.
Someone else was though.
"Sophie!"
She came racing in.
The TV showed a bedroom. Through the open door I could see the corner of the snooker table. The Ape lay on the mattress with a pillow over its head. The Great Lucio was yelling at it.
"What do you think this is? A blithering zoo?" He was waving his top-hat about as if he was trying to catch a butterfly in it. "Don't you know where the blithering toilet is?" He opened a door to show the Ape where the blithering toilet was. His face was bright red, and a vein was pulsing in his neck. "How will we be allowed to stay here if you go around -" he seemed to search around for a strong enough word "- urinating on the walls?"
The Ape crawled off the bed and crouched at Lucio's feet and pawed at his ankles. This only seemed to make Lucio more furious. He brought his hand up high over his head. His knuckles were red, and they looked very hard. For a moment the Ape looked up at him and he looked down at it. Then his hand quivered, and he crumpled to the floor and dropped his hat. A weird sound came through the TV. It took me a moment to realise he was crying.
The Ape picked up the hat. It looked from the hat to the man. Then it put the hat aside and circled its long arms around Lucio's waist.
The screen went blank.
Me and Sophie looked at each other. Neither of us said anything. It was all too strange for us. I turned the dial on the TV, searching for them, but they were nowhere to be found. Just empty rooms.
YOU ARE READING
Hotel Ambrose
FantasyTwo runaway children steal a baby and attempt to raise it themselves in the world's most haunted hotel. To Ben and Sophie the abandoned hotel seems like the perfect place to hide. No adult will ever find them there. Within its strange walls they ca...
