When the Bus Stopped

Chapter 4

"Welcome to the Moonshine Manor," the overly-manicured woman at the counter chimed. "Do you have a reservation?"

"Yes," Lucy squeaked. The oppression of antique doors and monstrous crystal chandeliers overhead were taking its toll on her lungs. "Lucy Falkwell. A woman from the village just rang." She peered around, hoping to catch sight of some insanely good-looking Middle-Eastern man leading his teeming harem through the lobby.

"Oh right, we have you here." The woman's astonishment was tangible. "And she told you the price?"

Lucy sighed. "Yes, she did." After spending an unenviable fifteen minutes trying to get past the valets in front of the Manor she didn't expect to encounter further resistance at the front desk. Clearly, they imagined the leggy visitor with copper dreadlocks half-way down her back, covered from top to toe in soot and snow, to be a homeless bum planning to start an anti-government protest in their foyer.

Lucy didn't want to be there any more than they wanted her there, but with an international music festival playing the following weekend, every man and his dog had taken the week off to celebrate. Every room in town was full. Everywhere except here. All Lucy wanted was a cozy log cabin where she could de-soot herself. Now she was being forced into this monstrosity.

With a faint sniff of disapproval, the woman tapped her keyboard wildly. Lucy peered around the corner and noted, with a smirk, that the woman seemed to be hitting keys at random.

"Right, so you have the Penthouse Suite. Room 17 overlooking the river?" There was a questioning tone in her voice, as though she was offering a Get out of Jail Free card.

"Yes. Unless you have anything cheaper?"

"We have no more vacancies tonight."

Lucy sighed again. Poverty smelt utterly depressing.

"What is your address?"

"I own a house bus which is parked on its roof - in a ditch - not far down the road."

The woman seemed appalled. "If you have no permanent address we will need the address of your nearest of kin."

Lucy let out a low whistle. "That is a tricky one!" Her parents might have given birth to Lucy in a drug-addled state in the late seventies, but they weren't generic parents. Which worked beautifully for Lucy because she wasn't - and never could be - a generic daughter. "In January they were staying in a campsite in Greymouth..."

"You have to be a little more specific than that," the woman hissed.

"Right," Lucy whipped a large brick of a cell phone from her handbag. Pressing the numbers haphazardly she called her father. "Dad? Dad is that you?"

She could hear a crackle in the distance. "You have to move to a better spot... you are breaking up."

Lucy shot a stiff smile at the taloned woman, "I won't be two seconds."

"Lucinda?" Her father's voice cut through. "Lucinda Blossom is that you?"

"Yes, Dad. It's me."

"Are you alright? You only just called me six weeks ago. I hope you aren't in trouble! You haven't been smoking weed in public, have you? You know your mother did that when you were a little girl and the amount of paperwork she had to fill out was soul destroying. Corporations, Lucy... they are out to get us all."

"I haven't been smoking weed in public," Lucy gave a tight smile to the assistant. "I don't smoke pot, Dad." After seeing the effect drugs had on her mother - turning the woman into nothing more than a zombie - Lucy had been afraid to touch any mind-altering substance. A small amount of alcohol was her one exception.