This is a start of a new book (hopefully I'll actually stick with this one :/) Anyway I hope you enjoy it, don't forget to vote, comment follow and reccomend to others. This is dedicated to @reyles for always being in such a calm mood. She knows what I mean...
PS. Nell is indeed a nickname for Eleanor, don't argue with me on this
XXX
A thin layer of sweat slowly started to form on the back of my neck and my jumper – which had seemed like such a good idea on the cold British morning – was starting to stick to my body in a most uncomfortable way.
At least the six hour plane journey was finally over. Even with the best of Queen blasting into my ears, a journey in a cramped space with a screaming child behind me was not exactly desirable. Even if the destination was supposedly an ‘oasis’.
I redid my ponytail whilst waiting for the queue to move forward.
The airport had no roof, and offered no shade, so I stood, in the sweltering heat trying as hard as I could to look semi-decent. What can I say? The boy two families behind us was good looking, in fact if I squinted enough he kind of looked like Alex Pettyfer.
My dad kept on shooting me – supposedly – subtle glances as if he was worried I was suddenly going to break down and Kyle kept on pulling on the strap of my bag trying to gain my attention. I already wanted to go home, and we had only landed twenty minutes ago.
Thankfully we were now at the front of the queue and quickly sent to one of the booths that held a stony faced security official – who was lucky enough to have access to shade.
“Passports.”
Well he was certainly straight to the point; I retrieved them out of the side pocket of my bag and handed them over. I had refused to trust my father with them; his mind had been all over the place recently and so he would no doubt forget them.
The security guy flicked through them, stopping to glance up at us once he reached our pictures. I pushed Kyle forward from where he was hiding and waited patiently for us to be let through.
Looking up, it was clear the security guy had other ideas.
“Is he actually your father?” He asked me, his accent clear.
“Yes.”
I could imagine what he was thinking. But it was hardly like my dad looked like the type of guy to smuggle children from country to country. I guess you can’t be too careful though.
The security official looked at my dad skeptically before handing me the passports back and then we were off, waved forward to a small room with a single luggage carousel. If there was one thing I already knew about this airport, it was that it was the smallest one I’d ever visited.
I looked around at my fellow tourists; it was a collection of tired and excited faces. Stressed adults and ecstatic children. Kyle certainly settled into the latter category.
He was looking around with an expression of pure delight on his face. I shook my head at him, at least one of us might enjoy this holiday.
“Is that our bag, Nell?” He asked me with an impish grin on his face, gesturing wildly towards a familiar patterned case.
“Looks like it. Do you want to grab it?”
He nodded energetically and bounded towards the carousel, before struggling to lift the heavy case off it and onto the floor.
Eventually the case was safely placed on the floor and my brother had not injured himself – or any other people – causing my blood pressure levels to lower slightly.
The rest of the cases were collected much the same way. Kyle dangerously picked them up off the moving strip, nearly collapsing under the weight during the process. However all three cases were quickly retrieved and then the three of us were on our way, suitcases in hand.
Two holidays representatives stood in the exit of the airport, smiles that seem to be reserved for flight attendants and holiday reps on their faces.
Instantly, I tried to make my permanent scowl look just a little bit happier.
“Which hotel?” They asked in a cheerful tone, and I wondered if they always sounded like that or if it was a tone reserved for customers.
“Uhh...” I shuffled through my brain, “The pa-rai-so?”
The hotel had a Portuguese name, I found out during my Wikipedia based research that Portuguese was the main language spoken in the country, and I was not really sure that I had pronounced it properly.
“Oh you mean the Paraíso.” The rep said to me with a small laugh.
Not for the first time, I felt a very large desire to hit someone.
“Yep, that’d be it.” Dad said, taking over. He had obviously noticed that I was embarrassed, and he knew that I wasn’t the best at accepting that I was wrong. Especially not when people laughed at me.
They handed over an information pack and directed us towards a row of identical buses.
“Bus number two please.”
We shuffled off towards the bus, not saying a word. I was still pissed off at the holiday rep – did I look like I spoke Portuguese? – and Kyle was too busy staring intently at the buses to try to make conversation. Dad just didn’t speak much anyway.
Eventually the bus appeared – for some reason at the end of the row – and we placed our bags on-board then made our way onto the bus.
Straight away it was clear that the air-conditioning was not working and that I was going to continue sweating until we reached the hotel with little relief. That was assuming the hotel had air-conditioning, it had to, it was supposedly a five star establishment.
Dad and Kyle sat together and the moment was instantly reminiscent of all the times I would be left to work on my own at school because I didn’t have any friends in that particular class or because we happened to be in an odd numbered friendship group.
I made sure to sit across from them and thankfully, by the time the bus pulled out of the car park – if the dusty ground that had been set out for the buses could be called that – there was no one in the seat beside me. That alone was enough of a relief to make my holiday, the last thing I wanted to do was awkwardly sit next to a random stranger for however long this drive took us.
It turned out that it wouldn’t have been a problem, despite the lack of tarmac on the roads the drive was less than five minutes. It appeared that the island was possibly even smaller than I had assumed.
That could be a good or a bad thing.
The hotel appeared in front of us in all its concrete glory. It was a stereotypical hotel that could be found in any country, with the outside walls painted a bright white and revolving doors leading into the reception.
It was a relief to step off of the bus; during the short journey I had learnt that it was actually colder off the bus than on it.
Stepping out into the Cape Verdean open for the second time I realised it wasn’t quite as warm as I had first thought. There were in fact clouds in the sky – which thankfully didn’t look as if they contained rain, that could be the only way this holiday got worse – and there was a strong breeze (probably due to the fact that this was an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean).
The reception wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting. I had been prepared for a patronising ‘African’ theme but instead I was greeted by two giant wooden statues of storks and a number of wooden chairs and tables.
Luckily the queue at reception was not quite as long as the queue at passport control and so I had little time to look at the decor before we stood in front of a long oak desk and were greeted by ‘David’.
“Welcome to the hotel Paraíso.” He greeted, “We want you to enjoy your stay here but first, you must check in!”
He said this with such a flourish that I almost had to resist the urge to take a step back from his enthusiasm.
“First of all, what is your booking name?.”
“Andrew Walker.” My father replied.
I tuned out of the conversation then, it was all about what was included in the all-inclusive package, how to access pool towels and opening times for the restaurants.
None of which I cared about.
My interest only returned to the conversation when Dad nudged me in the shoulder, gesturing towards the wristband that David was holding out towards me. I put out my wrist allowing him to fasten it; this was starting to feel strangely like visiting a theme park. Minus the roller-coasters and people dressed up as giant – terrifying – animals.
“Well now you’re all sorted, here is your room key and I’ve marked your room on the map for you. If you stick these stickers on your luggage they’ll be taken to your room by staff.”
With that, David handed us several sheets of paper that we probably wouldn’t read and gave us a show-stopping smile.
“Enjoy your stay.”
And with a shout of ‘next’ we were dismissed.
Kyle was sent to mark our luggage, luckily at the age of ten this was still a semi-exciting task for him. Dad didn’t try to engage me in conversation whilst we waited for Kyle; he was aware that I wasn’t exactly the biggest talker at the moment and thankfully was beginning to respect that. I was never completely sociable to begin with – despite my kind-of popularity – and I especially was not sociable now.
That wasn’t to say that I still wasn’t invited to sit with my friends at lunch, it just meant that I spend that time perched on the edge of my seat wondering why lunchtimes had never seemed this long before.
Eventually Kyle returned and we were on our way.
“Want to have a little look around before we go back to our rooms?” Dad asked, the way he had done every time we had gone on holiday before.
“Sure.” I grumbled, but luckily Kyle’s response was a lot more enthusiastic and so dad was placated.
Holding the map out in front of him – already taking on the perfect tourist image – he led us along a corridor of some sorts which was lined with shops.
“This is apparently where the shows are held.” He gestured towards a pitifully small stage.
I just nodded and followed him down several flights of stairs – I thought I’d escaped that with six weeks away from the stairs at school, apparently not – and out towards the restaurants. I glanced at the menus, registering that there was a roast every night and chips so, if all else was disgusting, I was sorted for the two weeks we were here.
The rest of the tour was a blur of bars, pathways and a brief stop to look at the pool and before I knew it we were walking up yet another flight of stairs and then we reached the rooms.
“You’re right next door to us Nell.” Dad explained and it was true.
Leading off from the main corridor were several mini corridors with two rooms at the end of each. Two of those rooms belonged to the three of us.
“Cool.” I replied half-heartedly but Dad seemed satisfied and so I didn’t bother to say something more earnest.
He handed me a key and pushed me towards the doorway which I subsequently unlocked, letting myself into one of the chilliest hotel rooms I had ever visited.
Praise the lord for air-con.
I flopped down on the bed, somehow tired from the long day of sitting down whilst travelling.
The room was smaller than I had possibly anticipated but in all truth it was a good size. Not too big that I’d feel lonely without a roommate but not too small that I couldn’t pace the length of it. Double doors led out onto a balcony which I was pleased to see had a pool view and there was a television set in the corner which, flicking through, I saw had access to not only the BBC world news channel but also films with Portuguese subtitles. At least if I was bored I could just chill out here.
There was just one problem though. The bathroom. There was nothing wrong with the room itself but more the fact that it wasn’t really a room, more of an extension. That was to say that there was no door leading into the bathroom, just a square archway. And then just a thin curtain separating the shower from the rest of the room. Thank god the toilet was at least separated from view.
I looked at it sighing, mentally pleased that I had this room to myself, I couldn’t imagine having to share and deal with a bathroom like that. I then scolded myself for that thought, hell, I could put up with a bathroom like that if it meant I was sharing with Mum.
Thoughts of my Mum opened up a whole box of memories that I had hoped to forget about – apparently with little success.
Wanting to avoid remembering... all that, I hurriedly started to unpack. Underwear and bikinis in one drawer, shorts in another, t-shirts in the third. Dresses hung up in the wardrobe as well as any of the nicer tops, shoes lined up in a row by the door, toiletries neatly arranged by the door.
At least the neatness of my room was something I could control.
I glanced at my watch surprised to find that it had taken me nearly an hour to unpack, probably not helped by the fact that I got distracted by the music coming from my speakers. There was something about music that always wanted to make me dance, even if I wasn’t very good at it. That was why it was saved for the privacy of my bedroom – or hotel room – when nobody else was watching.
“Are you nearly ready Nell, Kyle wants some tea.” Dad asked from the other side of the door.
“Coming!”
I grabbed a pair of flip flops – my jumper had been changed for a vest top almost as soon as I had arrived – and a small bag before heading out of the door.
I could see that the rest of my family had changed too, Kyle in his favourite T-shirt and an old pair of shorts. That reminded me that I needed to take him shopping, the thought had obviously not yet occurred to Dad and nobody else was going to take him.
We walked out of the hotel room slowly – and I again marvelled at how many stairs there were – and made our way in the general direction we remembered the restaurant being in. Luckily, dad had some sort of inbuilt sense of direction and we found it with little difficulty.
We picked the first table we spotted when we walked in, Kyle was obviously starving and even I could feel my stomach starting to rumble.
“I’ll wait here, you two go get food.” Dad ordered and I didn’t even bother to argue. I followed Kyle, who was almost running, to the buffet.
It turned out that I would not be needing the chicken and chips I thought I would rely on – at least, not for the first night – a realisation that occurred to me when I saw the variety of food available. There was paella, pizza, pasta and a myriad of other foods that I will not include as they did not begin with the letter P.
Dad just raised his eyebrows at me as I came back with a plate loaded full of food, he couldn’t have a go at me, Kyle’s plate had an equal – if not greater – amount on it.
However even Dad could not resist the idea of food to frown disapprovingly – or disbelievingly, who knows? – at me and so quickly left us to gather some sustenance of his own.
Kyle and I didn’t bother to make small talk; both of us were quickly filling out mouths with food.
To be fair to the three of us we hadn’t eaten proper food since this morning when I had a single muffin in the Costa Coffee in the airport. We’d then been served some unidentifiable food on the airport which didn’t really taste of anything, a miniature loaf of bread and a pot of chocolate mousse which was the only thing Kyle would eat. I attempted to finish everything else. I failed.
And so the table was quiet as the two of us tuck into our meals and the situation did not change even when Dad returned to the table.
“I think I might be ready for an early night.” He told us when we are all starting on our puddings.
(Dad had Crème Caramel, Kyle had ice cream and I tried something that looked kind of like a trifle.)
Kyle yawned in agreement and even I had to admit to feeling tired.
“It is technically ten o’clock in the UK.” I pointed out to dad.
The time zone stuff was throwing me completely off. Two hours didn’t seem like much in theory, but in reality I knew I was going to be exhausted before the entertainment even began.
“Uh-huh.” Dad murmured, stifling another yawn.
He seemed to be waiting for me to say that I didn’t mind going back to the rooms.
“I suppose we could always just go back to the rooms.” I said and that made him perk up slightly.
“Are you sure, if you think you’re going to be lonely we can always stay out a bit longer or you can come and chat in our room for a bit.”
“I’m fine.” I reassured him, “Besides it’ll be good to get away from you two idiots for a while.”
Dad just smiled at my insult before pushing his chair back from the table. My trifle-thing remained half-eaten, it was not as appetising as I had hoped and so I made a mental note to stick with ice-cream the next time. You can never go truly wrong with ice-cream.
Kyle and Dad discussed football as we walked back to the room and I occasionally offered some of my own thoughts but for most of the time, I was content to just walk and listen to them bicker over who was going to win the title that season. I honestly couldn’t care less but it was nice to hear them talk about something the two of them were obviously passionate about.
We parted ways with an awkward goodbye/hug when we reached the rooms and I resisted the urge to remind Dad that we would in fact see each other tomorrow. I instead let him hug me – even when he didn’t let go after the appropriate length of time – and wished him a goodnight’s sleep.
The room was surprisingly dark when I walked back into it, and the chilliness that was so welcome earlier now made me shiver.
I turned down the air-con and prepared for my first night on my own.