Okay, I know this is a little short, but I promise that I'll try to make the chapters longer next time.

Thanks to all who reviewed!

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Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider in any way, shape or form. Duh.

Chapter Four: The Tour

Natalia showed Alex around the entire house, starting with the upper floors of large Victorian home. She told Alex that the house was built in eighteen ninety-four by her great-grandfather on her father's side of the family. It had taken three years to build with only four other family members to help.

She showed him the room he would be staying in first. It was a large, rounded room with a high ceiling and large French windows. A set of French doors lead out to a balcony attached to the outside, which overlooked the nine-acre field.

The room was painted a dark blue and had a large queen-sized canopy bed, with black blankets and frames.

It was right across from her room, which she said she'd show him once she cleaned it up a bit. According to her, it was much messier than the average teenage boy's room.

She showed him the game room which had a pool table, foozeball table, and an air-hockey table. It also contained a pinball machine and a vitual video game system for sport games such as soccer, snowboarding, and hockey among other things.

Next was the theater room with a hundred-inch plasma screen home-theater system complete with DVD/CD/VCR/Blue-Ray Disc player. It had tall backed chairs like the kind you might see in a cinema and a popcorn machine in the back corner.

"Wow," Alex said in awe when she brought him into this room. "How many DVD's do you have? A thousand?"

Natalia chuckled. "No, only about a hundred and fifty at the most." She said, shrugging it off as if she were suggesting they only had about fifteen insead.

"You're kidding," he said, "I've only got about thirty at the most."

Natalia smiled led him to the rooms downstairs. "This is Dad's study, though I'm never allowed inside." She said as she passed a room with tall glass doors with dark burgandy curtains concealing what was inside.

She led him past it and into a large room with a tan. L-shaped couch, a chaise, and a large leather armchair. "The family room as you can most likely tell, though there's not much 'family time' in this house." She said and Alex caught a hint of sadness in her voice.

"We'll go out back to the barn through the kitchen. It's quicker." She said as she started towards the large kitchen where her mother said looking over the newspaper that had just been delievered about an hour ago.

"We're going outside." Natalia told her mother as she passed the table.

Her mother looked up, "All right, kids. Have fun." She gave them a smile as they walked out the back door which led to a large rectangular cement swimming pool. "My favourite part of this entire place," Natalia said as she walked past the edge of the crystal clear water. The sun's light, at its highest most peak in the sky, reflected off the water, making them squint when they looked to the northeast.

Natalia led the way out to the large barn about two hundred yards away from the house. As they neared it, Alex could already hear the horses whinying loudly and he could also hear the sound of two dogs barking.

"Hope you're not afraid of dogs," Natalia told him as she walked inside the barn.

"Don't worry. I'm not." Alex said, following her.

As soon as they walked in, two small beagle pups ran towards them wagging their tails and barking happily. They were both identical in every way, except one small difference. One had a white patch above its left eye, while the other had a black patch.

Natalia laughed as one pawed at her boot and she crouched down, scratching behind its ears. "Hey, sweetie," she cooed, dropping a kiss on its head.

Alex smiled beside her as he petted the other dog.

"What're their names?" he asked her.

"This one," she gestured to the one she was petting, "is called Kawaii. And the one by you is called Luna." Then she added, "Oh, by the way, Kawaii means--"

"It means 'cutie' in Japanese." Alex said automatically.

"Yeah," She said, clearly impressed. "I'm guessing you're fluent in Japanese then? What other languages?"

"English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese." He replied.

"Wow." She said. "Impressive. I only know a could things of Japanese I looked up on the Internet, and I'm fluent in English and French. My Spanish skill suck."

Alex chuckled, "Oh, I'm sure you're not that bad."

"Try me. Give me any phrase." She challenged.

"Okay," Alex said and thought for a moment. "Okay, here's one every teenage girl probably knows. Say, 'where is the telephone?' in Spanish."

Natalia was silent for a moment in thought. "Um...Como Esta Usted?"

Alex laughed lightly. "No, that actually means 'How are you'. Donde esta el telefono. That's how you say 'where is the telephone'."

She grinned, standing back up as the dogs bagan to chase each other around the barn again. "See? Told you I was bad at it."

"Well..." Alex mumured, glancing around at the horses. "Are all these your father's race horses?"

Natalia nodded. "Yes. The Derby's coming up in about a week. They force me to go every year. My Dad said it won't look good for him if I don't show up. I don't know, something to do with family issues and publicity." She said, rolling her eyes slightly.

"You don't like the Derby then?" Alex questioned.

Natalia shrugged. "It's okay. I mean, it lasts maybe one whole minute, but it's about eight hours of sitting there, talking to old women that my mother knows about my school and commenting to reporters and I'm sick of it. That's how it's always been."

Alex nodded silently, putting his hands into his jeans pockets.

"Natalia, Alex, lunch is ready!" Came Mrs. Storms' voice from the backdoor.

"Coming!" Natalia called back and sighed. "Guess we'd better get back up." She said to Alex.

He nodded and followed beside her back up to the large house, wondering how Natalia trusted him with what she'd just told him so easily.

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R&R please!!!