Chapter Thirteen: Dare You to Move
"Now, this is getting interesting!" Eva exclaimed, sitting at the edge of her seat. Leala had wide eyes and Baron was had his eyes fixated on me. "So, Mom, how come you didn't end up marrying Flack? It seemed like you really had a thing for him."
I looked over at Greg, and we both laughed. "Well, I did 'have a thing' for him. And…well, like I said before, things don't always go the way that you plan them to."
Eva scrunched her face up. "You just didn't marry him because you met Dad, right?"
Again, Greg and I laughed. "I was too young to think about marriage when I met Flack or when I met your Dad. I only met your father when I was 24. But like I told you guys earlier, we'll get to that story after we finish this one."
"Then hurry up and finish the story already Mom!" Leala whined.
I laughed. "Well, we still have a while to go, but sure. This is what happened next…"
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Flack peered over my shoulder as I looked at the clue.
You have a song you want to sing, but your roommate forgot the W.
Flack and I stared at each other, puzzled. A song? I thought for a moment, and Flack seemed to be unable to make heads or tails of our clue, which wasn't all that bad, considering none of the other teams had moved from their spots.
"Your roommate forgot the W?" I muttered under my breath.
"What does that mean?" Flack asked in a hushed whisper. I was thinking too hard. Okay, sing? Song? What did that mean? Then, it dawned on me.
"If you take the W out of 'swing', you get sing!" I whispered with excitement. The woman in the hotel uniform looked at us with a smile and pointed down the hall. We took off jogging together to find a swing, me hiking up my dress as I ran.
Peering around the corner of the hallway, I found that there were double glass doors at the end, leading to a patio. Flack and I smiled at each other.
"Race you," he said with a broad smile. I frowned as he took off running.
"Unfair advantage! Girl in a dress here!" I shouted to him. He threw an apologetic smile over his shoulder and pushed through the double doors as I jogged behind him. We stepped out into the cold night air and looked around the patio. When the hotel was open in the summer, there would sure be plenty of people gathered around the pool and the wet bar that we passed.
"Aha!" I noted, pointing to a hanging swing near a bunch of potted plants. Flack reached under the seat of the swing and pulled out another periwinkle envelope.
"Let's see what this one says…" he said, tearing the envelope.
Serve up some sand.
"Oh, that's easy," I said nonchalantly. "Volleyball court."
Flack and I wandered around the patio for a few minutes until we saw the athletic courts. I frowned when there was no volleyball court to be seen. A gust of cold wind blew and I wished that I had brought my shawl with me. Flack must have noticed my shivers, because he took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders gently.
"Wouldn't want the birthday girl to die of frostbite," he said with a smile. I pulled the jacket close to me, comforted. It was warm, and it smelled like him.
"I don't get it," I said with confusion as we reached the basketball court. "The clue clearly meant the volleyball court, but there is none to be seen…"
"Hey there!" someone called out from the other end of the court. The person was wearing a hotel uniform and was waving in our direction. Flack merely shrugged and yelled back: "Hey! Which way to the volleyball court?"
The man shook his head. "I have your clue. The volleyball court never got built. We didn't have enough room, but I guess Elsie didn't hear about the change in plans when she made up your clues."
We made our way over to the man who handed us yet another periwinkle envelope. I pulled it open and caught something that fell out. It appeared to be a room key. Flack raised his eyebrows and I read the clue out loud to him:
Where do you find Anna, when allthe numbers spell her name?
I frowned. "This is odd."
Flack grinned. "Naw, I get it. Look, 'all the numbers spell her name'. That means that in order to find what room this key belongs to, we need to spell your name out, like it would be in numbers."
"Oh!" I said with a smile, and the hotel worker nodded. Flack pulled out his cell phone.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Trying to find out which numbers are used to spell your name. Alright, so on the phone, your name spelled would be 2662. So, am I correct to assume that we need to go to room 2662?" Flack asked the man. The worker nodded and winked.
"You better hurry up. You two have another clue to find."
Flack gave me a smile, placed his phone back in his pocket and ran ahead of me.
"Thank you!" I yelled over my shoulder to the hotel worker. He merely waved back at me, and I rushed to catch up with Flack. If I would have known that I would be running, I wouldn't have bought a long dress! I thought to myself. We reached another set of double doors, leading back into the hotel. We flung open the doors, and rushed to the elevator, nearly running into Danny and Lindsay, who were looking quite rushed.
Flack paused as we got into the elevator. "Do you know what floor room 2662 would be on?" he asked. I thought of the map that we saw when we came into the hotel and wished that I could remember it. As if an answer to my prayers, Elsie (or rather the spirit of Elsie, for she was supposed to be dead) flung a map into the closing elevator. She winked at me and proceeded to walk in the direction that Danny and Lindsay went.
"She's crazy, isn't she?" Flack asked with a grin. I nodded and laughed, but then focused on reading the map.
"Alright Flack, we need to get on the 14th floor."
"Going up."
The elevator let out a ping on the 5th floor as Mac and Stella stepped inside, clutching a lime green envelope. They both managed friendly smiles, and pressed the button to the 15th floor. We all stood in silence, none of us daring to break the rules of the game. Hearing the elevator ping again, I realized that we were only on the 8th floor. Hammerback and Hawkes stepped inside, Hawkes holding a pastel pink envelope. Hammerback leaned over to push the button for the 10th floor, and gave me a wink. I winked back and exchanged a smile with Hawkes. The elevator opened, and the pair stepped out, glancing at their paper as they proceeded down the hall. The 14th floor came soon enough, and we waved our silent goodbyes to Mac and Stella before continuing to embark on our mission.
Yes, that is all. Two chapters in one day should hold you guys over, in case I can't update tomorrow. Haha. The next chapter is a big one, so I need to make sure that I set up this one before I continue. :)
