Chapter 13: The Mysterious Inn

Twenty minutes later, the Chan Clan found their way to the Marigold Mountain Inn. They arrived with their Chan Van, converted into a snowcat, covered with snow. It returned to normal once everyone exited.

"Who would've known we'd run into a snowstorm on the way?" puzzled Henry. "And at this time of year?"

"The climate in a large natural elevation area can be unpredictable," Tom commented.

"Yeah, snow way we could've seen that coming. Heh-heh-heh!" Stanley laughed.

"The last thing I need to hear right now is snow jokes!" Henry groused. "Now come on."

As the children walked to the inn, Suzie noticed a large pink flag on the outside wall. The flag was outlined with beautiful pink fur. "Boy, something about that fur sure looks familiar."

Anne, still wearing her backpack, said, "Suzie, now's not the time to be thinking about fashion." The tomboyish sister then too got a good glimpse at the furry flag. "You know, you're right. There is something familiar about it."

"Yeah," Alan teased, "it reminds me of that pink tutu Suzie got you for your sixth birthday. Boy, did you hate it!"

An annoyed Anne scowled, "Why can't you think of anything better to do than torment me?"

"Oh, come on, Annie," her brother joked as he continued to the inn. "What are little sisters for?"

As she and Suzie followed, Anne shook her head. "He's never gonna stop calling me 'Annie', is he?"

Once inside, the Chan Clan observed the large inn. "This place is huge!" said Stanley. "Should we spread out and start looking for Pop?"

"To save ourselves the trouble, we should just ask the front desk if he's been here," Henry claimed.

The skeptical Flip disagreed, "We're probably just wasting our time. I still say that Lava lady sent us on a wild goose chase."

While Flip was expressing his doubts, Chu-Chu was sniffing the floor of the inn. The moment his young owner finished his sentence, the Pekingese caught the scent of something important and ran off barking.

"Chu-Chu!" Mimi called. "Where are you going? Come back here!"

With his ten owners following, Chu-Chu raced up the stairs to the third floor of the inn, ran down two different halls, and stopped at a door with a sign that read "Employees Only".

Mimi scolded her little dog the moment she caught up with him. "Chu-Chu, you naughty dog. You shouldn't run off like that."

Chu-Chu picked up a necktie he found on the floor and showed it to his owners.

"You had us run all the way up here so you could play with a dumb tie?" Flip growled. "Are you serious?"

"Hey, wait a minute," Henry grabbed the necktie and exclaimed. "This is Pop's tie! Look. His name is written on the tag in the back, in his handwriting."

"Hey, you're right!" Suzie noticed.

"Looks like Madam Lava was right after all," said Anne. "Pop must be here!"

With their hopes risen, the Chan Clan decided to start their search around the inn. However, before they could leave the hall, they heard a loud crash. Everyone turned around and found Nancy on the floor near a knocked-over bookshelf and a bowl of spilled fruit.

"Nancy," asked a worried Suzie, "what happened?"

"I'm sorry," her younger sister apologized. "I got hungry and tried to get this bowl of fruit off the top of the bookshelf, and it tipped over when I tried to climb it."

"Nance," Flip sighed, "can you worry about stuffing your face some other time? We got work to do. So let's…"

Before Flip could finish his sentence, young Scooter noticed something else. "Hey," he pointed out, "there's a big red button on the wall!"

Everyone looked and saw the mentioned red button inside of a clear case.

"Why would they have a button hiding behind a bookshelf like that?" asked Suzie.

"You got me," Alan shrugged.

The ever-curious Scooter opened the clear case. "I wonder what it does," he pondered.

"Scooter, no!" Mimi forbade. "Don't mess with anything you don't under-"

Ignoring his bossy older sister, Scooter pressed the button. The Clan then heard a beeping sound coming from the wall. Instantaneously, a door within the wall slid open, showing a secret entrance that lead further down a dark hallway.

"Boy, ain't this day full of surprises?" mumbled Anne.

The Clan, despite being unsure that they should, decided to enter the secret passage. Though before Scooter could walk in, he was stopped by Mimi. "Hold it," she insisted. "This is as far as you go, Scooter. This could be too dangerous for you. You're just a kid."

"You're a kid, too!" Scooter remarked.

"I'm seven and you're only six," Mimi deflected. "Now you just sit tight and wait for your elders."

Overhearing this argument, Flip interrupted and ordered, "Will you two knock it off and get in here?"

More than happy to, Scooter dashed right past Mimi and entered the secret entrance. His older sister followed him in. Alas, none of the kids noticed that a surveillance camera was watching them from the ceiling.

Once all were inside, Stanley asked, "So which way?"

The hidden door leading to the secret entrance instantly closed behind the children, causing Henry to answer, "I'm guessing straight ahead."

The Chans walked down the long hallway, which seemed rather endless. After over ten minutes of walking, Suzie panted, "How much longer? My feet are killing me."

"Don't ask me," Alan retorted. "I didn't build this place."

Tom deduced, "This might certainly explain why the inn is so large."

"Hey," Flip pointed, "there's another door up ahead."

The Chan Clan all saw the light coming from a door straight ahead of them. Among approaching it, they found themselves on the top floor of an enormous factory.

Referring to Tom's earlier statement, Alan confirmed, "This definitely explains why the inn is so huge."

"I wonder what kind of racket this is?" Flip pondered.

Nancy pointed below them. "Why don't we ask that man down there?"

The Clan looked beneath them and saw a Chinese man passing by on a walkway in a zombie-like state. They walked down to the walkway to question the stranger. Upon approaching him, Henry said, "Excuse me, sir, but could you…"

Without a word, the man just walked past the Chan Clan and to the factory floor below them.

"How rude of him!" Mimi huffed. "Ignoring us like that."

"I'm not sure he was ignoring us," Henry doubted. "Not on purpose, anyway."

"Yeah," Anne noted. "Didn't you see that look on his face? And his eyes, it's like he was in a trance or something."

"It's not just him," Scooter said as he pointed to the bottom floor. "Look. All those guys are like that."

The Chans looked below them and saw a room full of Chinese people. Some were cleaning up around the factory, others were just exercising. All of them were being watched by at least a dozen men, each wearing a wooden fox mask.

"Who are those guys wearing the scary masks?" a nervous Nancy quavered.

"I don't know about them," Henry clarified, "but I think the others are the missing Chinese folks."

"But I don't see Pop down there," said Stanley.

"Me neither," said Alan.

"Maybe we can't spot him from up here," the eldest Chan sibling suggested. "Let's get down there and start looking, but stay low. We don't want those masked characters seeing us."

His siblings nodded and the Clan entered a hallway that would take them to a stairway leading to the bottom floor. Before they could approach the stairway, Stanley looked through the window of one the factory office rooms and found something surprising. "Hey, look!" he yelled. "It's Pop!"

The whole Clan looked through the said window and saw their father bound and gagged in a chair. "Pop!" they all said with excitement.

Immediately, they opened the door of the room. After doing so, Chu-Chu took a quick whiff and felt something was wrong.

"Don't worry, Pop!" whooped Flip. "We'll have you sprung in no time."

Before any of the kids could enter the room, Chu-Chu ran in front of them, trying to prevent them from walking any further.

"Chu-Chu, what's the matter with you?" questioned Henry.

Chu-Chu waved his paws, shook his head, and barked, "Uh-uh! Uh-uh!"

"Chu-Chu, this is no time for playing," Mimi dismissed. "We gotta rescue Pop." The ten kids continued to their father.

In a desperate effort to warn his owners, Chu-Chu leaped for Charlie Chan…and went right through him!

"Did you see that?" gasped Nancy.

"Chu-Chu w-w-ent through Pop!" Mimi squealed.

"Is Pop a ghost?" Scooter asked.

Tom looked up and pointed, "Not necessarily. Look. There's a projector on the ceiling. The Pop we see before us is just a hologram."

All of a sudden, the floor opened up and the ten children and their dog all fell into a deep pit.