Victorie plus N

Chapter 5: 3-Flowered

Walking down the hall to the garden, Ann takes out her phone- it's a red iPhone, and it looks like an iPhone 12- and checks it.

"It looks like it's raining. But that's okay, we can borrow some umbrellas."

"Oh, okay, but wait- I don't have any rain boots. Some of my baggage got lost on the trip over here."

"Oh, that's not good," her excitement wavering a bit, "Well, you can borrow some of mine! What shoe size are you?"

"Umm, well, in American shoe sizes I'm a 6."

"So am I, in America shoe sizes that is. Let's go to my room to grab them. Oh, right! You have to check out my room!"

She grabs my hand and barrels up a side staircase -that, I promise you, literally just appeared to the side of us- towing me along. Ann runs through the corridors like a pro-NASCAR racer, minus the race car, swerving and turning corridors and flying through multiple hallways. I have no idea how she can remember the way to get to her room. Meanwhile, she's talking a mile a minute.

"And so, right here is the door to the Art gallery which is a long white hallway with tons of paintings from all over the world, it's really cool, I'll show you later, and then over here are some guest rooms, but some of the really nice ones for artists and stuff. Oh, and this is the door leading to the dance studio, there are 5 rooms, 3 have wooden floors and another has, like, concrete floor, and the last room is super big with a stage for performances, though there hasn't been any for 70-" She suddenly stops talking, and slaps her hand over her mouth and stops "walking".

"70 what?" I ask her. "70 years?"

"Umm, no, but anyways," she says more excitedly, "It's really cool! Okay, my room is up these set of stairs," she continues, running up another side stairway.

I follow her, but really, I'm wondering why she stopped talking after saying, "70". What did she mean by 70? Like, 70 years there have been no performances on that stage? But I remember Grandfather being a big ballet fan, saying how he's watched tons of ballets and still wants to see them over and over. Grandfather was rich enough to afford to have ballets be put on here in Beckenridge- so why didn't he, his 90 years living here. Strange.

We finally reach a long hallway on the- I honestly don't know what- floor, but must be one of the main ones connecting to the grand staircase, and stop in front of two double doors. Ann opens them, and they lead to a hallway with open sets of doors on either side and with two open doors at the end where I can see a King bed with a yellow bedspread. I honestly don't know why I'm kind of surprised- of course Ann's room is just as cool as mine.

Ann walks to the end of the hallway near the bedroom. "That's my bedroom," she points to it. Obviously.

She opens a door on one side of the hallway. I can see clothes thrown all over the floor and falling out of drawers.

"This is my closet, but it's a bit of a mess," she laughs, "Let me go get my other pair of rain boots. And two umbrellas," she says as an afterthought.

She walks inside and closes the door. I hear some banging. And some more banging. And some more.

"You okay in there?" I call out.

"I'm fine!"

Finally, Ann comes out. "Got them!" she smiles, holding up a pair of rain boots and two umbrellas. She hands me the rainboots, which I put on- "You can leave your shoes here," she tells me- and take the blue umbrella she holds out to me. "Thanks."

"No problem. Now let's go!"

She grabs my hand again, and again like a pro-NASCAR racer, she races back to the original hallway leading to the garden.