Victorie plus N

Chapter 13: Surprised

Then just like that, on this dreary Tuesday morning, Ann comes strolling right into the dining hall, like nothing at all has happened.

Teddy looks up from his book, looking at her than looking at me, raising his eyebrows.

I roll my eyes at him and turn off my phone.

"Hi everyone," Ann says, taking a seat at the table two seats down from me, like she's afraid I'll bite her or something.

"I'm going to show you the 6th floor today, and then I have a surprise afterwards to show you!" she exclaims, facing me.

Meanwhile, I can't believe she's acting like this, pretending like the incident didn't happen, and just going on with life. It still seems to be like the elephant in the room, though, the unspeakable thing. We should just call it The-Event-We-Shall-Not-Speak-Of if she's going to totally ignore it like it didn't happen.

However, I just shrug. "Sounds good."

Not.

A little while later, Teddy abruptly stands up in the awkward silence. "I...have to go. Maybe I'll see you guys later."

Gosh, I wonder what's so important that he has to go right now, leaving me in this awkward position. What a good cousin.

Ann and I finish breakfast in silence, and the she stands up.

"Today I'm going to be a tour guide, today I will show you the sixth floor. Now lets go."

She walks out of the dining room, and I silently follow as she turns a corner and heads up a side staircase. I wonder how many staircases this place has. I'm going to have to ask Mrs. King or Leo if I can get my hands on the Beckenridge Manor floorplan. That would be extremely helpful.

Some seven or something staircases later, Ann announces we've reached the sixth floor.

"This way!" She says, turning right. We pass brown door after brown door, all against dark navy walls. This house is really depressing.

"Behind these doors is one big playroom on each side," she tells me.
"We took the sixth floor as our personal playroom, Teddy and I. I think the two rooms were supposed to be for large parties, but Uncle John didn't seem to mind."

She opens one of the doors. Inside our wooden floors with curtians drawn against large windows. There are cubbies lining the walls with what I'm sure are boxes filled with toys.

"Do you play in here anymore?" I ask.

"Not really, I just wanted to show you it. Now for the surprise!"

I follow her again as she leads me down to what I think is the manor's basement. The floors are wooden (for some reason, I expected stone), and we stop at two large brown doors, identical to the one's leading into my suite.

Ann opens them with a grand sweeping motion.

"Welcome to our indoor pool and jacuzzi. I thought you might like to see this," she smiles.

I gasp. "Oh my gosh, no way! Thank you so much for showing me!"

Ann laughs at my excitment. "No problem!"

This is the best surprise, like, ever for me! Now I can actually swim and do something I like!

The pool is really nice and modern; a wooden platform surrounds the pool, lounge chairs on it, and the walls are white. Not so dreary in here! The pool is square-shaped, and lit up with white lights, a bar beside it's edge and it's seats inside the water. The round jacuzzi connects to the pool.

I packed my swimsuits in case something like this would happen! And luckily, they're in the one big suitcase that was found.

"Pool party?" she asks me.

"Yes!"

We head upstairs and to our seperate rooms to change, Ann arrives back with pool floaties.

"Playroom," she explains.

The rest of the day we spend in the pool, Teddy never came, but we had a blast with out him so whatever.

When I get back, I find another basket of flowers with the same note- flower message. The flowers are chrysanthemums, which I saw out in the garden. I look up the meaning of them: friend.
I guess this was Ann's way of saying sorry, again, for the incident.
Well, I forgive her then, and yes, she's my friend. I take the flowers inside, take a shower, then head down to dinner where Ann and I relay our day to Teddy.

"No way! Why didn't you guys tell me you were going to the pool?" He cries.

Ann laughs. "Well, you just left us!"

Teddy pouts. "Still extremely rude, next time, I'm going with you guys."

I smile. "Definitely. Tomorrow. The pool will be the place I'll be visiting everyday, so you'll have tons of chances."

He relaxes. "Good."