The Man That Changed Everything

The Neverending Upstairs

Grace and I followed Mr. Watkins up the twirling staircase; his coal black cape swept out from behind him. I started to count the steps, 12, 13, 14... 78,79,80...145,146,147...the stairs went on and on. I could tell that Grace was puffing and panting next to me from all of the steps. Her eyes were still locked on the rubies and diamonds, never taking her eyes off of them. We passed many windows on our way up, but every single one had curtains pulled across so that no light could enter. I found this quite strange, why would you not want people to see such a magnificent house? Suddenly the patterned carpet on the stairs changed, from stripy red to purple and blue polka dot, how strange. I assumed that this was just for design purposes, add an element of surprise, to make it look pretty, but then I looked behind me and saw all of the carpet had changed. I felt wobbly, which I guessed was a mixture of the sudden confusion and looking down over hundreds of steps. I pushed those confused thoughts out of my mind for now, saving them for later. We still showed no sign of stopping as I turned my head to look ahead of us. No doors, no ending of the ongoing spirals. I had to ask Mr. Watkins to see how much longer we would be, because Grace and I were never the most athletic people in our p.e groups, always one of the last ones picked, so it wouldn't be long until we collapsed and had to take a break. "Mr. Watkins, sir," I began.
"Call me Charles please, Mr. Watkins is so non-personal!" He interrupted.
"Ok then. Charles, when will the stairs end? We're getting really tired." I replied. I looked at Grace; the pink jumpsuit, the rosy cheeks, the golden hair. Even though she was gasping for breath and obviously exhausted, she looked incredible: not a spot of sweat. I was incredibly jealous, she gets the beautiful hair, the piercing blue eyes, the delicate skin and she looked good in literally anything mum bought her. She was so lucky, she didn't know what it was like to have dull-brown hair and pale, teenage skin. The only thing I can wear that looks decent is a baggy t-shirt and blue-denim jeans. I'm just bland and boring. Just then, Charles began to speak again. "Not too long, my dears, not too long. Patience is needed but you shall soon get used to the length of your daily walk up to your room."
'Oh yes, wow I'm so excited, I simply can't wait.' I thought to myself.