Akito and Estelle at the Plaza

chapter 8

As they were on their way into the lobby, Mr. Salamone changed the clock yet again and there came a young boy, but looked older, even than Felicity and Vincent, in a red uniform with his own coat and suitcase. He was then walking to the line to the front desk. Eloise had special privileges of course, so she came next to the line to personally talk with Miss Thompson, she rang the bell to summon the woman.

"Hopefully she'll answer some questions." Akito said.

Miss Thompson walked over and smiled to the little girl.

"Any messages?" Eloise asked.

"Let's see," Miss Thompson looked, then took out a paper for her. "Oh! Yes, the Chairman of the Stock Market is wondering if you could ring the closing bell next Tuesday."

"Oh, I can't..." Eloise pouted. "My ring finger's all worn out... Please send my regrets."

"Yes, please." Akito said.

"Miss Thompson," Mr. Salamone came to the woman's side. "Daniels wants this invitation to the debutante ball to--" he then looked forward.

Eloise and Akito stood next to each other, looking up at him.

"Uh, our special guest." Mr. Salamone then continued. "Could you send it up to his... Or her room immediately?"

Miss Thompson nodded and walked off to leave him at the front desk.

'That was oddly suspicious.' Akito thought to himself.

Mr. Salamone looked down to them.

"Good morning, Mr. Salamone!" Eloise chirped to him.

"Morning, Eloise and Atiki..." Mr. Salamone replied, hiding the bell from her.

"Akito," Akito corrected him. "So who's this special guest?"

"Is it the prince?" Eloise added, having a pretty big hunch.

Mr. Salamone gestured for them to walk the other way to talk about this. Eloise walked with Akito to the other side of the desk as the man walked with them, behind his desk.

"How did you know?" Mr. Salamone nearly growled at Eloise, proving her hunch was correct.

"Yeah, Eloise, I've been meaning to ask you that myself, how did you know?" Akito asked.

"Oh, AKito, don't you know?" Eloise smiled innocently. "I know absolutely everything!"

"Eloise, please, I'm begging you," Mr. Salamone sounded desperate. "You must behave today. Between the ball and the prince, we can't afford for one thing to go wrong."

"You worry too much," Eloise replied. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Eloise..." Mr. Salamone glanced at her, then pointed to five stars on his desk. "Do you see those stars?"

"Let me guess, if one thing even one thing goes wrong, then you'll lose one of your stars and this place won't be a five star hotel AKA Plaza anymore if that happens, right?" Akito asked with a hunch from his detective skills.

"Precisely," Mr. Salamone nodded. "You see, I take pride in that and i live by what these five stars stand for," he then pointed to each star of what they represented which bored Eloise worse than her tutoring. "Service, attention to detail, courtesy, luxury, and, of course, clean--"

Eloise escaped and she stood on top of a luggage cart to change the clock once again. The boy in uniform saw that and chuckled to her antics. Akito did find this funny, but also knew how serious Mr. Salamone was about how serious this all was and decided to go and get his cousin and change the clock back to it's correct time.