That Mountain You've been Climbing

3

Oh yeauh! The first thing that catches my eye when we roll into the lobby is a Starbucks. A Starbucks in the lobby!! I'll be spending a lot of time here. The smell is as intriguing as ever and as the parents are sorting through the check-in ordeal, I venture into the café area. There are doughnuts and candy, and any other enticingly unhealthy edible thing you could think of. I take out my coin purse and approach the counter, a cute, hefty little woman approaches me and smiles.
"What can I get ya?"
"Do you have a molten chocolate frappé?" I ask, hopefully.
"I'm afraid not, dear."
Shoot. Of course not. I frown slightly. Starbucks really have to have their lives together to have molten chocolate frappés.
"I guess just a mocha frappé" I say, sucking my lip back in.
"Alright, sorry about that" she smiles, taking my money, returning my change, and then orders a tall, scrawny girl to be my barista. The girl crunches ice in a blender and goes nuts with the chocolate. Yaaasss.
"Whipped cream?" She asks me in a small voice.
"Yes, please!" I answer and she just gives me a smile as she squirts a whipped mountain on my coffee and drizzles it with more chocolate sauce. She clicks the lid on and hands it to me with a nodded smile as I drop my loose change into her tip jar. I retrieve my straw from a condiments table when I see my mother motioning for me, so I open my straw, insert, and walk over towards them.

We get on an elevator and ride up to the second floor. My phone really appreciates it because the service was nonexistent on the bottom lobby floor. When the elevator dings and the doors slide open, I stroll out into the hall, casting my eyes up and down the hallways. I want to explore these mazes tonight. They smell like wood cabin and hotel. 6112. That's our room number. My father slides the card in and pushes the door open, and commence the unloading. I quickly throw my hair up into a messy ponytail and am back out the door, searching for any sign of a gym. My brother starts to trail along behind me so I decide to adopt him as my gym partner for this trip. We find a sign with arrows and halt, reading the words next to the arrows.
"Gym!" I screeched, and we ran to the left all because the little arrow pointed west of us. We reached the gym and I practically smushed my face up against the window.
"It closes at 11." My brother raised his eyebrows, "and it's 12:30."
"I'll find a way in" I grumbled, disappointed as I used any hack I had ever learned on locks, but this one required a room card, and disabled after 11.
"We can just walk." He suggested, and Rhett's ideas don't usually catch my attention, but this one was right up my alley, or right up my hallway, as that's where we were headed now.
"Fine" I smirked, following him down the hall. We passed our room and our mother came busting through the door.
"Don't ever leave like that by yourselves again!! You could get kidnapped!!" She exaggerated, and I'm unsure if she's actually concerned, or just petulant that we didn't take her with us. Either way, she joins us to explore the rest of the residence.
We roam from hallway to hallway, getting the feel of this labyrinth. I lead the pack up a small flight of stairs, despite them objecting nervously. They need a little letting loose. Rhett's eyes light up especially when we get to the top though. A mini arcade awaits, buzzing with life and sounds. He whips out his Velcro wallet and pulls out a five dollar bill, inserting it into a machine that spits out arcade coins in return. It amuses me how infatuated he is with arcade games as I follow him over to a Ms. Pacman game. When he slides the coins into the slots, the game's volume enhances by like 9000 and I'm sure it's just woken the whole floor up. My mother shoots us a sardonic look from her spot on a nearby bench where something super interesting is going on in her phone. Rhett doesn't let that stop him as he rapidly yanks the controller in every direction.
I have come to the conclusion that my brother's summer lover is Ms. Pacman as I lean on a motorcycle racing game beside and get somewhat comfortable.
"Ah! High score!" He shouts over our mother's hushes, but as he attempts to enter his name, the game glitches and instead of "RHE" he has just named himself "ASS".
"WHAT!" He hisses, horrified and I bust into hoots and hollers through horrendous laughter.
"Shhh! People are trying to sleep!" Our mother says, wide-eyed from the sudden burst of commotion.
"Well, I'm getting my fortune" I say, wiping the corners of my eyes and attempting to gather myself as I approach the encased upper half of a gypsy fortune teller machine. I feed the machine my dollar and watch her come to life. Rhett appears by my side with his eyebrows scrunched together.
"I don't see why you like this creepy stuff" He huffs.
"Hello! I am Poppy and I have some profound news for you, my dear" the beautiful machine tells me as her plastic hands rub against her lit up crystal ball that favors a salt lamp.
"Come a little closer, please. The wisdom you are about to discover will have quite the impact on you."
I comply as if she is actually observing me.
"Advice, when most needed, is least heeded, and is much like kissing. It costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do!"
I snicker. Sagacious.
A yellow ticket with my fortune, lucky numbers, and a list of zodiac signs shoots out of the slot and I take it.
"Come back and visit me again, friend!" Poppy says with a robotic wave.
Rhett yanks the fortune from my hand and begins to read it out loud.
He finished reading exactly what the machine has just told me and then rolls his eyes, handing it back over to me and making his way to a basketball claw machine, which rings to life as loud as Ms. Pacman. I, on the other hand, slip another dollar into Poppy's machine because it's mesmerizing to me.
"Hello! I am Poppy and I have some profound news for you, my dear."
Yeah, yeah we've already met. Come on now.
"Come a little closer, please. The wisdom you are about to discover will have quite the impact on you."
"If I come any closer, my face will leave makeup smears on your glass, Poppy." I say, matter-of-factly.
"Change is happening in your life, so go with the flow! A beautiful, smart, and loving person is coming into the picture, so keep an open mind!"
I smile because I like this fortune.
"My mind stays open, Pop." I giggle and glance up, staring out this window at the bigger arcade on the story below. That one is closed at this time of night, but I spied some closed gates with curtains that I could easily slide up under. My mind can't help but wander to Cherry Beach as I gaze out the window, my "fortune" still reeling through my mind. The ejection of my fortune in written form wakes me up from my daydream.
"Come back and visit me again, friend!" And I think that I will as I pull my ticket and join Rhett at the claw machine.
"My turn" I say, stuffing the tickets into my small, golden brown shoulder bag.
"You're not gonna get anything. It sucks."
"Balls are usually easier to catch" I giggle.
"Ah" Rhett wrinkles his nose but lets out a giggle with his disgusted look.
I ignore his advice and give the game fifty cents anyways. The anticipation music blasts and I measure the claw down to hook a mini-basketball perfectly. I press down on the button and the claw yanks at the little ball, budging it slightly, but coming up empty handed.
"Told ya" Rhett huffs.
"It would probably help if they didn't weigh the same as a regular basketball" I suggest.
"And there's like none left" he retorts, motioning to the four balls left in the bottom of the machine.
"True" I say, pressing my face back to the window where I can see pieces of the waterpark in the distance.
"Come on. You're being extremely loud and Winnie woke up and wants us back" our mother interrupts, standing from the bench.
"Going trough the lobby one more time!" I say, just because I love it and I want to walk past the ice cream machine and get me an Oreo ice cream Popsicle.
"Ugh. Fine" she says, but I know she wants to anyways, despite how annoyed she may act by us.
We walk back down the stairs and make our way through the hallway leading back to the lobby, and also back to 0-service. My eyes are casting all around the place from the dark walls, to the bright lights, to the check-in desks, to the gift shop with the stand-up grizzly bear perched outside. Right past that is a den area with a couch, coffee table, books, and a TV set up playing Fox News. Another flight of stairs rests right above the living area and splits into two flights, but we take the long, hallway passageway so we can pass by the Starbucks that I begin to crave just at the sight of it. I wish on everything that it was still open. I'd rather spend these two dollars on anything in there rather than ice cream from a machine, even though the way the ice cream is sucked from the cooler and dropped out is pretty fascinating. I really start to anticipate it as we round the corner and I insert the money and press the code for an Oreo Popsicle. The lid to the cooler rises and the vacuum funnel sucks out a Popsicle, maneuvers through the machine and drops it to my reach. I take it out, yank the wrapper off, and low and behold, a plain, nonfat chocolate Popsicle shines before me.
"What." I glance up at Rhett and my mother, "what is this."
"WHY!" I say, through a laugh as I smack the machine, popping the chocolate rocket into my mouth anyways. It's still good, but I had high hopes for Oreos.
"Let's circle the lobby one more time so I can eat this" I say, nearly spilling a line of chocolate down my face. Before our mother can object, Rhett and I make a mad dash for the hallway on the other side of the lobby. We only circle around once though because I absentmindedly eat the whole thing in a matter of minutes. So, we drag our feet back to the elevator and board once we hear the ding and the doors slide open. I lean against the back wall of the elevator. It doesn't take long, as we're only on the second floor, so we're there before I even know it and before I can get done licking my Popsicle stick clean. The doors slide back open and everyone spills out of the elevator. I drag my feet toward room 6112. I want to go lurking tonight, but I'm exhausted, despite having slept the whole way here. None of it was blissful anyways. Walking through the room, I notice my phone battery on 16%, so I grab my charger and go on a search for a power outlet. The only one is located under the dining table and so I smack my charger into the hole, lean over on the bed and grab my pillow, dropping it to slump to the floor and my booty soon follows. I take the Frozen blanket and Maxie from the pillow case, spreading the blanket out, making myself a pallet. I'll just lay down real quick while my phone charges...