Someone was shaking me awake. I pulled up my eye mask to find Audrey staring down at me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I croaked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. The mattress on the floor was empty. ‘Where’s Grace?’
‘She’s making coffee,’ Audrey said, her brow furrowed. ‘She let me into the flat. She’s already showered and dressed and your mum has left for the lecture she’s giving in Surrey.’
‘Urgh, I should have known Grace is a morning person. She’s so . . . chirpy.’
‘You need to get up,’ Audrey instructed, standing and throwing my towel at me.
‘No, I don’t,’ I grumbled. ‘I haven’t arranged to shadow anyone today. Why doesn’t anyone sleep in this place? You’re all robots.’
‘It’s not that, it’s Miss Chase.’
‘Sky?’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at your phone. She’s been trying to contact you all morning. She rang reception in a state and asked if you could go and see her straight away.’ Audrey bit her lip. ‘She sounded strained on the phone. I think something’s wrong.’
I reached for my phone and found missed calls, several ‘SOS’ texts and instructions to get my ‘butt’ in her room as soon as I could. I flung my duvet off and raced into the shower, coming out to find Audrey gone and Grace sitting on my bed, with the bed sheets stripped from her mattress and folded neatly in a pile. She looked so fresh and pretty, with her big bright eyes and clear skin, and her long black hair tied back neatly in a ponytail. In comparison, I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and actually yelped out loud in horror.
‘Morning!’ she greeted me cheerfully, holding out a mug of coffee, which I took gratefully. ‘I added a bit of vanilla, I hope you like it.’
‘Uh, thanks.’ I took a sip after pulling on jeans and a jumper. ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’
‘Audrey said you had to rush off. She explained that Skylar Chase needs your help. That is SO cool.’
‘I’m sorry, Grace, I know I said we’d hang out.’
‘Can I walk Fritz?’
I sat in front of the dressing table and brushed my wet hair. ‘What? Now?’
‘Yeah!’ She smiled. ‘I took him out while you were sleeping this morning but I think he needs a longer walk.’
‘What time did you get up?’ I asked, attempting to find a matching pair of shoes from the pile in the corner of my room.
‘Early.’ She shrugged. ‘So can I? Walk him, I mean. It might be useful if you don’t have to worry about him today. I can look after him.’
‘Knock yourself out.’
She happily stood up and went to fetch his lead and collar from the kitchen, before popping her head round the door to say goodbye and to throw me one of my shoes she’d found in the sitting room.
‘Aha! Thank you,’ I said, shoving it on. ‘See you later.’
‘See you. Oh –’ she held up her phone – ‘and Olly says hey.’
I had barely knocked on Sky’s door when it swung open and she went, ‘Where have you BEEN?’
I followed her into the suite where she flopped on to one of the sofas. Her entourage were dotted around the room, yelling into their phones. I picked my way through them to get to Sky, trying not to get in their way as they paced back and forth.
She looked terrible. For her. Which actually means she still looked better than most of the world’s population but not so good by her usual standards. Her eyes were red and squinty, like she’d been crying, and she was wearing a jumper several sizes too big for her and some kind of bizarre Aladdin-style trousers.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked, coming to sit down next to her as a message beeped through on her phone. She read it and then cried out, throwing her phone across the room, narrowly missing several members of her team – not that they cared, they were too busy shouting into their own phones to notice one go flying past their heads. I hadn’t actually seen her entourage in its full force before. There were DOZENS of them, making the massive suite seem tiny, and they were all talking so loudly, it seemed impossible that they were able to hear whoever they were speaking to on the phone, but somehow they managed to continue their conversations. One of them was dodging through the crowd passing everyone cups of black coffee. I dreaded to think what the blood pressure average was in this room.
‘Whoa, OK, diva pop star alert!’ I exclaimed, having watched Sky’s phone land. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s my party.’ She sobbed. ‘It’s ruined. Completely ruined.’
‘Why?’
‘The club where it was going to be held has been shut down. This morning. What are the chances?’
‘But the party is –’
‘TONIGHT!’ She crumpled into tears.
‘Surely you can find a new venue. You’re Skylar Chase!’
‘You’d think,’ she wailed, ‘but everywhere good is booked. We can’t just hold it at any old place, and we need to let all the guests know . . . Argh, the press will have a field day! And I fly back to LA tomorrow, so I can’t have it another evening. This is a disaster.’
I watched her as she buried her head in her hands. For some reason, as I watched her acting so distressed, something Cal had said popped into my head. Hotel Royale always goes the extra mile. Here was our most important guest and she was having a meltdown that was going to ruin all her memories of being in London. I had to do something.
‘It’s not a disaster,’ I whispered. ‘I know what to do.’
She blinked up at me. ‘Huh?’
I stood up on the sofa and at the top my lungs, I yelled, ‘EVERYONE, STOP TALKING!’
They all whipped their heads round to look at me and, after glancing at Sky who gave them a firm nod, they told whoever they were speaking to they would call them back and lowered their phones.
‘Right,’ I said confidently, now that I had their attention, ‘you can stop panicking. The party will be here. At Hotel Royale.’
Sky gasped. ‘But . . . are there any rooms? At this late notice? On a Saturday?’
‘You don’t need to worry about anything. That’s my job. Here’s the plan of action,’ I instructed, feeling all important standing up there on the sofa looking down at everyone. No wonder world leaders always speak from podiums. ‘Sky, you are to relax today and get ready for your party this evening. I need someone to make sure that happens. Who can do that?’
Her assistant’s hand shot up.
‘Excellent. Thank you. Now, I just need to make a quick phone call.’
I jumped down from the sofa, grabbed the phone and dialled Audrey’s office. She picked up straight away and gave me the information I asked for. I hung up and turned back to my silent audience, who were all watching in tense anticipation.
‘I need all of you to go to the conference room on the second floor. Someone will be here in a minute to show you the way. The most important thing is that everyone calms down.’ I gave them my biggest smile. ‘We’ve got this.’
And then, with a salute at Sky, who was looking completely baffled, I left the room and raced down to Audrey. As per my phone instructions, she was waiting for me in her office with Matthew, Chef and Ellie. Cal waved at me from where he was comfortably sitting in Audrey’s chair.
‘Why aren’t you sleeping like a normal teenager?’ I asked him. ‘Am I the only person in the world who has heard of lie-ins?’
‘Next door neighbours arguing,’ he explained, ‘woke us up at 4 a.m. I was bored at home.’
‘Flick, what’s going on?’ Audrey’s expression was full of concern.
I launched into an explanation of what had happened to Sky. ‘So, I’ve told her we’ll have the party here,’ I concluded.
‘What do you mean?’ Audrey asked.
‘Here. At Hotel Royale.’
They stared in silence.
‘But,’ Audrey continued, ‘how on earth can we do that, at such late notice? It’s impossible.’
‘Not at the Royale,’ I corrected her. ‘Nothing is impossible here. Right, Matthew?’
Matthew puffed his chest out like a peacock. ‘That’s right.’
‘But we don’t have any rooms available,’ Ellie said, scrolling through her iPad to check.
‘Nothing?’ I asked, biting my lip. ‘What about the conference rooms?’
‘That won’t work. They’re too near the bedrooms, we’d disturb our guests.’
‘There’s got to be somewhere,’ I insisted desperately. I couldn’t let Sky down. She was counting on me. And no one ever counts on me.
She shook her head. ‘We don’t have any space available.’
I leaned back on Audrey’s desk, totally deflated.
‘Yes, we do,’ Cal said softly.
We all turned to look at him. His eyes locked with mine.
‘We have a space,’ he insisted. ‘It’s available, it’s out of the way, it’s a bit kooky. It’s even got its own mini terrace. It just needs a bit of . . . tidying.’
I was about to tell him off for using the word ‘kooky’ but then it suddenly clicked in my head what he was talking about.
‘But Cal, we can’t, it’s your hideaway. It wouldn’t be secret any more.’
‘This is more important.’ He nodded firmly. ‘Flick, it’s perfect.’
‘I guess if we cleared it out, it would be big enough,’ I said, considering.
‘It’s near the kitchens, easy to carry food and drink to and from.’
‘A band or DJ could fit into the far corner, and there would be enough dance space.’
‘We could put fairy lights down the tunnels, it would look amazing.’
‘Or we can tell the guests to come to the outside door via the back road and through into the room that way.’
‘Yes, you’re a genius! We could line the road with lanterns leading them to it.’
‘Magical and mysterious! It’s perfect!’
‘ENOUGH!’ Matthew stepped forwards. ‘What on EARTH are you two talking about?’
Cal and I grinned at each other like a couple of Cheshire cats.
‘Come on.’ I smiled. ‘We’ll show you.’