Deep Secret (Magids 1) - Page 30

“Finnish,” said Rick. “More of an android really. The hotel hires her cheap because she wants to get programmed in English.”

“Then this is the Tower of Babel,” I said.

“Yes,” he said feelingly. We arrived into a crowd on the landing and had to wait our turn at a long table there. He said, “It’s caused a lot of trouble already. The Romanian fans arrived without their luggage, the Russians can’t find their interpreter, and the Germans don’t like the plumbing. At least the Americans speak English, even if there was a muddle about their rooms – you’re not the only ones.”

We broke through to the long table then, where a big hand-painted notice said PHANTASMACON REGISTRATION. Several people were sitting behind the table, half hidden by boxes with teddy bears propped against them. Rick Corrie led us up to a blue teddy with a large M under it. A notice hung round the teddy’s neck said I AM SOCRATES. I ? CONVENTIONS. I looked it in its mournful button eyes and wished I hadn’t. I was not sure I was going to heart anything about this weekend at that stage.

“Mallory,” Rick Corrie said to the fat girl behind the box. Her badge said WILLOW, but Rick called her Wendy. “The rest of the GOH family party, Wendy.”

Wendy gave us a hasty smile that lifted her cheeks into lumps like tennis balls, and then lowered the lumps to say to Rick Corrie, in a strong, whining voice, “Rick, I hope someone’s going to relieve me here soon. I need to get into con-clothes for the Ceremony.”

“Not my problem,” Rick told her cheerfully. “Speak to Magnus or Parabola.”

Wendy muttered something and searched through hundreds of plastic bags in her boxes. It took her a while, because her long hair kept falling over her massive shoulders and she kept stopping to hurl it back. When she at last discovered two bags and leant forward, smiling tennis balls again, to hand them round Socrates, her vast bosom pooled on the boxes in cushion-sized lumps. I saw Nick look hastily away. I think he thought she was some kind of cripple.

“Here you are,” she said. “Programme and breakfast-tickets, lucky number and badge. Please wear your badge at all times. We’re having trouble with gate-crashers.”

Nick took his bag sort of sideways. I took mine. “Right,” said Rick Corrie. “I’ll take you up to your—” His radio phone began yelling. He unhitched it and listened to the agitated quacking coming out of it with growing dismay. “But we weren’t expecting anyone from Croatia!” he said to it. “All right. I’ll be down in two seconds. Out.” He was on one foot ready to run by then. “Hey you,” he said to a pale young man loitering by the end of the table. “You take these two to rooms 534 and 535, will you. I have to go,” he said to us. “See you at the Ceremony.” And he left at a sprint, taking the stairs in threes.

The pale young man solemnly held out a hand for my bag. “The lifts are just along here,” he said. He had hair so fair it was greenish, almost matching the colour of his T-shirt, which had words on it in a strange language. Finnish? I wondered, while he was pressing the lift button for us.

I was going to ask, only a tremendous noise broke out behind us. A tenor voice was howling, “I insist on satisfaction! I’m a guest at this convention!” and other voices were clamouring, trying to soothe it.

Luckily the lift arrived just then. Nick and I both hopped in and then looked anxiously out as the door slid shut. Sure enough, Mervin Thurless was leaning over the long table, beard jutting, mauve with rage again. “I bet I know what’s happened,” I murmured to Nick.

“Not your fault,” he murmured back as the lift started upwards.

“I am Dutch,” remarked the young man. “My name is Case. That is spelt K-E-E-S. It is short for Kornelius.” And he spelt that too.

“Oh,” I said.

“Ah,” Nick said.

There was a mirror in the lift too. It showed us both staring cautiously at Dutch Case.

“I’m Maree,” I said. “This is Nick.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Case. “You are not Old Nick and I am not a nutcase. There is a Dutch joke for you.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Oh,” said Nick.

We were both glad when the lift stopped and the door slid away to show a board with arrows. It said

? ROOMS 501–556 ROOMS 557–501

?

“I think we can find our – hang on,” Nick said. He took another look at the notice.

“Precisely,” Case said smugly. “It is not so simple. Also a Committee member has told me to take you and I must do what he says. I am a Gopher.”

“Gopher?” we both said together as we all turned left. “Oh, I get you!” I said. “You go for—”

But Case told us anyway. He was that kind. “It is spelt G-O-P-H-E-R and it means people who fetch and carry and whom the Con cannot do without.” We pushed through swing doors and went down a long, long corridor. “People who run errands,” he said. “No doubt it began as a joke, meaning ‘Go for this’ or ‘Go for that’, but now it is an institution. Round here.” We turned left again and went down another corridor. Case said, “At PhantasmaCon it is also an institution that the Gophers are known as Hobbits.” We turned another left-hand corner. There were mirrors at each of these corners. They produced a very odd effect, a brief illusion of us coming and going, and wheeling elsewhere.

As we wheeled round the fourth left-hand turn, I tore my eyes off the mirrors and said politely, “Your English is very good.”

Tags: Diana Wynne Jones Magids Fantasy
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