Alice Parker & the Curse of Fate (7 page)

While Brigitte
rubbed her hands at the prospect of a meal in one of her favourite
eating establishments, the Parkers were filled with dread. If there
was one place they really did not want to be while being hunted down
by a Sinwip it was a glass restaurant perched on top of the
television tower – the tallest structure in Germany.

*

Alice was not in the
mood for eating – she was far too worried about everything. No
matter how rationally she tried to think about the situation, she
arrived at the same answer. Where would a German art collector bring
his latest acquisition? It could easily be Berlin. The city was
full of art galleries, museums and exhibitions. Lionel and Isabella
could be just metres away from them, plotting their next move, and
here she was flicking through a lunch menu in a restaurant.

Grandma was trying
to put on a brave face but not managing very well. When the food
arrived Alice noticed she just pushed it around her plate. In the
end, after she had mumbled an excuse about having a headache, Thomas
ate her meal as well as his own. Alice ate most of hers, but only
because she did not want to offend Matthias.

‘
Erika, do you
have headaches often?’ asked Matthias. ‘Or only when you
stay with my mother? She has that effect on people, you know!’

Everyone laughed
except Brigitte. She was busy looking out of the window as the
Brandenburg Gate came in to view.

‘
Wonderful, is
it not?’ she asked Alice.

‘
Yes. We
certainly have the best view of the city up here.’ In truth,
Alice had been trying not to look out of the window; it just reminded
her how vulnerable they were stuck in a glass sphere over two hundred
metres above ground. It was almost as bad as being on a plane, only
the restaurant moved very slowly, rotating once every thirty minutes.

‘
Now,’
said Matthias, waving a menu. ‘Everyone must order dessert and
coffee! I insist!’

‘
I thought
dentists didn’t approve of sugar and coffee,’ said Alice.

‘
Shh! Today I
am not at work!’

Alice smiled. There
seemed to be something different about Matthias, but she couldn’t
put her finger on it. His hair was still the same and he couldn’t
have aged since she last saw him four months ago in England. Perhaps
he had new glasses. Yes, that was it! She knew something about his
face had changed.

Thomas nudged
Grandma. ‘The more I see of Matthias, the more I like him.
I’ll eat your dessert, if you like.’

‘
Very decent
of you, dear.’

Chapter 6

Dizzy
Heights

As they waited for
coffee, Alice looked around the restaurant with a slight sense of
relief. The meal was nearly over and nothing awful had happened.
Grandma seemed a little less tense and was chatting to Brigitte as
they looked out over the city. Thomas and Matthias appeared to be
comparing watches. Her gaze rested on a man sitting a few tables
away from them, who was eating alone. For some reason he looked
familiar, but Alice couldn’t think why. She didn’t know
a middle-aged man with auburn hair and a beard.

‘
Want to know
something strange?’ asked Thomas in a low voice, leaning across
the table. ‘This restaurant is rotating slightly faster than
when we arrived!’

‘
Fascinating,’
yawned Alice. ‘Are you really such a geek that you’ve
been timing it?’

‘
He is right,’
said Matthias. ‘I have been checking also. The rotations are
twice as frequent now. I would like to know why!’ He stood up
and made his way over to the bar, hoping that a member of staff would
be able to explain.

Alice tutted. ‘Who
cares?’ she muttered to herself, desperate to leave the
restaurant. She spotted a waitress approaching with their coffee.
‘At last!’

The young waitress
seemed to be having difficulty maintaining her balance. With each
step she swayed from side to side, then the cups and saucers began to
rattle on her tray.

‘
Poor girl,’
said Alice with a sympathetic smile. ‘Maybe it’s her
first day.’ But her smile faded when Matthias shouted from the
bar. She looked over and saw that he was pointing to the glasses and
bottles behind the bar, which were jingling and clinking on the
shelves.

‘
Himmelswillen!’
shrieked Brigitte. ‘What is happening?’

A woman in a suit
was battling to stay on her feet behind the reception desk. In a
state of panic she pressed several buttons on a control panel and
garbled a message in to a microphone. But the only response was a
crackle followed by an impressive fountain of electrical sparks. ‘Es
dreht zu schnell! Halten Sie bitte fest!’ she shouted.

‘
Yes, hold
tight everyone!’ said Matthias as he staggered back to the
table. ‘This is certainly not normal!’

In a matter of
seconds the restaurant was spinning at a dizzying speed. Glasses and
bottles were toppling over and smashing on to the floor. Plates were
sliding around on tables and food flying through the air. Matthias
was kneeling on the floor, clinging on to his mother’s chair
and trying to calm her down. Alice and Thomas crawled under the
table and persuaded Grandma to join them. At least they were
protected from falling objects if they held on to the table legs and
kept it upright. Grandma clung on and closed her eyes tightly. Her
face was a ghastly shade of green.

‘
Now do you
believe me?’ yelled Alice, struggling to make herself heard
over the screams and shouting all around. ‘This is aimed at
us! I swear that Isabella is going to wish she’d never ...’

‘
Calm down!’
ordered Thomas. ‘Your wings will be out in a second if you’re
not careful! Isabella couldn’t do this. She can only produce
heat.’

‘
Someone who
can control electricity could do it. The same person who started the
fire at Gendarmenmarkt!’

‘
What fire?’
croaked Grandma, opening her eyes. ‘You never mentioned a
fire!’

At that moment Alice
realised where she had seen the man with the beard before. The chaos
at Gendarmenmarkt flashed through her mind and she remembered
glimpsing his face. He was the man who pushed past her so roughly in
his haste to get away through the crowds. It was him! He was the
person responsible for these ‘electrical faults’. He
must be! First the star lights, now the rotating mechanism at the
restaurant. Could he make it spin so fast, it would fall off the
tower? If he could they would all be killed! Alice dragged herself
to her feet and searched for the bearded man. He was no longer at
his table or anywhere near it. Alice couldn’t see him in the
restaurant at all.

‘
You’ve
got to do something, Thomas!’ she screamed. ‘Make it
stop! Or at least slow it down.’

‘
I wish I
could. But I can’t see the drive system, so I can’t
focus on it to control it.’

‘
Try! Please!
Just guess!’ pleaded Alice.

Thomas shouted
something to Matthias, who pointed at the floor in the centre of the
restaurant. Immediately Thomas began to crawl in that direction,
dodging furniture and airborne crockery. He stopped near the middle
of the room. Alice knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to
concentrate. There were objects and people blocking his view, and he
must feel just as dizzy as she did. He tried so hard to focus, beads
of sweat formed on his forehead. But nothing happened.

‘
I can’t!’
he shouted. ‘It’s impossible!’

‘
You can! You
must! Try again!’

With an exasperated
groan, Thomas struggled even closer to the centre of the restaurant
on all fours. Alice watched as Matthias scrambled over to join him,
presumably hoping to help with whatever Thomas was doing. In
desperation Thomas lay down and pressed his forehead into the carpet.
A heavy stainless-steel bar-stool flew past his ear and pinned a
waitress to the ground. She screamed in pain as she fell. Then the
screams subsided. Not just hers, but everyone’s. The
restaurant was slowing down. Thomas had done it!

Her head still
spinning, Alice staggered over to help him up, but he was already on
his feet trying to help the injured waitress, who was slumped against
the bar. She seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
Thomas dragged the stool away from her and examined her leg.

‘
Don’t
look, Alice. This is a nasty break. Hide me from the others for a
minute.’

Alice grabbed a
tablecloth and held it up to shield him. She turned her face away,
having no desire to see a bone where it shouldn’t be. After a
couple of minutes she heard a stomach-churning crunch as it snapped
back in to place and healed within seconds.

‘
Sorted!’
announced Thomas, pulling the tablecloth from Alice’s hands.
‘Let’s move before she wakes up again. With a bit of
luck she’ll think she imagined it.’

Guessing what Thomas
and Alice had been doing, Grandma nodded knowingly when they joined
her, but she still looked traumatized.

‘
Please, can
we just leave?’ she asked Brigitte, who was informing the
restaurant manager that they had no intention of paying their bill.
‘I don’t feel at all well.’

‘
Come on,
Mother, just leave it,’ advised Matthias. ‘I will take
us all home straight away. I wish I had never made this reservation.
I am so sorry.’

‘
It’s
not your fault,’ said Grandma kindly. ‘It was a very
pleasant meal until it turned in to a fairground ride.’

‘
Even more
pleasant because it was free!’ said Brigitte proudly.

*

‘
Shame we
never got our coffee,’ Thomas remembered on the way home. ‘I
bet they would have served chocolates with it.’

‘
Is that
really all you’re worried about?’ growled Alice.

‘
Are you all
right, Matthias?’ asked Grandma suddenly. ‘You’re
very quiet. What’s wrong?’

‘
Nothing.
Well, perhaps nothing.’

‘
Perhaps?’

Matthias frowned.
‘Before the ... er ... incident, I thought I saw someone in
the restaurant that I recognized.’

‘
So?’

‘
So ... I
think it was the same man I have seen in a van outside my house. The
van has been there for a few days.’

‘
Perhaps he’s
working in your street,’ suggested Thomas.

‘
No, that is
the strange thing,’ replied Matthias. ‘The man just sits
there, reading his newspaper all day.’

Alice’s heart
sank. ‘Was it the man with auburn hair, a beard and glasses?’

‘
Yes! How did
you know?’

‘
I thought I
recognized him too.’

*

Grandma telephoned
Grandad as soon as they got home. Brigitte was in the kitchen,
pouring herself a brandy to calm her nerves, while informing Matthias
and Thomas that she was going to call the local newspaper and tell
her story of the horrendous incident at the restaurant.

‘
I’m
sure someone has already reported it,’ said Thomas. ‘So
you needn’t worry.’

‘
I am not
worried. It is too late for that now. But they might pay me for my
story! The fear, the chaos, the screaming ...’

‘
Das reicht
jetzt, Mutti,’ warned Matthias. ‘No horrible story is
needed. It was just an unfortunate accident.’

‘
That’s
right. A blip in the electrics,’ agreed Thomas. ‘I’m
sure it won’t happen again.’

Grandma was
devastated by the whole incident and when Alice walked in to her
bedroom, she heard her telling Grandad that she couldn’t cope –
she was not capable of protecting Alice and Thomas. Alice took the
phone from her hand.

‘
We’re
fine, Grandad. We’ll just have to come home, that’s all.
We’re putting everyone at risk here and it’s not fair.
When we get back I’ll read some of my books from Aunt Jennifer
and find out what’s going to happen. There’s no other
option.’

‘
No,’
said Grandad after a moment. ‘Don’t go back on that
decision, Alice. You were right to leave them unread. Once you
glimpse the future in those books, it will change your life. It will
alter how you think, how you live – it’s not a good
idea.’