Nadine Book 5

8. Vacation Building

Mary comes in the morning room behind us. "I have to keep these 2 focused."

"I take it you didn't have to get in the shower with them. You're not wet."

She gives Dipak a dirty look and we laugh.

"You 2 are the worst. You get focused and nearly kill each other."

"Is she always all over the place in her sleep? I had to move her 3 times."

Tye shakes his head. "I don't notice it."

Dipak nods. "She is. And when she's acting younger it's worse. Wait until she falls out of bed and takes the blankets with her. That's shocking when you're sound asleep."

"I woke up once, and she was sleeping on my back. I didn't know where the hell she was."

Tye smiles. "Yea, she does that. She loves to cuddle in her sleep."

Mary opens the door. "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?"

The boys and Kane jump up. "Leaving now baby."

Dipak nods. "On our way. Thank you, Mary."

We move to the conference table in Dipak's office.

"The final for the vacation building is in. However, we're confused about how to run the doors. One of us will have to go open them once a day and then go there and make the return door for the other people. This seems like a massive hassle."

"We could always hook them to a circle and have them on constantly."

Thora about falls off her chair. "Are we going to put circles in the whorehouse now?"

I lose it. "The only one of us allowed to go there is Dracul, and he doesn't have magic."

Dracul stands up. "Actually, I am no longer allowed in the whorehouse either." We crack up laughing.

Gunner puts his pen up. "Why couldn't we use the butcher?"

Omar nods. "That would probably be the easiest option. We could put a circle around his table. That would probably run the 2 doors on this side with no problem. Then we need circles to power the doors to get back. One in Egypt and One on the island. I don't know if either of you have butchers there."

Tye sits back. "I do. I put in a breakfast and bar area on the beach. Should be enough to power the door."

Tre shakes his head. "Nothing like that."

"Couldn't we find a butcher there? Or put in a breakfast spot or something Tre."

"Actually, we do use mainly 1 restaurant for the food. They might let us. Or we could hide it."

Bud smiles. "And then the next problem. If the door goes down on the island or Egypt, how would the servants there let us know?"

Marcus writes something down. "That's not a big problem. Have a servant from each place do a loop every 5 hours or so. Then, if one of them doesn't show up, we know we have a problem somewhere. We could get notified and go check everything."

"And how big is this vacation building? If this works well, we could get more inns in different places."

Dipak looks at Marcus. "It's not that big. Big enough for a desk and 4 doorways. 2 there, 2 back."

"You might want to make it bigger. I mean, you get people in there with luggage. Then servants. Then you're going to have people coming in and asking questions. I don't think a little building would work. And putting the in and out doors side by side, is asking for problems. I have problems with the kids in the cafeteria."

Daddy nods. "And this is going to pull people from other villages as well. It's going to get crowded in there."

I stand up. "Give the plans back. We'll redo the building and try again. I think I know what will work now. I would like you to talk about cost. While we go do this."

"You're doing it now?"

"Yes, these boys aren't making any money with us sitting on the plans. But please talk about cost. I feel like it should cost more for people to go through our doors. There are no travel costs or time for these vacations. That's worth a lot. These should not be cheap. Also, food costs. I think there should be meal plans. At least 2 different ones in each place. If I'm traveling with kids to the beach, I want cheap food. I want to make sure everyone is fed. That way I don't have to worry about trying to find someplace to eat for 6 people that doesn't cost a bunch. But if I'm going with Tye to the beach, give me elegant candle-lit dinners on the balcony every damn day."

"That does make sense."

"It really does. I don't want to have to worry about whether I can eat on vacation. I would much rather pay a little more up front and know I'll get 3 meals a day. Not to mention, food is expensive at those vendor places. Am I going to have enough money on vacation to eat? These are things I don't want to ask if I'm going on vacation. I would much rather have a meal plan in place. I would pay for that."

Tye winks at me. "Anything else?"

I shake my head. "Give us an hour or 2."

Me, Thora, and Coral go over to the sitting room.

It takes a little over an hour.

We drag it back over to the office. "Done."

Dracul takes 1 look at it. "Why did you decide to put the doors on the 2nd floor?"

"Because we don't want people going in and roaming through a door for a free day in Egypt or the beach. They need to rent a room to do that. This way we can guard the stairways. No one goes up without a paid reservation."

"Smart."

"Having the brains do the reservation systems is perfect. We shouldn't have any problems if we put them in both places. We'll probably have to put an actual servant with them as well. They can be confusing to try and communicate with."

"So for the offices, would those be for either place?"

"Separate. The offices are for making and paying for the reservation. That makes sure the money is never together. Each office is for 1 location."

"I like it. And there's plenty of room to add different places if it takes off as well as predicted."

Marcus smiles. "And it will be guarded to get to the locations and easy to get out. I don't see any problem layout wise."

"Glad this one works better. Did you come up with my food plan?"

They laugh.

"What? I've been out in the world to many times searching for food. I need food plans."

"Yes, we came up with a basic food plan for each place. Simple foods so people don't die. Tye is working on something more elegant and expensive. But I don't know if I will or not. People go to Egypt to be out and exploring, they don't want long romantic dinners."

"That's true. But some people have a lot of money and are trying to spend it on things. Other people want a vacation they can afford, you have to take care of both types."

"I didn't think about it like that."

Thora looks at them. "So what about the costs of the rooms? Without meal plans or any extras. For the room only. Like if I want to go for 1 night and starve to death."

"They are 500 a night. But if you stay 4 nights, you get the 5th one free. If you stay 5 nights, you get the 6th and 7th free. And top floor rooms are an extra 200g a night."

"So 5 nights would be 2k and 7 nights would be 2.5k, for a regular room?"

"Yes."

"And then the food plans are on top of that?"

"Yes."

"How much are they?"

"Basic meal plan is 50g per person per day."

"So 2 people 7 days is 700 and that is all food and blood?"

"Yes."

"So 7 days, 2 people is 3.2k with the food included."

"Yes."

"What about Ana?"

"We don't feed babies."

"So she would be free?"

"Pretty much."

"Frode, go pack. I want to take Ana to the beach."

"Why not Egypt? I want to see the pyramids."

"Ana was already there. It doesn't matter, we can do 5 days at each place. Go pack. I want to go before the assholes show up from the village."

I crack up. "There are a lot of assholes there."

"If she wants a week on the beach with the basic meal plan. It's ready now. It would actually be a good test run for me with the food. And I know I have rooms."

"I don't know about the Egypt rooms right now. Last time I was there, it was almost full."

"I'll go to the beach now for 5 days."

"I can do that."

"Frode go pack."

Dipak smiles. "I guess you're going on vacation, Frode. Tre you're Frode for 5 days. Let's go eat lunch early. Then Tye can get Thora and Frode over there. Then it will be time for his festival."

Thora runs out. "I'LL PACK FAST TYE."

I rub my eyes. "She can always make a door back if she forgets something."

Everyone laughs, and we make our way to the lunchroom.