Welcome To Crete Chapter 40

Sal just about manages to succeed

Nick and Sal checked the arrivals board again and were relieved to see that there were no more delays on the flight. Fifteen minutes later the board informed them that the plane had landed and a further twenty minutes after that the first few guests came trickling out of the arrivals door. Nick had gone to meet the new coach driver who turned up just in time at break neck speed, and once again Sal directed the guests over to the coaches where Nick was waiting to tick them off the lists. She tried to keep a vague count of the numbers of guests coming out and when the flow of people ebbed she left the arrivals door and headed for her coach.

"I tried to tick off as many people on your coach as I could but you need to double check as I was busy with my people at the time," Nick said, handing her the tick off list. "Your coach driver is Nikos, but I think he disappeared into the airport to get a coffee a few minutes ago."

She took the list and climbed onto the coach to be confronted with two rows of faces expectantly watching her. Beginning with the front seats, she asked the guests their names and put corresponding ticks next to them on the list until she had reached the noisy back of the bus. She glanced at her list then to see if she had everyone on her coach but frowned when she saw that three guests were missing.

Perhaps she had forgotten to tick them off, or missed them. She would do a head count.

She moved to the front of the coach again and began to count heads, pointing to the people as she went so as not to miss anyone out. She was half way down the coach when a woman got out of her seat and went to pass her.
"We will be leaving in a minute, I'm just doing the last head count," Sal informed her.
"Okay but I just need to pop to the toilet, I'll be back in a tick," the woman said, squeezing past her.

Sal mentally readjusted the number in her head to account for one person less and continued the head count. Minutes later, after having seen the first woman get off the coach, two more people who were sitting near the front of the coach stood up to get off as well. She noticed them leave out of the corner of her eye but by the time she had got back down the coach to stop them they were nowhere to be seen. At that point she had completely lost track of the number she had in her head and she was forced to do the count again.

If anyone else thought about leaving that coach she was going to bloody well chain them to the seats!

"Right, so now three have got off, let's see if I've got all the rest."

She began the count again with a sigh and received some irritated glances from a couple of the guests who were beginning to get impatient to leave.

"Okay, okay keep your hair on! You try counting this lot," she said under her breath.

As she neared the end of the coach again the boisterous people began to laugh and make comments. One or two of them started to call out random numbers to make her lose her count, which she did with a growl and stormed to the front of the coach again. Glancing out of the window she noticed the first woman coming back to the coach, closely followed by the second couple who were running behind. She waited for them to board again and once again began a head count. At the back of the coach one of the men began taunting her again but she was ready for him this time and she sent him such an icy look that he stopped and let her finish her task.

Oh hell, still three missing after all that. What did she do now?

After a moment's thought, she went to get off the coach but then turned and shouted loudly to the people," Don't anyone leave, I've just got to double check something."

When she found Nick he had accounted for all of his guests and was about to leave.
"Nick wait!" she ran over to his coach in a panic. "I've got three people missing and it's a job to keep all the rest on there, people keep getting off!"
He was standing on the step of the coach, rifling through the pages in his clipboard when she reached him.
"You have to be strict with them," he replied, "in future tell them that the coach will go without them if you are that close to leaving or you'll be there all day! Did the three missing people actually get on your coach at any point?"
"No, I don't think so because I never ticked off their names," she answered him, looking down at the list in her hand.
"Well then all you can do is take one last look around the arrivals area, and perhaps wait another five or ten minutes, but then you will have to go or all the other guests will start to complain," he advised.
"But what if they turn up and we have gone?" she said with anxiety.
"They have probably made their own way there in a taxi, or a hire car. You can't wait forever Sal, just let the office know the names of the missing people," he suggested.
"Okay." She wasn't happy about leaving without the missing guests but she trusted Nick's judgement and so she turned to head back towards the arrivals area for one last check.
"Listen Sal," Nick shouted as she began to sprint away, "I've got to go now but my driver is going to drop me off at your last hotel so that Nikos can take us both back to the office at the end of the transfer."
"Alright," she turned and shouted back over her shoulder, stumbling on the curb in the process and only just preventing herself from falling face down on the road. Nick tried not to laugh when he saw her arms and legs flailing about in the air.
"See you later then. And Sal...go easy will you?" he chuckled as the doors of the coach closed.

After running frantically around the entire arrivals area without sign of the missing guests, she gave up and headed back to her coach.
"Ella! Griggora!" the coach driver yelled as she climbed back onto the coach. "Where you been? We must go, we must go!"

Alright, calm down. Glad to see that you had time to get your coffee!

She hardly had time to sit down before he swung the coach around and sped off out of the coach park. She was flung back into her seat where she sat dazed for a few moments, trying to gather her thoughts.

"Right, I've got to let the office know about the missing people. Or should I do my speech first? Okay, speech first, then office. "

She picked up her clipboard and opened it to pull out her arrival speech but her heart missed a beat when she found that it was missing. She flicked through all the papers in desperation but to no avail.

Come to think of it, where was Nick's speech which she had taken from his clipboard? She had put it in there somewhere ...oh damn! He must have known that she stole it out of his clipboard after his first transfer and now he'd taken hers!!

She sat staring at the clipboard in horror as realisation dawned on her.

Oh my god! Oh my god! What was she going to do? Oh no, oh hell! Okay, she would just have to come up with some kind of speech without the notes. She could do this.

She picked up the microphone with a shaking hand and turned it on.
"Good evening everybody." She glanced at her watch, which read one fifteen. "Or should I say good morning. Welcome to Crete!"

Hey, this wasn't so bad.

"Okay, we're off to the hotels now. Well obviously that's where we're going or you're all in the wrong place right," she laughed nervously.

Hell! That sounded stupid!

"Your driver here is...err, what's his name? What is your name?" she whispered away from the microphone to the scowling driver.
"Nikos," he growled back.
"Ah yes, your driver this evening...I mean this morning, is Nikos."

She knew that! Get a grip!

"Now, we will be going all the way to Agios Nikolaos today, which is a lovely place. I wouldn't lie to you either because I live there and I think that it is lovely and I'm sure that you will too."

Now she was babbling!

"Let's see, what else can I tell you? There are lots of fantabulous things to see and do here. My best friend Fay will tell you all about that tomorrow. You will know who she is because she has got long, blonde curly hair and she is ace. Well I think so anyway...but then I might be biased because of the best friend thing...that's not to say that it isn't true...actually the boss thinks it's true as well, and he's a good judge of character. In fact, just between you and me, I think he has a thing for her...but I probably shouldn't be telling you that."

If she dug any deeper she'd end up in Australia! Time to quit before she made another blunder!

"Well that's all for now. So from me... and from him," she pointed to the driver, "Err Nikos... it's over and out." She turned off the microphone with a smile but then quickly turned it back on and added, "By the way, I forgot to tell you that the welcome meeting is at one o clock by the pool in the Muses hotel. Thanks for your patience and bye again...Nikos says bye too." She turned to the driver with a satisfied look. "Was it good?" she asked.
"S**t!" he replied.


After a hair raising forty-five minute journey, which should have taken over an hour, the coach arrived in Agios Nikolaos to the relief of most of the passengers. When they arrived at the first hotel Sal made a quick announcement and all of the people staying in that hotel disembarked. She gathered everybody together by the pool area at the front and asked a group of people standing nearby what name their party was booked under. She checked the name on her sheet and saw that they had booked two apartments, rooms four and five. The rooms seemed to be arranged on two floors along a rectangular building that stretched the length of the pool area. She checked the numbers of the first and second rooms in the block to see that they were labelled one and two respectively.

This looks easy then.

"Follow me," she said confidently to the group of people and they moved along the building in search of rooms four and five. Unfortunately, the room which should have been room four was labelled room one hundred and four!

Spoke too soon! Where the bloody hell was room four then?

She turned behind her to see the people looking at her in bewilderment.
"Looks like the rooms are out of order, I'll check upstairs," she said rushing up the steps to the second floor. She was relieved to see that the first two rooms were the lost rooms four and five, and she bounded back towards the stairs to deliver the good news. When she reached the top of the stairs however she was blocked by at least six or so other guests who were dragging their heavy suitcases to the top.
"Do you know where your rooms are then?" Sal asked with confusion.
"Isn't that supposed to be your job?" A woman with bleached blonde hair and bright red lipstick scowled at her.
"Well yes, but I don't know yet if your rooms are up here," she said with uncertainty.
The woman's glare became fiercer. "You told us to follow you. I hope that you aren't going to tell me now, after we have dragged our heavy cases up here, that our room isn't on this floor."
Sal looked taken aback. "I only told the other group of people to follow me; I haven't checked your rooms yet."
"You had better not be arguing with me girl or I'll see to it that this is your last transfer," she seethed back.
Sal's heart began to sink as she felt the pressure of the last few hours threaten to overwhelm her.
"What is the group name?" she asked meekly.
"Sanderson," the woman replied, moving the list in Sal's hand so that she could get a better look at it. Sal pulled the list back and saw that, by some amazing chance, the woman's apartment was room one hundred and four.

Thank god, at least she knew where that room was!

"I'm very sorry about the misunderstanding Madam," Sal said, taking the suitcase out of her hand, "but your room is downstairs, a lot better to have a room downstairs," she whispered, hoping to appease the woman a little.

Sal dragged the suitcase back down the stairs and let the sour faced woman into the room. She then gestured to the other group of people to follow her back up the steps where she opened their doors and also let them in. As she turned to close the door of one of the rooms however she looked over the balcony and saw to her horror that the rest of the people were following her up the stairs again. There was a line of approximately fifteen people all dragging their cases up the steps.
"I didn't say for all of you come up here! Go back!" she yelled over the railings in panicked frustration.

What the bloody hell was wrong with everyone? They were all acting like a herd of flaming sheep!

"Hold on!" she shouted, backtracking. "Let me just check these room numbers up here as some of you may not need to go back down."

She ran along the row, jotting down the numbers and checking for the corresponding group names on her paperwork. Eventually she managed to sort out the people who were staying upstairs and, after directing them to their rooms, she led the remaining grumbling people back to the ground floor apartments.

By the time the last couple had been shown into their apartment Sal was exhausted with all the running around and took two seconds to catch her breath. She was bent over and gasping for breath when the booming sound of the coach horn hit her and almost made her jump out of her skin.

"Ella! Griggora, dora! Ella! Ella!" the coach driver screeched out of the window.
"Give me a flaming break! I'm going to need one hell of a large vodka after this!" she said to herself as she sprinted back towards the coach and up the steps, where she tripped over the seatbelt and almost flew out of the coach when the driver pulled away before the doors had closed.

What was this? The kamikaze transfer from hell!

It wasn't long before they had reached the second and last hotel and Sal was glad when she saw that there were only a few people staying there. She checked their names and discovered that she simply needed to find three apartments.
"Stay here and I'll go and find the rooms for you," she said, learning her lesson from the last hotel.

She quickly found the apartments, which were in a row next to each other, and went back to direct the people. As soon as the last door was closed she breathed a sigh of relief.

You did it! Only just, but you did it!

Back at the coach she found Nick sitting on the front seat waiting for her.
"So, how'd it go?" he smiled.
She scowled at him. "Bloody awful! And I don't want to talk about it!"
She climbed wearily up the steps of the coach and collapsed onto the seat next to him.
"I'm not entirely sure that I'm up to this job," she sighed, lying down with her head in his lap and curling up into a comforting ball.
"Ahh," he sympathised, stroking her hair, "you will be up to it. The first few transfers are always the worst."
"Well thanks for warning me. And by the way, I'm not talking to you, you speech thief!"
He looked guilty.
"That was mean! At least you have done speeches before, I didn't have a clue!" she chastised.
"Sorry babe, are we still friends?" he asked with puppy dog eyes.
"Hmm, maybe, maybe not. But you can carry on doing that," she said putting his hand back into her hair, "while I consider it."
He grinned.

As the coach made its way back to the office Sal's eyes began to close and she fell into an exhausted slumber. Nick looked down at her and remembered the conversations they had shared that evening. He smiled to himself as he pictured her and 'mind shattering' guy making wild, passionate love all over the yacht.
"You're nuts, do you know that?" he whispered to her sleeping frame and then took part in a battle of wills with his eyes as they strayed to the opening of her blouse.

Stop it!

His hand moved to her back where it paused briefly as a wicked look came across his face.
Sal felt a movement on her back and fought to bring herself into consciousness. The movement became more obvious and she frowned, sitting up abruptly in her seat to see Nick grinning at her.
"You fell asleep," he said, pointing out the obvious.
"Hmm," she yawned, "I was shattered."
"Well, I'm getting off just before the office to pick up my bike. You'll be home soon."
"Thank god!" she exclaimed.

The coach stopped on the side of the highway next to Nick's bike and he climbed down the steps.
"Well, see you next time for more fun and games," he shouted to her as the coach made for the office.
She grabbed her clipboard and sat upright in the seat, holding the board against her body and feeling a mixture of both uncertainty and pride at the thought of finishing her first transfer. Suddenly she looked down with a frown however when something felt odd about her blouse. She moved her clipboard away and looked down in shock to see that her bra was loose. Reaching behind her quickly, she refastened the hooks through the material of her top.

That was all she bloody well need! She just hoped to god that it didn't come undone when any of the guests noticed!