What happens in the video
At a hotel counter, a woman in a lilac blouse and shorts points across the lobby, then leans over to indicate something on the desk. A male employee in a dark waistcoat shows her a printed sheet and sets it down. A woman in beige stands nearby with a device. The guest leans towards the counter again as the conversation continues. No decision is visible.
Continuation:
“It’s out there,” Tessa said, pointing through the hotel doors.
The receptionist looked at the piece of paper between them. “And according to this, it left twenty minutes ago.”
For one dreadful moment she wondered whether she had simply missed her ride. Then the little green shuttle passed the window again. She knew it by the sunflower on the side. Her eight-year-old nephew had made her promise to come in “the flower bus” to his first swimming gala.
“That’s the third time I’ve seen it,” she said. “If I’ve missed it, why does it keep coming back?”
Daniel showed her the timetable. Departures every half hour from the main entrance, precisely where she’d waited since breakfast. The employee behind him looked up from her tablet.
“Which side of the shuttle can you see from here?”
“The driver’s.”
She came around the counter and stood where Tessa had stood. Through the glass they saw the roof of the shuttle moving left to right, apparently across the forecourt. What they couldn’t see over the hedge was the short ramp down to the hotel’s lower entrance. The main doors had been moved one floor up during building work. Somebody had kept printing the old pickup instructions.
Daniel rang downstairs. The driver was loading the final passengers and agreed to wait the minute it would take Tessa to use the lift. The woman in beige walked her down, carrying the rolled-up paper sign Tessa had made for her nephew.
Outside, the driver opened the door. “Front desk lady?”
“Upper front desk lady, apparently.”
She arrived as the first whistle blew. Her nephew was standing at the far end of the pool in a cap that covered most of his eyebrows. He scanned the spectators, and his face changed when Tessa unrolled the sign. She had drawn a sunflower in one corner so he could spot it from the water.
He finished fourth in a heat of four. He also put his face in for every stroke, which was the thing he’d been afraid to do. When he climbed out, he asked whether she’d seen.
“Every stroke.”
Back at the hotel that evening, Daniel called to her from the desk. He had a fresh copy of the timetable. The words *Lower entrance* were printed in large type, followed by a picture of the lift.
“Would that have got you there?” he asked.
She read it from the spot where she’d stood that morning. “Yes. Especially the picture.”
She showed him her nephew’s ribbon for taking part. Daniel admired it with the gravity of someone examining an Olympic medal. Tessa took a photo of the new timetable to send her nephew. He wrote back with one suggested improvement. They really ought to draw a sunflower on the bus.
