She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure a chimney sweep is a person, not a tool.”
“Well,” he says, laughing, “sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have any of the above.”
They begin to walk faster, blinking away the rain. It’s not like back home, where the rain is sideways and pelting; here, it comes straight down like someone has dropped a bucket over the city, and it’s not long before they’re both completely drenched. As they wait to cross at a stoplight, Mae holds a hand over her head.
“I’m not sure that’s really helping,” Hugo says over the roar of the rain, which is coming down so hard that it’s splashing up all around them.
She looks over at him, water dripping from her eyelashes. “Got any better ideas?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s peg it.”
And so they run, their rucksacks thumping against their backs, their trainers soggy and slipping. By the time they reach the enormous brick hostel, they’re both panting hard and laughing a little too. Once inside, they stand beside a rack of brochures about Chicago, their clothes dripping water onto the floor. Mae wrings out her hair as she peers into the lobby, which is full of ratty-looking armchairs occupied by scattered groups of teens and twentysomethings.
“Maybe this won’t be so bad.”
Hugo shrugs. “As long as they have a towel, I’ll be fine.”
“I just feel bad that—”
“I’m not fussed about where I sleep. Honestly. All I care about is getting a slice of that Chicago pizza I’ve heard so much about.”
“That we can do.”
Something about thewemakes his heart race.
They push open the door and squelch their way into the lobby in wet shoes. At the front desk is a guy with blue hair and a painful-looking nose ring. He doesn’t move his eyes from the computer as they approach.
“Pardon me,” Hugo says after an uncomfortable silence. “I’m wondering if you have any beds available for the night?”
“Forty-eight bucks for a dorm,” the guy says, sounding terrifically bored. “One thirty-eight for a single.”
Hugo drops his rucksack on the floor and stoops beside it to unzip the front pocket, fishing around for his wallet. “Right. I’ll take a dorm, then. How many beds in each?”
“Four to sixteen.” He finally looks up and registers Mae. “I can try to get you a shared bunk, if you want.”
“No, it’s just for me,” Hugo says quickly. He’s still feeling around inside his rucksack, aware of Mae standing above him. He opens the main part of the bag, pulling out a jumper and a couple of pairs of trousers and a book he hasn’t started yet, but it’s not until he feels his fingers brush the bottom that the worry starts to kick in.
“What are you looking for?” Mae asks, though she must have already guessed.
Hugo gives her a sheepish smile. “Just my wallet. I’m sure it’s in here somewhere….” He tries the front again and finds his passport, tucked inside the smart brown case, and he tugs it free with no small amount of relief. But the wallet isn’t there.
Maybe his mum was right.
Maybe they all were.
Worry starts to turn to panic as he stands up and feels around in the pockets of his jeans and his jacket; then he kneels to search the rucksack again. He knows the wallet isn’t there, but he’s not sure what else to do in the moment except to keep looking, and so he does, tossing the rest of his clothes onto the dirty floor as the blue-haired receptionist peers at him over the counter.
This goes on until Mae kneels beside him, resting a hand gently on his shoulder, and this tiniest of gestures sends a small shock through him. “Did you take it out on the train at all?” she asks in a low voice, and he realizes for the first time that they have an audience. The people in the lounge have mostly stopped what they’re doing to stare at the array of clothes fanned out on the grimy linoleum.
Hugo closes his eyes, trying to remember. And then his stomach lurches. “Bollocks,” he says with a groan. “I took out twenty dollars to give Ludovic just before we got off.”
“We were supposed to tip him?” Mae asks, going pale.
“It was for both of us. But I must not have…” He glances down at the pile of clothes in despair. “I’m such an idiot.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she tells him. “We’ll call. Or go back to the station. Maybe they have a lost-and-found.”
Hugo feels suddenly exhausted, a spreading weariness that makes his bones ache. Two days. That’s all it took for him to prove he’s not up to this.
