The Shining

10. Hallora

The cook didn't conform to Wendy's image of the typical resort hotel kitchen personage at all. To begin with, such a personage was called a chef, nothing so mundane as a cook-cooking was what she did in her apartment kitchen when she threw all the leftovers into a greased Pyrex casserole dish and added noodles. Further, the culinary wizard of such a place as the Overlook, which advertised in the resort section of the New York Sunday Times, should be small, rotund, and pasty-faced (rather like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy); he should have a thin pencilline mustache like a forties musical comedy star, dark eyes, a French accent, and a detestable personality.

Hallora

Da

“Yes I am,” Da

“No, you're go

Da

“If you're go

“Yes, sir,” Da

Hallora

“We think he'll do,” Jack said, and offered his hand. Hallora

“And a pleasure it was. Ma'am, are you a Wi

“I'm a Wendy,” she said, smiling.

“Okay. That's better than the other two, I think. Right this way. Mr. Unman wants you to have the tour, the tour you'll get.” He shook his bead and said under his breath: “And won't I be glad to see the last of him.”

Hallora

“I think I'll have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come in,” she said.

“Don't let it get you down,” Hallora

Smallest, she thought dismally, looking at it There were twelve burners, two regular ovens and a Dutch oven, a heated well on top in which you could simmer sauces or bake beans, a broiler, and a warmer-plus a million dials and temperature gauges.

“All gas,” Hallora

“Yes…:'

“I love gas,” he said, and turned on one of the burners. Blue flame popped into life and he adjusted it down to a faint glow with a delicate touch. “I like to be able to see the flame you're cookin with. You see where all the surface burner switches are?”

“Yes.”

“And the oven dials are all marked. Myself, I favor the middle one because it seems to heat the most even, but you use whichever one you like-or all three, for that matter.”

“A TV di

Hallora

“Here it is, Mommyl” Da

“Good boy,” Hallora

Da

“You three folks could eat up here for a year, I guess,” Hallora

For the next ten minutes Hallora

(when Jack broke Da

she had called the emergency Medix squad, dialing the number from the little card attached to the phone. They had been at the house only ten minutes later. There were other numbers written on that little card. You could have a police car in five minutes and a fire truck in even less time than that, because the fire station was only three blocks away and one block over. There was a man to call if the lights went out, a man to call if the shower stopped up, a man to call if the TV went on the fritz. But what would happen up here if Da

(oh God what a thought!)

What if the place caught on fire? If Jack fell down the elevator shaft and fractured his skull? What if-?

(what if we have a wonderful time now stop ft, Wi

Hallora

Hamburger in big plastic bags, ten pounds in each bag, a dozen bags. Forty whole chickens hanging from a row of hooks in the wood-planked walls. Ca

“You like lamb, doe?” Hallora

“I love it,” Da

“I knew you did. There's nothin like two good slices of lamb on a cold night, with some mint jelly on the side. You got the mint jelly here, too. Lamb eases the belly. It's a noncontentious sort of meat.”

From behind them Jack said curiously: “How did you know we called him doe?”

Hallora