Maria guides the twins through the castle's corridors to a guest room.
As they walk, she tells the twins, "You don't need to make the bed, since you're only 3 years old and won't be able to change the sheets. When we get to the room, I'll show you how you can do it."
Upon reaching a door, Maria stops, turns to the twins with a smile, and says, "This is the room we're going to clean today."
Maria carefully opens the door, and upon entering, a cloud of dust rises into the air. She coughs lightly and waves her hand in front of her face to disperse the floating dust. "It seems they haven't cleaned this room in a month," she comments, showing surprise and disapproval.
The twins watch with curiosity, eager to learn how to tackle the task ahead, as Maria enters the room.
The first thing she does after entering the room is head towards the curtains. With a swift movement, she opens them and then proceeds to unlock the window latches, pulling them inwards to open wide.
Fresh air from outside begins to flow into the room, carrying away the musty smell and accumulated dust. "It's always better to work with good ventilation," she explains to the twins, who watch her intently, soaking up every lesson.
Maria turns to the twins and instructs, "The first thing we're going to do is look at the ceiling for cobwebs." Together they look up and examine every corner of the ceiling. "As you can see, there are no cobwebs now, but if there were, what you would do is take one of the linen cloths, put it on the broom, and clean it." Maria pauses and looks at them, considering their height. "But since you won't reach, what you can do is climb onto the beds to be able to remove the cobwebs."
Maria approaches one of the beds and begins to demonstrate the process. "After making sure the ceiling is free of cobwebs, the next thing is to remove the bedding." With methodical movements, she removes the pillowcases, sliding them off carefully to avoid raising more dust. "Do it gently," she advises them.
Then, she grabs the corner of the sheet and folds it over itself, revealing the duvet underneath. "In some rooms, you'll find blankets instead of duvets. Here, as you can see, both beds have duvets." Skillfully, she takes out the duvet and folds it in thirds, leaving the fabric neat and orderly.
"Now, you're going to take all this," she says, pointing to the sheets, covers, and duvets she has removed, "and leave it to the right of the room's door." The twins watch and follow her instructions, removing the bedding from the second bed and stacking it neatly in the spot indicated by Maria. "This is so it doesn't get in the way while we clean and to take it to the laundry later," Maria explains as she oversees the twins' work.
"Now that we're done with the beds, let's move on to the wardrobe," Maria indicates, leading the twins to the wooden furniture that occupies part of the wall. She opens the wardrobe doors to reveal the hanging clothes and full shelves. "What we need to do is take out all the clothes inside so we can clean the wardrobe inside."
Carefully, Maria begins to remove the garments, one by one, and places them on the bed they have already stripped. "Do it carefully so as not to wrinkle the clothes," she advises the twins, who mimic her attentively.
Once the wardrobe is empty, Maria takes a cotton cloth, dips it in a bucket of clean water, and wrings it out until it's damp but not dripping. "With this cloth, we're going to clean the entire wardrobe, both inside and out." She wipes the cloth over the shelves, showing how to make circular movements to pick up the dust.
"If you can't reach to clean the top part," she continues, "you can remove the wooden boards, clean them down here, and then put them back in place." The twins nod and begin to follow her instructions, removing the boards to clean them with the damp cloth. Maria supervises the process, ensuring that every corner of the wardrobe is clean and dust-free.
"Now that we've cleaned with the damp cloth," Maria says, setting aside the now-used cloth, "we take the other dry cotton cloth and pass it over the wardrobe so it dries." With firm and confident gestures, she shows the twins how to dry the interior surfaces of the wardrobe, passing the dry cloth over each shelf and corner until no moisture remains.
Once the wardrobe is dry, Maria nods in satisfaction. "Good, now we put the clothes back in their place." Together, carefully and orderly, they restore the initial order of the wardrobe.
"We're going to leave the wardrobe doors open so that air can get in," Maria instructs at the end. "It's important that the wardrobe is well ventilated to prevent mold from forming or the clothes from getting a musty smell." The twins watch as Maria ensures that the doors are left wide open, allowing the fresh air from outside to continue circulating through the room.
"Now we're going to clean the nightstands," Maria announces, heading towards one of them. "First, we're going to remove the candles from the top." Carefully, she lifts the candles and places them in a safe spot, away from where they're going to clean.
Then, she bends down and begins to pull out the drawers of the nightstand. "We're going to proceed just like with the wardrobe," she explains as she shows the twins how to remove the drawers. "We take out the things, if there are any, from the drawers to clean them."
Once empty, she takes the damp cotton cloth and meticulously cleans the inside of each drawer, as well as the spaces in the nightstand from where they've been removed. "Make sure to reach all the corners," she advises, passing the cloth over the corners and edges.
When the drawers and the inside of the nightstand are clean, Maria takes the dry cloth and goes over all the surfaces to remove any remaining moisture. "And now, we put the drawers back in their place," she says as she slides them back into the nightstands.
Finally, she places the candles back in their original spot on the nightstands. "And that's how you clean the nightstands," Maria concludes with a smile, as the twins nod, having learned a new aspect of room cleaning.