And without any further ado, here's Chapter two!

CHAPTER TWO

CABINETS

"Somehow, Snowy, this doesn't look right," said Tintin. They stood in front of the store; a dusty, dirty little place with scrap cardboard signs hanging in the window to advertise wares such as crackers and cigarettes. Through the murky window panes, the shop appeared dim and empty.

Tintin checked his watch. "Well, it's four 'o clock now. The note said the meeting was here at eight… We ought to scout it out first. Come on, Snowy."

Snowy followed, cautious, at Tintin's heels as he pulled open the door and walked in.

"Hello?" He ventured.

Nothing but an eerie silence answered him. He shrugged. "Hm. I suppose it's alright then if we have a look around."

Jim was right; the store wasn't selling much. There was a small set of shelves in the centre of the floor, tins and boxes of food stacked across its sagging planks. On first glance, this seemed normal, but the food didn't hold up under close scrutiny. Mouldy bread, ancient rice cereal. Behind the counter were a few stacks of magazines; all four-month-old editions. Everything was covered in a thin layer of beige grime. Dust motes drifted through the air, catching the sunlight streaming through the window to make speckled shadows on the floor.

Behind and to the left of the counter stood a doorway, the room beyond obscured by a long, ratty curtain that might have been yellow at one time. Suddenly, the curtain billowed aside and a tall, lean man stepped out. He came to stand behind the counter and fixed Tintin with a pointed glare, furrowing his brows.

"Can I help you?" He spoke in Spanish, with the darker voice that lends itself to heavy smokers. Tintin was about to reply when a weak jingle came from behind him and the front door swung open. Two burly Argentineans hurried in, brushing past him up to the counter to carry out a brief conversation with the cashier. Their voices were too low to make out much past some formalities, but Tintin saw money change hands, and the pair was ushered to the room beyond the curtain.

The cashier turned and regarded Tintin with a sigh, as if to say, "You're still here?"

Tintin smiled. "I'm looking for something, but I can't find it out here. Might it be back there?" he spoke in Spanish, gesturing to the curtain.

"No, certainly not." The man drew up his thin lips in a sneer. "The selection is of a more... local interest."

Tintin nodded. "I see. And what interests do the locals have?" he asked, voice carefully light.

The cashier didn't have a chance to answer, because the jingle came again and this time, an older gentleman in a large coat entered the store. Tintin pretended to examine the paltry magazine selection while he watched the man from the corner of his eye.

He strode up to the counter, demanded the cashier's attention, and they flicked out another rushed conversation. The older man was slipping some papers, bills perhaps, into the cashier's hand when Tintin made his move towards the curtain.

He was almost through when a hand shot out and grabbed him by the shoulder. The cashier must have been stronger than he looked, because in half a second his face was inches from Tintin's, and Tintin's feet were inches from the ground. He could feel the paint chipping from the wall as his back ground against it.

"Not so fast, my little friend," the man snarled. His breath was hot and stank of stale cigarettes. "I've been patient enough with your foolish questions, but now it's time to run along and play with your friends, yes? Si, bueno. I think we understand each other."

He dragged Tintin to the door, swung it open, and gave him an unceremonious exit, kicking Snowy out after him. Tintin stumbled down the steps as he regained his footing, and landed upright on the dirty street. The door slammed shut, its bell trilling out a brief, happy farewell.

"Well," he said, dusting off his shirt and straightening his collar. "I'll venture a guess that the next time we visit that store, Snowy, it won't be through the front door."

Snowy growled and followed at Tintin's heels as they turned again into the crowded streets of late afternoon. They fought opposing foot traffic all along the sidewalk back to the hotel. Tintin kept a ten percent level of awareness of his surroundings as he walked, consumed in thought.

"We've got to find out what's behind that curtain, Snowy." Tintin furrowed his brow. "That store is a cover for something bigger, probably illegal and possibly... revolutionary. I have the sneaking suspicion that this has to do with the political unrest. A fake store could serve as a meeting place for a group of rebels, don't you think?" He barely stopped his train of thought to nod at the doorman as they entered the cool, carpeted hotel. "I think, Snowy, that after dinner…" he went on, "we might just drop in on that little meeting."

Snowy perked up at the mention of dinner and began to wag his tail. Can't say I was paying any mind to what you were droning on about before, Tintin, but you have my full attention now!

They ate in the hotel restaurant, Snowy parked under the table to catch the bits of pork Tintin dropped to him. Tintin ate his dinner without tasting it, so deep he was in thought. He couldn't pin a connection between the store and the stranger he'd bumped into in the marketplace, the man who'd dropped the note. He wasn't Argentinean. His skin was pale…and his facial features very European, he thought. Whatever I've stumbled upon, it's bigger than Argentina. Perhaps not a revolution, then, but what? What would bring over-dressed Europeans to that tiny store...

"Señor?" A voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

"Yes? Oh, the check. Just add it to my tab. Gracias," Tintin told the waiter. He and Snowy went up to their hotel room.

"I'm awfully tired," Tintin yawned as unlocked the door. "This hot weather really takes a lot out of you, don't you agree?" He tossed the tangerine from his pocket onto the bedside table and settled down onto the bed to do a bit of reading about Buenos Aires, from the table's brochures. He had plenty of time before the meeting.

A few minutes later, Tintin caught himself yawning and shook his head. I don't know how they've done it, but they've managed to write the dullest thing about salt mining I have ever read, he thought. It didn't help that the air felt like a quilt, settling over the room, wrapping its occupants in a merciless soporific atmosphere.

Tintin could barely hear a grainy trumpet, accompanied by the pop of static, coming from the gramophone in the room next door. Where have I heard that song before...? he wondered absently, before his eyes fell closed. The melody curled into his dreams and disappeared.

A bark snapped Tintin awake.

"What, what?" he mumbled, sitting up and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The source of the bark had his paws on Tintin's chest, panting. A faint sense of worry dropped into Tintin's stomach. He pushed the brochures off his lap and tried to stretch out the kink in his neck.

"I must've fallen asleep." He glanced at his watch, and sat up completely. "Crumbs! It's nine 'o clock. Don't tell me I slept through it... Come on, Snowy!" Tintin leapt off the bed, grabbed his coat and dashed through the hotel into the street, warm and bursting with nightlife. Making his way to the store, he recalled his previous plan.

"A side entrance," he murmured, and examined the side wall for any doors. There were none. He went around to the alley behind the store. Tucked against the dumpster was a door, almost as grey as the wall around it.

"Behind the dumpsters… Strange to keep a door like that, but for the purpose of thwarting nosy fellows, it would certainly do." Tintin looked to the ground near the dumpsters and saw that the concrete had been scratched from many times of moving them side to side.

"That settles it! This must be the entrance they used." He pushed the dumpsters aside and opened the door, stepping up into a deserted space on silent feet. Snowy slipped in, and the door swung shut behind him.

There was a short hallway before the room opened up. Tintin crept along it, listening. There were no sounds of a meeting; voices, arguments, or papers being unrolled, but he played it safe anyway, making no noise. When he reached the end of the hallway, he flattened himself against the wall and inched closer to the room.

All was silent. Certain now that the room was empty and he'd missed the meeting, Tintin slipped inside to investigate.

It was small and dimly lit, a single bulb hung on a chain above the centre of the room. The second door on the far wall was shut, but Tintin guessed it led to the room behind the curtains, and from there to the rest of the store. So this is what they're trying to hide, he thought as he moved forward, taking it all in. A few shelves containing odd packages, gun-shaped packages, lined the walls. More cabinets, locked and unlocked, leaned their old boards against the wall. Tintin opened an unlocked cabinet and examined its contents.

"Ah! A short-wave radio!" he whispered, smiling. Snowy rolled his eyes, thinking, Here we go, him and his short wave radios. Tintin pulled the headphones over his ears and clicked a few buttons, listening.

"Out of order." He frowned and took the headphones off, then flipped through the notepad beside the machine. Many coded notes had been scrawled across the pages, a mess of Spanish, English, and unfamiliar phrases.

He took out his own notebook and was about to record some of the notes when a small sound caught his ear. It was as faint as the whisper of a feather coming to rest on a wooden floor. It came again, slow and rhythmic… like…

"Breathing," Tintin said quietly. His heartbeat began to rush in his ears. Creeping around the room, he ran his ear along each wall. As he reached a cabinet, the sound came louder. His hand fell on the cabinet door. The breathing was soft and light, that of someone young. He clenched his fist, ready to fight if the need arose. Then he turned the latch.

The door swung open and a body tumbled out onto the ground at Tintin's feet. He stumbled backwards. It was a girl! She awoke in a snap as she hit the ground and scrambled to her feet with surprising quickness. Her mouth opened wide, the beginning of a scream escaping her lips.

"No!" Tintin whispered, and jolted forward to clamp a hand over her mouth. She struggled, and he grabbed tight hold of her arms to restrict her movement. Stormy emerald eyes glared at him as she tried to twist herself out of his grasp.

"Listen, listen, please don't scre- ouch!" His whispered plea was interrupted as a shooting pain ran through his finger. He released his hold on the girl and wiped her saliva off onto his pants with a grimace. She wrenched herself backwards and spat at the ground with a ferocious "phut!"

"You bit me!" Tintin gave the girl a wary look before turning his attention back to his finger. "I think you drew blood..."

The girl put up her fists, shifting on her feet with a murderous look in her eyes. "Oooh, buddy, that's not all the blood I'm gonna draw out of you. Are you kidnapping me? If so, you better say your prayers." Her American accent was tinged with a New York colour, the harshness of her voice complementing sharp features and sharper eyes. She looked like she hadn't brushed her brown, neck-length hair in a while, and hadn't changed her clothes for about the same while. A beige messenger bag was slung over her red shirt, which hung off of her slight frame.

"No, no! I'm not kidnapping you." Tintin threw up his hands in surrender. "Please, just be quiet." Against his will, his powers of deduction began to race like lightning. He sized up her slight figure and accusatory eyes, yet struggled to pin an age on the girl. Fourteen? Sixteen? Older?

"If you're not kidnapping me then what are you doing? You're not a Mapache." She had to turn her eyes up to glare at Tintin, as she was a good couple inches shorter than he was.

"How do you know that I'm not?" said Tintin. So Mapache isn't a password, but a title... now I'm getting somewhere, he thought.

"Because, idiot, they would never allow a scrawny little lightweight like you into their company." She crossed her arms, rats-nest bob swaying with the movement.

"Scrawny! I-" Tintin forgot for a moment that he was trying to be quiet.

"Look, Babyface," the girl interrupted him. "I don't have time for this. What are you doing in the Mapache's secret hideout, snooping around?"

"I could ask you the very same question. Sleeping in a cabinet?"

"For your information, I was listening in on a top-secret meeting of theirs. Now, answer my question." She let the murmur of a threat sneak into her command.

Tintin shrugged. "I'm just snooping around, like you said. Trying to find some answers. I'm here to research a story I'm writing, on the political unrest in Argentina. Are the Mapaches a rebel group?"

"A story, eh?" The girl ignored his question. "What's your name?"

"Tintin, Ace Reporter." He began to instinctively stick out his hand but withdrew it when he saw the look in her eyes.

"Tintin? The hell kinda name is that?" she scoffed.

"It's my name! What kind of name do you want?"

"Hm. Sounds pretty fake to me."

"What's your name, then?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"I told you mine."

She turned her eyes up at this, and lifted her lips in uneasy hesitation. "It's Monique," she said after a moment. "Monique Fronville. But you better give me a real name."

"Monique. That's a nice name," Tintin said with a smile, in an effort to redeem himself somehow. Then her second statement hit him, and he frowned. "Tintin is my real name!"

"I don't believe you." She crossed her arms and put her feet apart.

"Fine, don't then. See if I care." The words fell out of his mouth before he realised he was getting angry. Why? I need to get on this girl's good side, whoever she is. He took a deep breath.

"Monique, I'm sorry we got off on a bad foot. I... I think we can help each other. Can we try again?" Tintin stuck out his hand.

It was a long moment as she considered him, lips pursed in thought, looking him up and down and then into his hopeful eyes, as if she was reading his soul. The pause felt like an hour. Tintin felt himself getting nervous under her scrutinising glare.

Finally, she took his hand and shook it firmly. For the look in her eyes, she might as well have said, 'I don't trust you, but I'm pretending that I do anyway because it might get me somewhere.' Her hand was warm. She took it away, shoved both hands into her pockets, and drew up her shoulders.

"What do you want with me, Tintin?" She bit his name into two chunks, with a barely contained smirk. As if just noticing him, she glanced down at Snowy, who was regarding her in cold apprehension from between Tintin's legs. Her expression softened for the briefest moment. Her hand moved forward, then caught itself and drew back to her pocket.

This hadn't escaped Tintin's notice. "His name is Snowy," he said.

She nodded a short, one bob nod, and looked back up at Tintin. He cleared his throat.

"Well, I was thinking that we could have a chat about what you overheard. I know some things; you know some things…together we can know twice as much each," said Tintin. Monique frowned.

"Well... I don't know much, but I suppose I'll tell you what I do know. It starts with a 'fella named Macarthur-"

Tintin put up a hand, giving a quick glance at the door. "Wait, before you go on, let's go somewhere a little less dangerous. Does my hotel sound alright?"

Monique narrowed her eyes. "Sure…but don't try anything, wise guy. Or I'll shove your little notebook down your throat." She spat the last words as a parting shot, before walking out of the room towards the back door where Tintin had entered.

"I-I wouldn't dream of it," he said quickly, following her out and, once Snowy had made it through, shutting the door with a cautious 'click'. Tintin pushed the dumpsters back into place while Monique watched, unimpressed. He almost asked her how she got in, but then that would lead to why she got in, and that wasn't a conversation they could have in this back alley.

So Tintin wordlessly led the girl and Snowy back to the hotel, ignoring the voice inside him, the one that had warned him so many times before, telling him, this girl is trouble. Trouble with a capital T...

So... that's my OC. And I would love to hear your first impression! As well as any impression of the story in general. In case you were wondering about frequency of updates, I only posted the first two chapters so close together because the first chapter is kind of slow. Updates will be more spread out from now on, a week apart at the most, although I make no promises.

Anyway, reviews?