Oh my God, I am so sorry! I have excuses for why I didn't update this in forever (the main reason being major writer's block and perfectionist issues) but I doubt you'd want to hear them. Here's the first part of Tintin and Gracie's story. Their adventures are going to be based on the original books. I'll give you a complete list in my note at the bottom. Please let me know about any typos that might be in this story, or misspellings, or grammar issues (they bug me more than anything in writing, I swear). Enjoy!
Part One: Meeting Gracie
~In which Tintin meets Gracie and vice versa, and a sceptre gets stolen.
Gracie.
That particular name was busy flitting around Tintin's head, while the girl in question was flitting around Spain.
Tintin knew next to nothing about this girl, even after reading the first article about her until he had almost memorized it. All the paper said was that she was only a year younger than him and that she had a cat named Jezebel.
A cat! Oh, Snowy would be horrible. Tintin shuddered at the days to come.
Gracie, as mentioned earlier, was flitting around Spain with a beam on her face.
"Oh, Jezebel!" she cried joyfully. "I always wanted to see the world!"
And see the world Gracie would do, very soon.
Tintin would look back on his first meeting with Gracie years later with a laugh.
At the time, she was a bit busy thinking about the flight.
"You never said we'd get to go on a plane!" Gracie said excitedly. "This is—" she started speaking rapidly in French, leaving the man named Mr. Williams looking rather lost.
"Oh, dear, I switched over again, didn't I?" Gracie asked.
Tintin took a moment to take in this strange girl.
How in the world was she able to put Al Capone back in prison? She was even smaller than the picture from the paper had shown! Her blue eyes weren't those of a detective; these were the eyes of a child, drinking in everything they saw instead of analyzing it.
Speaking of blue eyes, what in the world had happened to hers? Tintin had never seen blue eyes like that before. It seemed as though something had drained all the color out of them. But they were definitely blue—
"Allons-y!" Gracie yelled at the top of her lungs as she practically dove into the plane at a speed that Tintin couldn't have accomplished even if he'd been on the run from thugs.
Well, now he knew why Gracie was still alive after Al Capone. But how had she gone about—
"Oh, hello, Professor Alembick! Hello, Tintin!" she said as she poked her head out of the plane and waved. Then, she ran to her seat, eagerly fastening her seat belt and bouncing up and down on her seat. Meanwhile, her cat—Jezebel, right? Or was it Jasmine?—took off after her master.
But there was another point about Gracie, Tintin realized. Gracie wasn't Jezebel's master. Nobody was, because Jezebel was a cat! The idea seemed almost alien to Tintin, who had gotten Snowy almost three years ago as company. He had no idea why Gracie would ever choose a cat over a dog, but there had to be a reason, right?
Of course, Gracie didn't exactly seem like the type of person to do everything for a reason. She seemed like the type of person that did everything at some point or another, the type of person to randomly go to some foreign country just to learn how to speak the local language through listening and learning. His theory about her was only strengthened when he realized she didn't fully understand who he was—famous reporter who had saved lives and countries more than once—but she knew exactly who he was.
"Well, you'd have to be the guy who captured Capone first!" Gracie said to him later, as though this was perfectly obvious from the start. "That, or Europeans give their children very peculiar names."
"No," Tintin smiled. "Only my parents. You're Gracie, right?"
"That's me."
After that, Gracie became distracted by the plane propellers beginning to spin. Jezebel immediately jumped onto Gracie's lap. Gracie stroked her cat gently, but she looked out the window with a fiery sort of impatience.
Gracie was certainly a mystery. The problem was, Tintin wasn't sure he'd ever be able to figure her out.
Gracie was surprised when Tintin yanked her away from Professor Alembick and Mr. Williams on the way to the next flight.
"Gracie, Alembick is an imposter," Tintin said quickly into her ear. "He has glasses, but on the way here he pointed out a flock of sheep that even I could just barely make out. Also, he smokes, but when offered cigarettes he turned them down."
Gracie raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Tintin, you realize that Mr. Alembick could use his glasses for closer things instead of distant things. I think you may be right about the smoking, though. Mr. Williams said that Alembick has been smoking for as long as he can remember."
"When we land in Prague, I'll pull off that beard," Tintin decided. "It has to be false."
"All right. I'll keep Jezebel out of the way."
Later, when they landed in Prague, Tintin faked a fall down the stairs and pulled on Alembick's beard, which stayed firmly in place. Tintin immediately started talking to Gracie.
"If he's not an imposter..." Gracie trailed off. "But something must be going on," she said finally. "I can just feel it. Something's going to happen."
And, as it turned out, Gracie's instinct was right.
Gracie had gotten a brochure from a man who was selling various snacks and other things before takeoff, and now she was reading it. That in itself wasn't exactly riveting, but Tintin noticed how quickly Gracie's eyes moved when she read. In no time at all, she sighed and put down the brochure.
"Here, Mr. Williams," she said as she handed it over. "I'm done."
"It's been two minutes!" Alembick laughed.
"That's my Gracie," Mr. Williams said proudly. "Taking in everything around her faster than the rest of us. That's her power."
Gracie laughed. "Not everything. It's only when I read."
Tintin relaxed then. If Alembick really was an imposter, then he couldn't know how quickly Gracie observed things and pieced them together.
"It's amazing," Gracie said dreamily. "A man from Borduria tried to take over Syldavia by killing King Ottokar IV, but the king hit him on the head with the sceptre, and said some strange thing in Syldavian. It got so famous, the king has to abdicate if he's ever caught without his sceptre."
Gracie spoke faster than even Tintin could absorb. He could have sworn that Jezebel, who was currently sitting in Gracie's lap, was smiling at him smugly like, we are much better than you, puny human boy.
Tintin decided he didn't like that cat. Apparently, neither did Snowy; he kept barking at Jezebel, who did nothing more than sit perfectly still. Not one hiss, even when the plane took off over the Syldavian border.
Tintin saw what the cat was doing: acting like an angel in front of Gracie to make poor Snowy look like devil spawn.
"What were you saying, Tintin?" Gracie asked.
Did he say that out loud? "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Mind ran away with me."
Gracie smiled. "I do that all the time. Do you happen to have a book on you?"
"No, sorry."
"It's all right," Gracie said. After that, she turned away and stroked Jezebel lovingly.
Tintin leaned over to look out the window. "What lovely country," he murmured.
He felt someone join him. Gracie, who hadn't gotten a seat near the window, had gotten up to join him.
"It almost reminds me of home," she said. "Where I live, we're surrounded by forest, but yet there are enormous fields, too."
"Very pretty, isn't it?" asked the pilot as he reached for a lever. "I'll let you admire it a bit more closely."
He pulled the lever, and the floor dropped out beneath Gracie, Tintin, Jezebel, and Snowy. Mr. Williams and Alembick yelled, but by the time they did, Tintin and Gracie were already plummeting to the ground.
Gracie was screaming, with Jezebel still tightly in her arms—mostly because Jezebel had dug her claws into Gracie's dress, and was now clinging to the fabric for dear life, yowling all the way. Gracie grabbed Snowy's tail.
Meanwhile, Tintin wrestled with the parachute.
"GRACIE!" he yelled. "HOLD ON TO THE BUCKLES!"
Nodding to show she had understood, Gracie held Snowy in one arm and hooked her other arm around one of the parachute buckles. Jezebel still clung to the front of her shirt.
"MIND THE JERK WHEN IT OPENS!" Tintin yelled over the wind. "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Gracie held tight, but Tintin was forced to let go, and felt himself flying—
Right on top of a pile of straw.
After frantically digging himself out, Tintin tried to explain while two Slydavian farmers looked at him with fear and awe.
"My aeroplane..." he tried to explain when he realized they didn't understand English. "Erm... BRRRR..." He attempted to imitate the sound of a plane. "I fell... CRASH!... Into the straw..."
As Tintin grabbed a fistful of straw to demonstrate, he heard a shout.
"There you are!" came a voice, shrill from panic. "What happened? 'Hold on to the buckles', you said! Well, let me tell you—"
"You're alive!" Tintin called out. "Where are you?"
"Look up," said the voice.
Gracie was still floating peacefully down, clinging to Snowy and Jezebel, both of whom looked positively terrified. Gracie had scratches up and down both of her arms, part of her face, and her neck. Her dress, once light blue with tiny dark blue flowers on it, was now marred slightly by a small amount of blood that came from the scratches.
Tintin had thought at first that Gracie could have been perfectly fine with falling out of a plane, that it would just bring a new level to her adventure in Europe. He was quite wrong.
"Your dog is an absolute monster!" she yelled as she touched down on the ground. "He practically clawed me to death! Not to mention the fight he picked with Jezebel on the way down—"
Snowy, as soon as Gracie landed, had rushed for Tintin's arms. Tintin absentmindedly stroked his dog while Jezebel hissed and made a swiping motion toward them.
"Snowy would never hurt you like that!" Tintin protested. "It must have your cat—"
Clearly, that had been the wrong thing to say.
"MY CAT!?" Gracie roared.
That was only the beginning. While the two farmers guided Tintin toward what he assumed was the local police station, Gracie yelled at him furiously.
"—and now we're being dragged off to the police! I hope you're satisfied, you—"
Luckily, Gracie was distracted by a policeman who seemed to be the boss. Somehow, the sight of his uniform reminded Gracie of something.
"Captain, what I have to say is of the utmost importance. May we speak to you in private?" Gracie asked.
"Er..." the captain started. Behind Gracie, Tintin nodded and smiled. "Yes. Leave us alone," the captain decided as he waved the farmers and another officer away.
"First, may I ask you a question?" Gracie asked. The captain nodded once Tintin did. "I read in a brochure about Syldavia that if your king loses his sceptre he will be forced to abdicate. Is that true?"
"Er... yes."
"I think someone's after it," Gracie said simply.
The captain simply stared.
So did Tintin. How had Gracie come up with this one? This was completely ridiculous.
Wait...
Imposter.
Access to the royal palace.
Near-fatal murder attempts.
The clues were all right there, staring Tintin in the face. To be perfectly honest, he felt rather odd, if not disappointed. How had Gracie latched on to the facts even faster than he did? Her mind seemed to be drifting in the clouds! How in the world...
Gracie's mind, contrary to popular belief, did not drift through the clouds, thank you very much. What it did do was take in every small detail the world had to offer. Sometimes (like just then), it could piece together the tiny, trivial-seeming information into a tapestry that somehow made perfect sense.
That was the reason she had been able to catch Al Capone: she could piece together things no one else ever could. It wasn't that she was extraordinary for someone her age. It was simply that her mind worked in a very different way. A way that could sometimes be used to great effect.
Like now.
"Sir, is there any way Tintin and I can get a ride over to Klow?"
Within ten minutes, Tintin, Gracie, Jezebel, and Snowy were riding with a chubby pheasant who seemed to love Jezebel despite the fact that Jezebel hissed at anyone who came close other than Gracie.
There was a small inn called the Coachmen's Rest that lay about a third of the way to Klow. After stopping there so the pheasant could feed his horse, Gracie got an odd look on her face and turned toward the road.
"Tintin, what's that?" Gracie asked.
Tintin listened. "Sounds like a..."
They looked at each other and said, "Car," at the exact same time.
"I apologize for the intrusion, sir," Gracie said sweetly to the pheasant as she jumped into the center of the road and started running. Tintin listened, and sure enough, he heard screeching brakes, a high-pitched scream, and Gracie's voice calmly explaining the situation as best she could.
Soon, a sleek blue car was pulling up beside the pheasant's cart. Gracie sat in the backseat and waved.
"Hi, Tintin!" she said excitedly, as if she had never ridden in a car before. "I'm going to introduce you to someone!"
The pheasant scratched the top of his bald head, driven to confusion by the small girl in the blue dress with the black cat.
Then, a blonde woman with a black fur coat stepped out of the car.
"Hello, young man," she said in a tone that was probably meant to be cordial and instead came out as more motherly. "Your delightful lady friend here told me that the two of you needed a ride to Klow. Would you care to join me? Your pets are welcome aboard, as well."
Tintin nodded with a smile. Then, he remembered something. "Did you say Gracie was my—"
"Oh, no need to be embarrassed, dear boy," the woman said in a voice loud enough for Gracie to hear. She giggled in the background while Tintin faced the onslaught. "She's a bright young girl. Very sweet, very kind, and not bad when it comes to looks, either."
Tintin sighed to himself. This was going to be a long day.
Gracie talked to the woman more than Tintin did. Her name was Bianca Castafiore, and apparently she was going to sing for the royal family.
"Would you like to hear me?" Bianca asked.
"Absolutely," Gracie said eagerly. She loved opera.
Then Bianca Castafiore opened her mouth. Tintin flinched, along with Jezebel and Snowy. The two animals may have been enemies, but they agreed silently to each other that they had to save their respective owners from this horrible fate.
"WOOOOOWWWWWW!" Snowy howled. While Tintin desperately tried to calm him, Jezebel caterwauled up a storm. Gracie frantically stopped listening to calm down her cat.
"She's never behaved like this before," Gracie said, completely embarrassed. "I am so sorry."
Tintin, however, was silently cheering. Thank goodness that terrible noise was over.
Then, Gracie requested a different song, one that Snowy and Jezebel might like a little more. In horrified awe, Tintin looked at Gracie, who hadn't seemed to notice that Bianca Castafiore's singing was something right out of a horror story.
"Gracie, I left some of my things at the inn!" He pretended to realize.
"Oh, for goodness' sake," Gracie sighed. "We'll never get to Klow, will we?" She turned to Bianca. "Your singing is absolutely beautiful," she said. "Please don't wait for us. We don't want to intrude."
"Goodbye, dear girl!" Bianca said. "Maybe someday we shall meet again, you and I."
After the blue car pulled away, Tintin sighed with relief.
"I would've given any excuse to escape!" he said happily.
Gracie didn't talk to him all the way to the inn.
As they walked to the nearest village, two guards in the customary green uniforms accosted them.
"Your papers are not in order!" one of them barked. "You will come with us."
"All right," Gracie said kindly, not suspecting anything was wrong.
Fifteen minutes later, Gracie and Tintin were shut in separate cells with their furry friends.
"The fate of the monarchy is at stake, and I'm cooling my heels with an opera-loving American girl!" Tintin fumed.
"Poor Mr. Williams is traveling with an imposter, and I'm stuck here with a pompous European boy!" Gracie fumed one cell over.
Snowy and Jezebel agreed with their owners.
The next morning, Tintin woke up to find a note in his cell from someone who claimed to be a friend. It contained specific instructions on how to evade the guards that were supposed to kill him and escape with his life and Gracie's.
Meanwhile, Gracie received a similar note.
"It's fake," she told Jezebel immediately, "but what else am I supposed to do? Sit here while Tintin has all the fun?"
Unfortunately, Gracie simply couldn't think of a way to warn Tintin about the planned trap. So she followed the instructions on the note just like he did, and prayed that he would follow her.
The two pretended to fall asleep in the back of the car as they and four guards drove to Klow. Just like the note said, the driver staged a breakdown, and all of the guards gathered together to examine what had supposedly gone wrong.
That's when Gracie darted out of the car as fast as she humanly could, with Jezebel hot behind her. Tintin, knowing Gracie had sensed something, ran right after her along with Snowy.
That's when all four guards turned and fired their guns. Gracie, by this time, was already in the woods, but Tintin had to dive out of the way. The result was a short tumble down the hill with large boulders decorating the way down.
Tintin leapt up quickly on the grassy hill, near a particularly large outcropping of boulders. Before he could orient himself, a small hand closed around his wrist and dragged him back behind the boulders.
"Ssh," Gracie warned him. Jezebel appeared next to his feet, her head held high despite being terrified of the rapid gunshots coming from the guards. Snowy stood next to Gracie, and tried not to whimper.
As the men left, Gracie turned right around. "Come on, Tintin," she said. "We'd better get to Klow ourselves. If there's one thing I can get from all this, it's to never trust anyone."
With that, she leapt up, took Jezebel in her arms, and started sneaking up the hill, away from the guards. Tintin followed her quickly, marveling at how he had met such a character.
Tintin snuck up the hill with Snowy in his left arm. Quickly, he found the main road, and together he and Gracie started toward Klow.
On the way, Gracie started humming a song under her breath. she started putting more weight on the balls of her feet, the result being her entire body bouncing up and down slightly when she walked, as if she didn't have a care in the world. Her eyes drifted to the clouds above them instead of the road in front. Honestly, Tintin was grateful for that. For all he knew, the Syldavians had aeroplanes after them; maybe Gracie could see one coming in time to warn him.
Before he knew it, they had reached the outskirts of Klow.
"Oh, wow!" Gracie said in a higher-pitched voice than normal. "Look at this place, Tintin! It's so beautiful!"
Meanwhile, Snowy grumbled, "When are going to eat?"
Gracie looked down at Snowy and Jezebel, who had jumped down from her owner's arms several miles back. "You know, we should stop somewhere soon. I'll bet Snowy's getting hungry, and I wouldn't say no to some food myself."
Snowy couldn't believe it. Could this girl hear his barks and understand them, too? Well, finally! Maybe now she could get some sense into Tintin for him!
While Gracie made a quick stop, Tintin asked a local where the palace was.
Gracie came back with a simple wicker basket that she had gotten from a pheasant.
"Here you go, Jezebel," she said as she set the basket on the ground. Jezebel quickly climbed inside and purred while Gracie picked up the basket and stroked her cat's head.
Tintin shook his head. Here he was, thinking Gracie would have the sense to look for food when her cat's needs were so clear to her!
"He said to follow this street to Ottokar Square," Tintin told Gracie as they walked, "and turn left, and take the second left we see, and a right at..."
While they walked, rain started dripping slowly from menacing clouds that hovered above the city. Within minutes, it turned into a downpour, and Tintin and Gracie were forced to take shelter next to a building with a sign above the door and an English translation that read: NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.
"I think it's stopping," Gracie said after a few minutes. "Oh, Jezebel, don't make a scene!" she chastised her cat when Jezebel yowled at the last few drops of rain.
Later, as they walked, Gracie said, "Tintin, where'd Snowy go?"
Tintin whirled around, expecting to find his faithful dog by his feet. Instead, he got gum on his shoe.
"Urgh!" he protested as he took off his shoe and surveyed the damage. Meanwhile, he heard Gracie scream in the background.
Wait...
Quickly, he looked at Gracie's shocked expression. There was Snowy, with an enormous bone in his mouth.
"This..." Gracie studied it. "Oh no!" she cried. "We took shelter at a natural history museum. Snowy must've stolen a dinosaur bone!"
"You take that back at once!" Tintin commanded Snowy. "And be quick!"
Snowy dashed out of sight, only to return minutes later with a bump on his head.
"Poor dog!" Gracie said, apparently forgetting the morning's plane jumping fiasco.
Jezebel looked at her owner. Seriously?
"Right?" Gracie looked questioningly at her cat.
Jezebel considered the question, and grudgingly moved to one side of the basket so Snowy could climb in. Snowy sent Jezebel a grateful silent message, and Jezebel sent him a glare in return.
"See, they like each other just fine!" Gracie said enthusiastically.
The two animals looked at each other and gave a silent exchange: she must not know much about animal-speak.
After about ten more minutes of walking, Gracie gasped at the sight of the royal palace.
"Beautiful!" she cried happily. "Come on, Tintin!" she said happily as she ran headlong into the street without pause to wonder if there were any cars coming.
"Could His Majesty grant us an audience?" Tintin asked the nearest guard. "We have urgent business."
"Please wait here," the man said. "I shall see if His Majesty's advisor will see you."
"Thank you," Gracie said sweetly, with the wicker basket in her hands and Snowy and Jezebel resting inside.
About fifteen minutes later, Tintin and Gracie found themselves sitting in front of a man named Colonel Jorgen.
"May I ask why two children need an audience with our king?" Jorgen asked in a haughty voice. Gracie immediately decided not to like him.
"If we could tell you, we would," Gracie said cordially as she could. "Unfortunately, this business is meant only for the king himself. He may decide who to trust from there."
Jorgen stood up. "All right. I will not press you. I will see if the king will grant you an audience this evening. Come half an hour past eight. Will this suit you?"
"Perfectly," Tintin said. "Thank you, sir. We'll be on our way."
As they left the room, Gracie noticed Jorgen carrying on a hushed conversation with someone on the phone, something that involved the same time that she and Tintin were due to meet the king.
Quickly, once they were out of the palace, Gracie relayed the information she had seen to Tintin.
"Be on your guard," she said quietly. "I don't trust that man one bit. But don't let's dwell on it now. I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to eat my dress."
After dinner and a quick stop at a clothing store to get Gracie a bright red jacket, Tintin and Gracie made their way toward the palace.
"The King will grant you a short interview," Jorgen said with a smile when they arrived. Personally, Gracie thought the smile was foreboding. There was a look in the man's eyes that she didn't trust. Immediately, Gracie's nerves were set on edge, and she nervously stayed closer to Tintin as a guard guided them to see the king.
Quickly, Gracie realized how right her instincts were. Snowy started barking at something behind one of the many statues that lined the outdoor sidewalk to a different part of the palace. All at once, three men ran toward Tintin and Gracie and their guard.
Quick as lightning, the guard pulled out his sword and grabbed Gracie's arm.
"One move and she dies!" he snarled.
Thankfully, the guard didn't count on Gracie. Her hand disappeared into the pocket of her new jacket, and came out with a container of some sort. Gracie opened the top and waved it quickly in the guard's face. He staggered away, sneezing and wiping his eyes.
Pepper. Gracie had bought pepper! Tintin would have laughed if he hadn't been busy with the other three attackers. He dived out of the way to avoid two of them, and they knocked into each other instead. The third reached for his knife, only to get hit by the guard's nightstick when Tintin threw it.
Meanwhile, Gracie and Jezebel were giving the traitorous guard hell. Gracie had put away the pepper, but even though the guard was much stronger than she was, he wasn't quite fast enough to catch the tiny girl. She ran around in circles on the garden while Jezebel chomped at the poor man's heels. Gracie glanced over, and saw that Tintin had taken care of the other three.
"Over to you, Tintin!" she yelled, and started running straight for him.
The guard was still partially blinded by the pepper thrown in his face. Tintin held up the nightstick and prayed that Gracie could see what he was doing.
And, by some miracle, she did. Tintin held out the nightstick at just the right height. Gracie, seeing what was coming, hit the ground in a classic baseball slide (she was American, so Tintin supposed that came easily to her), but the guard wasn't as lucky. One crack to his forehead, and all was silent except for Gracie's slightly labored breathing.
It had all happened in less than five minutes, but Tintin felt like it had taken years.
"We'd better get going," Gracie said to Tintin. "I'm not sure if that guard had backup, but I don't want to find out."
"The king should be this way," Tintin said as they made their way to several large windows close to the ground. Sheets of glass were placed strategically near the windows, to prevent people from coming too close.
"I'll look," Gracie said.
"Are you crazy? That glass will only hold ninety pounds at most!" Tintin whisper-shouted.
"Good thing I only weigh eighty-six pounds, then," Gracie said bravely as she edged closer.
Tintin stood back while Gracie tested her weight on the glass. Slowly, she balanced herself along the bars hat held the glass in place. From there, she pulled herself closer to the window.
"Mon dieu!" she cried. "This isn't an office at all! It's a ballroom! Oh, goodness, Miss Castafiore's in the middle of a performance. There've got half the royal family in there, easy. Oh, where is he?... There he is! If we can just... get... through the doors..."
Gracie paused because she was slowly inching herself back across the glass. Then, her foot slipped.
"AH!" she cried as she lost her footing completely and came down hard on one of the panes. With a loud crashing noise, the glass shattered, and within seconds Tintin could hear the guards shouting.
"Quick!" Tintin said as he helped Gracie up. "Get out of the palace and take care of Snowy! I'll try to get the king!"
Gracie nodded. "Come on, Snowy!" she said, but Snowy refused to go anywhere without Tintin. With a sigh and a bit of cursing in French, Gracie grabbed the white dog in one arm and her cat in the other.
Tintin heard shouting of the guards as she went, but he didn't dare look back. While he struggled against the guards, Gracie sped away into the inky black night.
"Oh, no," Gracie murmured as she watched Tintin get dragged away by the guards and into a van.
Then, Gracie had an idea. The answer to her solution was simple! So simple, in fact, that all she needed was a public library.
There were trees all along the outer edge of the palace. By climbing up the tallest one, Gracie could see exactly where they were taking Tintin.
There. Only six or seven blacks away from the palace, thank goodness. Gracie had read all about Tintin, and knew that he was famous for breaking out of prison. She didn't need to worry about getting him out. What she did need to worry about was how to get herself into the palace.
That's where the library came in handy. All Gracie had to do was throw a rock at one of the windows. From there, she quickly climbed in before anyone came to investigate.
By candlelight, Gracie quickly found the section about the history of King Ottokar's palace. Thankfully, the Syldavian language was merely an oral one, so all the books Gracie found were in English. Gracie thought about the parts of the palace she had seen, and made a mental map of those. From there, she read about how the castle had been built, and which wings were which. By using the parts of the palace she had already seen to orient herself, Gracie was able to make an accurate map of the palace in her head.
There was only one problem. Gracie could only picture the map if she closed her eyes. that meant she'd be blind to the guards if she moved too slowly, but she would get lost if she moved too quickly.
"Souhaite-moi bon chance, maman et papa," Gracie murmured under her breath.
Then, she turned to Snowy and Jezebel. "I have no idea if you two understand me, but if you do, this is no time for fighting, all right? Once we get into the castle, we'll have to be dead silent or we'll get caught."
Gracie didn't exactly feel comfortable sneaking through the palace in the first place, much less with two small animals in tow. But what could she do? She couldn't just leave them somewhere, and she had no intention of being separated from Jezebel.
At sunrise, Gracie snuck closer to the palace.
Okay... this is the entrance to the north wing. Five doors down, make a right... then take the second left... through the gilded doors... past the painting of King Muskar I...
Navigating the palace quickly, through total guesswork, and without being noticed was easily the scariest thing Gracie had ever done, and that included the fall from the plane just yesterday... Wait, that was yesterday? Now Gracie knew how Tintin felt every day.
Two more turns... two more, and I'm home free...
Then, Gracie heard voices. Quickly, she turned on the balls of her feet and ducked behind a statue of a knight with an enormous potted plant next to it.
Just in time. Five or six guards, Gracie guessed, assuming all of them treaded heavily. Once they had gone past the corner, Gracie waited for a minute, and started making her way to the king's office again.
Finally. Just outside, there were four chairs. Before Gracie could make her way toward one, a young boy about Gracie's age made his way to the chair closest to the door of the king's office.
Gracie carefully marked which door he came from; that way it would look less suspicious when she made her entrance.
After making a few more turns, Gracie had maneuvered herself to enter through the same door that the boy had. quickly and calmly, she made her entrance.
The boy looked up and said something in Syldavian. Gracie must have looked confused, because the boy then switched to almost flawless English. "Official business?" he asked.
"Important business," Gracie said. "I have important information for the king's ears alone."
The boy looked at her curiously. "Are you one of my father's spies?"
"Well, not exactly," Gracie said smoothly. "I'm not a spy by any means. I just happened to come across an important threat that I believe the king himself should know about, as it concerns not just him, but the entire royal family's rule."
The boy looked stunned. Had Gracie said too much?
"I'll get him," he said. "Father told me to wait here for him, but what you have to say may be more important."
Wait... Father?!
"You... you're..." Gracie, for once, was at an utter loss for words.
"King Muskar XII is my father," said the boy, drawing himself higher and becoming more serious than the slouched-over boy Gracie had seen only moments before.
Gracie smiled slowly. "You are just the person I've been looking for. First, we need your father. Then, we need a car. My friend might be in danger. You must forgive me," Gracie said with another smile. "I'm not from here. Could I have your name?"
"Prince Julian," he said.
"That doesn't seem Syldavian."
"Well, neither is my mother," said Julian with a shrug. "She said that the last thing this family needed was another Muskar."
"Your mother is a very sensible woman, if your father is the twelfth Muskar," Gracie said.
"I'll go get Father," Julian said. "If it's important business like you say it is, he needs to hear about it immediately."
"I'd better come with you," Gracie said. "No one knows I'm here, and that includes your guards."
"Wait," Julian said. "You snuck in?"
"Sort of," Gracie said with a shrug. "If you call walking in through the door sneaking in."
"How on earth did you do that?" Julian asked. "Every single door to this castle has a guard positioned over it!"
"They used to have guards over them," Gracie clarified. "They did before I came along."
Julian looked at her. "I'm not sure if I should trust you or run away."
Gracie smiled. "Trust me, but let's run to find your father."
Julian grinned back. "Sounds like a plan."
Tintin opened one eye just enough to see where he was.
Good. Everyone was gone. He could leave and hopefully find Gracie before she did something crazy.
Tintin was lucky; the van took him to prison. The next morning, they took him somewhere else, but the van had crashed on its way. While the doctors were taking care of the guards, Tintin faked unconsciousness just long enough to be left alone.
He could see the tallest towers of the castle just to his right. As he started to cross the road, he knew that this time nothing would stop him—
A black car hurtled towards him.
Part 2 will come as soon as I can, but it's probably going to be a week at the very least (just warning you now).
Here's a list of what's coming that's accurate as of now. I might make a few changes as I go. There aren't any major spoilers for the plot line, but if you don't want to know anything about what's coming, just skip over the list.
Part 2.1-2.4: The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun
Part 3.1-3.4: Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon
Part 4.1-4.2: The Red Sea Sharks
Part 5.1-5.2: The Castafiore Emerald
Part 6.1-6.2: Flight 714 to Sydney
Part 7.1-7.2: Tintin and the Picaros
Part 8 will be an epilogue of sorts, to tie up whatever loose ends may be left. It also serves to tie this story to another story I'm working on (fellow Whovians, pay attention).
Thank you for reading my story and (hopefully) critiquing it. I'm willing to accept whatever reviews you may have, but if it's pure flame, I as the writer have the power to choose not to listen. Hope to see you again soon.
Love you all,
carrie the small