Chapter 1

The phone rang. Snowy barked. Tintin groaned, and pulled the covers over his head. Same old morning routine. The young reporter decided to ignore the tremendous amount of noise that reverberated against the walls of his house every morning. And, as usual, he couldn't do anything to shut out the commotion. He grumbled and opened his eyes, sitting up reluctantly. The telephone began to ring again. Loudly.

"All right then, I'm coming," he yawned, rumpled and grumpy. He picked up to receiver and asked sleepily, "Hello?"

"Tintin?" a feminine voice called into the phone. Great. Tintin rolled his eyes. It was that new star reporter from La Moderne, Eden Something-or-other. They were always childishly competing against each other to get to the story first. And apparently, she was ready to jump on an adventure to get to the answers.

"What do you want?" he asked irritably.

"Goodness, you don't need to jump down my throat like that," she said, pretending to be offended. "Have you gotten your newspaper yet?"

"I don't know," Tintin replied. " I just woke up."

"Well, go find your paper then," she instructed impatiently. Tintin looked around his room in spite of himself. He found the newspaper on the bedside table, faithfully delivered by Nestor.

"Found it, now what, Your Highness?" he asked sarcastically.

"Turn to the front page," she answered. He could almost hear her foot tapping, but he listened to her and hurriedly opened the paper to the first page. The headline that greeted him completely shocked him. His jaw dropped.

"Wow," was all he could manage.

"Pretty impressive. Right?" Eden asked in a self-assured manner.

"Yes, I suppose," Tintin responded, trying to keep his tone nonchalant.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she demanded. "Get over here quickly, or I'll beat you to the story!" Tintin smirked.

"No way," he retorted. "You wish." He put the phone down and unbuttoned the top of his pyjamas. He tossed them carelessly on the ground and made his way to the shower. Snowy barked at him. "Sorry, old boy, but we've got to get there early." His terrier whimpered.

Five minutes later, Tintin was out of the shower, fully dressed and ready to go. He pulled on his shoes and stuffed his wallet into his pocket. Snowy followed him, yipping all the way out.

"Driver, to the National Museum," Tintin commanded, getting into the car in a rush. Snowy barely made it into the car.

Another twenty minutes, and the car was right outside the National Museum. Tintin jumped out with Snowy. He ran up the stairs and through the regal door.

A familiar head of wavy, dark brown hair popped into view. Tintin made his way towards it, followed by Snowy.

"You're late," the girl said, turning around. She bumped into her rival's chest.

"You're short," Tintin replied. "What's new?"

"Well, they still haven't found a single lead on the jeweled rose," Eden replied, turning back around and flipping through her notebook. "And the director has no idea who would want it. All the employees are long-standing and trustworthy. He gave me a list of collectors who might be unscrupulous enough to try and steal it, though."

"Can I see?" Tintin asked, reaching over her shoulder to get her notebook. Eden pulled away from him and turned around, her hazel eyes sparkling.

"That would be counterproductive," she giggled. "It defeats the purpose of a competition." Tintin rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Eden!" he exclaimed, but she shook her head in reply, with a small smile on her face.

"No," she said. She held her notebook away from the other reporter and turned back to interviewing the director. There was no more information that he could provide. "Thank you very much for your time," she said. "You've been very helpful."

"Tintin?" two familiar, identical voices came from behind him. He turned around.

"Ah, detectives," Tintin said, a little relieved for better company.

"Already at the scene, are you?" Thomson asked.

"Yes, I just arrived here, actually," Tintin answered.

"What have we got for you?" Thompson asked.

"To be precise, what have you got for us?" Thomson sagely corrected him.

"Er-uh-yes, precisely," Thompson said.

"Not much, really, I haven't gotten around to asking any questions yet," Tintin replied helplessly, looking around. Then, his eyes fixed on Eden, and he smirked. She was busy flipping through her notebook. She looked up and met his eyes with a puzzled look on her face. He beckoned her, knowing she wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to show off her knowledge. He steered her by the shoulders ahead of himself and thrust her under the noses of the detectives. "Detectives, I'd like to introduce my friend and rival reporter, Eden – er – "

"Irvine," Eden whispered to him.

"Irvine," Tintin repeated immediately. "From La Moderne. She has all the information you need." Eden looked at him in shock. "Go on then," Tintin said softly. "You love telling people what you know." She narrowed her eyes at him. But in the end, as Tintin had expected, she couldn't help but rattle off the information that she had found out.

While she reported everything that she had gathered, Tintin stood by, listening and noting anything of value in his own notebook. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the list of collectors out of her, but he would take that from Thompson and Thomson later. About halfway through her report, Eden realized what had happened, and she turned and glanced at Tintin rather acidly. He just gave her an easy smile.

"And that's all the director could tell me," Eden said, flipping her notebook shut.

"Thank you very much, miss," Thompson said. "We've been very helpful."

"To be precise, you've been very helpful," Thomson corrected. The twins nodded.

"We'll be taking your leave now. Goodbye, miss. See you later, Tintin!" they both called as they left. Thomson tripped over his laces and Thompson bumped into them.

"Oi, why don't you watch where you're going?" Thomson snapped.

"But I was following you…" Thompson shot back, as they quarreled and stumbled their way out of the museum. Tintin smiled and shook his head.

"Those two," he sighed. "They'll never change." He turned around to see Eden glowering at him. "What?" he demanded. "If you weren't such a little know-it-all, then you would've thought better of it."

"Fair enough," she responded. "All right, you win this time. And if I were you, I'd make my way to Almeria right away." Her eyes twinkled. She bent down and patted Snowy on the head. "Goodbye, boy," she said. "I'll be seeing you," she said to Tintin, straightening herself up. She walked off gracefully. Snowy whimpered as she left.

"Snowy," Tintin said firmly, "don't pay unnecessary attention to people who don't matter." Although, he was also watching the other reporter as she disappeared out the door. Snowy barked at him in disapproval. Tintin snapped back to attention. "Come on, boy," he said. "Let's go home. We need to get to Seville as soon as possible."