Grk Undercover by Joshua Doder

realized who these children were. They must be the son and daughter of a multimillionaire. Or, even worse, they were the offspring of important, influential politicians. Who else would have the cheek to come in here and demand a table? If he threw them out of the restaurant, their parents would march into therestaurant, summon the manager and make sure he was fired. There was only one thing that he could do. He smiled at Natascha and said, “Of course,
mademoiselle
. We should be pleased to serve lunch for you both. Please, come and sit down.”
    “Thank you,” said Natascha.
    The waiter led Tim and Natascha to the table. They sat down. Grk crawled under the table and lay at their feet. The waiter unfurled two thick white napkins, placed one on each of their laps and went to fetch some menus.
    When the waiter had gone, Tim stared at Natascha and whispered, “What are we going to do now?”
    “Have lunch,” said Natascha. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
    “Yes. But …”
    “But what?”
    “This is the poshest restaurant I’ve ever been in.”
    “Me too,” said Natascha. She looked around the restaurant and smiled confidently as if she ate in places like this every day of the week. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
    “But …”
    Natascha fixed Tim with a strong stare. “Can you stop saying ‘but’ like that? It’s really quite annoying.”
    “Sorry. But …”
    “You’re doing it again. Just don’t.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Look, Tim, it’s very simple. Colonel Zinfandel is here. Max isn’t. Not yet, anyway. He will be soon. And I want to be here when he arrives. So can you just relax and enjoy having lunch in one of the best restaurants in Paris?”
    “I suppose so,” said Tim.
    He couldn’t say anything else because the waiter had returned with three leather-bound menus. He handed one menu to each of the children, then offered the third to Tim. “Will you have the wine list,
monsieur
?”
    “No, thanks,” said Tim. “I don’t drink wine.”
    The waiter looked at Natascha. “For you,
mademoiselle
? A glass of wine? Or some champagne?”
    “Not today, thank you,” said Natascha. “I’d like an orange juice.”
    “Me too,” said Tim.
    “Deux jus d’orange,”
said the waiter with a thin-lipped smile. He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Tim and Natascha to read their menus.

Chapter 19
    “Scallops,” “medallion,” “truffle,” “langoustine,” “turbot.”
    Tim stared at these words, wondering what they meant.
    He supposed they must be food. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on a menu in a restaurant. But what type of food? Which one should he pick for lunch? And when it arrived, would he actually want to eat it?
    He glanced at Natascha, hoping she would be looking as confused as he felt, but she was reading her menu with obvious pleasure, imagining all the different delicious dishes that she could choose to eat.
    Tim sighed and started reading again from the top.
    The menus were written in both French and English, so Tim could understand the actual words that were written on them, but that didn’t really help him. What was a langoustine? And what were you supposed to do with a medallion?
    Tim sighed again. He looked at Natascha and said, “What are you going to have?”
    “I haven’t quite decided,” said Natascha. “But I’ll probably have the scallops followed by the turbot. What about you?”
    “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” said Tim. He shut his menu and looked around the restaurant.
    It was built into the structure of the Eiffel Tower. Through the windows, Tim could see the tower’s steel struts. Beyond them, the whole city was spread out like a map. He could see tiny cars and buses driving through the streets and miniature boats sailing along the river.
    He wondered how far up they were. He tried to imagine what would happen if someone fell out of the window. They would topple through the air, turning over and over and over, then land on the ground