The Adventures of Tintin Page A

safety.
    And that was when the bomb went off.

OUT IN THE hallway, Allan and the rest of the goons stood up, guns in hand. “Move!” Allan yelled. Everyone’s ears were ringing, but they could tell what he was saying by the way he waved. “Let’s go!”
    The men started to charge into the hold to look for Tintin, but everything was hidden by the smoke from the explosion. It had blown the door right off its hinges and left debris all over the immediate area, and right as they stepped through the doorway, they heard gunshots!
    All of them ducked behind the fallen door or around the edges of the doorway. “He’s got a big shooter!” Tom said. He jumped out, brandishing his gun, and was hit and knocked down. Rolling around, he moaned, “Got me . . .”
    Then they all noticed the champagne cork that fell onto the floor next to him. Allan picked it up. “Hold your fire,” he said, and peered around the edge of the door frame.
    Rows of champagne bottles were aimed at the doorway. Many of them had popped their corks from the vibrations of the explosion. Foamy champagne spilled from the open bottles into a widening puddle on the floor. Allan didn’t see Tintin anywhere.
    Tom stuck his head out next to Allan. “He ain’t here!” he said. “He’s vanished!”
    The sound of his voice shook loose a couple more corks. One of them ricocheted off the fallen door, and another nailed Tom square in the forehead, knocking him out cold.
    Allan looked down at him for a moment, unable to quite believe what was happening. How could they all have been outsmarted by a kid they’d left tied up in a locked hold? “He’s hiding,” Allan said. He ducked another popping cork, which shot past him into the hall. “Search the ship!”

    Tintin heard some of this as he dangled from the rope, trying to brace his feet against the ship’s hull so he could climb. He couldn’t help laughing at the champagne corks. Snowy, hanging by his teeth from the cuff of Tintin’s pants, didn’t see what was so funny. Tintin got his feet braced and pulled them up so he was leaning away from the hull. He held on with one hand and reached down with the other to help Snowy.
    Once Snowy had his teeth on Tintin’s jacket and his back feet hooked into Tintin’s belt, Tintin started climbing. It took only a minute for him to get to the next porthole above. He reached one arm in and got himself arranged so the bottom lip of the porthole was wedged between his elbow and his side. Then he boosted Snowy into the stateroom, which was warmly lit. There was a smell of whiskey and wool inside.
    Tintin followed Snowy in through the porthole and saw they were entering what must have been the captain’s cabin. It was a dark-paneled room, chock-full of seagoing knickknacks and bric-a-brac. Sextants, models, charts, strange skulls and artifacts, a birdcage in which a parrot turned a single beady eye toward these strange intruders . . . and in the middle of it all, lying flat on his face, was a man who could only have been the captain himself. Around him were the pieces of a chair he had apparently fallen on, either because of the explosion or after dodging the planks that had come flying in through the window.
    Tintin made a mental note to apologize for the planks. He was sure the captain would understand.
    Unless, of course, the captain was in league with Sakharine; then they would be at odds. Tintin wasn’t sure what to think yet. As he crawled in through the porthole, his foot caught on part of the rope and he fell. He sprawled on the floor, barely missing Snowy, who glanced over at him briefly and then looked back at the captain with a curious expression on his furry face.
    The captain stirred and began to sit up. Tintin got a good look at him for the first time. The captain had a blunt and honest face with a big red nose and a bushy black beard. He straightened the collar of his blue wool turtleneck sweater, which he wore under a black wool coat. Unruly hair stuck