Writing for Fun
February 2015
The Curious Incident of Our Hero in Paris - Jeanette Rothwell
Frank Sinatra was singing 'Come Fly with me' on the radio and Clark Kent gave a wry smile wishing that he could be singing that to Lois Lane, his colleague on The Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis. They had both been sent to Euro Disney outside Paris to cover a kidnapping story but Clark was fantasizing about flying Lois on a date to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Shard in London, wining and dining her, and seeing her look of astonishment when he revealed that he was her hero, Superman, in disguise. He knew he had to keep his fantasies to himself so he applied his mind to the task in hand, which was to dig out the facts about the kidnapping of a young boy, Michael Rochville, right in the middle of Eurodisney while his parents and extended family stood by watching in horror as he was bundled into a moving Land Rover right under their gaze and whisked away to goodness knows where.
He and Lois were staying on the outskirts of Paris using a taxi to get them to the resort. The initial journey to reach Euro Disney took them through some very heavy traffic and Clark longed to get out and fly there. The Parisian drivers had no respect for lanes, or traffic lights and Lois gave quite a few little squeals of fright as they traversed seven lanes of traffic or made several emergency stops at traffic lights which seemed to loom up from nowhere. Eventually they reached the entrance to the resort, feeling somewhat nauseous, showed their Press passes and entered mid excited children, harassed parents and reception staff trying to make themselves heard above the deafening commotion.
Clark guided Lois away from the crowds towards a nearby one storey building labelled 'Information' which they hurriedly entered into the comparative peace of the office. Again, they showed their Press passes and started to collect the facts on the sequence of events leading up to and during the kidnapping. It seemed that to date no ransom demand had been received which was unusual. The Rochville family were wealthy and famous for their decadent lifestyle and outrageous behaviour.
The boy was 11 years old, small for his age, sandy haired with freckles, rather shy and quiet. The mother was hysterical imagining her 'baby' in the hands of strangers who did not know his likes and dislikes and might be handling him roughly or leaving him to die in some unknown spot. This information came from the Under Manager who appeared to be somewhat disturbed by the whole incident and had obviously had to endure the weeping and wailing of the Rochville mother.
Lois showed some sympathy for the Under Manager which encouraged him to talk at length about the incident while Clark took notes, saying nothing, leaving all the talking to Lois, just nodding in agreement when required. Apparently the Police had taken copious statements from nearby spectators but the descriptions of the kidnappers varied to such a degree that the information was deemed of little assistance. The only certain fact was that the kidnappers had worn hoods and had covered their mouths with scarves. There was no agreement about the colour of their clothes, varying from tatty blue jeans to black trousers, brown jackets or green pullovers. Many spectators said the sun was in their eyes and others that the whole incident was over too quickly to be able to observe the kidnappers' clothes.
Clark and Lois decided to do some exploring of the resort and to have a good look at the spot where the incident had taken place. Whoops and shrieks heralded the crowd's enjoyment of the various exhilarating rides, their progress was hindered by queues for ice-cream, burgers, chips, pizzas, fluffy toys, etc. and they made their way slowly towards the pink Disneyland Hotel outside which the kidnapping had taken place when the family had emerged to start their exploration of the resort.
Michael had been ahead of them, excited to experience his first visit to Eurodisney, skipping and running, his face flushed with excitement. The car had swooped down upon him, the back door opened, out jumped a hooded villain. He grabbed the boy around the waist, heaved him into the car, slammed the door shut and the car sped away. The family rushed forward but were too late to stop the snatch. All they could do was shout frustratingly after the car.
This had happened two days ago and nothing had been heard since. The Police had not managed to trace the car which, although one spectator had made a note of the number plate, it emerged that it was a false plate and that enquiry reached a dead end.
Having gleaned as much information as they could, the two reporters reluctantly hired another taxi and made their way back to the hotel, planning to revisit the resort the next day. Clark wasn't even given the pleasure of dining with Lois because she said she was somewhat jet-lagged and retired to her bed early, leaving Clark to order room service and gloomily eat his solitary burger, chips and coke.
However, his curiosity was aroused and, checking that there was a moon that night and that he knew the rough direction of the resort, he quickly changed into his Superman clothing, (bluer suit, billowing red cloak, 'S' shield in red and yellow on his chest) opened the window and flew out into the navy blue night.
He silently landed on to the roof of the Disneyland hotel and with his extra sensitive hearing became aware of the loud voices, music, clink of glasses, and laughter of a party taking place on the top floor of the hotel. He lowered himself down a drainpipe so that he could peer into the luxurious room where the party was being enjoyed by many well dressed, bejewelled, suited and booted revellers. He recognised Mrs Rochville from the photographs he had seen, dripping with jewellery, and watched as she disappeared into another room. His X-ray vision showed him that she was taking a telephone call so he changed windows so that he could get closer.
He listened to her telephone conversation: 'Hello Jake,' she said, 'Is everything all right?'
'Oh good,' she continued, 'And is Michael happy to be there?'
She appeared to receive re-assurance that all was well.
'Have you sent the ransom note yet?' she asked. 'Great. We should receive it tomorrow, and we'll show the old man. Michael is the apple of his eye being his only Grandson so he is bound to come up with the money. Then we can join you in Florida and have ourselves a decent holiday while we are supposed to be collecting Michael and handing over the money. Is the mobile home comfortable and is Michael eating well? I hope you were careful to leave no trace of your journey. Oh, I see, you and Joan pretended to be a normal family on a trip to Disneyworld. Well, keep up the good work Jake and give my love to Michael, tell him to be a good boy from me.'
Superman's eyes opened wide as he realised the deception that had taken place. So the Rochville's were short of money and wanted to extract a ransom from the head of the family to bankroll a luxury holiday in Florida. 'Hmm,' he thought, 'We'll see about that.'
He climbed back on to the roof again and sat on a chimney pot to think. Having reached a decision he flew back to his hotel to get some sleep of what was left of the night.
At breakfast the next morning, Lois suggested that she try to get an interview with Mrs Rochville and Clark said he planned to explore the route taken by the kidnappers on their escape. They parted company at the resort entrance. Lois to the Pink hotel and Clark to find a quiet corner where he quickly took off his sombre business attire to become Superman, chose a moment when nobody was around and took off in the direction of the USA and Florida in particular. He rose high into the sky so that he looked more like a bird to those on the ground.
When he had made the long journey 'across the pond' as the saying goes, he searched the surroundings of the Disney resort there for a holiday home area. It took him some time to locate the mobile home where the boy had been taken and was lucky to spot him playing in the sand outside a particularly luxurious looking vehicle. His captors were watching him nearby. The daylight was beginning to fade as it had taken Superman a long time to find the boy so he settled himself in a nearby tree and watched until the pseudo family had obviously had a meal, watched some TV and then retired to bed.
Giving them time to fall asleep, he stealthily climbed under the mobile home and using his powerful shoulders he gently lifted the whole home so as not to disturb the occupants and started the long journey back to Paris.
The sun was just beginning to rise when he lowered the home on to the front area of the pink Disney hotel. With a grin of satisfaction he eased his aching shoulders, crept back to where he had left his day clothes, and changed.
Lois was at the entrance to the resort looking a mixture of anxiety and annoyance when he joined her.
'Where on earth have you been?' she asked, 'I searched high and low for you yesterday and had to go back to the hotel without you.'
Clark apologised, 'I got lost and had to spend the night in one of the hotels on this site when it was too late to get back to our hotel.'
'Well, you might have let me know' she complained. 'Anyway, I got my interview with the Rochville mother. My God, she spent the whole time in hysterics and I could hardly make out what she was on about.'
'Shall we go to the Disney hotel and see whether there are any developments?' suggested Clark.
Lois agreed and they made their way to the pink hotel as crowds were beginning to enter the resort. 'What on earth is that mobile home doing in front of the hotel?' she queried.
'Perhaps they are full and having to use alternative accommodation,' joked Clark. Suddenly the door of the holiday home opened and Michael Rochville emerged gasping as he did so. 'Where's the sea and where are my sandcastles?' he shouted back into the home.
His captors appeared in the doorway. 'What on earth are you on about?' said Jake.
'Oh my God, where are we?' shrieked Joan.
The automatic front door of the Disney hotel slid open and out came Simon Rochville, the head of the family. 'Hello young Michael. Where did you spring from? What's more important, are you all right? Whatever you've been up, you've saved me a heck of a lot of money by coming back.'
Mr and Mrs Rochville Jnr erupted from the front door looking absolutely astounded and not a little puzzled. Mr Rochville Jnr strode up to the door of the mobile home and shouted at the occupants to come out immediately and explain themselves. Mrs Rochville hurriedly interrupted him as she did not want him to give the game away. He immediately gave a nervous laugh and spluttered out some garbled explanation for his outburst. Mrs Rochville wore a false smile, hurriedly embraced Michael, saying 'Where on earth have you been, we have been so worried' The whole party went back into the hotel amid shouts from the early resort visitors that it was all a big 'con' and they should be ashamed of themselves.
'I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they try to talk their way out of this,' chuckled Clark.
Lois looked at Clark oddly, and they slowly walked away. She was thoughtful for a while and then blurted out 'I bet they were trying to get some money out of Simon Rochville and had smuggled Michael Rochville away somewhere in that mobile home, though why the driver of the van had to park it outside the hotel, goodness only knows.'
'It's not much of a story now, is it?' observed Clark. 'I don't think the Boss is going to be very pleased with us. I think we might have to embellish the story a bit before we go home.'
'Yes, I suppose so, but before we fly back, let's at least do some sightseeing. We can't come to Paris and not see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and all the other places.'
So for the rest of the day, Clark had the pleasure of Lois's company rushing from each attraction and then dining (romantically, he thought) on a boat travelling down the Seine while Sinatra sang about a slow boat to China. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, not unfortunately because she was with Clark but with the pleasure of their sightseeing adventures. Clark gave a huge sigh. One day he would tell her about his disguise, but for now he would just enjoy being with her.
