We Don't Know If This Is Correct

David waits outside the ice cream shop.

Ages tick by with no news.

Why not call Vello? He will.

David: Vello? Any luck finding Oscar and Terence?

Vello: They've been drowned, rescued and abducted to the Palais de Nations by a bunch of Chinese. We're just trying to enter. There's a fool of a gatekeeper......

David: Ha ha. You ARE joking? No? Should I come down there? Oh... all right. I'll wait here.

David goes in to order another ice cream. He carries it outside. It's warm in the sunshine. He sits under a large red umbrella, and closes his eyes.

Why does Vello get all the excitement?

As if proving the point, his phone rings. It's Katherine, his mother.

Katherine Hume: David! Where are you?

David Hume: Mother, you know where I am. I'm in Geneva.

Katherine: When will you be home?

David: It's up in the air at the moment. Terence has been kidnapped.

Katherine: Oh, dear. So you're held up indefinitely. I was hoping you'd come with me to Blaxland.

David: What a shame. You could always ask Arthur.

Katherine: He's still away. Perhaps I'll ask Belle.

David: She's working in the office. She's the only one there. You can't take her.

Katherine: Nonsense. Sweezus is there as well. He's perfectly capable.

David: Is he? Yes, of course he is. All right. Go ahead and ask Belle.

Katherine: I will. Good luck finding young Terence!

David: Bad pennies always turn up.

Katherine: Very apt, David. I sometimes forget you're a brilliant philosopher.

.........

 Inside the Palais de Nations, in front of a beautiful painting, Woman With Doves, by Zhao Yu Sheng:

Oscar: That's Terence's mum in that painting! And those are his parrots.

May Li: This is remarkable. The painter is Chinese.

Du Fu: We don't know if this is correct. We must ask Terence.

Wang Wei: Here he comes now, with two Westerners.

May Li: Hee hee! 'Westerners'. Wang, you ning nong.

Oscar: Mum!

Em: Oscar! Where have you been?

Oscar: I fell in the water at the big fountain. A man tripped me. Hi Terence! Look at this picture.

Terence: Parrots! And a lady.

Vello: Doves, not parrots. Look here, Terence, I've retrieved.....

Oscar: It's your mum.

Terence: No it isn't. But look what the crane........

Smash! Egg meets pith helmet.

Egg slime all over the floor, and a tiny thing, moving.

A guard comes running.