Susan in Paris 2

 Here's the first installment, using the prompts from October 9th. I even remembered the missing word curse from 2 October.
 Please forget that I rounded off the chapter on October 2nd with Susan and family arriving at home. Back to Paris we go! 

marble                     and/or                                   scald 
month                                                                    rake
ashamed                                                                simple
zealous                                                                   plain  
guide                                                                      grind
sassy                                                                       obsequious    


The next morning Susan woke in a bad temper. She always felt unhappy when a holiday was drawing to an end and they were returning to the plain, drab everyday life. They still had a whole month of summer holidays left. Susan hoped she would be able to go to Unicorn Farm soon again.
 The zealous innkeeper's assistant showed up in the doorway and asked in his atrocious English if the family was ready to "consume their small breakfast in ze restaurant?" Susan smiled to herself and almost bit her tongue trying not to make some sassy remark on the size of her breakfast. They followed him to the restaurant of the hotel - a small, plain room with tree tables laid for breakfast. An old woman silently worked behind a counter. Her job was obviously to grind the coffee beans and pour scalding hot water over them. Whatever, it was the best coffee Susan had had for a long time, and even dad, who normally did not drink coffee in the morning, usually had two cups. The obsequious waiter as always tried to make Susan and Linda have scrambled eggs, but just as every morning they feasted on croissants with liberal amounts of strawberry jam. The waiter satisfied himself with raking in their coins for an extra croissant, and told some jokes, that made Susan feel happy that she had not fallen for the temptation to use her language understanding spells.
 Dad paid the bill while mom, Susan and Linda carried their luggage down from the room. Linda's small suitcase opened and spilled marbles all over the entry hall. Linda went red from embarrassment. All the marbles were beautiful. Bought  by Linda in a wonderful stone shop-cum sculptor's studio. Susan had seen some marvelous Gargoyles there. Yes she was a bit obsessed with gargoyles, they were such poor looking critters, just like a magic experiment turned awfully wrong, and them ended up being petrified. Of course she knew it was not like this, She had seen the sculptor's hands and tools carving the bat like wings of yet another gargoyle. "21," Linda said, "we have all the marbles now." "Merci beaucoup," Susan said in her best French to the maids who had helped them collecting the marbles.
 Finally they were off, Dad pulled the old guide book from the glove compartment, and handed it to Mum. "Head for the Arc de Triomphe first. Then turn right into the 7st street, Avenue Foch ..." she said. Linda began playing her Watch and play game and Susan looked through the mess on the car seat after some paper to write on. She wanted to write a poem on Paris and the curse of the gargoyles. While looking she found some candy boxes, some of them were already torn open and the inside filled with her own and Linda's scribbles. She looked at it "A tall chimney with blue flags to the right; left lots of trees and a cast iron fence."
 Now she remembered, It was an old driving game. She and Linda took turns seeing a thing with Susan usually writing them down. They had played this game coming into Paris. Susan looked out of the window. Wondering whether they would pass the big chimney once again. And yes Bois de Bologne, the signpost said. Mum had told them that the cast iron fence fenced in the campsite in there. And there was the tall chimney with the blue flags. Susan made a check mark next to it and looked for the next clue. A peculiar telephone booth. Found and ticked off. Susan followed their clues backwards for a long time. Suddenly Dad said "Hey. Elin, why don't you say anything, where do I go from here?" Mom shook her head. "I don't know, this road is not on the map. I can't understand. We came this way in"  Dad stopped the car: Here, let me see!" He looked at the map, at the road-signs and back at the map. "Yes. Now I see, he said slowly," he looked rather lost and ashamed. "This book is quite old, almost 20 years to be exact. The road was built after the map was printed. We're lost ..."
 Before Dad could draw breath to swear over old maps or stupid newfangled roads, Susan opened her mouth: "No, we're not lost. Linda and I played our 'Look and See-game' when we arrived, and I have all the clues right here. Next one is a large greenhouse selling tomatoes."
 "It's over there," Mom said. "Brilliant Susan, let's follow your clues until we find a road-sign we can use."
 And they all looked for a broken flagpole, a blue roofed clock tower, an overfilled clothes line - not overfilled today, but Linda remembered the apple tree next to it, and clue by clue they left Paris behind.