Rampage! (31 page)

Alex watched them, bristling. He’d expected the twisting feeling in his stomach, the thumping of his heart and the way his skin prickled with annoyance. But actually standing here, watching him preen, offering that perfect, practised smile and switching on those familiar dreamy expressions on the goddesses’ faces, it felt a million times worse. Now, watching the Argonaut whispering to Aphrodite, his mind shot back to Aries, lying bleeding and almost extinguished on the Amazon mud and feeling a wave of anguish so strong that it almost took his breath away, he walked up to the front.

‘Goddess,’ he said. ‘Wat is telling the truth. It was he, Rose and I who defeated the sorceress, whilst Aries fought a terrible monster to rescue Jason.’

Athena glanced up, amused. ‘Rescue Jason?’

‘
Our
Jason?’ teased Persephone, pulling a bewildered face at the crowd behind her, making them laugh. ‘Whatever next?’

The room rang with coarse laughter.

‘I think the sun has addled their minds,’ said Jason, as Aphrodite shook her head prettily, holding a hand to her mouth in giggly shock.

‘No,’ said the Gorgon, raising her voice above the merriment. Flame-eyed, she fixed her stare on Athena. ‘It’s true, mistress. Alex and the others had to complete the quest, because Jason had run away. It was this boy who turned the shield and destroyed her with her own magic.’

Now the laughter was deafening. It bounced off the walls and swelled though the room, surging and rising like a storm.

Furious, Grass Snake lurched off the shield, boggle-eyed.

‘And s-s-saved usss, too!’ he cried, his voice lost in the gales of merriment.

Standing there, forced to listen to it, Alex felt as though his head would explode. He turned to the courtiers, and knew that this feeling, tight behind his ribs, was what Aries must have felt, treated like a joke, ever since he stepped into the Underworld. Beside him, the ram drew closer, looking up and urging him on, his eyes bright and excited.

‘All right then,’ shouted Alex. ‘How do you think Aries got these wounds?’ He stared into their ruddy, laughing faces. ‘From fighting a monster three-headed cat, when a terrified Jason had abandoned us, that’s how!’

‘Terrified?’ Euterpe, red-faced with amusement, turned to Hera, laughing heartily beside her.

‘The cat was bigger than the Nemean Lion!’ hissed Krait, whipping out in a blur of black and white, sending the muse of music backwards in fright.

‘And Alex killed it,’ said Grass Snake.

‘With arrowsss,’ said Adder.

‘And the thunderbolt!’ said Viper.

‘And pure courage,’ finished Aries, with a furious snort.

‘Enough!’ snapped Jason, flapping at the serpents with his hand. ‘Goddess, have them removed from the palace. Can’t you see how they’re trying to grasp some small slice of glory for themselves?’ he said, turning to face her. ‘Surely you can ––’

But his words died in this throat.

Athena wasn’t listening.

She was too busy reading over the tattered, sea-stained scroll she held in her hands.

Jason stood frozen, gaping at it, his eyes wide with recognition and shock. Then his eyes slid towards the heap of paper and red ribbons at her feet, the wrapping that Rose had bought in Manaus, clearly unable to believe just what it had contained.

Around them, the crowd watched Athena’s grey eyes darken and the smile slip from her face. Now they stopped laughing, their guffaws and wheezing fading, turning into a rush of curious, muffled whispers and then silence, leaving everyone as still as statues. For long moments the only sound in the throne room was a loud slobbering and squeaking as Cerberus chewed his favourite ducky toy, bone and ball all at the same time, until Athena finally looked up. Being the goddess of wisdom, of course, she had immediately recognised the truth of the words on the page and when she turned to look at Jason, her eyes were as cold and grey as ashes from a dead fire.

‘Goddess,’ said Jason, his smile hollow and held rigidly on his face. ‘What foolishness is this?’ He reached for the scroll and Athena snatched it away. ‘Why waste our time on such … such tricks,’ he stuttered, ‘when I should be telling you how I defeated the sorceress?’

Abruptly, Athena turned away from him, and regarded Alex and Aries with fresh curiosity.

‘Actually,’ she said, meeting Aries’ bright eyes. ‘I’d rather hear it from the ram.’

Oooh, I do love a jolly ending, don’t you? And this one makes me want to boogie round the front room, just thinking about everyone returning happily home. Well, everyone apart from Medea, of course, and that really has me shaking a tail feather.

Hoochy-scoochy! Waggle my rear!

You see, whilst Athena and the crowd at the palace settled down to listen to Aries telling them what had actually happened on the quest, and Rose held her father’s hand as the plane soared above the Amazon, Medea the bug-bitten howler monkey was sulking high in the leaves of a Brazil nut tree. A particularly spiky and beetle-busy Brazil nut tree, I might add, and one thundering with the hoots and grunts of other howlers, honking round her like a herd of windy walruses.

Seemingly nothing more than just another monkey now, she had soon been raucously accepted by the troupe. And I mean
raucously
. Because, for those non-zoologists among you, let me tell you that these monkeys make
more racket than a stage full of screeching rock stars trying to be heard over a team of vacuum-cleaner testers hoovering around a passing brass band. And they’re even more deafening when they’re yammering right into your ear hole. As Medea might have told you herself, save that in that din she’d never have heard you asking, and besides, she couldn’t have answered anyway, could she, what with her being a monkey, remember?

To the left of her, a young howler cheerfully sprayed the leaves below with wee – something, I’m afraid, that passes for fun in monkey circles – but comes as a terrible shock to someone who until recently was a snooty-booty high-society sorceress. To her right, a big, russet male appeared to be blowing her kisses, and every time she leaned back against the tree trunk, she was startled by the unwelcome prod of fingers in her fur, as the grandmother of the group, a grumpy-looking monkey with piggy eyes, plucked lice from her fur and chewed them wetly.

Grunting in disgust, Medea closed her eyes and tried to shut out the clamour and the heat and the prospect of yet another fistful of green bananas for dinner.

Things, she decided, could not be any worse.

Which was when the bellowing chorus around her drained away and in the light twittering of finches left behind, Medea heard a new sound. She snapped open her eyes, noticing the other howlers, paused and mute, their faces upturned, their bowl-mouths slack with wonder, as the unmistakable throb of an engine grew louder. Turning her snub nose to the sky, she saw a
bright pink plane gliding across a perfect stretch of blue.

Instantly her brain scorched with rage. Fury flashed through her limbs, white-hot, propelling her on to her back feet. She stretched up, she bunched her hands into fists, she waved them wildly over her head, hooting madly after the distant aircraft. Then, snapping her tail out to swing it like a whip – the tail that she should actually have been using to hang on to the branch – she overbalanced and shot backwards off the bough.

Wham!

              
Bam!

                         
Slam!

– she hurtled down through the trees

Smack!

              
Thwack!

                              
Crack!

hitting every branch on the way

                                                  ‘!’

                                                       ‘!’

                                                             ‘!’

– hurling monkey curses into the air (curses that I shall not repeat here because I am far too refined for that) to land in a tangled heap in a prickle fig bush.

Moments later, she groaned dizzily, peering up to see the greenery overhead quivering with the other howlers, swinging, dangling and whooping with glee. Then, summoning up the last scrap of her dignity, which isn’t easy with a bottom full of thorns, she lumbered away into the shadows.

Achilles was the most famous warrior in Greek myths and fought and died in the War of Troy. Because she loved her little boy so much, Mummy Achilles tried to make him immortal by dipping her baby into the River Styx. Unfortunately, rather than let him doggy-paddle in his water wings, she held him by his heel, so that this part of his body didn't get wet and wasn't protected by the river's magic. Consequently, Achilles was killed when Prince Paris fired an arrow into his foot. Nowadays, we still used the term ‘Achilles' heel' to mean somebody's weak spot.

The
agora
was the Ancient Greek marketplace where various traders brought their wares to sell. Most towns enjoyed a flower market (the flora-agora), a sword market (the war-agora) and a pet market, bursting with dogs, cats and gerbils (the paw-claw-and-gnaw-agora).

Alexander the Great was one of the cleverest military leaders of all time and conquered a third of the globe from the saddle of his faithful horse, Bucephalus. The stallion had once been regarded as furious and untamable, but the teenage Alexander quickly spotted that the gigantic neddy was simply scared of his own blooming enormous shadow. Turning him away from the sun, he won the horse's trust and from that day on they were inseparable. Alexander rode Bucephalus into nearly all of his battles and when the horse died, he founded a city in his steed's honour, called Bucephala. Making it lucky, I suppose, that Alexander hadn't named him Hoofy-Pops. I mean, who'd want to live in Hoofy-Pops-Ville?

Voyage of the
Argo
? Is there an app for that? Yes, there certainly is: Ap-ollonius of Rhodes. He was the Ancient Greek who famously wrote about it around 3 BC in a long poem called ‘The Argonautica'. Not much of a poem, though, if you ask me. Waffles on for ages without a single rhyme. Personally, I think a snappy limerick would have been much better, say:

Atalanta was the only female Argonaut. She usually spent her days running wild in the hills and shooting things with her bow and arrows. Of course, having so much fun, she didn't want to have a husband and settle down, and so, to rid herself of any suitors, she challenged them to a footrace. Being so fast, she always won and then executed the loser, saving all that bother with big white frocks and bouquets. However, her luck finally ran out when she raced sneaky Hippomenes, who threw three golden apples ahead of her as they sprinted. Unable to resist their lure, Atalanta slowed down to pick them up, pausing just long enough for Hippomenes to whip past and win. Result: wedding cake all round.

The Greek god of winter, snow and frost, Boreas was also the god of the north wind. He had three brothers: Zephyros, god of the west wind, Notos, god of the south wind and Euros, god of blowing draughts up Scotsmen's kilts.

Centaurs have the heads, arms and torsos of men and the bodies of horses. Being a somewhat temperamental bunch, they were often to be found causing havoc around Ancient Greece. Some enjoyed jumping the stalls in the market (shopping centaurs) whilst others insisted on competing in the Olympics (sports centaurs). However, the most
troublesome of all were the ones who hoofed on stage in the middle of a Greek play in order to do an inappropriate tap dance. These were known as centaurs of attention.

The original Bubble and Shriek of the ocean, you wouldn't want to come across these two terrors on your water-skiing lesson. This is because Charybdis was a ferocious whirlpool that sucked down any passing ship while Scylla was a six-headed sea-monster with tentacles and a ring of howling dogs' heads around her waist. Best friends, these two haunted the sea close to one another, forcing any passing seafarers into a grim choice of being drowned or devoured. Hold on a minute whilst I cancel my Greek cruise …

Although pronounced ‘kite-on' this has nothing to do with tying a diamond-shaped flying toy on your back and running round in circles to see if you can take off. It is the name given to the draped tunics that both men and women wore in Ancient Greece.

The Cyclopes were a race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of their forehead. Known for their brute strength, they often helped Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, at the forge in making thunderbolts for Zeus.
They also made Artemis's bow and arrows, Poseidon's trident, Achilles's sword and a range of novelty stands to set down hot pots of moussaka from the oven.

Daedalus was a smarty-pants Ancient Greek inventor, who made wings from wax and feathers, so that he and his son, Icarus, could escape from prison. Sadly, being a bit of a show-off, Icarus ignored his dad's warnings not to fly too near the sun and was so busy looping the loop and throwing funky shapes to scare the seagulls that he didn't realised how high he'd risen until the sun's rays melted the wax of his wings. By then it was too late, and he tumbled into the sea, in a flurry of feathers, and drowned.

Drako was the nickname of the Dragon (or Drakon) of Kolkis, the huge, man-eating serpent who guarded the Golden Fleece that hung in the Sacred Grove. Never sleeping, he often passed the time by playing draughts with Aries, using the dented helmets of thieves for counters. There were lots of these lying around, being all that was left of men who'd crept in to steal the Fleece, only to end up sliding down Drako's long, long throat instead. Games of I-Spy, however, were less fun since the giant snake always spied something beginning with ‘T', which when you live in a forest, doesn't make for a very exciting competition.

The toddler son of Aphrodite was a right little devil with his bow and arrows, and spent his days firing darts of desire into people's hearts to make them fall in
lurve
with each other. However, having shot an arrow into Medea's heart, the little cupid then stopped for lunch. Unfortunately, Aphrodite had mashed up some greens for him. This later triggered a terrible attack of the hiccups, meaning that the arrows he fired at Jason's heart flew into the pond –
hic!
– the trees –
hic!
– and the feathery derrière of a chicken who happened to be passing at the time –
hic!-SQUAWK!
Consequently, Jason never felt the same way about Medea as she did about him, and some people might say that all the horrible things that followed weren't really Jason's fault at all, but down to Eros and the curse of the Brussels sprouts.

Euripides was the name of the Ancient Greek who wrote a famous play about Medea in which he made her out to be even more of a moo than she was. (And that is certainly saying something.) His name is pronounced ‘Yoo-rip-er-dees', and indeed, had Medea found his pile of writing before the actors, she'd quickly have instructed her familiar, ‘You rip-er-dees up!' before anyone else could read them.

A Greek chorus was a small group of actors who spoke,
sang and acted as one during a play to help the audience understand what was going on. They did this by wearing large masks, depicting happy or sad faces, and going ‘Hooray!' or ‘Woe! Woe!' according to the play's story. They were also handy at waking up audience members who'd nodded off and were distracting everyone else with their snoring, by lining up close by and yelling ‘Fire!'

The Grey Sisters were three old ladies who lived in a cave on a windswept hill in Ancient Greece. They had grey hair, grey skins and even greyer moods on account of having only one eye and one tooth to share among them. This situation led to dreadful squabbling, and particularly at Christmas, when there was often something good to watch on the telly and Santa had left them a bumper box of toffees to eat.

Hades is another name for the Greek Underworld and also the name of its king. Consequently the monarch's letters were addressed to: ‘HRH Hades, Hades Castle, Hades', which made the postman's job much easier. Or at least it would have done if Cerberus hadn't been quite so fond of chasing him around the royal rhododendrons.

Vile creatures with the heads of women, the bodies of giant birds and a wicked way with their handbags, who
were famous for swooping from the sky to snatch the snacks of unsuspecting passers-by.

Spooky Hecate is the goddess of sorcery and magic, and is often shown in old pictures carrying two lit torches. Scholars say this is because she used them to light the way when she helped Demeter search for her daughter, Persephone, after Hades stole her away. In actual fact, she needed them each night to find her pets, a pair of badly behaved ghost dogs, called Hocus and Pocus, who loved nothing better than having a roll in the middle of a meadow at midnight. Well, have you ever tried finding ghost dogs in the dark? Quite.

The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite were one day squabbling over who was the prettiest. To stop their bickering, Zeus told Paris, a prince from Troy, to be the beauty-contest judge. Each goddess wanted to win and offered Paris a bribe: Hera promised him power; Athena, victory in war; and Aphrodite, the love of Helen, the most beautiful woman on Earth. Paris instantly crowned Aphrodite ‘Miss Olympus' and claimed his prize.

Lovely. Except that their romance led to the War of Troy because Helen was actually married to King Menelaus of Sparta, and he wasn't nearly so keen on her new boyfriend.

Hippocrates was a real person and is considered the first Western doctor in history. Modern doctors still take his ‘Hippocratic Oath', a set of rules rather like the Scout's promise, which includes vowing to keep what the patient tells them a secret and not laughing out loud when they show them the spots on their bottom.

The Minotaur was a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body of a man. He was locked up in a maze beneath the royal palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. This was partly because he kept devouring young men and women, and partly because he caused the most dreadful havoc in the china shops around the island.

This monster lion lived in Nemea and ate everybody who crossed its path. No one could stop it because its coat was as tough as armour and ordinary weapons were useless against it. Nevertheless, Herakles – not being the brightest shield on the battlefield – set out to slay it with his arrows. These bounced off the lion –
bing, bang, boing
– thwacking
Herakles on the head –
ping, pang, poing
– until he finally decided to bop the lion with his club and strangle it instead. Then, fancying the pelt as a cloak, he tried to skin the lion with his sword. Duh? The sword was about as much use as a banana. The sun went up, the sun went down and still he tried and indeed, he might still have been there today had it not been for Athena, who suggested he use one of the lion's own claws to do the job instead.

Nymphs are female nature spirits who flounce around forests in floaty frocks going ‘Ooo!' (the nymphs, not the frocks). They mostly spend their days singing and paddling their little feet in streams. However, they occasionally throw woodland parties, drink far too much buttercup wine and end up shouting the most unladylike words.

An obol was a silver coin used in ancient Athens. However, unlike most currency, it could be spent
after
death, too. This was because Charon, the skeleton ferryman, demanded a fare of one obol to take the recently departed over the River Styx and into the Underworld. Being stuck in a spidery cavern with rising damp seeping up your shinbones and an endless procession of customers who were never pleased to see you made Charon rather gloomy. But, luckily for him, those obols kept jingling into his piggy bank so that he was
finally able to buy a retirement apartment, with a view of Hades castle, and bingo in the lounge on Sundays.

Odysseus was a right old clever-clogs who came up with the idea of the Wooden Horse of Troy. He also led the soldiers, secretly hiding in the horse's tummy, out into the city at midnight and threw open the city gates to the Greek army, who stormed in to win the war. However, he wasn't nearly so smart at sailing, as it took him a whole ten years to return to his island home of Ithaca, and his wife,
Penelope,
who'd waited there for him.

Mount Olympus was the home of the most important Greek gods, who were known as the Olympians. However, with so many aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters living under one roof, arguments were frequent. These were made worse when the gods' pets joined in. On such occasions Zeus's eagle would pummel Aphrodite's doves, Hermes's tortoise would tuck into his shell and bowl himself at Hera's peacock and Apollo's swans would snap Poseidon's fish up in their beaks and fling them out of the window. Only Athena's owl, being the most sensible and wisest of the creatures, could be relied upon to behave well and he could always be found under the bed reading a good scroll.