Rampage!

by Wills, Julia; Hartas, Leo ;

  As if in reply, the lyre gave its longest mournful sigh yet and, feeling a cold shudder of worry, Alex hurried after Aries as the ram bustled noisily through the portal.

  Gifts, thought Rose, who was at that moment stretching in her bed, blinking in the wash of morning light. Wasn’t it totally amazing how they always managed to make people feel so much better?

  Yawning, she murmured a whispered thank-you to the unknown but utterly determined fan who’d sent Hazel such a fabulous present the day before.

  And changed the star’s mood completely.

  Rose sat up and leaned against her plump pillows, recalling how Hazel’s face had glowed when the steward handed her a gift-wrapped box, giddily festooned with pink ribbons, at dinner the night before, explaining that it had arrived only a few minutes ago, by courier, out here in the middle of nowhere. Dang, how determined her true fans were, said Hazel, gasping that she simply couldn’t believe it.

  And neither could Rose – the change in Hazel’s mood, that was, because for the first time since leaving Barcelos airport over a week ago, Rose had caught a glimpse of the fun girl she’d met in London. The one who’d reassured her so confidently that they would find her father together; that everything truly would be all right. Rose smiled, recalling the sparkle in Hazel’s eyes as she’d ripped off the ribbons and flipped back the lid of the box to discover the most spectacular chocolate-coloured lily inside. Breathing in the scent of its cherry-red centre, Hazel had taken the box to her cabin bedroom and placed it proudly in the middle of her dressing table.

  Rose hoped that the old, good-humoured Hazel would be back again today. She stood up and slipped on her trainers, pleased to discover that the tightness behind her ribs – born of the niggling worry that perhaps the star’s world of pink planes and pink-faced fans really was too different from her own life of grey T-shirts and grey days spent in museums for them to be real friends – had finally disappeared.

  And all thanks to a flower delivered in the weirdest little wicker box that had a brass catch shaped like a dragon’s face, holding a dazzling blue stone in its mouth.

  Hold on a minute …

  Brass dragon?

  Dazzling blue stone?

  In. Its. Mouth?

  Oh dear.

  I don’t like the sound of this, and I don’t expect you do either. But, really, there’s not point looking at me all worried, with your face scrunched up like a constipated squirrel.

  I mean, what can I do?

  18 Which Athena had already bestowed on Jason, with an extra smattering of lurve words in all languages.

  19 Medusa had always been a fashionable lass and certainly not the sort of girl to let being turned into a monster with snakey hair cramp her style. Consequently she chose the most exotic serpents for hair extensions, weaving Egyptian cobras and Indian Kraits among the ordinary Greek wrigglers, to give herself the most cosmopolitan of hair-dos.

  SNAKE YOUR BOOTY

  At about the same time as Rose was brushing her teeth, Alex was grinding his in frustration. This was because ever since they’d stepped on to the plush red carpet of the portal corridor – only a few minutes before, though it felt much much longer – Aries had barely paused for breath.

  Grumble …

  Moan …

  Snort …

  Twang …

  ‘Didn’t I say that we couldn’t trust him?’ muttered Aries, shimmying his shoulders to make the harness more comfortable and sounding like a one-ram band.

  ‘Only about a hundred times,’ sighed Alex.

  The Serpents of Strife hissed curiously from the shield, unfurling and twirling, tasting the air for scents.

  Rude word …

  Jingle-jangle …

  BOOM!

  Thunder rolled as Zeus’s bolt thwacked the walls.

  ‘Of all the low-down sneaky tricks!’ said Aries. ‘Can you believe he’s left without us?’

  ‘No, I can’t!’ replied Alex. ‘Because he hasn’t. He’s simply gone on ahead to check things out!’

  ‘Rather like the s-s-scoutsss who rode in Alexander the Great’sss cavalry,’ said Adder loftily. ‘A clas-s-sic tactic used by the bravessst of men to check out the lie of the land.’

  ‘Who asked you?’ grunted Aries.

  ‘Well, really!’ Adder curled himself into a sulky knot.

  Having once belonged to the old mathematician Pythagoras, Adder20 had long-considered himself the brainbox of the bunch and certainly wasn’t used to such rammy rudeness.

  ‘Stop it, Aries!’ insisted Alex. ‘We have to hurry up. We need to get to the Amazon. We don’t have time to moan.’

  Except that Aries always had time to moan.

  And never more so than when he found himself on a long, gloomy corridor cut through black rock that twinkled in the firelight and that was distinctly Jason-free. Bustling his rear importantly, he looked up crossly at Alex.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ he muttered. ‘You’re not the one trussed up like a cheap sideshow at the agora, are you? All these ridiculous gewgaws!’

  ‘Who you calling a gewgaw?’ hissed Krait, sticking out his white chin indignantly.

  ‘What’sss a gewgaw?’ asked Grass Snake.

  ‘A gewgaw,’ sniffed Adder, from under his coils, ‘isss s-s-something pointlesss and s-s-showy.’

  ‘Like Jason,’ finished Aries, giving the wall an extra hard wallop with the lightning bolt, making the corridor tremble with thunder.

  Alex sighed.

  If he’d had an obol for every time Aries had raged about Jason since they’d been down in the Underworld, he’d be sitting on a mountain of money taller than Mount Olympus by now. Down here, listening to Aries mutter and scorn (and twang and rumble and spark) he wished again that for the sake of their friendship he could join in and wholeheartedly side with his best friend.

  Truly agree that Jason wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.

  Rail against the way he was still fêted as the golden boy of the Underworld.

  Except he couldn’t.

  Not when he hardly knew him.

  Back in old Greece, Jason had been captain of the Argo whilst Alex had been just a boy, up to his elbows in cold, wet clay, learning how to be a potter. To be honest, all Alex was absolutely certain of when it came to Jason was the memory of a dull ache between his shoulder blades, born of hefting trays of pots in and out of the kiln all day, and eyes that itched with tiredness from painting him on pot after pot after pot, late into the night: Jason guiding the Argo through the Clashing Rocks, Jason fearlessly yoking the fire-breathing bulls, Jason climbing over the giant snake Drako’s back, high into the tree, to snatch down the Fleece. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the rows of pots, gleaming black and orange on the shelves, ready for the townswomen who’d buy them the next morning, cooing over them like besotted pigeons, delighted to buy a crock showing the latest adventure that Jason had sent news of by messenger dove. Smiling, he remembered his grandfather closing the door after they’d gone and shaking his old, grey-haired head, muttering about what an extraordinary man Jason must be.

  How could they all be wrong?

  His family, the townsfolk, the gods, the goddesses, the poets? Everybody in the Underworld?

  It was too ridiculous.

  You see, to Alex, Aries’ claims were rather like us having your best friend insist they’ve seen a flying saucer. You want to believe them, truly you do and you check the news, read the papers, search the net for a UFO sighting. But when there’s nothing about it, when every other person you know rolls his or her eyes and insists your friend’s addled, it makes it horribly tricky. In the end, it’s only when you see something spinning with lights land in your back garden, watch it flip open a ramp for something green and slug-like to wibble out and poke you in the ear with its finger that you’re likely to be convinced.

  ‘I s-s-smell Earth!’ squealed Viper.

  Snapped from his thoughts, Alex narrowed his eyes and squinted beyond Viper’
s wildly writhing body to make out the shape of a door, fuzzily gold in the distance. His chest tightened in a mixture of excitement and nerves.

  ‘Where?’ said Cobra, swaying up to face the wrong direction.

  ‘It’s that way,’ whispered Alex, gently turning the snake’s head.

  He watched the old snake straighten like a spear. Back in his heyday, Cobra had slithered with the Athenian Army and been called the Purge of the Persians21 for his extraordinary talent to scent the enemy from miles away. But now, rather long in the fang, Alex knew that his heyday, much like his razor-sharp sniffing, lay far behind him.

  ‘According to Persephone,’ said Alex, ‘the last time she used this portal she stepped out into the middle of an orange grove. There was a garden party that day, with lots of people drinking and laughing around a fountain with one of our statues of Orpheus at its centre. That statue’s the nearest portal to the Scroll’s coordinates. Hopefully it’s still standing in that orchard.’

  Tightening his grip on the sword, Alex began walking more quickly now, curious about what Jason had actually found behind the door. And, he brightened, what sort of advice he might need from him to come up with a plan for their first move. A few moments later, they arrived at the door, which had been left slightly ajar for them. Pulling it open a fraction more, Alex frowned, puzzled to hear the faint strains of music. Hissing with curiosity, the snakes spiralled out and arranging their heads in a snaky totem pole at the gap and sniffed deeply.

  ‘Dus-s-st!’ confirmed Krait.

  ‘Bees-s-s-wax-x-x!’ added Viper.

  ‘But no orangesss,’ squeaked Grass Snake.

  ‘Hmm,’ Aries thrust his muzzle through the door and breathed in noisily. ‘So, when exactly was the queen here?’

  Alex bit his lip. ‘About a hundred and fifty years ago.’ Feeling his heart start to thump harder, he looked down at the others. ‘Seems like things have changed. Remember, whatever is out there, we need to find Jason quietly. That means we mustn’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves.’

  Drawing back from the column of snakes, Viper narrowed his eyes. ‘Defenc-c-c-e positionsss, ladsss!’

  The snakes whipped back on to the shield and quickly froze in silver curls around the Gorgon’s head.

  Steeling himself, Alex pulled open the door.

  20 Well, what sort of snake would you expect a mathematician to have?

  21 Most famously, he’d once tripped King Xerxes himself down the palace stairs by stretching out like a skipping rope across the top step.

  FLOWER POWER

  The scream tore the morning in two, shattering the chatter of the jungle and sending the Capuchin monkeys shrieking into the highest branches.

  Electrified by fear, Rose sprinted on to the deck and turned towards Hazel’s cabin as a second scream, even shriller than the first, exploded from it. Footfalls slammed over the wooden boards behind her. Snatches of panicked Portuguese burst out all over the boat.

  Ahead of her, she glimpsed Eduardo, two stewards and the chef, still fumbling with the belt of his dressing gown, fly up the steps at the end of the deck. She raced after them and saw them hurl back the cabin door, and now, already halfway up the stars, she gasped, catching sight of Hazel, screeching puce-faced on the bed, pointing at something on the floor. Throwing herself up the last few steps, Rose skidded into through the open door and froze.

  A big brown spider was standing in the centre of the floor. Easily the size of her hand, its legs were hunched and bony and, as she watched, it began to tap one front leg against the boards, almost as if it were amused.

  I felt somethin’, a-crawlin’ on my arm,’ sobbed Hazel, her voice hoarse from screaming. ‘I sat up to check and, and ––’

  She burst into fresh tears.

  Rose took a step towards her.

  ‘No!’ commanded Eduardo, his face slick with sweat, shining, as he scanned the room, searching for something to trap the spider with.

  ‘It’s a Brazilian Wandering Spider,’ hissed one of the stewards, urging Rose to edge back against the wall. Rose noticed the panic in his eyes. ‘It’s one of the deadliest things in the Amazon.’

  Turning back, Rose saw the creature lift its front four legs into the air and paddle them over its head, flashing its red fangs. She felt a sharp chill of unease. Something about the creature’s appearance, those chocolate-brown legs, that patch of cherry-red, seemed uncomfortably familiar.

  Now hardly daring to breathe, she watched as Eduardo, keeping his feet planted firmly on the floor, slowly extended his right arm and seized the wicker box sitting on the dressing table. Bouncing instantly back onto all eight legs, the spider raced headlong towards Hazel’s bed, its feet tappity-scratching over the boards.

  ‘Do somethin’!’ cried Hazel, throwing her hands on her head and squeezing her eyes tight shut.

  Deftly, with the grace of a dancer, Eduardo leaped forwards and threw down the wicker box, covering the spider completely. For a second the box lay still. Horribly still. Then it jerked into life and began juddering across the floor. Cursing under his breath, Eduardo pulled the sleeve of his jacket over his hand, dipped down and flipped the box over, scooping up the spider and shutting the lid in one fluid movement.

  Rose edged back, her skin prickling with icy dread, as he walked past.

  Suddenly Hazel began gabbling madly. She fell to her knees and began tearing the sheets off her bed, bunching them up and hurling them into a heap on the floor. Then she jumped down and began ripping out every drawer of her dressing table, throwing them on to the floor, spilling jeans and scarves and glittering pink tops.

  ‘Check it!’ she sobbed, kicking at the pile of clothes. ‘Check it all!’

  ‘Hazel! It’s all right!’ Rose reached out to hug Hazel, but the young star was hysterical.

  Batting Rose away, she began emptying the wardrobe. Hangers skittered over the floor. Sandals flew through the air. Then, with one wide sweep, she sent her bottles and jars tumbling from the top of her dressing table, and threw herself, face-down, sobbing, on to the bed.

  And even though Rose reasoned and soothed, promising her friend that the spider had gone, that it was a fluke, that it must have snuck in on the bananas the chef brought back from the market yesterday and they could check every single centimetre of the boat three times over, all she was truly sure of was the hot thumping of blood in her ears.

  Not because of the spider, although that had been terrifying enough. But because, now, as she turned away from Hazel and watched the stewards clearing up the mess, the strange flower, delivered the night before, was nowhere to be seen.

  IT’S NOT OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SCREAMS

  Ugh.

  Well, that was all tremendously unpleasant, I must say. So let me calm my nerves with a sip of tea.

  Ah, that’s better.

  Now, no doubt your teacher has banged on about how the Ancient Greeks gave us theatre, geometry, democracy, the Olympics and blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-zzzzzz.

  Well, forget all that.

  Because what the Ancient Greeks really gave us was lots of statues of men and women waving their bottoms in the air whilst frolicking with harps and flutes. And the thing about statues is that they’re always moving about. Not by themselves, of course – that would be silly – but because of art collectors who over the centuries take a shine to them. Luckily for Persephone and her holidays, there’s long been a particular sort of person who enjoys nothing more than snapping up Greek statues to decorate their lobbies, dining rooms or indeed orange groves, which meant that she often found herself in new and exciting spots for her holidays. Sometimes the flute-tootling nymphs and shepherds ended up gracing the swimming pools of Hollywood stars. Sometimes they topped the staircases of grand liners or adorned the foyers of swanky hotels. But occasionally they ended up on a pedestal, tucked in a curtain-draped alcove, in an elegant corridor that echoed with music.

  Like this one.

  Which was, as I’m sure you’ve notic
ed, most certainly not part of an orange grove. This was because this particular statue had been on the move again, having several years ago been donated to its latest plinth by a Lady Lavinia Snodgrass, the wealthy Victorian widow of a man who’d made his fortune from a certain fruit plantation high above the rainforest.

  Harrumphing, Aries wedged his muzzle up against Orpheus’s marble ankles. At least they were familiar, he thought, recalling the same puffy pair he’d seen dangling in the nymphs’ pool two days ago in the zoo.

  Unlike everything else.

  Untangling his back hoof from the curtain, Aries bustled out into the twilit corridor and felt his hooves sink into the thick red carpet.

  ‘I wonder where we are,’ said Alex, as the portal door closed, its edges melting into the creamy alcove of marble.

  Stepping out behind Aries, he cautiously scanned the luxurious corridor, glad to see that it appeared to be deserted. A row of doors, each topped by carved scrolls and festooned by curtains, stretched away along the right-hand wall. Lights shaped like falling showers of ice twinkled from the ceiling, casting a buttery glow on the gold frames of portraits clustered on the walls.

  ‘And where Jason is,’ muttered Aries, his ears now twirling round and round in time with the distant strains of music.

  ‘I hope he’s all right,’ said Alex, scanning the pictures for any clues they might hold as to what this building was. In them, men with curled moustaches and women in dresses that billowed like ships’ sails loomed, each one’s mouth making a perfect ‘O’.

  Then, noticing that the door beyond them lay open, Alex edged his nose inside.

  ‘It’s a theatre!’ he whispered, glancing back at Aries over his shoulder. ‘Like the one Hazel sang in. Come on, we need to find Jason and tell him everything we know about them.’