Zeus on the Loose Read online

  ‘I am the great and mighty Zeus, mortal . . . give me one good reason why I shouldn’t smite you here and now!’

  Alex’s class are learning about the Ancient Greeks. That’s why Alex makes a temple (out of loo rolls and a cornflakes box) for the Greek god Zeus.

  He doesn’t expect the god himself to turn up, borrow his mum’s nightie and demand a sacrifice at half-past five in the morning.

  Even worse, Zeus reckons it’s time for another Trojan War – in the school playground!

  Zeus is on the loose . . .

  “IT’S A BIT SMALL, ISN’T IT?”

  I turned round. There, standing on the display table, was a man. A great big bearded man, in a sort of Ancient Greek tunic, with a temple on his head.

  My temple.

  Or rather, bits of my temple. He’d got the roof on, all right, and the cardboard pillars were dangling from it round his forehead. Which looked a bit daft, actually, since they were made from loo rolls …

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  ZEUS on the LOOSE!

  John Dougherty

  illustrated by Georgien Overwater

  YOUNG CORGI BOOKS

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446430811

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  A YOUNG CORGI BOOK 9780552550819

  Published in Great Britain by Young Corgi Books, An imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  This edition published 2004

  5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  Copyright © John Dougherty, 2004

  Illustrations copyright © Georgien Overwater, 2004

  The right of John Dougherty to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Set in Bembo MT Schoolbook

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  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Chapter One

  Temples

  Chapter Two

  Sacrifices

  Chapter Three

  The War of Troy

  Chapter Four

  Not the War of Troy

  Chapter Five

  The Wooden Horse of Troy

  Chapter Six

  Gifts for the Gods

  Chapter One

  Temples

  This is me.

  And this is the Greek god Zeus. You say it like ‘Zyoos’.

  And this is the story of how he came to stay at our house.

  It all started at school. We’d been learning about Ancient Greece, and now we were doing a project about Greek gods. In this particular lesson we were making model temples.

  I was doing a temple of Zeus. Really good, it was. Looked just like the genuine article. Except smaller, of course. And the real temple probably didn’t have FREE INSIDE! GREAT SPECIAL OFFER! all over the roof, because it probably wouldn’t have been made out of a cornflakes box.

  But other than that, it was really good. Everyone said so.

  Even Troy. Troy used to be horrible, but he’s been trying ever so hard to be good this term. So instead of telling me it was rubbish – like he’d have done last year, when he was mean to everyone all the time – he made a joke of it. He picked up my temple and started speaking into it in a big deep funny voice:

  “Hey, Zeus! Are you in there? Come and look at this really great temple that Alex made for you!”

  Everyone laughed – even Miss Wise.

  I wouldn’t have laughed if I’d known what was going to happen.

  After school I stayed behind. My mum works in the school most days, hearing children in the infant classes read, and I usually stay till she’s ready to come home.

  So I was tidying up for Miss Wise, who was in a staff meeting, when suddenly, behind me, there was this big booming voice. You know when you go to the cinema, and they have the trailers, and a man with a very sore throat tells you about the film they’re showing soon with exploding helicopters and someone saving the world? It was like that, but even more boomy and echoey. And what it said was:

  “IT’S A BIT SMALL, ISN’T IT?”

  Boy, did I jump. When you’re in school, the scariest voice you expect to hear is the headteacher’s – but she can’t do a voice anything like this one.

  I turned round. There, standing on the display table, was a man. A great big bearded man, in a sort of Ancient Greek tunic, with a temple on his head.

  My temple.

  Or rather, bits of my temple. He’d got the roof on, all right, and the cardboard pillars were dangling from it round his forehead. Which looked a bit daft, actually, since they were made from loo rolls.

  The rest of the temple, he was standing on. All my little plasticine priests and sacrifices and stuff – ruined. I’d have been furious if I hadn’t been so scared.

  The big man stepped down off the table.

  “NOT VERY STRONG, EITHER,” he boomed. Lightning danced around his forehead as he spoke, and the windows rattled. “WOULDN’T STAND UP IN A LIGHT SHOWER, NEVER MIND IF I SMOTE IT WITH A THUNDERBOLT!”

  The whole room seemed to shake, and a mug wobbled off Miss Wise’s desk and smashed on the floor. Broken pottery and cold coffee went everywhere. Mostly on the big man.

  “DID I DO THAT?” he boomed. Then he looked down at his bare, wet feet.

  “Oh, yuk!” he said to himself in a suddenly much more normal tone.

  “Me and my big shouty voice! Just look at this tunic! I’ll never get this stain off!”

  Well, I was still scared, but not quite so scared. It’s difficult to be terrified of someone who’s worried about getting a coffee stain off a tunic which – to be honest – looks a bit like a girl’s dress. So I spoke up.

  “Um – excuse me,” I said. The big man looked up, one hand dabbing at the stain.

  “What is it?” he said – and then seemed to remember himself, and said, “YES, O MORTAL?”

  The room vibrated again, and a second cup leaped off the desk and smashed on the floor. Cold coffee splashed up again, soaking the man’s bottom.

  “Oh, poo!” he said crossly. “Now look. It’s absolutely ruined.”

  “Um …” I said again.

  “Yes, yes, go on, I’m listening,” the man said, turning round to try and see the stain on his bottom.

  “Well … who are you, and why are you wearing my temple on your head?”

  The man started to laugh – a huge great laugh that rattled the windows all over again. He suddenly stopped and clamped his hand over his mouth, looking warily at Miss Wise’s desk which still had three or four mugs, half-full of cold coffee, on it. She’s a bit like that, Miss Wise is. Clearing those up was going to be my next job.

 
Once he was sure the other mugs were staying where they were, the man looked at me again.

  “Your temple, did you say?” I nodded. He laughed again, but this time without the booming. “And you’re the god of what, exactly? Cold drinks? Tidying up? Sorry, kid, but I can’t see anyone worshipping you, never mind building a temple to do it in. No, this is definitely my temple,” he went on, taking it off his head and waving it in my face. “Not that it’s much of a temple – being all tiny and falling apart like that the moment a decent-sized god appears in it – but you can’t be too choosy these days.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, it’s yours? I built it,” I said.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” he said. “And what is it, then?”

  “It’s the Temple of Zeus,” I answered. And it was the best one in the class until you came along and put it on your head, I nearly added.

  “Aha! Got you!” he grinned. “It’s the Temple of Zeus – and I’m Zeus, so it’s my temple, whoever built it, and nur-nur-nee-nur-nur to you, Alex, kiddo.” He paused, looking at the temple again, before adding, “By the way – what’s the great special offer inside?”

  Well, of course, I didn’t believe for a moment he was Zeus, but … wait a minute …

  “How do you know my name?” I demanded.

  He rolled his eyes. “It was in the prayer, stupid.”

  “What prayer? I don’t remember hearing a prayer.”

  Zeus – if that’s who he was – sighed. “Well, I heard it,” he said, “and that’s what counts. Someone prayed in my temple. Like this.” Suddenly his voice changed. It was Troy’s voice – or rather, the silly voice Troy had put on – that came out of his mouth, saying, “Hey, Zeus! Are you in there? Come and look at this really great temple that Alex made for you!”

  Then he spoke in his own voice again. “So I came to see. And I’ve got to say, Alex – this is probably the worst temple I’ve ever, but ever appeared in.”

  I was beginning to get pretty fed up.

  “Well, in that case, why don’t you just buzz off? Anyway, that wasn’t a prayer, it was just messing around.”

  Zeus shrugged his shoulders. “He was in my temple – or at least his voice was – and he was speaking to me. I count that as a prayer. When you get as few prayers as I do these days, you can’t afford to be choosy. So, that was a prayer, this is a temple, and since there’s nobody else here, I hereby appoint you as my High Priest. Come on, let’s go back to your house.”

  Well, as you can imagine, I wasn’t having that.

  “No way!” I said. “There is absolutely no way, Zeus! No flipping WAY!!! What’ll my mum say if I come home with a whacking great Greek god in a coffee-stained dress?”

  He smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “She won’t even know I’m there. Or at least – she won’t even know it’s me. Us Greek gods can do the most amazing things.”

  Which is how I came home that day with a talking hamster called Zeus. And how a top-of-the-range luxury hamster-cage just magically appeared in my room. And why I had to spend the evening making another temple for school.

  Two more, in fact.

  Zeus chewed up the first one and made a nest.

  Chapter Two

  Sacrifices

  I woke up the next morning earlier than usual. Quite a bit earlier, in fact. Three whole hours earlier. The reason being, Zeus – back in his own shape again – was bouncing up and down on the end of my bed shouting, “WAKE UP, YOU LAZY HIGH PRIEST! TIME FOR MY MORNING SACRIFICE!”

  I sat bolt upright.

  “Shut up, you idiot!” I hissed. “You’ll have Mum and Dad in here in a moment!”

  Zeus stopped bouncing. His face got very cross all of a sudden, and little bolts of lightning started dancing around his head.

  “Idiot?” he complained. “Idiot?!? I am the great and mighty Zeus, mortal, and you’ve got ten seconds to give me one good reason I shouldn’t smite you here and now!” There was a terrible flickering in his right hand, as if an entire thunderstorm was curled up in there.

  “Well,” I answered as calmly as I could – though to be honest I was pretty cross myself, not having had enough sleep – “if you smite me, who’s going to be your High Priest?”

  Zeus hopped down off the bed.

  “Fair point,” he admitted. “Why don’t you just say sorry and I’ll forgive you? I’d hate to have to do the sacrifice myself – kind of takes the fun out of it.”

  If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have argued, but it seemed easier just to apologize.

  “Sorry,” I said, closing my eyes. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “No way!” Zeus said. “I told you – it’s time for my morning sacrifice, and since you’re the High Priest, you’ve got to do it. Unless you’d like me to smite you, of course.”

  I sat up.

  “OK,” I grumbled. “What do I have to … ?” And then I noticed what he was wearing. I groaned.

  “Zeus,” I said, “what have you got on?”

  “Do you like it?” he grinned. “I found it in a cupboard outside your room. It’s an even nicer tunic than mine, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I told him. “It’s not. It isn’t a tunic at all. You’re wearing my mum’s best nightie.”

  “It looks like a tunic,” he said huffily.

  “It’s not a tunic,” I told him again. “It’s a nightie. Ladies wear them. Men don’t.”

  “Well, I’ve got to wear something,” he sulked. “And I can’t wear my own tunic. It’s ruined. You’re the High Priest – do something. Come on, I command you to do something! Get me a tunic! I want a tunic!”

  “OK, OK,” I told him. “I’ll get you a tunic in a minute. One thing at a time, though. Tell me about this sacrifice. What do I have to do?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, clapping his hands together, all smiles again. “Well, what my priests used to do, back in the old days, was get the best bull they could find, take it to the temple, kill it in my honour, and then roast it on the fire.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I like the smell of roast bull.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing else. Roast bull just smells nice. It’s a great way to start the day, with the smell of roast bull in your nostrils.”

  “What happened then?” I asked. “Didn’t you come down from Mount Olympus on a cloud and eat the bull they’d cooked for you?”

  Zeus looked disgusted.

  “Yuk! No way!” he said. “roast bull smells great, but I can’t stand the taste of mortal food. Give me nectar and ambrosia any day!”

  “Well,” I told him, “roast bull is out. But if it’s just the smell you like, I can probably manage something. Fair enough?”

  Zeus sighed. “My fault for choosing an eight-year-old High Priest, I suppose. OK – but it’s got to be in a temple. I absolutely insist on that.”

  I reminded him that the only temple we had handy was the one I’d made the evening before, but he was determined. A sacrifice wasn’t really a sacrifice unless it was done under the temple roof, he said.

  Which is how, a few minutes later, I found myself down in the kitchen, wearing a cardboard temple on my head and sacrificing a toasted bacon sandwich to a Greek god who was dressed in an old bed-sheet.

  “Don’t forget the prayers,” Zeus said.

  “I don’t know any prayers,” I said, “not Ancient Greek ones, anyway.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “you can just tell me how great I am and ask me for help with your day, that kind of thing.”

  So there I was, buttering the toast, waiting for yesterday’s leftover bacon to finish warming in the microwave, and muttering stuff like:

  “Oh, Zeus, you’re really great at turning into a hamster … and, er, that trick with the booming voice is really terrific … and your tunic is ever so white and clean – the one you’re wearing now, I mean, obviously, not the one with coffee-stains all over it … anyway, please help me to have a good day
by – by not getting me into trouble or anything, and not doing the booming voice near Miss Wise’s desk when she’s got mugs of cold coffee on it …”

  Meanwhile Zeus was sitting there sniffing the bacon and toast and saying, “Well, it’s not as nice as roast bull but I suppose it’ll do …”

  Then the kitchen door opened and in walked my dad.

  “Alex,” he groaned, “do you know what time it is? What on earth are you doing?”

  Well, it was no use trying to pretend, was it? So I told him.

  “I’m making a sacrifice to Zeus, Dad.”

  He blinked. “Let me get this straight, son. You’re down in the kitchen at half-past five in the morning, wearing your homework on your head and sacrificing a bacon sandwich to a hamster?”

  I looked round. There was Zeus, back in hamster-shape, sitting on the kitchen table looking all innocent and cleaning his fur.

  “Well, um, yeah … Charlie says he likes it …” Charlie was the friend I’d pretended to borrow the hamster from. I made a mental note to tell him I’d borrowed his hamster called Zeus who liked sacrifices of bacon sandwiches – just in case Mum or Dad bumped into him.

  “Alex,” Dad said, “what have your mother and I said about using the microwave?

  Not to mention the toaster?”

  I blushed and looked at my slippers. “Don’t use them unless you’re with me, Dad,” I mumbled.

  “Too right!” Dad said. “Not very safe, is it?”

  I shook my head.

  Dad hadn’t finished. “Do you know,” he demanded, “what is the only thing – the only thing, mind you – stopping me from smacking your behind and sending you back to bed?”

  I shook my head again.