Adventure in Athens Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  1: Fame at Last

  2: Mean Girls

  3: Take Me Back

  4: Play-Doh’s Dialogues

  5: First Class

  6: Five-Star Athens

  7: Not Bill and Ted

  8: Limo Surprise

  9: Socrates Cafe

  10: Jeff and Geoff

  11: Kiss or Kick

  12: Plan P for Parthenon

  13: Wet Landing

  14: Getting Dressed

  15: Party Crasher

  16: Threshold Guardians

  17: Ways to Die in Athens

  18: Golden Boy

  19: Gong Bath

  20: Bed and Breakfast

  21: The Charioteer

  22: Down to Piraeus

  23: The Wrong Kind of Chariot

  24: The Boy at the Fountain

  25: Flat Forehead

  26: Smelly Agora

  27: The Girl in Turquoise

  28: Fair Trade

  29: Seeking Socrates

  30: Santa in a Tablecloth

  31: The Gritty City

  32: Pelican Walk

  33: Garlands of Praise

  34: A Load of Young Cobblers

  35: The Socratic Method

  36: Red Tape

  37: Emergency Assembly

  38: The Storyteller

  39: Wild Chicken Chase

  40: Soul Butterflies

  41: Water Nymphs

  42: How to Save the World

  43: Swing Low

  44: Throwing Wine

  45: Slip of the Tongue

  46: Herm Busters

  47: Smashing Socrates

  48: Socrates at Home

  49: Little Divine Voice

  50: Know Thyself

  51: Not an Owl

  52: The Key

  53: Last Words

  54: Back to the Future

  55: How They Died

  56: Back to School

  57: Socrates Club

  Author’s Note

  About Caroline Lawrence

  Look out for How to Write a Great Story

  Copyright

  To Professor Armand D’Angour,

  who kindly consulted on this book and

  allowed himself to appear as a character in it.

  1

  Fame at Last

  When my best friend and I went back in time to track down the wisest man who ever lived, we only did it so we could be rich and famous.

  It all started when we arrived back at school on the first day after the Easter holiday. We were fresh off the plane from a two-week language school in the Alban hills outside Rome and had taken an Uber straight from the airport.

  As we came into the school cafeteria halfway through lunch, everybody fell silent and looked in our direction with admiring whispers and nudges. Having been a nerdy geek all my life, I naturally assumed it was for someone else. I turned around to see if some superstar had come in behind us. But it was just the two of us: me and Dinu.

  I raised my eyebrows at Dinu. He’s a big Romanian kid who used to be a bit of a bully.

  Now he’s my best mate.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked me in ancient Greek, the language we had been studying intensively for the past fortnight. ‘Is it because we’re in ordinary clothes?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘Maybe they found out what we did at the beginning of the year?’

  ‘No way,’ he said. ‘And it wouldn’t impress them even if they knew.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  As I helped myself to mac and cheese with green beans I studied Dinu, who was going for a baked potato with all the trimmings.

  He looked good. The Italian sun had lightened his hair from butter blond to lemon blond. His white T-shirt showed off a good tan and nice muscle definition.

  ‘Maybe they’re staring because we look good?’

  Dinu puffed out his chest. ‘I look good, you mean.’ He gave me a teasing grin. ‘You only look good to people with no dentists or proper doctors.’

  I sighed. Dinu was right. Sure, I have good teeth, clear skin and shiny hair but so does practically everybody else in twenty-first-century London. I’m the smallest kid in my year group and have the voice of a choirboy.

  Even my Roman suntan couldn’t make me cool.

  So why the admiring looks?

  Dinu and I set off for the table at the far end of the cafeteria, where our friends from Latin club usually sat.

  Everyone was beaming at us, from the big Year Twelve football players to the woke kids in Year Ten to the little Year Seven environmentalists. Even the mean girls in Year Eight looked interested.

  ‘Why is everyone smiling at us?’ asked Dinu, still speaking in ancient Greek.

  ‘Oo-den oy-dah,’ I replied. I know nothing.

  ‘Dinu! Alex! Come sit!’ called one of the Mean Girls.

  Her name was Chastity. Her dad was a pop star who didn’t believe in private education and she was the prettiest, meanest girl at Wandsworth Academy. She had blue dip-dyed hair and a butterfly tattoo on her neck.

  Yup. A real tattoo.

  Even the teachers were afraid of her.

  I slowed down. ‘Want to sit with them?’

  ‘I guess?’ Dinu replied.

  I let him sit next to Chastity and I put my tray of food next to Kiana’s. Kiana is half Jamaican with tight black curls, tawny skin and golden eyes. She is what my gran would call petite, which is French for small but perfectly formed.

  ‘What language were you two guys speaking?’ asked Chastity, running her hand through her blue-tipped hair.

  ‘Um, ancient Greek,’ I said. ‘We’ve just been on an intensive course in a palazzo outside Rome.’

  I braced myself for mocking laughter. Instead the third girl, Maude, sighed. ‘Ooh, I love the way you say palazzo.’

  ‘It’s Italian for “palace”,’ I said. My voice came out squeakier than I would have liked, but none of them seemed to notice. I babbled on: ‘It was this mansion with frescoes on the walls and massive formal gardens and a view of Rome.’

  Chastity leaned forward. ‘Is it true that you were being sponsored by Mannasoft Games?’

  ‘Just for commenting on YouTube?’ added Kiana.

  ‘Yes.’ Dinu looked pleased. ‘We posted a walk-through of their latest platform game and they liked it. So now we’re consultants.’

  ‘Mannasoft Games are the coolest,’ said Maude. The pink tips on her hair matched the colour of her lips.

  ‘You like computer games set in the ancient world?’ I said, frozen with a forkful of pasta halfway to my mouth.

  ‘Duh,’ said Chastity, and Maude said, ‘Obvs.’

  ‘Then you might like to know,’ said Dinu importantly, ‘that we are consulting with them on their next game too. It’s set in ancient Athens. That’s why they sent us to Italy. To learn ancient Greek.’

  ‘I thought they spoke Latin in Italy,’ said Maude.

  ‘No, Italian,’ said Chastity. ‘Latin is a dead language.’

  I had to pinch myself. The coolest girls in our year group were discussing ancient Greek and Latin.

  In my mind I was screaming: What on earth happened in the two weeks we were off-grid?

  2

  Mean Girls

  I stared at Dinu and he stared at me. We couldn’t believe the Wandsworth Academy Mean Girls were interested in the ancient-Greek language school we had attended over Easter.

  ‘Um … Chastity is right,’ I said. ‘They do speak Italian in Italy. But this was a special place for learning two dead languages: Latin or ancient Greek.’

  ‘Say som
ething in ancient Greek!’ breathed Maude.

  Dinu grinned and leaned forward. ‘You’re so hot you could burn down Troy.’

  ‘Dinu!’ I hissed in Greek. ‘Be serious!’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Maude, turning her baby-blue gaze on me.

  Thinking quickly I replied, ‘He said you are as beautiful as Helen of Troy, whose face launched a thousand ships. You all are!’ I added hastily, looking at each of them in turn.

  Chastity and Kiana rolled their eyes at each other, but Maude giggled.

  I took a big bite of pasta but my throat was dry with panic and I started choking. For a terrible moment I was afraid I might die right in front of them, but their gently patting hands and a big mouthful of water helped get it down.

  Dinu rolled his eyes. His meaning was clear: I can’t take you anywhere.

  I dabbed my watering eyes with a paper napkin. Could I be any more of a geek?

  And yet the Mean Girls were still being nice to me.

  ‘Hey, you guys should come to a party at my house this Saturday,’ said Chastity. ‘My parents are out for the night and we’re going to have a multiplayer session of the best platform game ever.’

  Kiana winked. ‘I think you know which one.’

  I nearly fainted. The most beautiful girls in Year Eight inviting us to play a computer game? Something was definitely wrong in the universe.

  Somehow, Dinu and I managed to make it through the rest of lunch. We told them about the trip we’d taken to an Etruscan graveyard and a Greek comedy we’d performed and a thunderstorm over Rome. When the bell rang the girls all stood up and gave us radiant smiles as they took their trays.

  They left me and Dinu sitting stunned.

  ‘What just happened?’ I asked him.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Have we come back to a parallel universe?’ I said. ‘Shall we call Mr Posh?’

  Back in January, when Dinu and I had come back from a top-secret trip, we had been debriefed by a government official we called Mr Posh. He told us to alert him if we noticed anything about our world that was different from when we had left. Over the following days, weeks and months neither of us had seen anything that seemed wrong. But now I was beginning to wonder.

  The cafeteria was emptying out and we were just about to take our trays when Dinu’s younger sister plonked herself down beside him, opposite me.

  ‘I don’t suppose either of you have a clue what’s going on, do you?’ she said.

  Eleven-year-old Crina was going for the eco-radical look with green spectacles and her mouse-brown hair in braids. If Dinu got the looks in his family, she got the brains.

  ‘Nope,’ I agreed. ‘Not a clue.’

  Crina looked over the top of her green-rimmed glasses. ‘Have either of you heard of Bluzie Steenberg?’

  ‘That singer you like with the pink hair?’ said Dinu.

  I said, ‘The one who produces music out of her garage in northern California?’

  Crina nodded. ‘Her hair is purple this week,’ she said. ‘But yes.’

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘What does she have to do with us?’

  ‘Apparently Bluzie is a bit of a geek who plays computer games. You know that YouTube commentary you did about the game set in Roman London? She loves it and even mentions the two of you by name in her latest song.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said.

  ‘Nope. The song’s called “Take Me Back”, and there’s a line that goes “Take me back Alex and Dinu; I’ll go anywhere with you …”’

  Dinu was grinning like an idiot but I still couldn’t get my head around it. ‘We’re suddenly cool because a sixteen-year-old girl wrote a song about our YouTube commentary on a computer game?’

  Crina rolled her eyes. ‘Bluzie has fifty million followers and thousands of people sample her songs on that music app. Everybody loves her, from toddlers to teens to grannies. Can you think of any other reason why everybody in the school would think you’re cool?’

  Dinu and I looked at each other.

  ‘You don’t think it’s because you went back in time, do you?’ she said.

  My jaw dropped and Dinu’s blue eyes bugged out.

  Somehow his annoying little sister had discovered our closely guarded secret.

  But how?

  3

  Take Me Back

  Last year Dinu and I were kind of thrown together because we were both new at Wandsworth Academy.

  I had joined the school in September and he arrived shortly before Christmas. Not only did we see each other on weekdays but also on Sundays because we happen to attend the same church in Battersea: the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Nektarios, patron saint of bees. I go to that church because I live with my gran, who is Greek. Dinu’s family goes because the priests there do part of the service in Romanian.

  Maybe because he knew me from church, or maybe because he was the biggest in our year group and I’m the smallest, Dinu started mugging me for my crisps every morning.

  So things were looking grim for me at the start of winter term.

  Then a mad bazillionaire named Solomon Daisy offered me five million pounds to go back in time to find a girl from Roman London. I only had to follow three rules:

  Naked you go and naked you must return.

  Drink, don’t eat.

  As little interaction as possible.

  Of course I took the job. Wouldn’t you? That kind of money can buy a very nice two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat in central London with enough left over for a private school with small classes and no bullies.

  But going through the time portal was pretty horrible, especially when Dinu crashed through after me. Not knowing the rules, he came through on a full stomach. That was when we discovered the messy consequences of ignoring rule number two: Drink, don’t eat.

  At first I was furious at being saddled with Dinu the bully, but it turns out that being sent back nearly two thousand years is a good bonding experience. On the mean streets of Roman London, we realised we needed to rely on each other.

  After we got back, I started spending time with Dinu up at the common. Kicking a football with him and some of the other Saturday-afternoon boys, I found my niche as a centre midfield defender while Dinu ‘parked the bus’ in goal.

  I think we were good for each other at school too. He stopped being a bully, and the other kids stopped calling me Wimpy.

  He even joined Latin club. Though that was mainly for the free salt-and-vinegar crisps Miss Forte gives us at the end of each session.

  Sometimes I would catch kids looking at us as we walked down the hall together. I knew they were wondering what on earth had brought us together. One minute Dinu had been mugging me for my crisps, and the next we were mates.

  Nobody knew why we had suddenly become friends.

  But now it appeared someone did know what had brought us together.

  And that person was Dinu’s annoying little sister. She was sitting there with a ‘Protect the Planet’ pin on the lapel of her blazer, peering at me over her eco-friendly glasses.

  ‘Dinu!’ I hissed. ‘You weren’t supposed to tell anybody!’

  ‘I didn’t! I swear it!’

  ‘Dinu didn’t tell me.’ Crina raised her eyebrows at me. ‘You did.’

  ‘Me?’ I squeaked.

  ‘Yeah. A few weeks ago, before you and Dinu went to Italy, I heard the two of you talking in his bedroom.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Dinu. ‘There’s no way you could have heard us unless you had your head pressed against the wall.’

  Crina gave us a smug smile. ‘Of course I didn’t press my head against the wall. Sound carries much better when you put an empty glass between your ear and the wall.’

  Dinu called her a name in Romanian.

  ‘Language!’ tutted Crina, as cool as mint ice cream.

  ‘Have you told anyone?’ I said. ‘Listen, Crina, you can’t tell anybody else.’

  She sighed. ‘Of course I haven’t told anybody else. And I promise I ne
ver will.’

  ‘Thank God!’ I breathed.

  ‘On one condition.’ She leaned forward.

  ‘No conditions!’ said Dinu between clenched teeth. ‘Absolutely not.’

  Crina ignored him and kept her beady brown eyes fixed on me. ‘My condition is this: next time you go back in time, you take me with you.’

  I thought about this for a moment. Then I allowed myself a slow grin. ‘Sure.’ I folded my arms and leaned back. ‘Next time we go back we’ll take you with us.’ I paused for emphasis. ‘Only there won’t be a next time! The guy who sent us back is in prison for the rest of his life. And I’m pretty sure they threw away the key.’

  ‘So beat it, little sister.’ Dinu ran a comb through his hair. ‘We’re popular now. We can’t be seen with the likes of you.’

  Crina glared at us. ‘You know your problem? You want to be rich and famous. But you should care about things that really matter.’

  ‘What?’ I scoffed. ‘Like saving the world?’

  ‘Exactly!’ She stood up and glared down at us. ‘Enjoy your moment of popularity. It won’t last. As soon as Bluzie brings out a new song you’ll be history.’

  I looked at Dinu and said in ancient Greek, ‘I think we should take your sister’s advice. Let’s enjoy every moment. Play with the Mean Girls this Saturday?’

  ‘Carpe diem!’ said Dinu, and gave me a fist bump.

  I laughed at the expression on Crina’s face. She had no idea what we were saying and steam was practically coming out of the top of her mousy head.

  ‘You two think you’re so clever,’ she growled. Then she stomped off.

  ‘We are clever,’ I said to Dinu.

  Later that day we felt rich as well as clever: Mannasoft Games emailed, congratulating us on our mention in Bluzie’s song and offering to fly us and our families to Athens for a two-week all-expenses-paid luxury break at the start of the summer holiday.

  And at the weekend, when I found myself squished in on a couch next to Kiana as we played Back to Londinium with Dinu and Chastity, I felt like a superhero.

  It was the best thing ever.

  No wonder everybody craves popularity, fame and fortune.

  4

  Play-Doh’s Dialogues