We played Ancient Greek Assassins for three or four hours.
It was just the Athens section of the game so we couldn’t go to Sparta or Crete or anywhere else, but we didn’t mind too much. The ancient city had tons of different districts and we kept finding new parts.
My favourite bit was killing all the guards in the Prytaneum so you can get ostraka, the broken pieces of pottery with names of unpopular politicians scratched on them.
Dinu loved the climbing parts. He never took a ramp or the stairs if he could climb. Like a sticky monkey, he scaled smooth temple columns, the sheer side of the Acropolis and even the colossal statue of Athena.
‘Whoa! Look at this!’ he cried as he reached Athena’s crest. Suddenly the viewpoint shifted and the music swelled and a soaring hawk showed us a 360-degree view of Athens from high up.
‘Excellent!’ I said, imitating Ted from the movie.
A tap on one of the connecting doors brought us both back to the present. I was surprised to see it was dark outside.
We hastily turned off the TV and shoved the box in a drawer. Then Dinu opened the door to reveal Gran looking pale in a paisley kaftan. Crina stood beside her in shorts and a lime-green T-shirt that said What Would Greta Do?
Gran gave us a feeble smile. ‘Poor little Mari had to go to hospital so they could give her a drip, and obviously her mum went too. That leaves Crina on her own. Is it all right if she hangs out with you two?’
8
Limo Surprise
Crina had a pleading look in her big brown puppy-dog eyes.
But I wasn’t fooled. There was no way I wanted her to spend even five minutes in our room. She’d make us watch something educational or politically correct.
Or both.
I looked at Dinu and he looked at me.
As usual, we understood each other perfectly.
‘We’re actually still feeling kind of sick,’ I lied.
‘Yeah,’ said Dinu. ‘In fact, I think I’m gonna hurl.’ He made a big thing of running to the bathroom.
Crina’s smile faded and she glared at me.
I could tell she wasn’t fooled.
‘I don’t want to be in here anyway,’ she muttered. ‘It smells of boy socks and sick.’
‘This room is a bit stuffy.’ Gran went and opened the blinds and then the window. ‘You’ve got a lovely view of the Acropolis,’ she said.
Then she went back and put her arm around Crina’s shoulders, ‘Come on, sweetheart. Let’s watch a nice film. I have a good selection in my room. I’ll make us a cup of herbal tea.’
They started to go but then Gran turned back. ‘Why don’t we all meet upstairs by the pool tomorrow?’ she said. ‘We can sip herbal tea and stay cool under parasols. Around ten or eleven in the morning?’
‘OK,’ I said, trying to make my voice feeble. ‘See you tomorrow. Feel better soon.’
Crina narrowed her eyes at me but Gran was already guiding her out of the doorway and I heard her say, ‘There’s a fun rom-com called It’s All Greek.’
As soon as the door shut Dinu peeped out of the bathroom. ‘Is it safe?’
I gave him a thumbs-up and we spent another few hours exploring virtual Athens and slaughtering Corinthian spies.
We both slept well, considering we had been couch potatoes all day.
The next morning I was woken by the sun streaming through our window and the sound of the shower coming from the bathroom.
When I opened my eyes I saw Dinu getting dressed.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Come on, dude. It’s a beautiful morning. Have a shower – quick – and then we can go for a walk. I have to find salt-and-vinegar crisps. Or maybe Pringles.’
‘You heard the doctor,’ I said, stretching. ‘Nothing to eat until sundown this evening or better yet tomorrow at breakfast.’
But a shower sounded good.
I got up, padded into the bathroom and recoiled at the smell. ‘Maybe I will go for a walk with you,’ I called. ‘If we go out, housekeeping can make up the room.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘And clean the bidet.’
A shower made me feel much better. I dressed in jeans and a clean T-shirt. Then I found a notepad on the hotel desk and slipped a note under the door to Gran’s room: GONE FOR SHORT WALK. DON’T WORRY, WE WON’T EAT. SEE YOU LATER BY POOL. A.
Then I flipped over the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside of the door so that it read PLEASE CLEAN THE ROOM.
A few minutes later revolving doors swung us out of the hotel lobby into dazzling sunlight. It wasn’t even nine o’clock, but it felt as hot as Vesuvius out there. I could see a layer of smog over Athens, and smell it too. The traffic was manic.
I felt a bit dizzy and was about to plead with Dinu to go back and sit in the lobby, when a stretch limo pulled up.
‘Hey,’ said Dinu. ‘It’s Stavros from yesterday.’
Before I could reply, a door at the back opened.
‘Alex! Dinu! What a coincidence!’ said a familiar voice.
I glanced into the shadowy interior of the car and my jaw dropped.
The man in the back of the limo was a big guy, not to say obese. The last time I’d seen him, he was being handcuffed by police in the underground site of a temple to Mithras seven metres below the streets of London.
‘Solomon Daisy!’ My voice came out way too high. ‘You’re supposed to be in prison for the rest of your life.’
‘Oh my God!’ Dinu stared at him, bug-eyed. ‘Did you break out of jail?’
And I said, ‘What are you doing in Athens?’
But even as I said it, I knew.
He wanted to send me back to the past.
9
Socrates Cafe
‘My clever lawyers found a legal loophole,’ explained Solomon Daisy half an hour later as he nibbled some baklava, the famous honey pastry of Greece. ‘Apparently there’s no law against time travel. So as you see, I am a free man.’
We were sitting at a table in the Socrates Cafe, which was an oasis of coolness beneath some big canvas parasols and leafy trees. Solomon Daisy was dressed in his usual clothes: plus-sized jeans and a grey T-shirt stretched across his generous belly.
He had lured us there with the promise of ice-cold Coke, which he claimed was good for an upset stomach.
‘There is no way I’m going back in time again.’ I sat back and folded my arms. ‘We only came with you because we have a few things we wanted to say to you.’
‘Like, time travel is no fun,’ said Dinu.
‘Like, you told me going through the portal would be like a roller coaster,’ I said. ‘But it’s more like getting the bends. All your skin cells fizz like crazy, your ears ring and your eyes are stuck together.’
‘And you throw up, or poop out anything left in your stomach,’ added Dinu.
‘Yes, we knew that.’ Daisy licked some honey off his chubby fingers. ‘That’s why we made Alex fast for sixty hours before going through.’
‘Sixty hours?’ echoed Dinu in disbelief.
‘It’s only two and a half days,’ said Daisy. ‘You survived, didn’t you, Alex?’
‘Oh my God!’ I leaned forward. ‘The banquet last night! I’ll bet you bribed the hotel doctor to put something in our food so our stomachs would be empty.’
He held up both hands, palms forward, and had the decency to look sheepish.
‘You planned for us to get sick?’ said Dinu. ‘My little sister’s in hospital!’
I grabbed Dinu’s arm. ‘I’ll bet he’s behind our trip to Italy. Was that all a trick to get us to learn ancient Greek?’
Before Daisy could answer, another thought hit me like a sledgehammer. ‘Wait! Do you own Mannasoft Games?’
Daisy beamed at me over the tops of his glasses. ‘Clever boy. That’s why you’re perfect for the job.’
‘That explains the alpha version of Back to Athens, plus all the DVDs and guide books in our room. You were secretly preparing me to go.’
‘Not j
ust you, Alex. Both of you.’
Dinu nearly choked on a sip of Coke.
‘You want me to go too?’
‘Of course.’ He beamed. ‘You two make a great team.’
‘There is no way I am going through that portal again!’ I sat back in my chair.
‘Me neither.’ Dinu also sat back.
‘Of course you are!’ said Daisy cheerfully. ‘Can you guess who I want you to find?’
‘We just told you. We’re not going back!’
‘This guy!’ Ignoring our refusals, Solomon Daisy opened his battered briefcase and produced something like an action figure. Made of white plastic designed to resemble marble, it was a statuette of a snub-nosed balding bearded guy wearing a cloak and holding a walking stick.
It was a type of souvenir you could buy all over Athens.
Of course I knew who he was, even without the name of the Socrates Cafe looming behind Solomon Daisy.
‘Socrates?’ I took the souvenir and examined it. ‘You want us to find Socrates?’
Solomon Daisy nodded happily.
‘Why him?’ Dinu took the figurine and flicked the top of his little walking stick. ‘What’s so great about Socrates?’
‘Socrates was very possibly the wisest man who ever lived.’
‘I thought he claimed to know nothing.’ I said.
Solomon Daisy ignored this. ‘The so-called Socratic problem,’ he said, ‘is one that people have been debating for millennia. And I mean that literally. For thousands of years people have been wondering what Socrates was really like. The only thing everyone agrees about is that he was absolutely unique.’
‘But what is he to you?’ Dinu handed back the figurine and took a swig of his Coke.
‘Ever since I took a class in philosophy, I’ve been obsessed. All I want you to do is find him and observe him in action for a few hours, then report back to me.’ He spread his chubby hands and beamed at us. ‘If you can accomplish that simple mission, I’ll give you ten million. Each.’
10
Jeff and Geoff
When Daisy said the magic words ‘ten million each’, some Coke spurted out of Dinu’s nose.
I handed him a paper napkin. As Dinu cleaned himself up he said, ‘You’ll pay us ten mil each?’
‘Yup!’
‘Pounds, dollars or euros?’
‘Does it matter?’ Solomon Daisy beamed.
‘Easy, bro!’ I said. ‘He promised me five million in January but I’ve never seen a penny of it.’
‘The agreed sum cleared your grandmother’s bank account this morning.’ Solomon Daisy took a sip of his tiny Greek coffee. ‘Ask her if you don’t believe me. And I swear I will pay you each ten million – all you have to do is go back for just a day or two and observe Socrates.’
He snapped his fingers. But instead of our waiter coming over, two men who had been sitting at another table stood up. One of them was the skinny guy in the floppy sunhat I had seen watching me at the airport. He and the other one, who was Asian, were wearing sunglasses. As they brought their chairs over I finally recognised them as the inventors of Solomon Daisy’s time portal.
‘It’s Geoff and Jeff!’ I said. ‘They’re out of jail too?’
‘Of course,’ said Solomon Daisy. ‘Like I already told you, there’s no law against time travel.’
As the two super-geeks plunked themselves down, I noticed ginger-haired Geoff with a G was sunburned and sweating; his orange-mirrored sunglasses kept slipping down his nose. The reason I hadn’t recognised him at the airport was because he had shaved off his little beard.
Jeff with a J had adapted better to the heat. His hair was cut in the latest fashion and his black T-shirt looked more cool than geeky, even though it did have a small Batman logo over the heart. His sunglasses were Ray-Bans.
‘Tell them your idea, boys,’ commanded Daisy.
Cool Jeff gestured towards some nearby ruins. ‘This place was called the Lyceum,’ he said. ‘It was a garden sanctuary to the god Apollo, and one of Socrates’ favourite haunts. He liked to come here and discuss the meaning of life with other Athenians.’
‘And do you see those ruins, right down there?’ Sweaty Geoff pointed at some unremarkable remains of what looked like an ancient wall on the other side of the chain-link fence. ‘That’s the ruins of a fifth-century palaestra. Also known as a gymnasium, after the Greek word for “naked”, because men exercised in the nude.’
Cool Jeff said, ‘Technically the palaestra is the open courtyard in the gymnasium. We think it would be the perfect place for the time portal. Nice and sandy for a soft landing. Plus everybody else will be naked too.’
Daisy beamed at us. ‘If Socrates isn’t at the Lyceum, you’ll probably find him in the Agora or just outside. He liked to hang out at Simon the Cobbler’s shop.’
‘Cobbler?’ said Dinu. ‘I don’t know that word.’
‘It means “shoemaker”,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ said Dinu. ‘And the Agora is like an ancient shopping centre. Correct?’
‘Correct. Some scholars call it the Market Square.’ Daisy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘It’s that way. Just north of the Acropolis. Socrates was a local celebrity, so finding him should be pretty straightforward.’
‘What about the war between the Athenians and the Spartans?’ asked Dinu. ‘Wasn’t that going on when Socrates was alive?’
‘Bravo!’ Solomon Daisy clapped his hands. ‘You boys have been doing your research.
Dinu shrugged modestly. ‘I’m very clever.’
‘Bah!’ I scoffed. ‘You only know about it from playing Ancient Greek Assassins.’
‘Don’t worry about the war,’ said Cool Jeff. ‘We plan to send you back to the year 415 BC when the Athenians and Spartans had made a truce. It was called the Peace of Nicias.’
‘Do the three rules still apply?’ I asked.
‘Afraid so!’ Sweaty Geoff mopped his forehead with a hanky. ‘Naked you go; drink, don’t eat; and no interaction.’
‘So will you do it?’ Solomon Daisy leaned forward in his seat.
Dinu took a thoughtful swig of his Coke. Then he nodded. ‘Sure. For ten million pounds, euros or dollars – I’m in. As long as Alex goes too.’
I was torn. On the one hand, that was a lot of money. But according to Daisy, I already had five mil in Gran’s account. Did I really need more? But there was a bigger problem.
‘What good is all that money if the universe goes kerblam?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ Solomon Daisy took the last piece of baklava.
‘Mr Posh told us if we interact too much there’s a risk of the whole universe kersploding.’
‘Kersploding?!’ he echoed. ‘Nonsense!’ Crumbs of pastry flew out of Daisy’s mouth. ‘If time travel was going to upset the order of things, it would have done that already. As long as you keep interaction to a minimum, you should be fine.’
‘Should be fine?’ I echoed. ‘That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.’
Daisy took off his black-rimmed glasses and polished them with a paper napkin. ‘In addition to the money, I can make you famous.’
‘Really?! How?’
‘I can put you and Dinu in Back to Athens.’
‘In what way?’
‘We’ll model the avatars on you. I’ll even call you Alexis and Dionysus. Everyone will know your faces. And this version is going to be available in VR too, natch. Once the game comes out, you can go around the world with Bluzie Steenberg and have walk-on parts in her concerts. Think of it. You’ll have a bazillion followers on Insta, YouTube and TikTok. You’ll be more famous than Jay-Z and Beyoncé put together. Maybe even more than the Rock and Ronaldo.’
I looked at Dinu and he looked at me.
I was thinking of the envious looks I got from other kids at school, and the way Kiana’s cheek dimpled when she smiled at me.
‘To fame and fortune?’ said Dinu, lifting his Coke.
I took a deep breath and
nodded. ‘To fame and fortune!’
We bumped our cans in a toast.
11
Kiss or Kick
It was nearly midnight when the limo picked us up outside our hotel.
Dinu and I had spent the rest of the morning by the pool with Gran and Crina. Little Mari was still in hospital for observation. I felt a very sorry for her and a little angry at Solomon Daisy, but I told myself it would be worth it for Dinu’s family when he was rich and famous.
Dinu and I had splashed around the pool to take our mind off our upcoming trip. Gran and Crina hardly went in the water at all. They spent most of the morning with their noses in books. Finally curiosity got the better of me and I swam over to see what Crina was reading.
‘It’s called Athens on Five Drachmas a Day,’ she said. ‘It’s a kind of guidebook to ancient Athens. Apparently the drachma was the ancient version of the euro.’
My stomach turned over. It suddenly occurred to me that I should be prepping for the trip, not trying to forget about it. If ancient Athens was anything like Roman London, I would want to achieve the objective then get back home as soon as possible.
I pulled myself out of the water and perched on the hot concrete edge of the pool. ‘Can I borrow that?’ I asked her.
‘Sure.’ She handed me the book and stood up. ‘Your gran is taking me shopping anyway. Want to come?’
‘No, thanks. We’re good right here.’
But we didn’t stay by the pool.
As soon as they left, we went back to our room to prepare. I read the book and Dinu played more Ancient Greek Assassins.
Later that afternoon I slipped a note under Gran’s door, saying we had gone to sleep early so that we could wake up and eat as soon as possible the next day.
Of course Dinu and I wouldn’t be doing any eating. We would be going back to the past.
We set an alarm for 11.30 p.m. and tried to sleep. But we were both too nervous and hungry to drop off.
Now, sitting in the dark limo, my empty stomach felt full of flapping pigeons and the palms of my hands were tingling.
Adventure in Athens Page 3
