Odysseus II

by Odysseus II- The Journey Through Hell (retail) (epub)

  “Maybe,” he thought, “just maybe, things will take a turn for the better now.”

  For nine days he drifted. His legs and toes began to wrinkle like a man who’s fallen asleep in the bath. On the tenth morning he came to the island of Ogygia. He lay in the shallow water, too exhausted to drag himself up on to the beach, and looked up. Standing over him was the most stunning-looking young woman he’d ever seen. She’d shaved the sides of her head and coloured the central piece of hair red, green and aquamarine. From her ears hung huge, pearl earrings and on her shoulder cooed a yellow bird.

  “I’m the nymph, Calypso,” she said, pulling him to his feet. “I’m glad you’ve come to stay.”

  “I haven’t!” replied Odysseus. “I’m the King of Ithaca, and I’ve got to get back to my wife and my son and my kingdom.”

  “A few more weeks won’t make any difference,” squawked the yellow bird.

  A Odysseus thought about it. He looked at the little grass hut, at the palm trees full of bananas and coconuts, at Calypso’s beautiful, lonely face.

  “OK,” he said. “I’ll just come in for a quick coffee.”

  Chapter Five

  5 – Hero in a Frock

  It was the longest cup of coffee ever. The days turned into weeks, the months turned into years, and still Odysseus stayed. And then one morning, sitting in the shade of a coconut tree, with a glass of rum in his hand, Odysseus plucked yet another grey hair from his beard and felt ashamed. He missed his son; he hadn’t seen him since he was a baby. He missed his wife; he knew in his bones that she was in some kind of trouble. Why wasn’t he back in Ithaca helping her? A lonely tear began to trickle down his face. The great hero had become a beach bum.

  “He wants to go home,” squawked the parrot. Calypso nodded, and there was a tear in her eye too. She knew it was true.

  Sadly and silently she took Odysseus by the hand, led him into the forest and handed him a silver axe. Together they felled seven pine trees, lashed them together, stitched a sail, and then dragged their newly made raft down to the water’s edge.

  “That’ll sink! That’ll sink!” chirruped the bird.

  “Don’t worry, he’s protected,” Calypso replied.

  “Protected!” scoffed Odysseus. “A thousand men left Troy, now there’s only me!”

  “And why do you think you’re still alive?” asked Calypso, looking deep into his grey-blue eyes. “Someone’s saving you for the greatest task of all.”

  Odysseus held Calypso tightly, then he pushed the raft out to sea and jumped on board. The nymph and the parrot waved until he was a tiny dot on the horizon, and long after he had disappeared they stayed standing on the shore, sad and silent. Waiting for the next lonely sailor.

  Meanwhile, Odysseus dangled his feet in the water and smiled as the fish nibbled his toes. Then, as evening came, he saw the Island of the Pirate King.

  “Soon I’ll be home,” he thought to himself.

  But, of course, life’s not that easy. The parrot was right, the raft wasn’t going to make it. At that moment, behind Odysseus the huge White Goddess rose out of the water like a huge white whale and blew him a lethal kiss. Well, not quite lethal, but pretty deadly.

  The kiss became a ripple, the ripple became a wave, the wave became a tidal wave, and the tidal wave became a whole series of two hundred metre-high waves bearing down on him at incredible speed. He was hurled back and forth as his raft plunged up and down with sickening fury. “This is it,” he thought. “I’m going to die now.”

  Then, out of the water leapt the most extraordinary sight he’d ever seen – and he’d seen a few extraordinary sights in his time.

  It was a mermaid – a real live mermaid – looking just like he’d always imagined a mermaid would look; with long blonde hair, a fish’s tail and a polka-dot scarf around her neck.

  “Take your clothes off,” she said in a fishy kind of way.

  “Pardon?” replied Odysseus, lying flat on his stomach and gripping the edge of the raft.

  “Strip off and jump into the water,” she insisted. “This’ll stop you sinking.” And she wrapped her polka-dot scarf around his wrist, flipped her tail, and with a beautiful, curving dive disappeared into the ocean.

  Odysseus looked up at the massive waves the size of mountains, then down into the inky depths of the raging sea.

  “No way,” he thought. “I’m staying put.” It really didn’t seem quite the moment for a striptease.

  Then … CRACK! The raft split in two. He held on even tighter.

  CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Now all he had left to cling to was half a pine tree.

  “Oh well, here goes,” he murmured, wriggling out of his clothes and rolling into the water, with nothing but a scarf to his name.

  And it worked. Gigantic breakers were crashing all around him, but with the mermaid’s scarf around his wrist, he could do the crawl, the breaststroke, even the backstroke and never once did his head go under.

  As the rocky outline of the Pirate Island came into view, he untied the scarf, spread it between his feet, took the next big wave, and surfed towards land. Up the river estuary he shot, then grabbed the branch of an overhanging tree and swung ashore with the scarf between his toes. Then he screwed the scarf up into a ball and hurled it back in the water.

  A hand shot up and grabbed it, a fishy tail gave a wave of farewell and the mermaid swam off back to deep water.

  “Pity,” thought Odysseus. “I’d like to have got acquainted.” Then he lay down behind a bush, covered himself with leaves and fell fast asleep.

  *

  Up at the palace, the Royal Family were asleep too. The Pirate King was snoring peacefully, tucked up in a bed made out of a lifeboat. Next to him lay the Pirate Queen, with a pipe between her toothless gums and a bottle of gin by her side. And in a room at the very top of the palace, Princess Nausicaa lay dreaming.

  In her dream, her bedroom was covered in dirty linen, which she picked up and carried over to the laundry basket. But as she lifted the lid, a voice inside said “Surprise! Surprise!”

  With a start, she woke up, raced over to her four handmaidens and shook them awake. Their dozy faces looked up at her blankly as she described her dream.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “That it’s time you did some washing?” they suggested.

  Nausicaa let out an annoyed little shout. “Oo!” she went. Sometimes her handmaidens were too stupid for words. Nevertheless, on this occasion, they might be right. She’d been wearing the same pair of socks for a week, and her lovely white dress was now quite a few, rather unattractive shades of brown. Yup, it was time for action.

  She sped down to her parents’ bedroom, threw open the door (which was made out of a raft) and peering through the stale pipe smoke shouted, “Mother, may I borrow the ox-cart and go and do my washing?”

  “Certainly, my dear,” groaned a muffled hungover voice from underneath the blankets. “You can do mine an’ all.”

  So the handmaidens loaded the cart with brown socks and brownish shirts and browny skirts and they all trundled down to the river.

  “We should be finished by noon,” announced Nausicaa cheerily.

  But noon came and went and the dirty sock pile was still the size of a large rhododendron bush. The handmaidens were useless. They couldn’t do anything by themselves.

  “Miss! Miss! Miss! Which bit of the stream shall we wash the woollies in?” they chorused. “Miss! Miss! Miss! Shall we wring out the loin-cloths or just bash them with a big stone?”

  Finally Nausicaa lost patience. “Forget it,” she said sharply. “We’ll sunbathe instead.”

  “Oh, no,” moaned the handmaidens. “Our skin’s too delicate. We’ll come out in blisters.”

  “All right, we’ll play ball then,” snapped Nausicaa. “Honestly, what a lot of drips you are!”

  And sure enough, the handmaidens were even worse at ball than they were at washing. They couldn’t throw straight and their catching was
pathetic.

  Eventually, in frustration, Nausicaa hurled the ball so hard it hit a handmaiden, bounced off her head, and landed in the river.

  The four handmaidens rushed to the water’s edge in a dither and started shouting. “Help!” they went. “It’s in the river. Quick! It’s floating away. Oh, no, if it gets lost we’ll cry and cry and cry.”

  Underneath his leaves, Odysseus heard the noise. What was up? It sounded like someone was in trouble. In a flash, he’d dived into the water and powered his way across to the thing bobbing up and down ahead of him. He grabbed it, turned and swam towards the shore. Was it a puppy? A kitten? A baby?

  It was only as he clambered on to the river bank that the truth dawned on him. It was just a ball; a big, red, bouncy ball.

  He snorted with amazement, then held it out to the four open-mouthed girls lined up in front of him.

  They squawked, they giggled, they blushed scarlet, then they ran away and hid behind a tree.

  But Nausicaa, Princess Nausicaa stood her ground.

  “What was the matter with them?” asked Odysseus.

  “You’ve got no clothes on,” explained the Princess.

  “Oh, yes. Sorry,” said Odysseus and politely placed the ball in from of him. “I’m shipwrecked, I’ve lost everything.“

  “So I see,“ replied Nausicaa. “I’d better give you something to put on. My clothes won’t fit you; try my mother’s.”

  Later that day, Nausicaa, her handmaidens, and a rather large woman in a floppy hat and paisley frock entered the Pirate city.

  It certainly was extraordinary. Everything in it was to do with pirates. The houses had sails and the street lamps were made out of oars. Nearly everyone that passed had a parrot on his shoulder and a wooden leg. Some had two wooden legs. In fact some had two parrots and some of the parrots had wooden legs themselves. All the shops were full of eyepatches and hooks and cutlasses of every shape and size, labelled “Small and Vicious”, “Medium and Fatal” or “Big and Good For Chopping Off Heads”. Odysseus had never seen such a collection of people – dusky pirates with rings through their ears and scars on their noses, and skinny pirates with rings through their noses and scars where their ears had once been. And every one of these mean individuals just stopped for a second to take a suspicious look, with their one good eye, at the huge woman in the floppy hat and the paisley frock.

  “Our pirates hate strangers,” whispered Nausicaa. “If they knew you were a man they’d kill you. But you’ll be safe in mother’s clothes.” Odysseus pulled his hat firmly over his face. He could handle a couple of pirates with his eyes closed. A shipful he could probably cope with on a good night – but a whole island’s worth – nope, he’d rather wear a frock any day.

  So he kept his head down, and finally he and Nausicaa reached the palace, parked the ox-cart and then made their way inside, picking their way down long, dark passages crammed with chests full of dusty treasure maps. Then they entered the smoky banqueting hall. A whale was roasting on an open fire, musicians were singing sea-shanties, two drunken pirates were dancing a hornpipe on the table, while a hundred hairy fists kept time.

  Nausicaa and the big lady elbowed their way through the throng until they came to the high table.

  “Noble King,” said Odysseus in a squeaky voice. “I am Tinnia, daughter of Sciatica, a noblewoman from Ithaca. The ship in which I was travelling was wrecked in last night’s storm. Will you help me return to my native land?”

  The King smiled at the buxom damsel in distress standing in front of him, then lifted his eyepatch and winked at her roguishly.

  “Certainly, Ma’am,” he replied. “I’ve a boat leaving on the morrow. She sails right past Ithaca. Now sit down and eat.”

  Odysseus politely nodded his thanks and took his place. He couldn’t believe his luck. At last he was going home.

  Not that there weren’t a few little irritations in store.

  A burly sailor, with five chins and a bulging belly hanging over his belt, waddled up to the Ithacan noblewoman and put a friendly arm around her shoulder.

  “’Ullo darling,” he purred. “You feeling lonely?”

  “Go away,” she hissed.

  But the sailor didn’t go away. Instead he pinched her on the cheek. Then he patted her bottom.

  He soon wished he hadn’t. The woman looked round to make sure no one was looking, then PHUMPH! She jammed her elbow into the flabby pirate’s stomach. The pirate’s mouth opened in surprise, but no sound came out. Then he slowly collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  The Pirate King was too drunk to notice, but the Pirate Queen was not so inattentive. She pulled at her pipe and stared hard at the woman in the hat and the paisley frock.

  Next morning Odysseus was sitting restlessly in the courtyard waiting to be off, idly watching some bearded buccaneers sorting through a pile of old treasure.

  “How do you fancy feeling my muscles, darling?” asked a voice. Odysseus turned and saw it was the pirate with the five chins. He was clearly a man who couldn’t take a hint, and now, with a dumb smile over his ugly mug, he rolled up his sleeves, flexed his biceps, picked up a great silver plate, threw it two hundred metres in the air, then ducked out of the way as it smashed down into the ground.

  “Don’t listen to him, I’m your man,” roared a huge buffalo of a pirate with a jet-black beard and even blacker teeth, and he picked up a massive golden plate, hurled it three hundred metres in the air, caught it and dropped it in Odysseus’ lap.

  “Feel that,” he said proudly. “It’s a real whopper.” Odysseus fluttered his eyelashes. “Oh, you boys,” he cooed. “You’re so strong!” and so saying he flicked his wrist, and the plate went soaring up in the air, over the palace roof and out of sight. There was a long silence, followed by a tiny splash as it fell into the harbour half a mile away.

  The pirates stared in amazement. Never before had they come across a woman who could chuck treasure ten times further than they could.

  “Now leave me alone,” squeaked Odysseus. “Otherwise there might be a teensy bit of trouble.” If there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was show-offs.

  The Pirate Queen stepped out of the shadows, still pulling at her pipe.

  “You certainly pack a punch, dearie,” she said. “Come and have some lunch.”

  Inside the banqueting-hall was another roasted whale, more drunken dancing and a troupe of pirates on stilts, juggling with pieces of eight.

  The King sat on his throne, chewing on a whale bone and hammering the high table with a beer mug.

  “Bring on the storyteller!” he roared.

  “Yes! Yes! The storyteller!” echoed the diners, and on to the high table leapt a small pirate with a pointed nose and a striped T-shirt.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” he yelled above the hubbub, “about the Trojan War and those two arch-rivals, Odysseus and Ajax.”

  “Hurrah!” went the pirates, then “Shssh! Shssh! Shssh! It’s the story of Odysseus – the Greatest Hero of Them All.” Immediately the hall fell silent.

  “This was the ninth year of the War, OK, and the Greeks were really cheesed off. So old Agamemnon says, ‘Right lads, we’re going to have some games. There’ll be chariot racing, sack racing, egg ’n’ spoon, but the biggest prize, for the Champion of Champions, will be the running race.’

  So, they built this massive stadium with a marble altar in the middle and a running track around the edge, and the day of the games arrived and inside the stadium it was chaos. There were spectators, peanut-sellers, athletes with flags, cows wandering round waiting to be sacrificed, priests wandering round looking for the cows to sacrifice and one or two cunning devils selling cut-price sacrificial swords.

  The day wore on. King Menelaus won the egg ’n’ spoon, Diomedes won the sack race, Philoctetes and Achilles won the three-legged. Then ‘Quiet please,’ roared Agamemnon. ‘We now come to the highlight of the day’s events. For a prize of a thousand gold pieces and a fortnight’s holida
y for two on Mykonos – the running race.’

  The six finalists stood behind their marks. They were the six greatest heroes in the Greek army – Menelaus, Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax, Diomedes and last, but by no means least, Odysseus.

  ‘On your marks – Get set – Go!’ barked the Judge, and they were off! Straight away Menelaus sprinted into the lead, and by the end of the first lap, there was a gap of fifteen metres between him and the next man. Slowly but surely others pulled him back, until by the end of the second lap it was level-pegging again.

  But the blistering early pace had taken its toll. Patroclus just couldn’t hang on in there, and the others surged ahead. And had the pace-making taken it out of Menelaus? It certainly had – lap three and he limped off the track and slung in his towel. And could that be Achilles? Yes, Achilles had gone too – a recurrence of that old tendon trouble which could leave him on the sidelines for the rest of the season.

  Lap four, and it was a three man race: Odysseus, Diomedes and Ajax. But then Ajax effortlessly moved up a gear. Diomedes couldn’t stay with him and at the bell it was Ajax and Odysseus – Odysseus and Ajax, neck and neck. Then Ajax started to kick. He lifted his legs like a gazelle. Ten metres, fifteen, twenty – the gap between them was widening at every stride. Halfway down the back straight Ajax was thirty metres in the lead; nothing could stop him now. The Big Man with the Big Ears was on his way to another record-breaking victory.

  But Odysseus had never been beaten yet, and he certainly didn’t want to start now. He looked up into the sky and yelled to the heavens ‘Goddess, if you love cheaters and tricksters, if you love the man who wins by his brains and not by his brawn, help me now!’

  At first, nothing happened. But then, as if by magic, one of the sacrificial cows lumbered on to the track, emptied its bowels, then wandered back on to the grass again.