Billy Stuart in the Minotaur's Lair Page 2

  SPLASH!

  “Go get it!”

  Foxy glares at me. I bat the air like I’m swatting a pesky fly.

  “He could always dog-paddle to the shore,” I say.

  I tell her about my conversation with Zeppelinos.

  Give to Caesar what Caesar is due, and to Foxy what is Foxy’s. In our class at school she was awarded the title “Student We Should All Try to Be Like.”

  The fox searches her memory. She has to think about what is unique about our current situation and then remember a story she read in our time that is taking place TODAY.

  A glimmer in her eye tells me she is on the right track.

  “Crete…young people…a monster…it’s…”

  Her eyes widen in HORROR like they did the time she saw me without a kilt. I’m not sure I want to hear her answer.

  “The monster,” she stammers. “It’s the…”

  A clamor arises on the wharf where the boat has stopped. A crowd has come to welcome the victims.

  “The what?” I say to Foxy, screaming to be heard above the noise.

  A gangplank is brought to the ship so we can disembark. Armed SOLDIERS cool their heels on the wharf. They are there to escort us. A hush falls as the king, Minos, arrives.

  King Minos

  Foxy’s cry paralyzes the crowd and TERRIFIES the soon-to-be sacrificial lambs, including me.

  “kabillions of crusty-clawed crawfish in that Bulstrode River!”

  This group of young Athenians has been delivered to appease the hunger and temper of the MINOTAUR!

  I thought the half-human, half-bull monster imprisoned in a labyrinth only existed in the history books. I shake just thinking about it.

  As the astonishment passes, Yeti starts boxing an invisible enemy.

  “Bring it on, Miniature! No, really, bring it on!

  We are herded to King Minos who is seated upon a portable platform. We are expected to throw ourselves at his feet. The king looks at us with curiosity.

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “It’s a kilt, sir. Not a skirt.”

  The king mocks my answer.

  “No, what I meant was, are you the first course or the dessert?”

  He bursts out laughing. One of his advisers explains to him that we were captured by a PATROL outside Athens.

  I whisper to Foxy, “Theseus. He kills the Minotaur?”

  The fox lowers her eyes and gives an embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know. I stopped reading—I was too scared.”

  We’ve been walking for thirty minutes when FrouFrou joins us. He is inexhaustible. Excitedly he hops up and down, unaware of the fate that awaits us. He leaps up and snuggles into Foxy’s arms.

  Zeppelinos edges his way over to me.

  “Once you are inside the labyrinth, you need to stay in a group,” he advises. “People say it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the maze. It’s so extensive it’s like a city.”

  As soon as Zeppelinos says the words maze and city, I have a flashback to my grandfather Virgil’s note: Get yourself to the heart of the city’s maze. You will find there the clue for the next part of your journey.

  Yes!

  To get out of here, we will have to find the clue at the center of the labyrinth and avoid the Minotaur. It’s our only hope.

  The Labyrinth

  As we approach the labyrinth, which is near King Minos’s palace, the crowd starts chanting:

  “Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum!”

  I assume this noisy demonstration has one goal: to let the Minotaur know his dinner has arrived. He must already be licking his lips.

  From the hill high above the labyrinth, we have a good view of the maze’s impenetrable structure. It is mind boggling—it looks like a city made of stone.

  To the eye, it is at least ten times BIGGER than our sports field at school. How will we ever find our way? We’ll be playing cat and mouse with the Minotaur inside. The monster must know every nook and cranny of the maze!

  “Maybe we’ll be lucky and he’s hibernating,” said Musky. “Maybe it’s winter here—”

  A horrible cry comes from the labyrinth, alarming us.

  GroooooooooooaAAArrrr!

  “I’m afraid that spring has come,” I say, “and the beast has woken up.”

  We march down the hill and stop in front of the DEADLY trap. A crowd has filled the amphitheater to watch the dismal spectacle.

  An opening in the stone wall leads into the labyrinth. The corridor inside the entrance is obscured by darkness.

  From his lofty platform, the king snaps his fingers. A silhouette emerges from the labyrinth. We hold our breath. The MINOTAUR? No, just a man clothed in rags. He welcomes us with warmth and compassion. He introduces himself. “I am Ronos, guardian of the labyrinth.”

  He gives us torches and lights them to help us see our way. “The walls have been built to deliberately stop the light of day from illuminating the maze,” he explains.

  Minos lets out a contemptuous laugh.

  “My poor Ronos. What does it matter if they can see? No one has ever come out of the labyrinth. Right, folks?”

  “NO ONE!” the crowd cheers.

  “We have a motto that I think is brilliant,” Minos adds. “When you go in, you never go out! You’ll be amazed! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  Ronos shakes his head miserably.

  A Compass

  We venture deep into the BELLY of the labyrinth. I walk in front, clutching my torch. Foxy, distracted by FrouFrou’s disappearance, holds her torch over her head and peers into the darkness. The passages are high enough and WIDE enough that we can walk in scout formation, side by side in pairs.

  I hear barks coming from far, far behind us. Goodbye, calf, cow, pig, chickens and FrouFrou!

  If one day we emerge from this nightmare, it will be weird to go to the MacTerrings and tell them their dog was adopted by the daughter of a king in Crete over 3,000 years ago.

  Strangely, the barks are getting closer.

  “FrouFrou!” calls Foxy.

  New thought—it will be weird to go to the MacTerrings and tell them that a Minotaur ate their dog. Does a Minotaur cook its food before eating it? Does it like cold dogs or hot dogs?

  Excited by the reunion with Foxy, FrouFrou, who has actually outfoxed the guard, pees on the ground. He sniffs it and barks happily.

  “FrouFrou is marking his territory,” Foxy says while giving FrouFrou extra cuddles.

  I can’t help my sarcasm. “I’m sure the Minotaur will be terrified!”

  “Don’t be scared,” says Shifty, rolling his eyes around. “I am looking both backward and forward!”

  “Yeah,” adds Yeti. “The Minotaur? Pffft. I could eat one every day for breakfast. Bring it on! No, really, bring it on!”

  The passage slopes to the RIGHT. Four new passages are in front of us. Which do we choose?

  A GROWL makes our blood run cold.

  “It’s coming from there,” says Musky, pointing to the opening on the far left.

  “No, from this one,” says Foxy, in front of the next opening.

  “You are all wrong. The scream is coming from the third opening,” Shifty says. “You can trust my sense.”

  From where I am standing, in front of the opening on the right, I’m sure the noise is coming from somewhere over here.

  “We could each choose a passage,” Yeti suggests. “That way our chances of finding the EXIT will be better. Unless you’re scared of being alone?”

  Objections arise.

  “No way, Yeti! We could lose each other. We need to stay together.”

  In scary movies, characters get picked off one by one because they split up. I don’t want that to happen to us!

  “Which passage shall we choose then?” asks Musky.

  “I’m sure they all lead to the Minotaur, so let’s try to get to the heart of the maze to find the clue before the monster finds us.”

  “WAIT!” Foxy warns.

  She rummages in her bag and takes out…a
compass! Using this instrument, we will improve our chances of not getting lost. Foxy consults it in the light of her torch, looking for magnetic north. She is quickly disappointed.

  “It’s demagnetized! The needle is moving around like the second hand on a clock,” she complains.

  “It’s probably due to the magnetic personality of the host of these here parts,” Shifty says.

  FrouFrou starts feverishly sniffing the ground around the four openings. He hesitates, sniffs, turns around, sniffs again, searching for something….

  Suddenly Foxy announces, “Look! Our compass!”

  I tease. “That’s it! Foxy, you’ve lost the POINT.”

  “What do you mean?” Shifty asks.

  Foxy points to the dog. “Haven’t you read the classics? In Asterix and Cleopatra, it’s the dog, Dogmatix, who helps the main characters, Asterix, Obelix and Getafix, get out of the pyramid.”

  “Listen, we don’t have a magic potion like they did in the story.”

  “But, Billy Stuart, we have FrouFrou! The poodle can act as our four-legged compass. His sense of smell will help us find the exit. He just has to pee to mark our path.”

  On hearing his name, FrouFrou bounds around me. I rub his head.

  “Go! My bea—” I choke on the word beautiful. “Go, doggy, go pee!”

  FrouFrou continues to jump, excited for the attention I’m giving him.

  “Dog! Do a nice pee-pee. You are capable, my bea”—no, it’s too hard—“my dog. pssssssssssss.”

  I lift my paw and pretend to pee to encourage him to imitate me.

  “You’re gross, Billy Stuart!” Musky says, laughing.

  I sense my patience starting to wane.

  “Imagine, dog, that you are at our house. And there are visitors…you know the puddles you like to leave on the floor…”

  I might as well be talking to a STONE GARGOYLE!

  “Silly mutt!” I clearly have no problem saying that. “You could make yourself useful for once! Do you need a fire hydrant?”

  FrouFrou barks and spins like a top, chasing his short tail.

  “No! No treats! Just a pee-pee!”

  Foxy intervenes. She caresses the head of this annoying dog.

  “My beautiful FrouFrou, go pee, please.”

  Right away, he sniffs the GROUND in front of the four openings and stops in front of the second one from the left. He lifts his leg, and everyone claps. Except me. I grumble.

  “He was missing the MAGIC WORD,” Foxy says, laughing. “Good dog, FrouFrou, good dog!”

  Moments of Distraction

  FrouFrou is now our four-legged compass and our GPS in the labyrinth. Why are we blindly following him? Why not? What do we have to lose? Whose path is he following? The Minotaur’s? The Minotaur’s victims’? My grandfather Virgil’s? None of the above?

  One good thing about him, something that comforts me, is that he seems to know where he’s going. He hasn’t once led us to a DEAD END, and we’ve been walking for about an hour. Now and then we hear the Minotaur’s howls. But it’s impossible to figure out where they are coming from. Is the beast close or not? We fear it will POP UP around each bend or that it will sneak up behind us.

  Everyone is on edge, including the dog.

  “What do we do if we run into the Minotaur?” Musky asks.

  We freeze.

  kabillions of crusty-clawed crawfish in that Bulstrode River! What will we do? I look for an answer in my friends’ eyes.

  “I’ll take care of it, Billy Stuart!” Yeti brags. “Bring it on! No, really, bring it on!”

  The rest of the Zintrepids are silent. As the French would say, they would be stuck to my lips (if I had any).

  “FrouFrou!” Foxy cries.

  The dog has forged ahead while Foxy wasn’t paying attention and is barking his way up the passage.

  “Quick! He’s our only chance to get out of this labyrinth! Heel, dirty mutt!”

  Already he is out of sight. We run ahead, forgetting all about being careful and putting ourselves at risk of banging into the walls. The gap between us and FrouFrou grows. After making a right turn, we stop at a junction. Three new openings present themselves. FrouFrou’s barks are getting fainter. I explode.

  “Come here, FrouFrou! Please! Don’t be so stubborn! If I catch you…”

  “Instead of getting angry,” Foxy reprimands, “we need to figure out which way he went. To the LEFT , straight ahead or to the RIGHT.”

  Each moment we hesitate, the poodle gets farther away.

  “He must have left his signature scent somewhere,” Shifty says.

  “You’re right! Foxy, out of all of us you have the best nose.”

  “He’s your dog, Billy Stuart,” she pleads. “You should be able to recognize his odor.”

  “He’s not MY dog, and you are wasting precious minutes.”

  The discussion is postponed until later. Foxy, for the good of the group, puts aside her ego and gets down on the ground to sniff.

  “Pewww! Stinks of ammonia. That’s good. This way,” she announces, pointing toward the entrance to our right.

  I pick up my pace.

  “Troop, let’s hurry!”

  FrouFrou’s barking stops. A terrible thought crosses my mind. What if the urine Foxy smelled isn’t from the dog, but from the Minotaur? Foxy would be leading us right to the lion’s den.

  Suddenly I sense something. As if someone is watching us.

  A scream explodes:

  GRAAAAAOOOOOOOARRRR!

  Whatever I sensed sure made a lot of noise! And the screaming was very close. You would swear that it came from the other side of the stone wall.

  “Let’s stay together,” I say to my friends. We slowly move forward.

  Oooooooooooh!

  We reach a vast circular room with multiple openings. It is as if all the labyrinth’s passages have led us to this very sinister spot.

  Get yourself to the heart of the city’s maze, my grandfather Virgil wrote in the message in his notebook.

  “Here we are in the heart of the mazes!”

  A Shadow

  Luckily for us, this isn’t the Minotaur’s stomping grounds, but unluckily for me, there is a poodle that won’t quit jumping up.

  Numerous flaming torches hang over the entrances, illuminating the biggest room in the labyrinth that we’ve seen. I keep waiting for the monster to attack us from one of the entrances—or exits, depending on your route.

  I JUMP as I suddenly feel a presence behind me. And again as it disappears just as suddenly…

  Then we hear a woman’s voice:

  “Ah, there you are! It’s about time.”

  A silhouette emerges from a door in front of us.

  “It’s coming! Let’s vamoose!”

  As soon as he sees the young woman, the poodle runs toward her, barking and jumping for joy.

  In the light of the torches, her face is revealed. With her dark BLACK EYES, she doesn’t need to introduce herself—she must be the sister of Loslobos, the captain of the ship.

  “Timoree!” yells Foxy. “You’re alive!”

  “No,” says Musky. “She’s dead! It’s a ghost! Let’s go!”

  Timoree does have a corpselike pallor—no doubt because of the lack of sunshine—which is amplified by the large white robe she is wearing.

  She comes toward us, looking stunned.

  “You…you know me?”

  Briefly I explain how.

  “My brother hasn’t forgotten me,” she says, obviously moved.

  “How have you survived?” asks Foxy, with FrouFrou back at her side.

  Timoree sighs. “It’s a long story.”

  She sees me and suddenly looks horrified.

  “RED! You’re wearing RED!” She’s panicking.

  “Um…yes. So?”

  Nervously she looks around the room. “He attacks everything that is RED!”

  “Like a bull,” says Shifty. “He sees RED!”

  All of a sudden I rea
lize why the victims-to-be were made to wear a piece of RED clothing.

  “kabillions of crusty-clawed crawfish in that Bulstrode River!”

  My throat feels tight. The red handkerchief around my neck! An ESSENTIAL part of the Zintrepids’ uniform.

  “Troop, we need to take off our scarves! Immediately!”

  As I am the one with the most manual dexterity, the members of the pack form a line in front of me for OPERATION UNTIE RED SCARF. Timoree lends a helping hand. I untie Foxy’s and Yeti’s knots while she does Musky’s and Shifty’s. Shifty, standing next to the young woman, turns as pale as her robe.

  We all put our scarves in our backpacks. The torches flicker. Someone with angry HEAVY BREATHING has just entered the room.

  The Monster Who Sees Red

  The Minotaur BELLOWS, and the walls shake as foam flies from his mouth.

  “Musky, you could spray him!”

  “I would love to, but I don’t have enough odor left,” she says.

  “In all this time you haven’t recharged?”

  “No, I have to be patient for a whole week before I fill back up.”

  “It’s been a millennia since you sprayed the black bear! And if this keeps up, we might not be here next week.”

  The Minotaur looks exactly like I’ve seen him drawn in books—bull’s head, man’s body, clothed in a loincloth. However, he is much bigger than I expected. He is at least three meters tall! We’ll only be a mouthful for this monstrous giant. An appetizer before the main meal of Athenians!

  “Bring it on! No, really, bring it on!” yells Yeti. “Finally, a worthy adversary!”

  Musky isn’t able to grab him by the collar in time. The weasel charges the Minotaur, jumping onto his leg. His little arms barely wrap around the Minotaur’s ankle.