Free Demons by Bill Nagelkerke Page A

to that
class.
    Our classical studies teacher, Ms Shapiro,
was an enthusiast. She’d once worked at an archaeological dig in
Athens and really knew her stuff. More importantly, she was good at
enthusing other people even if they’d chosen her class thinking
classics was going to be an easy option. It wasn’t.
    The class was tiny to
begin with. The first morning only five girls turned up and we
wondered if it might be scrapped altogether. Then, a few minutes
later, three boys, this time from the private school just up the
road, came in and immediately they seemed to fill it with
their largeness .
    Only one was any good
looking (an opinion shared by all) and he didn’t seem to notice or
care less that all the girls instantly fell for him. I remember he
gave me a lingering stare (yes, I know , but sometime you have to fall
back on one of the literary clichés. They make the most sense) when
he first walked through the door.
    The boys bagged desks at the back and by the
time they’d settled down another five minutes had passed.
    Ms Shapiro took everything in her stride.
She began by outlining the year’s course.
    ‘ We’ll start with an
overview of Greek history, take a look at some masterpieces of
Greek building - ’
    ‘ The Acropolis?’ said
Becs.
    ‘ Without
a doubt,’ Ms Shapiro said, ‘but others as well. For our Greek drama
we’ll study a play by Euripides called The
Bacchae before moving onto Roman history,
art, architecture and engineering. If I think you’re up to it and
if you’re keen to do a bit of extra work’ - we all groaned on cue -
‘then maybe we’ll enter the University’s Classics Competition at
the end of the year. Sound all right?’
    We nodded and murmured non-committedly. All
except the guy who’d looked at me.
    ‘ What
about Greek engineering?’ he asked, sounding more enthusiastic than the
rest of us put together.
    Ms Shapiro raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything in
mind . . um?’ she said, looking down at her class roll.
    ‘ Chris Stuart,’ he
said.
    ‘ Ah,’ said Ms
Shapiro.
    ‘ I was thinking of the
Horologium,’ Chris said.
    One of the other boys
sniggered like a year nine. ‘ Whore a what?’ he whispered to the third boy beside
him, loudly enough for us girls to hear. It was
pathetic.
    ‘ Ah,’ said Ms Shapiro
again. If it was a trick to catch her out - almost but not quite as
babyish as the whispered innuendo - she was up to it. ‘The famous
work of Andronikos of Kyrrhos,’ she said. ‘We’ll meet it when we
come to look at the Agora. You might like to make it the focus of
your first term essay Chris.’
    Chris wasn’t at all deflated by this
suggestion. ‘I’d love to,’ he said, completely genuinely.
    ‘ Good,’ said Ms
Shapiro.
    ‘ What’s the Classics
Competition?’ asked Roxy, as usual a few steps behind.
    ‘ It’s an inter-school
competition,’ Ms Shapiro said, ‘run by the university’s Classics
Department. Good fun but not for the faint-hearted.’
    She offered it as a challenge, one that I
expected Chris would have accepted straightaway, except he clammed
up when he clicked that the rest of us were, indeed, a
faint-hearted lot.
    Ms Shapiro picked up a
pile of books from her desk. ‘And here are copies of The Bacchae . Although we
probably won’t get to it until the beginning of term two, it
wouldn’t do you any harm to start reading it now. It’s not
particularly long but it may be different from the sort of plays
you’re used to.’
    ‘ If we can handle
Shakespeare we can cope with anything.’ said Becs.
    ‘ It’s OK,’ said Chris,
refusing his copy. ‘I’ve got my own at home.’
    I turned quickly to look at him and found he
was staring right back at me.
     
    Later on, after class, Becs said she thought
Chris looked like a Greek god. ‘Pity about the name,’ she said.
    ‘ What’s wrong with it?’ I
asked.
    ‘ Stuart?
It’s just so plain . So ordinary.’
    ‘ Which god does he remind
you of?’ asked Sarah.
    ‘ Dionysus?’