Fleeced by Julia Wills Page B

flags – looked up, the red flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy trailing from the corner of his mouth.
    “Touchy, isn’t she?” he muttered between chews. “No wonder her family can’t find a man for her.”
    Rose’s jaw fell open. She gasped, staring wide-eyed at Aries, and turned to Alex.
    “Do that again!” she insisted.
    “Do what?” said Alex, clamping Aries’ mouth shut.
    “Throw your voice! Make him look like he can talk!” said Rose. “It’s awesome!”
    Aries pulled his nose out of Alex’s fingers. “How nice of you to say so!”
    “No way!” spluttered Rose, scrambling to her feet. “That time was seriously spooky!”
    “Spooky, my cud!” spat Aries, flinging Alex’s hand away. “Do you know to whom you are speaking?” Rose stared bewildered as Aries went on, stamping his hoof in time with his words. “The ram of the Golden Fleece!”
    By now Rose was at the door, her palm around its handle, but Aries was faster, in the way that furious rams always are, and he swung his weight against the door with a thump. “And there’s no need to look like that about it, either!” he went on, staring up crossly at her. “I know it must be rather disappointing to see me bald, but—”
    “Aries! That’s enough!” insisted Alex. “Let her go if she wants to!”
    Aries turned and regarded the boy loftily. “I hope all modern Earth people aren’t like her!”
    “Like what?” demanded Rose, her annoyance overtaking her shock.
    “Fickle,” said Aries simply. “Helping one minute and going as goggly as Narcissus the next.”
    Rose looked astonished.
    “I can explain,” said Alex, pushing his hair back off his face. “If you really want to know, that is?”
    He waited, watching the flush disappear from her face as the panic seemed to fade, replaced by something else.
    Curiosity.
    Perhaps, Alex thought, he’d been wrong about her after all. Even though she was a girl, she hadn’t dived out of the door and fled back upstairs to find the guards. He frowned. His own sisters would have run squealing from a room at the most ordinary of things or thing – a beetle scuttling over the floor would have had them lifting their skirts and sprinting away. And this could hardly be an ordinary day for Rose.
    “It is a long story,” he said tentatively. “And you’ll find it strange and perhaps frightening…”
    Rose let go of the door handle and waited for Alex to go on.
    “Are you going to stay and listen?” asked Aries, bustling past to sit next to Alex. “Good. Alex is excellent at stories. In fact, the Minotaur always asks for two at bedtime and as for Chimera—”
    “Aries!” said Alex.
    Aries snapped his mouth shut.
    “Go on,” Rose encouraged him. “I’m listening.”
    Alex took a deep breath. “Aries is telling the truth when he says he’s the ram of the Golden Fleece—”
    “As in the myth?” Rose interrupted. “I thought that was just a made-up story—”
    Aries tapped his horn against the shelf. “Do I sound made-up to you?”
    “No, but,” Rose paused, thinking. “You’re in the book of Greek stories my mum gave me last Christmas. Except in your picture you’re covered in golden wool. Let me think… The Golden Fleece? That’s the one with Jason, isn’t it?”
    Aries and Alex nodded.
    “So, did he really exist, too?” Rose’s cheeks grew pink. Her eyes glittered. “Was he a total hunk like the story says?”
    “No,” said Aries. “That bit
was
made-up.”
    Rose turned to Alex. “So, who are you, then? You’re not in the myth, are you?”
    Alex shook his head. “No. I was an ordinarypotter in Attica when the Argonauts sailed.”
    Rose edged back against the wall, her face growing pale beneath her freckles. “But that was, like, ages ago, wasn’t it? How old are you?”
    Alex shrugged. “Technically, I was thirteen when I died—”
    “Died,” Rose repeated emptily.
    “Of the plague,” explained Alex.
    “He’s not infectious any more,” said Aries,