Centaur School Read online

  “Well, go back and do it properly,” said his teacher, reaching for a large jar and pouring some dried daisy heads into a little bag. “Meanwhile, crush these up and sprinkle the powder on the itchy bits. It’s probably only feather mites. Work it in well with a brush, mind, so it covers the whole area.”

  “When did the itching start?” Demon asked, the opticles perched on the end of his nose, and his slate propped against his knees. He’d fed all the beasts and cleaned out the Stables as well as pounded the daisy heads to a fine dust, and now he was sitting on the floor in the griffin’s pen. It was looking rather sour as it pecked halfheartedly at a large slab of ambrosia cake.

  “Dunno,” it said. “Yesterday? Day before? Why’s it matter, anyway, Pan’s scrawny kid?”

  “Because Chiron says I have to ask, that’s why. Now tell me, what kind of itch is it? Prickly? Hot? Burning?”

  “An itchy itch is what it is. Have you got something for it or not? Because if you haven’t, I’d appreciate being left alone to eat my dinner and scratch.” It picked up the slab in its beak and dropped it on the floor, spraying Demon with small particles of stale ambrosia. “Not that I’m enjoying it tonight. Or any night, really. Disgusting stuff.”

  Demon sighed. He agreed. Ambrosia was the food of the gods, and it had given him really strong muscles and made him grow much taller since he’d been eating it—but he’d much rather have one of his favorite honey cakes.

  “Come on, then,” he said. “Spread out your wings. I need to get the powder right into the feathers.”

  Soon every griffin feather was covered in a grayish-green powder. Demon couldn’t see any mites running around, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “All done,” he said, patting the griffin’s rough lion pelt. “That should fix it. You’ll be fine by the morning.”

  When Demon crawled out from under his spider-silk blanket at dawn the next day, he whistled happily as he clattered down the ladder. Doris the Hydra was waiting for him with buckets, brooms, and pitchforks dangling from its nine mouths, all ready to help him with his cleaning duties.

  “Morning, Doris,” he said cheerfully. “Extra snackies if you can help me clean up in double- quick time. I want to get down to Chiron’s cave early today.” The Hydra fluttered its thirty-six eyelashes and began to drool as Demon fetched the poo barrow. But as he wheeled it up the Stables toward where the Cattle of the Sun were mooing for their breakfast of sun hay, he became aware of a low, angry growling sound coming from the griffin’s pen. Cautiously, he unlatched the door and poked his head around it.

  At once, a huge, sharp beak lashed out at him, making him jump back and slam the door shut.

  “WRETCHED BOY,” roared the griffin. “LOOK AT MY FEATHERS!”

  Demon stood on tiptoe and peered in cautiously. The angry beast had retreated to a corner, where it crouched in a huddle, tail lashing furiously. The draft it caused was making a whole pillowful of shed feathers whirl and flutter into the air. The griffin’s wings had holes in them, and, almost worse, the tiny golden feathers on its eagle head had fallen off in great clumps, leaving pink bald patches with bright purple spots.

  “Oh, Griffin . . . ,” he began.

  But the beast was in no mood for sympathy. “You’re going to pay for this, Pan’s scrawny kid,” it hissed, hurling itself at the bars.

  CHAPTER 3

  FEATHER DILEMMA

  Demon was almost in tears. Had the daisy powder done this? Surely the griffin knew that he’d never hurt a beast deliberately? Nor would Chiron. It was all some terrible mistake, and he needed to fix it. This was an emergency. Chiron wouldn’t mind if he used his magic medicine box now. Despite all he’d learned from his centaur teacher, he had no idea what was wrong with the griffin—or how to cure it.

  Running like one of Artemis’s golden deer, he dashed out of the Stables and over to the hospital shed. His box lay in the corner, its silvery sides looking a little tarnished and dusty. He banged his hand on the lid.

  “Wake up, box! The griffin’s feathers are falling out. I need you! It’s an emergency!”

  For a second, his heart leaped as the box glowed blue. But then a big red X flowed over its top and sides.

  “Closed for business until further notice,” it said in its metallic voice. Then it went dark.

  “Nooo!” Demon wailed, running his hands through his hair till it stood on end like a messy brown brush. What was he going to do? He scrabbled through the cupboards, trying to think of something, anything, he could use to help the griffin. Then his hand brushed against something cold—a big copper jar with a stopper.

  “Yes!” he whispered. “The ointment I used on King Poseidon’s Hippocamps to stop the itchy-scratch.” Quickly, he took it down. Feathers weren’t that different from scales, were they? Maybe it would help. He opened the jar, then groaned. It was only a quarter full. It would have to do, though. He had nothing else until he could get down to Chiron. Clutching the jar to his chest, he ran back to the Stables.

  By this time, all the other beasts were hungry, and clamoring for their morning meal.

  “I’m coming! I’m coming!” he called. “But I need to sort out the poor griffin first. Please be quiet—you know how Aphrodite gets if she misses her beauty sleep.” As the racket died down a bit, he thought back to the week before and winced. The beautiful goddess had threatened to make him fall in love with the giant scorpion after a particularly loud early-morning bellowing battle between the three fire-breathing bulls. They had had an argument over which one of them was strongest and nearly set the whole Stables on fire.

  Demon took a deep breath and went into the griffin’s pen. Even more feathers had fallen off it now, and his feet made little swooshing noises as he waded through them. The griffin’s eyes were closed, and it was now making distressed little whiffling noises through its beak. As soon as he got close, though, it reared up and tried to scratch him.

  “Stop it,” he said, dodging the huge claws. “I’m trying to help.”

  “You’d better, Pan’s scrawny kid,” it spat. “Or I’ll be taking off your fingers and toes one by one. See how you manage then.”

  By the time he’d finished spreading on the sticky goop, the beast’s top half looked more like a bedraggled chicken than a fierce eagle.

  “Is it helping the itching?” he asked.

  “A bit,” it growled. “But you need to stick my feathers on again, like you did with the winged horses. Or regrow them. I can’t go around looking like this. And I can’t fly, either. They’ll all laugh at me out there, just you wait and see.” The griffin looked thoroughly miserable.

  “Tell you what,” said Demon. “There are some nice airy pens out at the back of the hospital shed. I’ve never used them, but I think they’re meant for any beast who has something the others might catch. Chiron’s been teaching me about infections. I don’t know if you’ve got one, but it’s best to be safe. You can go in one of those, and no one will be able to see you while you get better.”

  The griffin looked at him in its usual sly manner. “I’m not hungry at the moment, but I might need a special diet,” it said hopefully. “Some nice minced lamb with blood gravy and a sprinkle of scarab beetles. That would make my feathers pop up in no time.”

  “We’ll see,” said Demon. “Let’s get those purple spots to go away first.”

  By the time he reached Chiron’s cave again, Demon was more tired than a field mouse who’d run a marathon. He’d fed and cleaned in double-quick time, moved the griffin to its new home, and, after washing his hands thoroughly, checked the winged horses and the Caucasian Eagle for any signs of feather-drop and itching. Luckily they all seemed fine.

  Chiron was waiting for him, tapping one front hoof impatiently on the ground. “Where have you been? I don’t expect my apprentice to be late. It’s bad enough that Asclepius has gone off to tend to that new
wife of his. I’m snowed under with mortal patients.” He frowned down at Demon.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Demon stammered. “It’s my griffin. I don’t know what to do . . .” He consulted his slate and read out the griffin’s symptoms, then looked up at Chiron. “I’m calling it the Purple Spotted Feather Plague,” he said.

  “Hmm,” said the centaur god. “Purple spots, you say. And extreme feather-drop. Did you say decreased appetite, too?”

  Demon nodded. “Do you know what it is, then?” he asked. “What should I treat it with? The griffin threatened to bite off all my fingers and toes if I don’t find something quickly.”

  Chiron gave a sort of strangled cough. Demon looked at him suspiciously. Was his teacher laughing at him? Didn’t he realize how serious the situation was? It was no good trying to be a healer with no digits.

  “It’s definitely an infection, so you did the right thing by isolating the griffin from the other feathered beasts,” Chiron said. “You’ll need to get anything with feathers away from Olympus, just to be safe. I suggest you tell the Caucasian Eagle to roost in the mountains when he’s finished tearing out poor old Prometheus’s liver—and I suppose the winged horses can come down here. They’ll like a bit of a vacation, I expect.”

  Demon was still very worried. “It’s . . . it’s not, well, fatal, is it?” he asked, a big bumpy throat lump making his words hard to get out. He didn’t think he could bear it if his friend died.

  Chiron laughed out loud this time. “Use that brain of yours, young healer! The griffin’s an immortal beast. It might be very sick, but it won’t die. The worst that could happen is that Zeus will make it into a set of stars—but he only does that to beasts who’ve done something to help us gods, not to just an ordinary griffin.”

  “So what medicine do I use?” Demon asked.

  The centaur god shook a green-stained finger at him. “No, no, Pandemonius. I’m not going to tell you what to treat the griffin with. It’s time you worked things out by yourself. I’d start by looking up I for Itching in the big book with the red thread around it.” He stamped a hoof and reached for his healer’s bag, slinging it over one brown, muscley shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it, then, my young apprentice. I’m off to see a patient in the village below—with Asclepius away, I’ve got more work than I can handle. Why they decided to have a baby, I can’t imagine. It’s very inconvenient.”

  Muttering crossly, he trotted off down the mountain, leaving Demon staring after him with his mouth open. He couldn’t work out whether he was annoyed at being left, or flattered that Chiron finally trusted him to come up with a remedy all on his own.

  He put on his opticles and pulled the book down from the shelf, muttering to himself as he sounded out the difficult words. By the time he’d gotten to the end, he was thoroughly confused. Even with Heffy’s invention, he still wasn’t very good at reading yet. There seemed to be about a hundred kinds of itching, all with different cures—and none of them was exactly like the griffin’s. He went outside to give his brain a rest and bumped straight into a rather bedraggled-looking Prince Peleus, who was sitting on a rock looking very gloomy and picking bits of twig out of his hair.

  “Still no luck with the sword?” Demon asked.

  Peleus shook his head. “I’ve looked everywhere,” he said. “And I nearly ran into those centaurs again. I had to hide up a tree for ages.”

  Now that Peleus wasn’t boasting, Demon felt a bit sorry for him.

  “If you help me look for a cure for my griffin, I’ll get all the animals and birds on the mountain to keep an eye out for your sword,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Peleus, clapping him so hard on the back that he nearly fell over.

  It was so much easier with two people. Peleus wasn’t just a boastful warrior. He actually had a brain. The breakthrough came when the prince had the brilliant idea of combining an itching remedy with one for spots. Soon Demon was pounding some sticky white clay with the slimy aloe leaves that grew all over the mountain, a sprinkle of oatmeal, and some dried peppermint. Peppermint seemed to cure almost everything.

  “How about some of this?” Peleus suggested, holding out a stone jar he’d taken from Chiron’s small, tidy kitchen. Demon took a sniff and choked.

  “What’s THAT?” he spluttered.

  “Spiced apple vinegar. My mom swears by it for bug bites, so it might work for spots.”

  Demon slopped some in and stirred it around, then looked at the mixture doubtfully. It had turned out a bit like white porridge, and it smelled funny. He scraped it into a clay jar and sealed it with a bit of waxed parchment and string. He’d get Chiron to check it when he got back.

  “Right,” said Peleus. “Now where are these animals of yours, young Demon?”

  By the time the sun was midway up the sky, Demon had talked to nearly every rabbit, vole, mouse, and chipmunk on the mountain. He’d chatted with lynxes, eagles, and hawks, as well as sparrows, doves, and pigeons. None of them had seen a sword, but they’d all promised to spread the word. He was sitting on a rock, chatting with a crow, when the wolves turned up. Peleus edged behind him.

  “Greetings, Pandemonius,” the lead wolf said as he and his pack settled in a circle at Demon’s feet. Wolves were always rather formal, so Demon bowed.

  “Greetings, Father Wolf,” he replied. “Do you bring me news of the prince’s sword?” The wolf’s tail wagged, and his jaws lolled open in a sharp-toothed grin.

  “Indeed I do,” he said. “Come forth, Little Stinktail, and tell the son of Pan your story.”

  CHAPTER 4

  LITTLE STINKTAIL

  A very small female wolf limped forward from the back of the pack. Her fur might once have been white, but now it was covered in smears of brown, and she definitely deserved her name. Demon coughed and tried not to hold his nose. He could hear Peleus choking behind him.

  “I was having a nice roll in a big pool of lovely soft cow poo, when something bit me,” she whined. “It smelled like old rust and blood, and it was like a big, sharp, pointy tooth. It nearly sliced off my paw.” She held up her front paw, which had a deep cut across the pads. “See?”

  “Oh dear,” said Demon. “That looks bad. I’d better clean it up and put a bandage on it for you.” He looked at Father Wolf. “Would you be prepared to take my friend to where Little Stinktail was wounded?” he asked.

  “Most certainly,” said Father Wolf. “If he’s prepared to run with us, that is.” The big animal looked at Peleus and licked his chops.

  “Is it thinking of eating me?” Peleus asked, his voice shaking a little. Unlike Demon, he couldn’t understand what the wolves were saying.

  Demon laughed. The young warrior wasn’t so brave now. “Of course not,” he said. “Wolves have a great sense of humor. He reckons it’s funny to make you nervous. I think they’ve found your sword, though, so go with them.”

  Once Peleus had jogged off behind the pack, Demon turned to Little Stinktail and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “You,” he said grimly, “are coming with me to the waterfall to get scrubbed.”

  “What about my poor paw?” Little Stinktail whined.

  “Wash first, paw after,” Demon said. “You don’t want cow poo in your wound—it’ll make it go all bad.”

  The glade by the waterfall was peaceful, and the sun shone through the trees, dappling the grass with spots of greenish gold. By the time Demon had hauled the young wolf into the pool and scrubbed her thoroughly with handfuls of dry leaves, both of them were soaked through and panting.

  “Ugh!” he said as he inspected her sore paw. “Now I smell like wet wolf.”

  “You’ve washed off all my nice stinky bits,” she growled, giving him a little nip and shaking herself so that drops of water flew everywhere, catching the sunlight like tiny round rainbows.

  D
emon frowned. “None of that,” he said. “I’m only trying to help. We’ll have to go back to Chiron’s cave.” He tapped the cut pads gently. “This needs a stitch or two, and a bandage.”

  But just as they were leaving, someone trotted through the trees toward them. Someone with thick, hairy, goaty legs and big curly horns. Someone with yellow eyes and black, slitty pupils. Someone who wore no clothes and carried a set of silver reed pipes.

  Demon dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

  “D-Dad . . . I mean, Your Goddishness,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake. It was still hard to know what to call a father who was also a god. The wolf dropped to her belly and wriggled forward to Pan’s feet, wagging her bedraggled tail frantically.

  “Hello, Son,” said Pan, bending down to stroke Little Stinktail before sweeping Demon up into his arms for a hug. As usual, he smelled like green things and old blood, and his voice was like mossy velvet caught on crumbly bark. “Got anything for a headache, have you? I’ve been partying all night with some centaur lads, and I might have had a bit too much of Dionysus’s new brew.” He put Demon down and rubbed a hand through his wild hair. “Lethal stuff. Take some advice from your old dad—never touch it, however good it smells.” Pan sank down on a tree stump, groaning a little. The wolf curled up at his hooves, licking her paw.

  Demon looked at his dad. He did look a bit paler than normal. What on Zeus’s earth did you give a god for a headache, though? He looked around him, thinking hard, then he saw the willow tree hanging over the pool.

  “I’ve got just the thing,” he said, taking out a small, sharp knife from his belt. Whispering thanks to the tree, he shaved off a few thin strips of bark, shredded them, and held them out. “Chew these,” he said. “They’ll be bitter, but it’ll take the pain away.”

  After making disgusted faces for a few minutes, Pan spat out the chewed bark and sat up, looking a lot brighter. “Clever lad,” he said. “You’ll be as great a healer as Chiron in no time.” Demon glowed with pride. Praise from his dad meant a lot to him, and he didn’t often get it.