The Lion's Slave (3 page)
“I’ll get one from the field,” I said.
Archimedes threw up his hands. “Silly child. Those stones are too large for you to carry.”
“Then I’ll throw one over the wall,” I offered.
“If you can’t pick it up, you can’t throw it!” He roared his lion roar.
“Oh, throwing it is easier!” I laughed. Then I picked up the plank of wood that my master used as a garden seat, tucked it under my arm and walked out into the field.
I placed the plank on a round stone and let one end drop onto the ground.
I rolled a large rock onto that end. Then I jumped onto the other end.
The rock shot up into the air.
I remember it to this day.
I remember the way my master Archimedes screamed…
The rock soared into the cloudless sky, looped over the wall and headed down into the garden. At least it
would
have headed into the garden if my master hadn’t been standing there. Instead, it sort of headed for his head.
Handsome young Ajax, who lives in the main street, has fine hair that is parted in the middle. My master doesn’t have hair on his head. If he
had
, the rock would have parted it. Instead, it almost parted his head–and then all those fine brains would have spilled out onto the dusty grass and spoiled my fine flowers.
But Archimedes ducked and scrambled out of the way and the rock landed with a thump on the grass.
“Oooops!” I said with a silly grin. “Sorry, sir!”
He didn’t call me stupid–he was spluttering and moaning too much to call me anything. I brought the plank back into the garden, made it into a seat again and sat him down.
“You … you…” he began.
“I know,” I said. “I’m foolish.”
He shook his head. “You … you … could … have…”
“I could have fired a bigger rock and you would have seen it better,” I nodded.
He shook his head. “You … you … could … have … killed me!”
“Sorry, sir. It was a game I played with my brothers when we were younger.We used to use a small plank to fire balls of cloth in the air and see who could catch them. But I knew it would work for a rock, too.”
He glared at me. “Why did you do that?” he demanded.
“Because you told me to get you a rock.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“So I did! I was going to show you that it’s impossible to throw big rocks at the Roman ships,” he said.
“If you say so, sir,” I muttered.
“But if I get a really long plank…”
“As long as a tree,” I said.
“As long as a tree … then I could fire boulders big enough to sink those ships.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh, sir, that’s brilliant! Oh, sir, I knew you’d invent something to save us! It’s true what they say!”
“What
do
they say?”
“That you are the cleverest man in Syracuse!”
Archimedes smiled and nodded. “I am the cleverest man in Greece. In the
world
, in fact!”
You know what happened next, of course. It is written in the history books. Archimedes made his mighty throwing machines–he called them “catapults”.