A Field Trip to Greece
Going to a new school is never easy. Especially if every other school you've been to has kicked you out four causing fights, bad grades, and extreme slacking off. Archy Marot knows exactly what this feels like. After his mom got another report card, all Fs and Ds again, she threatened to move him to a boarding school.
"Dude, boarding school!" Mason exclaimed after Archy told him his dilemma.
"I know, sucks," Archy said, pulling his books out of his locker. The last period at Elton High was about to start, and Archy had none of his books yet.
"You can't go to boarding school, Archy!" Mason told his friend, "You've only been here for, like, two months!"
"That's longer that usual," Archy said, closing his locker. The usual time he spent at a school was a month, maybe less. He'd been trying to stay in Elton High for Mason. Mason is the only real friend Archy has every made. The kids in school tend to hate Archy, and he hates them right back.
"Promise me you'll try to pay attention in school?" Mason begged. They had reached the History classroom.
"Yeah, yeah," Archy sighed, "But it's not my fault I'm dyslexic."
"Don't forget to get the permission slips signed for tomorrows trip to the Smithsonian!" the teacher said as the class pushed out of the room. The final bell had rung and the students were in a hurry to get home.
"I can't wait for tomorrow!" Mason said, raising his arms in exaggeration. Sometimes his ADD got the best of him.
"Yeah," Archy sighed, "A trip to the Smithsonian. Not like I've never been there before."
Mason slapped Archy on the back, making the dirty blonde kid flinch.
"Now, don't say that, Achilles Marot!" Mason said, using Archy's full name just to annoy him, "Just because your mom works for the Ancient Greek part of that museum doesn't mean you should be excited!"
"No," Archy glared at Mason, "It means I should be extremely unemotional about it."
The police officers didn't start pushing the students back until after the bus had left. Caution tape had been placed around the entrances to the museum. The Ancient Greek building had been completely tapped off.
"Now what is going on!" The teacher pushed up through the crowd to meet the police officers.
"Achilles helmet has been stolen," the larger of the officers explained to the teacher.
"Didn't know you had a helmet, Archy," Vince Relton, one of the large football players, mocked Archy.
"If I did have one, it would be better than those crappy things you use to play that dumb sport of yours," Archy said. He knocked on his head, "Brain damage."
"Why you-" Vince swung a punch at Archy, but he ducked just in time. Vince's blow struck the arm of a girl, and she grasped her arm in pain.
"Hey, punk!" The girls friend yelled, "Stop being an idiot for five seconds and apologies to Sammy!"
Vince sulked down behind his friends, saying, "Sorry…"
Archy laughed. The bully's brawns never one against him brains. Well, his street smarts anyway.
The teacher started to load the students onto the bus again. Archy pulled Mason out of the crowd and away from the police.
"Let's sneak in," Archy whispered.
"What!" Mason almost yelled.
"Quiet!" Archy shushed him, "I know a secret way in." Archy pulled Mason around to the back of the exhibit. The emergency exit light was flashing above a screen door.
"Wow," Mason said, "Bad security."
Archy pushed open the screen door and the two of them were inside. The Ancient Greece exhibit was silent. The artifacts sat in the cases with police officers surrounding each one. Workers and officers were mostly surrounding a large display case. The red cushion was empty, where Achilles helmet must have been.
"But I don't understand!" one of the workers announced, "How could anyone have been able to get into the exhibit, steel the helmet, and leave without being noticed!"
Archy moved back behind the wall when one of the workers looked in his direction. Of coarse, that one had been his mom. And with her mom-like instincts, she saw Archy there.
"Archy!" she ran over to where her son hid in the exhibit. She pulled Archy out into the open, Mason looking from behind.
"What are you doing here, son! The field trip was sent back to school!"
"I-I know, mom," Archy stuttered, "But I wanted to know what was going on!"
Ms. Marot looked over at Mason and said, "He drag you here too, Mason?"
"No, Ms. Marot," Mason answered, "I decided to come with him." Mason was good at lying, since he was usually afraid of telling the truth.
Just as Ms. Marot was about to yell at her son, a horse came crashing through the roof of the building. Well, not really a horse. It was a Pegasus, wings and all. And a girl was riding on the back of it. That wasn't the weirdest thing, though. A creature jumped through the roof too. It had the head of a lion and a goat. The front half of its body was a lions, the back half a goat. It also had a snake for a tail. And if someone told Archy that that was the moment he met a girl who would change his life, he would have laughed.