The usher led them to a table, and one of the wait staff brought over three extra chairs. It was rather uncomfortably crowded, with everybody bumping elbows as they sat down and were provided with menus and napkins. Luca kept the ancient cup in his lap, gripping the stem of it between his knees so it wouldn't fall. He didn't want to sit it on the table and attract more attention, but leaving it on the floor might result in it getting kicked or tripped over.
"Kras í," said the waiter, offering the Viscontis a wine list.
"Oh, how lovely," said Faustina, utterly oblivious to both her guests' discomfort and the resentment of the people who'd been ahead of them in line. "How old is your Asýrtiko?"
Luca glanced at his friends. Giulia and Alberto were both holding menus, but both were holding them so they could look over the top to glare at Ercole. Ercole was glaring right back.
"What brings you to Santorini?" he asked them.
"We already said," Giulia told him, "we're here to meet Dr. Cozzolino."
"No, literally what brought you here?" Ercole said. "I know you couldn't afford to fly, and the ferry probably wouldn't take you. They don't want their whole boat smelling like the pescheria in Iuglio."
"We swam," said Alberto. "Because some of us know how."
"I'm sure it comes naturally to fish," Ercole sneered.
His parents chose a wine, and the waiter left them to study their menus while he fetched a bottle. The adults still didn't seem to notice the thundercloud of hostility rumbling over the table, but Luca could feel it like a giant glaring down at him. Being invisible would have been really nice at that moment. At least it appeared that nobody was listening to their conversation – as far as he could tell, the people at nearby tables were speaking mostly English and French, which hopefully meant they didn't understand the Italian.
"Let's see," said Aristide. "What looks good here?"
"Our friend Professor Hamid told us we should order the shrimp saganáki," Giulia offered, wanting to be polite.
Aristide looked up with a frown. "I thought people in Egypt didn't eat that sort of thing," he said.
"No, darling, it's ham they don't eat," said Faustina. "Where is the Professor, then? I mean, you three children aren't here all on your own, are you?"
Alberto bristled. "We're not children," he said. "Luca and Giulia are fourteen, and I'm fifteen."
"You're still young enough to be in the Portorosso Cup race," said Ercole, bitter. "That makes you children."
"We're here with Luca's Uncle Ugo," Giulia told him. "It's just he thinks it's too bright up here, so he stays in the water."
Ercole sniffed. "I'm glad at least one sea monster knows where he belongs." He chose a slice of bread from the basket in the middle of the table and took a bite. "What are you hiding under the table? Why have you got a bucket?" he pointed to Luca.
Luca would rather have done anything that speak at that particular moment. He looked around the room quickly to make sure nobody was watching, then reluctantly raised the vessel. "It's an ancient cup," he said. "We found it in the underwater ruins."
" Che interessante !" Faustina exclaimed. She reached for it. "May we see?"
Luca wasn't sure that was a good idea. He wouldn't have trusted Ercole with the cup for a moment – but Aristide and Faustina were grownups, and surely they knew to be careful. He set it gently on the table. "It's very old," he said.
"It doesn't look old," said Ercole. "It looks like you bought it at a souvenir shop."
"It was in the same room as..." Alberto began, but Luca and Giulia both kicked him under the table.
"... as a lot of stuff that did look old," Giulia finished for him. "And nobody else oculd have gone in there before us, so it's got to be old."
"It's certainly very pretty," said Faustina. She picked it up and turned it over to examine – and to Luca's relief, she handled the object as if it were made of glass.
"It's not a very good vase," Ercole said. "You couldn't put any flowers in it. It's the wrong shape."
"It's not a vase, Bambino," said Faustina.
Ercole turned pink. "Mamma! You cannot call me Bambino in front of people!"
Alberto and Giulia giggled, and even Luca had to grin.
"Sorry, dear," Faustina said, "but this isn't a vase. It's a kýlix , like the ones we saw in the museum in Atene. The ancient Greeks drank wine out of them." She smiled and set the cup in the middle of the table, like a centrepiece. This was exactly what Luca hadn't wanted. Now everybody could see it, and wonder what it was and where it had come from. But he knew it was rude to reach across the table, so it would just have to sit there for now. "It's lovely," Faustina added, "although I think Ercole might be right, it's probably a modern replica. It just doesn't look ancient."
"We're going to show it to Dr. Cozzolino and see what he thinks," said Giulia.
"Yeah," Alberto nodded. "We need a professional's opinion, not a bambino's."
Ercole scowled at him.
Another waiter came to put glasses of water on the table, along with additional ones for the wine, then opened a notepad to take their orders. "Have you decided what you would like to eat, Kyríes kai Kýrioi?" he asked.
"Grilled sea bass, please," said Faustina.
"I'll have the octopus with arakás," Aristide said.
"Shrimp saganáki," said Ercole, and smirked at the kids. He obviously didn't believe they'd be willing to order the same thing he just had.
Giulia met his gaze evenly. "We'll all have the shrimp saganáki, too," she said.
The waiter looked at each of them in turn, as if trying to figure out what was going on, then just started writing it down. "One lavráki , one oktápous , and four garída saganáki . Polý kaló. Your wine will be here shortly." He lingered a moment, watching again at the young people exchanging angry looks, but did not say anything, and scurried off back to the kitchen.
"What about you?" Giulia asked the Viscontis. "Are you here to buy wine?"
"That's right," said Aristide. "Santorini is famous for its wine. It's the volcanic soil. Grows some of the finest grapes in the Greek islands. We come here every year, to bring a little bit of it back to Portorosso."
"We spoke to a gentleman today who gave us a bottle of his red to sample," Faustina said. "Perhaps later this week we can give you children a taste? Not too much, of course," she said with an indulgent smile.
"Thank you, Madame," said Luca politely, "but we don't really like wine." He'd tried it, and found it very sharp, even when the humans insisted it would be sweet. It made his eyes water.
Ercole's lip curled at the idea of having to see them again. "I wouldn't think sea monsters know very much about wine," he said. "Grapes don't grow in the sea."
"My Grandma likes it," said Luca.
"I guess it would be very hard to make underwater," Faustina mused. She then sat up and smiled as the waiter returned with a bottle of white wine. "Ah, here's our Asýrtiko!"
" Nai, Kyría ," said the waiter. He uncorked it, and started pouring it into glasses – Aristide and Faustina each got one, and then the waiter paused, realizing that when he'd put out extra settings to turn the table for three into one for six he hadn't brought enough wine glasses. There were only five on the table. "I will get another glass," he said.
"Oh, no, that's fine," said Luca. "I don't want any, thank you."
Ercole had another idea, though. He grabbed the cup from the centre of the table and held it up. "Here, this is for drinking wine out of, isn't it, Mamma? We'll use this."
"Hey!" exclaimed Giulia.
"You can't use that!" Luca protested. "It's thousands of years old!"
"No, it's not," Ercole snorted. "It looks like you bought it at a gift shop. Here!" He took the bottle of wine out of the waiter's hands and started pouring it in. "We'll drink like ancient Greeks at a simposio tonight!"
Luca was frozen in panic. He wanted to get up and snatch the cup away from Ercole, but the room was full of people, foreigners who already looked as if they didn't like anybody very much, and as Ercole had gotten louder, a lot of them had begun to stare. The last thing he wanted to do was attract more attention. Was there any way to avoid it? Ercole clearly didn't mind everybody watching him with disapproval, but Luca very much did.
"Evíva!!" Ercole declared, and took a big drink.
Luca couldn't move, but Giulia could. She got up and marched around the table to confront Ercole. "You put that down!" she ordered. "It doesn't belong to you!"
"Ercole, you're making a spectacle of yourself!" snapped Aristide. He yanked the bowl out of his son's hands. Giulia also attempted to grab it, and some of the contents sloshed on the floor. The waiter looked down in dismay.
"Well, don't waste the wine!" exclaimed Faustina. "Here!" She took the cup from her husband and very carefully poured the remaining contents into the three other glasses, just a couple of centimetres in each. "There!" she said, setting the bowl down again. "Now you children can each have a taste."
"And I don't think we need another glass for Ercole," Aristide told the waiter, annoyed. "I think he can drink water tonight."
"Uh... fysiká, kýrie," said the waiter. "I will get a mop." He hurried back to the kitchen as if fleeing from a monster.
Faustina gave the three half-glasses of wine to the children and sat down again, frowning. Ercole folded his arms over his chest and scowled. Luca wished more than ever that he could simply wish himself back to Portorosso and leave this embarrassing situation behind.
"Excuse me, young man," said a voice from behind Luca.
He yelped in surprise and turned around, half expecting to be grabbed and dragged out of the restaurant. This did not happen. The speaker turned out to be a woman in a cocoa-coloured suit, with her ash-blonde hair pulled back into a bun. Her eyes were blue, but curiously, they were two different shades. The left one was much bluer than the right, and appeared to be looking off in a different direction.
"May I see that?" she reached for the cup.
"I'd rather not," said Luca, putting out an arm to try to stop her. He still didn't want to reach across the table to retrieve the object, but Alberto had no such compunctions – he grabbed it and handed it to his friend, and Luca put it in his lap again out of sight. It was slightly sticky with spilled wine.
The woman smiled politely. "I heard you say you have an interest in archaeology. My name is Agnes Badgerworth – I'm a curator of antiquities at the British Museum in London, and I came to the Greek Islands to look for items very like the one you've found."
The waiter came back with a mop and bucket and began cleaning up the spilled wine – then stopped dead when he heard her description of herself. His eyes narrowed.
"Are you sure I can't have just a quick peek?" Signora Badgerworth asked.
Luca's hopes rose for a moment – if this woman were an archaeologist, too, then she might know something about the cup. Maybe she could tell them what the Greek letters said, or the story behind the picture. But then he looked around at the people staring, and realized it wasn't just the tourists anymore. The staff were gathering in the doorways to watch the scene, whispering to each other in Greek. Luca gulped.
"He said he'd rather not," said Alberto.
"Yeah," agreed Giulia, returning to her seat. They scowled at the woman from either side of Luca.
Signora Badgerworth looked around the table, but found not a single friendly face. Aristide was frowning at Ercole, who was sulking with his arms folded over his chest. Luca stared at the ring of animals painted inside the cup, not wanting to look anybody in the eye. Alberto and Giulia were radiating hostility, and Faustina swirled her wine and then sipped it without looking at the intruder.
"Oh, this is very nice," she said. "Children, you really should try it. It's a local variety with a wonderful hint of peach. Aristide, we must bring some of this back to Liguria, for ourselves if not to sell."
"If you say so, dear," said Aristide, still angry at Ercole.
Luca picked up his glass and sampled it, as an excuse not to look at anyone. It just tasted like wine to him.
"Ugh. Ercole germs," muttered Alberto, trying his glass.
Giulia sipped it thoughtfully. "It's nice," she decided, "but Papà wouldn't like it. He'd say it's too sweet."
Signora Badgerworth waited a few moments longer, but nobody spoke to her. At last, she seemed to take the hint.
"Well, perhaps some other time," she said, and returned to her own table, only to find the waitress clearing her half-finished plates away. "Excuse me!" she exclaimed. "Miss!"
"Syngnómi, Kyría," the waitress said sweetly. "I thought you were finished."
The waiter finished cleaning up the spilled wine, and shortly after that, the food arrived. This was a relief to Luca, because just like sea monsters, humans had rules about not talking with your mouth full. This was extra-important on land, as Alberto had once discovered, because when you were eating through the same hole as you breathed, you didn't want to try to do both at once. The shrimp was served with lots of crumbly goat cheese and the island's famous cherry tomatoes. It was delicious, but Luca didn't enjoy it. He couldn't stop feeling like he was being stared at, all these strangers judging his manners with every mouthful.
At the end of the meal, the waiter brought the cheque, and Aristide took out his wallet. Luca, Alberto, and Giulia quickly dug into their pockets for their own money, but Faustina waved for them to put it away.
"We're happy to cover it," she said. "Aren't we, dear? You children save your money for sweets."
"Of course," said Aristide, although he didn't sound happy. He was doing it because he thought it was the polite thing to do.
"We brought money," Alberto said. "We don't want to feel like we owe you anything."
"It's nothing," Faustina promised. "We invited you to join us, didn't we?" "
"We don't know why," muttered Ercole, "but we did."
Luca sighed and put his money away, still embarrassed – but at least people weren't staring at him anymore. Instead, they were watching as Signora Badgerworth argued with the manager over something possibly having to do with the plate the waitress had prematurely removed. Luca couldn't follow the conversation, as it was all in Greek.
"Will we see you again before we leave?" Faustina asked politely.
"Probably not, Ma'am," said Giulia. "We're mostly going to be in the water, working. But good luck finding wine – maybe we'll come and try some in Portorosso. Thank you for dinner."
Alberto got down from his chair and turned to go, but Giulia pinched him. He glared at her, then turned around.
"Yeah, thank you," he said.
"Grazie a mille," Luca agreed.
They filed out of the restaurant, trying not to look anybody in the eye as they went. Outside, the evening air was still warm and damp, but the sun had set and there was a slight breeze, which was a huge improvement. Luca felt as if he'd had a pillow over his face for the last hour and a half. Now he could finally breathe again.
"Santo Pecorino!" Giulia exclaimed.
"Even when they're being nice, they're still jerks!" Alberto snarled.
Although it was past suppertime, the town of Akrotiri was still busy. Restaurants and bars were doing brisk business, with lights on and music playing. People were hanging out on patios, under awnings, and in the street. The three kids ignored all this, and went to follow another dirt path that wound through the rocks. This one led to a narrow beach that faced the underwater ruins, which was where they'd chosen to spend the night. The cliffs were not nearly so high and steep here, only a few metres above the sand and water, which was a relief. Luca really didn't want to do any more climbing.
"It's okay, Luca," said Giulia. "We won't see them again."
"It's not that," Luca told her. "It's everybody staring at us. Alberto, you remember our first day in Portorosso, when everybody thought we were weird."
"Everyone in Portorosso still thinks we're weird," said Alberto, not bothered at all. "They're just used to us now."
"I was gonna say it's ten times worse here," Luca told him.
"Don't worry about it," was Giulia's advice. "They're not staring because we're sea monsters. They're staring because we're foreigners. They don't think we're any different from any of the other tourists here."
"I guess," said Luca, but he still didn't like it.
"Most people have been nice once we talk to them," Giulia reminded him. "Like the lady at the hotel that you didn't want to talk to. She was fine, she just didn't speak much Italian."
"Next person we have to talk to, we'll make you do it," said Alberto. "Then you'll see."
"No, we won't!" Giulia scolded. "That's not nice! You can take your time, Luca, like in Genova."
That was when Luca stopped dead. He looked down at his empty hands, and felt like he'd just been dropped in cold water. "Oh, sharks!" he said, and looked at his friend sin a panic. "The cup! Where is it? Alberto, you put it under your chair!"
Alberto went pale under his sunburn. "I did! I forgot all about it because I was busy being annoyed with Ercole!"
"Come on!" Giulia was already turning around. "Hopefully it'll still be there!"
They ran back as fast as they could, climbing over rocks to avoid the bends in the road and then running down the gravel road back to the town. All three were dusty and panting when they burst through the door of the restaurant. There were still plenty of people waiting in line, and they looked up in surprise when the kids came in.
"Hey!" Giulia called to the usher. "Signor!"
The man blinked at her. "You already ate," he said.
"No, no," said Giulia. "We know. But we had a pottery bowl, this big." She held her hands about thirty centimetres apart to suggest its dimensions. "Alberto left it under his chair."
The usher looked over his shoulder into the dining room. "We'll look," he promised, and went to interrupt the new group who'd just been seated there and were looking at the menus. These people politely moved their chairs and let him lift the tablecloth to check, but when the usher straightened up, his hands were empty. He next spoke to the waiter who'd served their table, and to the woman who'd taken away Signora Badgerworth's plate prematurely. The kids craned their necks to watch around the corner, holding their breath.
When the man returned, it was with disappointment. "Very sorry," he said. "Not here."
Alberto punched his palm. "Ercole took it! I know he did!"
"Or it could have been that woman with the funny eye," said Giulia. "She wanted to see it."
"No, it was Ercole," Alberto said firmly. "He was right there, and he'd have noticed when we left it behind. We gotta find him!"
They had to move aside to make room for a group to leave, and the usher called out the next name on his list. "Synchoreíte, paidiá," the man said, waving them aside.
Luca knew that one – it meant excuse me. The usher wanted them to leave. He sighed and turned to trudge back out into the street, with his friends behind him. The sun was down by now, and the stars were starting to come out. He looked up, and made out the big square of the Gran Carro. That helped him feel a bit better. According to Luca's books, there were places in the world so far away that the stars would look totally different from how they did in Portorosso, but Santorini wasn't quite that far from home.
"Now what do we do?" he asked forlornly.
Giulia shrugged. "At least it was only a cup. Good thing we didn't take any of the gold, huh?"
"It was the nicest one in the place, though," said Luca.
"We can't just let him have it," Alberto agreed. "We gotta find him and get it back."
"We don't know where they're staying," Giulia pointed out. "They might be in a hotel, they might be in their boat. They might even be staying at one of the wineries if they've got friends here. Anyway, it's getting dark. We can look for Ercole tomorrow."
Alberto scowled, but conceded. With slumped shoulders and heavy hearts, they started back to their campsite.
"I can't believe I just forgot it," Alberto grumbled. "What if we can't get it back?"
"Once Dr. Cozzolino arrives we'll take him to the spot and bring up some of the treasure," said Giulia. "That'll be way more impressive than a cup, anyway."
"He'll be upset when we tell him we had it and lost it," Luca said.
"Maybe we just wont' tell him," Alberto decided.
The beach they'd chosen as a campsite was isolated and rocky. It was not the sort of place tourists would want to lie on lounge chairs and read magazines, but it felt very home-like to kids who were used to playing on the stony beach of Isola del Mare, and crags and scraggly trees around the edges of it meant they'd be safe from prying eyes. They built a campfire, and spread out their sleeping bags.
"Tomorrow we'll go back to Fira," said Giulia, "and ask for Dr. Cozzolino again. If he's not there..."
"... we go looking for Ercole and make him give the cup back!" huffed Alberto.
"I was gonna say we go back to the ruins and see if there are any more rooms," said Giulia.
"We can do both, I guess," said Luca. Now it was him who felt like the whole trip was ending in disaster.
They stayed up a little later, drinking instant hot chocolate – which was very sweet and watery, not at all like the kind Giulia's mother made – and looking at the stars. Luca pointed out the planet Marte, which was visibly orange compared to the white stars around it, and told Alberto about how it had two moons. Eventually, one by one, they fell asleep.
Luca had some upsetting dreams that night. He remembered one in particular about the animals from the inside of the cup marching by as Dr. Cozzolino scolded him for losing it, saying it didn't belong to him, while Ercole laughed and all the people on Santorini stood around pointing and staring. He woke up over and over, and would roll over and curl up in his sleeping bag, wishing he could just sleep through the whole night properly the way his friends seemed to be doing. This was just what he and Alberto had dreamed of last summer – exploring faraway places and sleeping under the fish. Except now that Luca was here, all he wanted to do was go home.
The last time he woke up, he was still very tired, but the sky was starting to brighten in the east. It must be very early. The morning star was hovering just above the light at the horizon, and Luca smiled a bit when he saw it. That seemed like a sign that today was going to be a better day. Maybe Dr. Cozzolino would arrive, or maybe they would find more interesting things underwater. Maybe they would even get the ancient cup back.
Luca sat up and yawned, and looked over at the bag next to him, where Alberto should have been sleeping. He blinked a couple of times, and then suddenly he was wide awake.
Alberto was not there.
For a moment Luca couldn't react at all. Why would Alberto be gone? He turned his head to look for Giulia, and was horrified to see that she had vanished, too. One of them could have gotten up early for some reason, but both?
He crawled out of his bag and over to Alberto's. There was definitely not a person inside it – it was lying flat except for a lump just inside the opening that wasn't nearly big enough to be his friend. Even so, Luca lifted the end and looked inside, but there was no Alberto, only some kind of animal which opened a pair of glowing eyes to look back at him.
Luca cried out, startled. The animal screeched back at him. Luca scrambled backwards and nearly fell into the remains of their campfire, but managed to roll to one side, onto the bag that should have had Giulia in it. It, too, was empty – he could feel the rocks of the beach underneath it. Luca tried to stand up so he could run away, and his elbow came down on something small and warm.
Whatever it was, it yowled like Machiavelli with his tail stepped on. Luca shouted again and scrambled away, climbing up on a boulder as if to escape from rising water. There he clung and watched, wide-eyed, as the creatures in the sleeping bags wriggled their way to the openings and stuck their heads out.
At first Luca couldn't identify either animal. Then he realized that the one emerging from Giulia's bag was a very sleepy-looking red cat. "What's going on?" Giulia's voice asked.
The creature that slithered out of Alberto's bag turned out to be a brown fox that looked around, and then up at Luca, confused. "Luca?" said Alberto's voice. "What's wrong?" The fox pushed off the ground with its front paws, as if to stand up, but overbalanced and fell with a yelp.
The cat started to move towards it as if to help, but then stopped, staring. It looked down at its own paws and yowled before darting back into the sleeping bag to hide.
Luca watched all this and then swallowed hard. He held up his hands and looked at them – they looked exactly as they had last night, four-fingered human-like hands with a bit of sunburn on the backs. Nothing had happened to him. But the others...
"Alberto?" he asked carefully. "Giulia?"
The cat poked her head out of the sleeping back again, her orange eyes huge. The fox sat up and inspected his front paws, then dropped back onto all fours and turned in a circle, following his bushy brown and white tail, until he stepped on his own heel and nosedived into the beach. "What happened?" he asked, trying to untangle his limbs.
"I don't know!" said Luca.
"Why didn't it happen to you?" asked the cat.
"I don't know!" Luca repeated. He looked around in a panic for any clues, but none presented themselves. It had to be magic, of course. Back at Christmas time they'd found the genie from the old shipwreck, who had transformed Giulia and Massimo into sea monsters with his magic. This must be magic, too, because there was no other way it could happen... but where had it come from? They certainly hadn't tried any magic spells!
They needed help. They needed a grownup.
"I'll get Uncle Ugo!" Luca decided. He dashed into the water and dived under.
A moment later he came up again, coughing and wheezing and struggling for air. He'd tried to breathe and it hadn't worked – he'd tried to swim and it hadn't worked. Water, normally a welcoming element, had rejected him.
"Luca!" Alberto shouted. As he crawled back up the beach to shore, the fox and the can came running to meet him, tripping and stumbling as they weren't quite sure how their legs worked. They tried to grip him with their paws and could not, so they both grabbed his clothes in their teeth, and did their best to drag him up on shore that way.
There, Luca was able to get his breath back and eventually sit up, still coughing, to try to figure out what had just happened. He looked at his hands again. They were soaking wet, as were the sleeves of his shirt – and yet his hands still had four pink fingers and a thumb. He reached up and felt his face, then got a handful of his hair. Both were wet, but both were still human. The normally tasteless ocean had left a horrible warm salty flavour lingering in his mouth.
He looked up, and saw the fox shake to get the water off his fur – just like Alberto would shake the water off to transform.
"Hey!" the cat exclaimed, as the water sprayed her.
"I... I think it did affect me," said Luca. "I think... I think Giulia's a cat, and Alberto's a fox... and I'm a human." He hugged his shoulders, shivering. Being soaking wet was surprisingly cold.
A few seconds went by in silence.
"There was a fox on the cup," said Alberto. "It was riding the back of the donkey.
"There was a cat, too," Giulia agreed. "And a human. There was that lady in the middle."
"Did the cup do this?" Luca thought about that. "Ercole and his parents touched it, too... Ercole drank out of it. That's it – all four of us drank wine that had been in that cup!" he realized. "Did this happen to Ercole, too?"
"If so, I hope he's a slug," said Alberto. "We'll feed him to Uncle Ugo."
"We'll have to go find him and see," said Giulia.
Luca raised his head and looked back across the caldera to the town of Fira. It was a relatively quick swim to get there, but that was no longer an option. They were going to have to walk... and once the sun was up the day would get hot quickly.
"We better get started," he said weakly.