‘Yes,’ said Apollo and Pan.

  ‘Do you have some sort of magical weapon you could lend me?’ asked Cadmus. ‘Something that’s good for hurting monsters. Perhaps that sickle he used on Zeus?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Apollo. ‘We didn’t think to bring that with us.’

  ‘You could use this,’ said Pan, holding out his panpipes to Cadmus.

  ‘Panpipes?’ asked Cadmus.

  Now if you don’t know what panpipes are, they are a musical instrument, sort of like a whistle. Well, really, a dozen whistles strapped together in a line. They all have different notes. But they are only made of hollowed out reeds, so not exactly the most fearsome weapon.

  ‘What do you want me to do with that?’ asked Cadmus. ‘Throw it at his head? Because Typhon’s got a hundred heads, so you’d need to lend me another ninety-nine panpipes.’

  ‘No, said Pan. ‘Use it to play him a tune. My panpipes play a melody so beautiful it will soothe even the most savage beast.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Cadmus. ‘But I’ve no idea how you all came to be immortals when you are so bad at planning and preparation.’

  So, Cadmus dressed up as a shepherd and wandered down into the valley where they knew Typhon was recovering, and she played the pipes as she wandered. At this stage, Typhon was feeling really sorry for himself. Waiting for wounds to heal, without the help of band-aids, was really horrible and boring. When Typhon heard the pipes, it made his soul lift. It put a smile on all one hundred of his faces.

  ‘Come here, shepherd,’ Typhon called out. ‘And play to me some more. I can bear my pains better when I hear such sweet tunes.’

  So Cadmus came closer and played some more.

  ‘Aaah, that is beautiful,’ said Typhon. He was a great music appreciator, which was surprising, what with him being a horrible monster.

  ‘Oh, I am glad to cheer you up,’ said Cadmus. ‘I’m just sorry that you can’t hear my lyre.’

  ‘What?’ said Typhon.

  ‘You’re obviously a great music aficionado,’ said Cadmus. ‘You have impeccable taste. So, you would really like my lyre, because the music I can play on that is even more beautiful than the music I make with the pipes.’

  ‘You must play this lyre for me,’ demanded Typhon.

  ‘Of course, I’d be glad to,’ said Cadmus. ‘Sadly, there was an avalanche and a boulder fell on my lyre last week. It totally destroyed the strings. I can’t play it until I restring the lyre and, to do that, I would need to find some sinews. Sinews make the best lyre strings, you know?’

  ‘Why, I happen to have some sinews,’ said Typhon.

  ‘You do?’ said Cadmus. ‘What a coincidence. Could I borrow them?’

  ‘Yes, so long as you promise to play this lyre for me,’ said Typhon.

  ‘Of course,’ said Cadmus. ‘It will take me a while to restring the lyre. It’s a tricky job. But if you give these sinews to me now, I’ll take them back to my shack, restring the lyre tonight and come back to play to you tomorrow.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ said Typhon. He hobbled over to the cave, found Zeus’ sinews, brought them out and handed them over to Cadmus.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ said Typhon.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Cadmus.

  ‘She didn’t mean that at all, did she?’ asked Michael.

  ‘No,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘But in her defence, Typhon was a terrible murderous monster – Zeus was pretty terrifying as well – and she did have her trotters crossed behind her back the whole time just to be on the safe side. She literally had to decide between a hundred dragon-headed monster (admittedly with impeccable taste in music) and the king of the gods, who had kidnapped her sister. In the end, Cadmus picked Zeus – king of the gods. You may have heard the expression “two heads are better than one”, but that’s just not true. One head is way better than a hundred heads, if those hundred heads breath fire and have pointy dragon teeth.’

  Cadmus gave the sinews to Apollo, who rushed them back to Zeus. Zeus popped his sinews back in – and before you ask, no, I have no idea how he did it. He was king of the gods, so I just assume Zeus knew more about orthopaedic surgery than anyone else in ancient history. Either that or he used magic. He was a god after all, so he had a few tricks up his sleeve.

  The next morning, when Cadmus did not return with the lyre, Typhon realised he had been tricked.

  He looked off into the distance. He could just make out the top of Mount Olympus. And he saw a lightning storm, where Zeus was warming up for round two. So Typhon made a run for it. He knew Zeus would be really steamed about the whole stealing his sinews thing.

  Typhon ran as fast as he could. His plan was to wade back across the Mediterranean, run across Africa and hide in Far East Asia again. But Zeus caught up with him just as he was wading into the sea. The fight was on and the rematch took things to another level. They wrestled and lunged and poked and punched each other – there were nipple cripples and wedgies galore. It was tremendously undignified.

  Zeus was really well-rested, having not been able to move for a week due to his sinew-lessness, and he was super cross that Typhon had played such a rotten trick on him. He threw thunderbolt after thunderbolt at Typhon, until he totally ran out of thunderbolts. He was still angry, so he grabbed the next nearest thing to throw. And since he was in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea – the nearest thing to hand was . . . the island of Sicily. So Zeus picked that up –

  ‘Wait a second,’ said Samantha. ‘The island of Sicily covers 25,711 square kilometres!’ She knew this because her geography textbook was open to exactly that page.

  ‘Yes, and they didn’t have the metric system back then, so it would have been even more,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But Zeus was super strong and super angry. He lifted up the whole island and threw it at Typhon.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Michael.

  Typhon was pretty shocked to see an entire landmass flying towards his head. He didn’t have time to run away. The whole thing landed on him, crushing him into the bottom of the sea.

  ‘Oh,’ said Samantha. Typhon may be a horrendous savage monster, but having a whole island fall on your head was kind of harsh.

  ‘And that is how Mount Etna came to be formed,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  Whey Sicily landed on Typhon, he was such a huge giant it created a huge lump in the island, and that lump was named Mount Etna. And that is why Mount Etna is a volcano. Occasionally, still to this day, Typhon’s hundred heads will let out a fire blast, shooting flame and lava up in to the sky. The end, time for bed.

  ‘Cool,’ said Michael.

  ‘That’s a wonderful story,’ said Samantha. ‘But I don’t think my geography teacher is going to believe that version. I think he wants me to explain the formation of Sicily as it was caused by the global movement of tectonic plates.’

  ‘Well, you can talk about science and reality if you like, but it’s much more tedious,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Whereas if you write out the adventures of my cousin Cadmus, your teacher may give you terrible marks, but he will actually read it. And that’s what’s really important.’

  And as Samantha had eaten so much bougatsa at this stage, she totally agreed.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  You would think that the word typhoon (as in a hurricane) comes from Typhon the Titan, but no one is sure. It could also come from the Arabic words ‘Al Tufan’ which means great flood or storm. Or the Cantonese word ‘tai-fung’ for great storm. Or the Hindi word ‘toofan’ for big storm. No one is sure which one came first. But it’s a really cool word, so who ever had the idea, it seems like it caught on.

  Mum and Tammy were walking into town. They didn’t talk as much as they used to. Tammy was getting older and more reticent. Mum had a lot on her mind with work. They’d been walking in silence for some time. They cut through the gardens as they always did on the way to the shops. There were some older teenagers playing about with a football – calling out to each other, kicking it across the path where people were walking through.

  ‘You know,’ said Mum. ‘When I was young, I was young.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said Tammy.

  ‘I mean, I thought like a young person,’ said Mum. ‘Then I got older and I was proud to be broad-minded and tolerant, and open to the new ideas of young people. But now I’m even older and I realise, those days are gone. I am old.’

  ‘You’re fifty,’ agreed Tammy.

  ‘I’m forty-six!’ corrected Mum.

  ‘Numbers six and over are rounded up,’ said Tammy.

  ‘How come you don’t know your times tables, but you know that?’ asked Mum.

  Tammy didn’t respond. She just smirked. She knew Mum loved maths, so it was extra especially cruel to use it against her.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mum. ‘My point is – I’m old now. I know it. Not because of my age . . .’

  ‘Which is fifty,’ said Tammy.

  Mum ignored her.

  ‘I know I am old because I can’t keep up with the new ways of thinking,’ said Mum.

  ‘You’re racist,’ said Tammy.

  ‘No, I’m not racist,’ said Mum.

  ‘You’re homophobic?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘No, I’m not homophobic either,’ said Mum. ‘I’m intolerant of the haircuts of teenage boys. I see them and I have an overwhelming urge to give them a haircut.’

  Mum was actually quite good at cutting hair, so this wasn’t as random as it sounds.

  ‘I thought you liked mullets,’ said Tammy.

  ‘I do like the irony of mullets,’ said Mum. ‘But mullets are only the starting point. Every year, teenage boys find new and bizarre ways to have hair that looks dreadful. Mullets can look nice.’

  ‘Blurg,’ said Tammy.

  ‘They can,’ said Mum. ‘Dreadlocks can look nice. But somehow, whatever they pick, teenagers make it look dreadful. I think it’s the haircut combined with the awkwardness and the pimples. I don’t like the reality of it. And they don’t have to look at their ridiculous heads. They’re walking eyesores.’

  ‘Ahuh,’ said Tammy.

  ‘You know, I could bring my hair-clippers down to the gardens,’ said Mum. ‘Hide in a bush. Then, when a teenager walks by, leap out like a ninja and cut his hair.’

  Mum had a blackbelt in Hapkido so she had the skills to accomplish this.

  ‘That would be assault,’ said Tammy. ‘If you jumped out of a bush and wrestled a teenager to the ground, then cut his hair – that would be assault.’

  ‘Well, yes, technically,’ agreed Mum. ‘And it would probably be a bad a look for a children’s author to start assaulting teenagers. But what if I gave them haircuts so good that, when I showed them the vast improvement, they instantly forgave me for the assault part?’

  ‘That would have to be a really good haircut,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Well, it couldn’t be any worse,’ said Mum.

  ‘You’d get in trouble with their mothers,’ said Tammy.

  ‘No, the mothers would be deeply grateful,’ said Mum. ‘In fact, mothers would be begging me to leap out and cut their sons’ hair. They’d be texting me to tell them when they were on their way. Telling me which bush to hide in. They might even pay me. I’d be able to quit my job.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Tammy. ‘I still think you’d get in trouble.’

  ‘Oooo,’ said Mum. ‘Not if I hid my identity with a costume. I could be a superhero. Just like in those Marvel movies you like.’

  ‘Iron Man saves the universe,’ said Tammy. ‘He doesn’t cut hair.’

  ‘Ah, but if he had given everyone haircuts,’ said Mum, ‘maybe he wouldn’t have had to save the universe. It’s the broken-windows theory. Police departments have found that if you police all the small crimes, it reduces the amount of serious crime.’

  ‘So you’re going to save the planet by cutting hair,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Every generation needs a hero,’ said Mum. ‘I’m prepared to take on the challenge.’

  ‘The teenage boys will run away,’ said Tammy.

  ‘That’s a good thing,’ said Mum. ‘Teenagers spend too much time on their devices and looking at screens. If they’re running away from middle-aged ladies with hair clippers, that will be giving them much-needed exercise.’

  ‘So only fast people will have terrible hair,’ said Tammy.

  ‘No,’ said Mum. ‘Because they’ll be running all the time, they’ll be sweating all the time, so they’ll want a nice short haircut.’

  ‘It’ll never work,’ said Tammy.

  ‘I could use drones,’ said Mum. ‘Drones with clippers attached. I’d operate them from a remote location so as to evade the police. The drones would roost in trees then swoop like magpies as teenagers ran past.’

  ‘Why not just train actual magpies?’ said Tammy.

  ‘Yes! That’s an idea,’ said Mum, her eyes lighting up as she thought about it. ‘But how would they hold the clippers? Magpies don’t have opposable thumbs.’

  ‘You could gaffer tape the clippers to their feet,’ said Tammy.

  ‘That would be cruel,’ said Mum. ‘I can’t be cruel to magpies.’

  ‘But you can be cruel to teenagers?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mum. ‘People like birds. Well, they do the eleven months of the year when magpies aren’t dive-bombing people’s heads. But no one likes teenagers. Largely because of their haircuts. You see, it’s a vicious circle. I have to break the cycle.’

  ‘They’ll just start wearing bicycle helmets,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Gosh, you’re probably right,’ said Mum. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Teenagers are so devious.’

  ‘They get clear plastic ones so you can still see their hair through the helmet,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Eugh,’ said Mum. ‘So it will be a terrible haircut and they’ll have hat hair.’

  ‘You’d better stick with writing children’s books,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Humph, I suppose so,’ said Mum.

  ‘You like writing children’s books,’ Tammy reminded her.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mum. ‘But it so rarely involves wrestling, and I have so much pent-up rage from pretending to be polite to librarians.’

  ‘I know, Mum,’ said Tammy. ‘Do you want to go to the bookshop and laugh at all the books on the remainder table?’

  Mum smiled. This always cheered her up. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  Real life ninjas in ancient Japan often had long hair themselves so, if there was a time machine and they could visit us today, there is no way they would go along with Mum’s crazy plans to attack teenager boys and give them haircuts.

  ‘Why are you looking so sad, Michael?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Is the chocolate cake I put in your lunchbox not agreeing with you? Was there not enough of it and you’re coming down with the first symptoms of starvation?’

  ‘No, the eighteen slices you jammed into my lunchbox for recess were enough to see me through until the family-sized pavlova you packed for my lunch,’ Michael assured her. ‘There’s nothing wrong. I’m just thinking about my homework.’

  ‘You poor boy,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Thinking is the absolute worst! Especially when you have to think about homework. I do believe this “homework” your teachers keep setting you is a barbaric torture that should have been outlawed along with all other medieval torture devices. I mean, they won’t let teachers stretch you on the rack anymore or lock you in a dungeon full of rats. And yet they are allowed to set you algebra – which to my mind is twice as bad.’

  ‘It’s not too bad,’ said Michael. ‘They just want me to write an essay.’

  ‘But essays are dreadful too!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Essays are all about arguing a point reasonably and logically. And where is the fun in that? When I argue things, I like to do it passionately and irrationally! Preferably while throwing a lemon meringue pie at someone’s face.’

  ‘Well, you might be able to help me with this essay,’ said Michael. ‘We’re learning about King Arthur and Camelot. So I have to write about the bravest knight at the round table.’

  ‘Wasn’t that Sir Lancelot?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Or his son, Sir Galahad?’ said Derrick.

  ‘But King Arthur was a knight too,’ said Michael. ‘And he was really brave as well. Was it him? Do you know the answer, Nanny Piggins?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It is all debatable. They all had dark secrets that they kept from the ancient Celtic story writers. But I can say for sure who was the least-brave knight at the round table.’

  ‘You can?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Oh yes, because the least-brave knight at the round table was a distant relative of mine – called Bramwell Piggins,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

  ‘So this was another one of your male relatives who had the same name as your brother?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Yes, it is a family name,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The Bramwell Piggins who was a knight at King Arthur’s court was Sir Bramwell Piggins the fifty-ninth.’

  ‘Was he a lot like your brother?’ asked Samantha. The children knew Bramwell Piggins the one hundred and fifty-seventh quite well. He was a very lazy pig.

  ‘Yes, the ancient Celtic Bramwell was exactly the same as our modern day version,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Regrettably, the ne’er-do-well genes run strong in the male side of the Piggins family.’

  ‘Did the ancient Sir Bramwell disgrace himself?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Let me tell you the story.’

  So the children and Boris all snuggled round, while Nanny Piggins told them the tale.

  My distant cousin Bramwell Piggins was so useless that it fell to my other distant cousin, Queen Arthur, to look after him. You remember I told you about her . . .

  ‘She was the one who pulled the sword from the stone and became Queen of the Britons,’ said Michael.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  It was a tiresome job. Ruling an entire island was all right. And gallivanting about the countryside on quests was positively fun. But the responsibility was a hassle. And the biggest hassle of all was finding her ne’er-do-well brother, Bramwell, a job.