‘Excellent,’ said Hercules.

  ‘You’re not going over there, are you?’ asked the boy.

  ‘I am indeed,’ said Hercules. ‘For I am Hercules, son of Zeus, and in penance for my crimes I must perform the labour of killing the Nemean lion.’

  ‘That’s a tough break,’ said the boy. ‘It would be very good if you could kill the lion, though. It would halve my commute to work if I didn’t have to go the long way around to avoid its cave. I’ll tell you what, I’ll make a sacrifice to the gods to bring you good luck. Then, in thirty days, if you don’t return safely this way on your way home, I shall sacrifice myself to the gods.’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Iolaus Piggins. ‘You don’t need to do that. Dramatic heroic gestures are all very well in stories, but in real life if you want to achieve things you are much better off working consistently over a long period of time to incrementally achieve your goals. The gods barely pay attention to anything humans do down here in ancient Greece. What if they’re looking the other way when you sacrifice yourself?’

  ‘Iolaus speaks the truth, young fellow,’ said Hercules. ‘I bid you wait the thirty days. Then, when I pass back this way safely, we can sacrifice a lamb to Zeus together.’

  ‘Couldn’t you sacrifice a tofu burger together?’ asked Iolaus. ‘Something less violent. Also, less wasteful. This boy is a shepherd. He can’t go around sacrificing his workmates all the time.’

  Hercules just laughed. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and sometimes he had trouble following what Iolaus was saying, especially when she used big words, so they continued on their way.

  Hercules and Iolaus climbed to the top of the hill, and from the summit they looked down into the valley where the Nemean lion’s cave was situated. Immediately, they saw her – the great fearsome lion was lying spread out on the grass in the sunshine. She looked just like a regular household kitty cat enjoying the sun – except five hundred times bigger.

  Iolaus began to suspect that the Nemean lion’s reputation may have been overstated.

  ‘I shall launch my trusty arrows from this vantage point!’ declared Hercules. And before Iolaus could workshop some other ideas with him, Hercules stood up, put an arrow in his bow and fired it at the Nemean lion.

  Now, I know I say some critical things of Hercules and his intelligence, but this was just the sort of thing Hercules was seriously good at. He was really good at shooting arrows a very long way and with pin-point accuracy.

  His first shot hit the lion in the centre of her chest, right over her heart. She would have been dead instantly if it weren’t for the fact that she was a monstrous lion, so her skin was impervious to weapons. Which meant the arrow bounced right off. All that happened was that she stirred in her sleep, having felt what was, to her, a mere pin prick.

  Hercules couldn’t believe it, so he tried again. This time, aiming for her head. He struck a powerful shot right between her eyes, but, again, the arrow bounced right off. He tried again and again and again, but the arrows bounced off like they were made of rubber.

  ‘I’ve run out of arrows,’ said Hercules, looking into his empty quiver.

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Iolaus. ‘Let’s go home and strategise.’

  But thinking and strategising was not Hercules’ way.

  ‘We shall end it here and now!’ declared Hercules. He drew his trusty sword and ran down into the valley, brandishing it high above his head while screaming, ‘To honour Zeus, I kill thee!’

  He then swung the sword with all his might down onto the neck of the sleeping lion. But again, her monstrous skin didn’t even get a scratch. The only damage done was to Hercules’ sword. It bent in half from the weight of his blow.

  This time, the Nemean lion did stir. She opened one eye, lifted her head slightly and said to Hercules, ‘Would you mind? I’m trying to sleep,’ then lay back down.

  Hercules trudged back to the hilltop, very disgruntled.

  ‘Don’t be down-hearted,’ said Iolaus. ‘The arrows and the sword were both top-notch ideas. You’re just tired because we’ve been walking for weeks. How about we get some rest? Then, after a good night’s sleep, you can go down and bludgeon or shoot arrows at the lion in the morning.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Hercules. So he snuggled down and went to sleep.

  As soon as her uncle was snoring, Iolaus snuck down into the valley to have a word with the lion.

  ‘Yoohoo,’ called Iolaus as she approached the cave.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked the lion. ‘Have you come to sacrifice yourself to me? Because I already had four sheep and two villagers for dinner. I don’t think I could fit another thing in.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that,’ said Iolaus. ‘I’ve just come down for a quick chat. You see, my uncle, Hercules – demi-god, son of Zeus, really strong guy – he’s come to Nemea to kill you.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said the Nemean lion. ‘What did I ever do to him?’

  ‘Well, people in this area are kind of fed up with you eating the local residents,’ explained Iolaus. ‘So they were keen for a hero to visit and put a stop to it.’

  ‘Why didn’t they just say so?’ said the Nemean lion. ‘I was thinking of moving to sub-Saharan Africa anyway. Nemea is nice, but there aren’t many other lions about for me to socialise with. I’ve been planning to emigrate for years.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Iolaus. ‘The only thing is that my Uncle Hercules has sworn an oath to kill you.’

  ‘That’s awkward,’ said the Nemean lion. ‘I don’t really want to be killed.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Iolaus. ‘But I think we can find a way around it. You see, Hercules has never killed a lion before, so I’m confident we can come up with a compromise where he thinks he’s killed you.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’ asked the Nemean lion.

  ‘Is there an IKEA nearby?’ asked Iolaus.

  ‘Hang about,’ said Derrick. ‘There was no IKEA in the ancient Greek story days!’

  ‘Of course there was,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Where do you think Vikings bought their furniture?’

  Derrick couldn’t answer this question, so Nanny Piggins continued with her story.

  Iolaus popped into the nearest IKEA. Luckily, Nemea had a store that was open late. She picked up three faux fur rugs and sewed them together into a lion onesie. She then explained to the lion exactly what she had to do.

  Early the next morning, Iolaus went to Hercules, ‘Wakey, wakey, Uncle Hercules, time to kill the lion.’

  ‘But I don’t have any arrows left,’ complained Hercules.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Iolaus. ‘During the night I came up with a cunning plan.’

  ‘You did?’ said Hercules. ‘What, a plan that is even better than running down the hill and bludgeoning the lion with my club?’

  ‘Yes, that is a terrific idea,’ lied Iolaus, ‘but I’ve come up with a few extra ideas to make it work even better. Right now, the lion is asleep inside the cave. So I’ve blocked up one of the entrances. That means, if you sneak down there, you’ll be able to corner the lion, bash her with your club, skin the beast and take the hide back to Eurystheus to prove what you’ve done.’

  ‘Gosh, that does sound good,’ said Hercules. ‘I didn’t fancy chasing the lion about the countryside. She’s got twice as many legs as me. That would be an unfair advantage.’

  So that is what Hercules did. He snuck down the hill and crept into the cave.

  ‘He must have been terrified,’ said Michael.

  ‘Yes, he probably was a bit,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But Hercules was courageous. He never let a little thing like sure death or dreadful pain deter him.’

  He stepped into the cave where the Nemean lion was waiting. And she did exactly what Iolaus told her to do. The Nemean lion roared a deafening roar, then bashed Hercules about the head a few times to confuse him and make him think it was a proper fight. In response, Hercules swung his mighty club and bashed the lion right on the head. Which actually seriously irritated her, so the Nemean lion responded by biting Hercules’ finger off. He screamed in pain. And the Nemean lion realised this was her moment to escape. While Hercules was jumping up and down, trying to wrap a bandage around his finger, the Nemean lion snuck out the back entrance.

  ‘But Iolaus had blocked it,’ said Michael.

  ‘No, that’s just what Iolaus told Hercules. She had blocked most of it, but there was a lion-sized trapdoor. So the Nemean lion slipped through, ran to the Mediterranean and started swimming to Africa, where she spent the rest of her days living happily, chasing wildebeest and zebras like a normal lion.’

  But back to our story, Hercules was still in the cave. It was dark, he was confused from being bashed about the head and it really hurt where his finger had been. As he stumbled about in the dark, Hercules’ leg brushed up against fur. Lion fur! So Hercules lashed out with his club, blindly clubbing at the fur over and over again.

  ‘But it wasn’t the lion,’ said Boris.

  ‘No, it was the IKEA faux fur rug draped over a log,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  When Hercules grew weary of his clubbing, he realised that the lion had stopped moving, so he grabbed the lion’s skin and tore it from its body. At least that’s what he thought he was doing. He really was just whipping it off an old log. Iolaus had cleverly smeared the underside of the faux fur rug with ketchup, so it looked very convincing.

  Hercules staggered out of the cave triumphantly. He proudly draped the fur about himself as a cloak and started marching back to the palace of Eurystheus. Along the way he met the boy, so he didn’t have to sacrifice himself. Instead, Iolaus persuaded them both to sacrifice some delicious field mushrooms to the god of omelettes and they had a lovely meal.

  When Hercules returned to the palace, dressed in a huge, realistic-looking lion onesie and covered in fake blood, Eurystheus was terrified. He leapt into a huge brass pot and hid from Hercules.

  ‘He hid in a pot?’ asked Michael. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense. Hercules was super strong. He could just lift the lid off the pot.’

  ‘I know, it doesn’t make sense,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘But it’s written down in the original Greek story books that way. Eurystheus often hid in this pot. He must have been a deeply silly man.’

  So Hercules’ first labour was complete, and they all lived happily ever after. Well . . . the lion did. Not so much Hercules because he had another eleven labours to perform. The end.

  ‘Look, the train is coming,’ said Michael.

  ‘Excellent!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘Time to catch the train.’

  All the passengers on the train station cheered, and they all caught the train home.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  Is your star sign Leo? If so, you are connected to the Nemean lion! According to ancient Greek legend, when Hera heard that her beloved pet, the Nemean lion, was dead, she was very sad. So she placed it in the sky amongst the stars and the Nemean lion became the constellation Leo.

  Mum, Tammy and Stanley the dog were out taking a walk before school started. It was a cold, wet morning. Tammy did not want to be there. She wanted to be at home waiting for the start of her Zoom lesson with her class. Tammy did not like being late. But Mum did not like Tammy sitting in the house all day, slowly turning into a vegetable.

  ‘If you don’t move occasionally, fungus will start to grow on you, then algae will grow in the fungus and become lichen,’ said Mum. ‘Then a bird will burrow into your trunk and lay eggs and before you know it – you’ll be a habitat. Then the wildlife people will stick up fencing all around you and declare you an area of significant natural heritage and you’ll never be able to move again.’

  ‘You’re obsessed with fungus,’ accused Tammy.

  Mum nodded. ‘It’s true. I love a brightly coloured fungus on a fallen log. Or toadstool that suddenly appears fully-grown in the middle of the lawn. It’s magical how they go from not there to there.’

  ‘Really boring magic,’ said Tammy. ‘It’s hardly something out of Harry Potter. Abra-ca-fungus’.

  ‘Mmm, fungus is delicious when it’s in beef stroganoff,’ said Mum. ‘But I don’t want fungus growing on you. That would make me look like a bad mother.’

  Tammy made a scoffing sound. ‘Yeah, too late there.’

  ‘I suppose I do a few other things that may lead people to make that conclusion,’ said Mum.

  ‘Like the interpretive dancing,’ added Tammy.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t do interpretive dance in public places for myself. I do that to annoy you, when I have to punish you for something. It’s for your own good. That is good parenting.’

  ‘Uhuh,’ said Tammy. There was no point making a coherent argument with Mum. She would only make an incoherent argument back.

  ‘Anyway, because of these unwarranted misconceptions some people may have about my parenting skills based on outward appearances, we do have to maintain some standards,’ said Mum. ‘We can’t let fungus grow on you because you’re more stationary than a dead tree, so you have to take a walk at least once a day. It’s for you own good.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Tammy. ‘If I get a cold because you made me walk in the rain, that will be your fault.’

  ‘A cold is caused by a virus,’ said Mum. ‘You can’t catch a virus from rain.’

  ‘I’m going to have to change my clothes when we get home,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s probably not a bad thing,’ said Mum. Tammy had a talent for getting food all over her clothes.

  ‘Eurgh,’ grunted Tammy.

  ‘It’s only a short walk around the block,’ said Mum. ‘It only takes seventeen minutes. I know because I timed it. In Africa, children have to run fifty miles each day to get to and from school.’

  ‘Fifty miles?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Perhaps not literally fifty miles,’ conceded Mum. ‘But a long way. And often in snow storms.’

  ‘Snow storms in Africa?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Yes, which is why it’s so bad,’ said Mum. ‘Because it’s unexpected so they’re never dressed for it. If the African children have forgotten to take their snow shoes to school that day, they have to borrow two tennis rackets from the school and tie them to their feet with their shoelaces so they can get home. And it’s ever so hard to run in show shoes made out of tennis rackets.’

  ‘You learned everything you know about snow shoes from TV cartoons, didn’t you?’ said Tammy.

  ‘Well, I live in Australia,’ said Mum. ‘We have even less call for snow shoes here than they do in Africa. But they don’t look like they’d be easy to run in.’

  ‘From what you’ve seen in Bugs Bunny cartoons,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Bugs Bunny cartoons can be very informative,’ said Mum. ‘They’re very pro-carrots. And carrots are good for your bowels.’

  ‘You’re obsessed with bowels too,’ said Tammy.

  ‘It doesn’t do to ignore your bowels,’ said Mum.

  They were just crossing the creek and turning onto the main road, where there was a vacant block.

  Mum and Tammy looked in through the wire fence. A beekeeper kept hives in the middle of the vacant block, and in recent weeks there were more and more hives every day. There were about thirty stacked white hives now. Mum and Tammy always stopped to look. A vacant lot with thirty bee hives is much more interesting than a vacant lot with no bee hives. Just the previous week someone had put up a pagoda over the top of some of the hives. It looked like a stable from a nativity play where all the parts were played by bee hives. Then, two days ago, a shipping container had appeared near the stable.

  ‘The bee hives and the stable look so nice,’ said Mum. ‘But the shipping container – not so much.’

  ‘What do you suppose is inside?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘People smuggle things in shipping containers,’ said Mum. ‘People smuggle people in shipping containers. Perhaps it’s full of people.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Tammy. ‘If it was full of people, they’d come out and have a look around town.’

  ‘You’re thinking of the sweet shop aren’t you?’ said Mum.

  Tammy shrugged. She had been thinking of the sweet shop. She couldn’t imagine anyone coming to their town and not wanting to go there. To her mind, it was a much more significant attraction that the museum or the gardens or even the giant potato.

  ‘Perhaps the shipping container is full of contraband,’ said Mum. ‘Illegal things. Like doomsday devices and radioactive materials.’

  ‘Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the United States of America,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Now that would be something,’ said Mum. ‘If it was a whole shipping container full of chocolate Kinder Surprise eggs.’

  ‘They’re banned in America because the toys inside are choking hazards,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Just think how many people you could choke with a whole shipping container load,’ said Mum.

  ‘A lot,’ said Tammy.

  ‘You could take out all your enemies,’ said Mum.

  ‘If they were silly enough to eat the toys,’ said Tammy.

  ‘They’d have to be silly to be your enemy,’ said Mum. ‘Because you’re so lovely.’

  Tammy rolled her eyes, but she did secretly quite like the compliment.

  They were standing there, looking at the shipping container, lost in their own thoughts, when suddenly the door on the side opened and a man stepped out.

  ‘Someone’s coming out!’ said Mum.

  But this was not the most remarkable thing about the sight. The most remarkable thing was what he was wearing. He had on baggy white trousers, a baggy white jacket, thick white gloves and a broad brimmed white hat with a veil all the way around.

  Now Mum and Tammy both immediately recognised that this was a man dressed in a beekeeper’s protective suit, which made complete sense given the beehives. But neither Mum nor Tammy would ever let good sense or reality cloud their lack of judgement. Their imaginations went into overdrive. They watched the man in his strange white outfit walk awkwardly towards the hives. The outfit was so bulky he walked with a strange gait. His legs were wide apart and he walked slower than normal, like he was worried he would trip over and crash head first into a beehive.