Page 52 of The Summer Show

The judges began to chant.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Memo translated in my ear. Whether it was natural or the result of pharmaceuticals, he had the exuberance of a golden retriever. “Fight!”

Both teams had a few minutes to strategize. Given that Greek was—as the label said—all Greek to me, I had no idea what that strategy was. To compensate, I stuck close to the others and kept my shield up around nose level and peeped over the top.

So far nobody had clashed.

We were all a little confused. Not really surprising. Instead of warriors, we were regular people who’d been transplanted into a strange situation. We were cacti in a rainforest.

Then I spotted what I’d missed the first time. Each palace had its own flag. Not dangling from a towering flagpole, but swinging from a thin, wooden pole.

A wooden pole made for stealing.

Holy cannoli. This was Capture the Flag. I knew how to do Capture the Flag. Too bad they hadn’t led with that. Or maybe they had and Memo skipped over that part.

To be fair, Greek speech moved at warp speed, and translating took time. He was doing the best he could.

Over the top of the shield, I eyed my team. Everyone was stuck in a polite stalemate. There was no real conflict. No genuine enemy. They were trapped in their everyday civilized roles, unsure about what to do. And here I was, someone who knew how to get a bunch of kids up and dancing.

Lead by example. If you do a goofy dance, kids are a hundred percent going to drop everything to groove right alongside you.

Time to put on a show.

I moved my shield aside, hoisted my spear. Nick looked at me.

What are you doing? his face said.

What needs to be done, mine said back to him. I flicked my gaze at the flag atop his team’s palace. His eyes followed the trajectory.

The narrowing of his eyes was a clear, I don’t think so.

I ignored it.

Running in these boots wasn’t easy. It was even less easy while toting the awkward weight of the shield and the shifting balance of the spear. I was fully aware that I looked like a goober as I charged at the other team’s makeshift palace.

Did I care?

Nope. I knew all the verses of Baby Shark—and the hand movements. Clanking across an arena in a Hoplite outfit was nothing compared to Grandpa Shark.

There was a moment’s delay where everyone behind me processed what I was doing.

Slow at first, then all at once, it sank in.

Although I couldn’t see them, the roar behind me was unmistakable. Nick’s team tried to make chase, but my team wasn’t having it. Howling animal noises, they rushed at the other team with their spears and shields.

Meanwhile, my eye was firmly on the prize. A plain blue flag strapped to a wooden pole, fluttering helplessly in the night’s breeze.

I almost made it.

Almost won the whole game in seconds.

My foot was on the ladder’s first rung.

Next thing I knew there were feet thundering behind me. Someone on Nick’s team was chasing me, trying to save their flag.

Time to hurry.

With a hoot of premature victory, I flung the spear and shield aside, freeing my hands. In a desperate attempt to escape the enemy soldier, I threw my body up the ladder and whacked my face on the rungs. In the same moment, my pursuer lunged.