The Workshop Teacher Who Was HEPHAESTUS

Part One. The Man With the Wobble

The first time we met Mr Heston was on a Monday, and he was WALKING WITH A WOBBLE.

He used a big wooden stick with a brass top, and he leaned on it a little with every step. He was wide and strong, with a black beard, an apron covered in scorch marks and arms like two cannonballs. His badge said MR HEPHESTON, DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY.

"Everyone, this is Mr Hepheston," said Mr Harris, clutching his clipboard. "He is going to start a new club in the old shed. It is called the Making Club. Please do not touch anything hot."

"Call me Mr Heston," said Mr Heston. "Everyone does. The other one takes too long to say."

Then he picked up the staff room kettle, which had just boiled, with his bare hand, and poured himself a cup of tea.

He didn't even blink.

Mr Harris blinked for him. Twice. Then he remembered his other news, which was the sort of news he always remembers at the worst moment.

"And on Friday," he said, "we have an Inspector coming. Ms Crabtree. She will look at everything in the whole school, and if she likes it, we will win an award. I would like every club to show her something wonderful."

"I have an idea," said Mr Heston.

"Please don't tell me," said Mr Harris. "I would like to be surprised. In a calm way."

Part Two. Bigger on the Inside

On Tuesday, Alex and Felix Bailey went to look inside the old shed. They are twins, so they have a system. Alex goes in first and notices things. Felix goes in second and asks about them. Then they swap.

Alex noticed that the shed was much bigger on the inside. It had a roaring fire in one corner, and an anvil, and hundreds of tools hanging from the ceiling like silver rain, and it smelled of hot metal and toast. In the corner was a tall chair made of gold, with a cloth thrown over it and a rope round it. A card was tied to the rope. It said, in small neat writing, DON'T SIT. FROM MY CROSSER DAYS.

Alex also noticed a wooden sign lying flat on a bench, with the paint still wet. It said PLEASE ASK BEFORE YOU TOUCH. It had a tiny drip on the last letter.

At the very back of the shed was something enormous under a huge cloth. It was breathing. Slowly. Like a very big dog that was fast asleep.

Willow had come in with us. She is the Bengal Reading Cat, and she is very dignified. She walked all the way round the shed, sniffed the anvil, and settled on a stool near the door, where the warm air came in. She wrapped her tail round her paws and half closed her eyes. Willow likes places that are warm and have something interesting in the corner.

Felix asked, "Mr Heston, how did you fit all this in?"

Mr Heston said, "Practice."

Then Alex noticed the helpers.

There were two of them, small and golden, shaped like girls, but made entirely of shiny metal. They were polishing spanners. One of them walked over with a cup of tea on a tray, and said in a tinkly voice, "Careful, it's hot."

Mr Heston took the cup in his bare hand.

Felix asked, "Are they robots?"

"They are my friends," said Mr Heston. "I made them a long time ago. I couldn't walk very fast, you see, so I made some helpers who could walk for me." He patted one gently on the head. "They are better at it than I am."

He said it without a bit of sadness. He said it the way you say that your friend is good at football.

"What is the sign for?" asked Alex.

"Ah," said Mr Heston. "For the big fellow at the back. I haven't hung it up yet. The paint is slow."

Both twins said, "We need Maya."

Part Three. Behind the Compost Bin

Maya Singh was behind the compost bin, as usual. She said she had been there since breakfast, and she had already worked it out.

Maya has a notebook, a sharp pencil, and the biggest brain in the school, and she has read the Greek book AND the Roman one. Kenji and Ollie sat down on upside-down buckets to listen. Elfine and Marion came and sat on the wall to listen too. They are twin cousins, big kids, and they help with all sorts of clubs. Elfine wears glasses and tells facts. Marion carries the things.

"Mr Heston is HEPHAESTUS," said Maya. "The Greeks said it like Heh-FEE-stus. The Romans called him Vulcan, and that is where we get the word volcano."

"So he's the god of volcanoes?" asked Kenji.

"Partly," said Maya. "He is the god of fire, forges, metalwork and inventing. In the old stories he works underground, and every time a volcano rumbles, people said it was him hammering."

"Bronze is made of copper and tin," said Elfine. "That's a fact."

"Thank you, Elfine," said Maya. "It gets sadder, though. Do you want the whole story?"

We all said yes.

Part Four. The God Who Was Thrown Away

Maya said that long ago, on top of Mount Olympus, there was a god called Hephaestus who was born with a wobbly leg. In some of the stories it was a bad foot. In some it was both legs. Everybody agrees he walked differently.

His mum was Hera, the queen of the gods. She wanted perfect children, and when she saw his foot, she got upset, and she did something that was not kind. She threw him off the mountain.

Felix gasped.

"He fell for a whole day," said Maya, "and landed in the sea."

"Is he all right?" asked Alex.

"He was," said Maya. "Two kind sea goddesses called Thetis and Eurynome found him. They took him to a cave under the waves, and they looked after him for nine years."

Ollie said quietly, "That's a good thing for them to do."

"It is," said Maya. "And in that cave, he learned to make things. Brooches, and necklaces, and tiny tools, with a forge he built himself. He got better and better at it. Every time something went wrong he did it again, and a bit differently, and one day it went right."

"Practice," said Alex.

"Practice," said Maya. "And then he got so good that every god heard about him. He made Zeus's thunderbolts. He made golden palaces. He made the helpers like the ones we saw, to help him walk, and a giant of bronze who guarded an island."

Kenji said, "So he's a hero."

"I think he is," said Maya.

Alex said, "And he made all of it because he did things in his own way."

Marion, who does not say very much, nodded very hard.

Part Five. The Golden Chair

Maya lowered her voice. She had one more part, and she said it might be the tricky one.

She said that when Hephaestus grew up, he was still hurt, and he was still a bit cross with his mum. So he made her a present. It was the most beautiful golden throne anybody had ever seen. When Hera sat in it, clunk, invisible bands wrapped round her, and she couldn't get up.

"He TRAPPED her?" said Ollie.

"Yes," said Maya. "She begged him to let her go, but he wouldn't come to Olympus. The other gods had to send a friend to cheer him up and talk to him. In the end, he came, and he let her go, and they were friends again."

"That was a bit much," said Felix.

"But I think I'd have been cross too," said Alex.

"Both of those are true," said Maya. "It's complicated. Hephaestus made something he wasn't proud of, and then he put it right. That is the big idea. Big feelings are allowed, and we still have to be kind. I think he knows that. He's a bit careful with the chairs now."

Felix thought of the card on the rope. From my crosser days.

"Alex," he said. "That chair in the shed."

"I know," said Alex. "We don't sit on it."

Part Six. The List

Alex held the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because they always share jobs. They wrote the evidence in a column.

1. THE LIMP AND THE STICK. Hephaestus is always drawn with a bad leg.

2. THE KETTLE. Nobody's hand is that tough.

3. THE GOLDEN HELPERS. Two of them. Shiny. They walk by themselves.

4. THE SHED. Much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

5. THE VOLCANO RUMBLE. Every afternoon at half past two, the ground under the shed goes rumble, rumble, rumble. The teacups jiggle. Mr Heston says it is "just the boiler."

At half past two that afternoon, we all stood in the playground to check. At exactly half past, the ground went rumble, rumble, rumble. Ollie's lunchbox hopped across the bench. Kenji said, "That's nice, it's like a giant is purring."

A grey head popped up from the boiler room steps. It was Mr Haydes, in his woolly hat.

"It's not me," he said. "I only do the boiler. I would never make a noise like that. That noise has FEELINGS in it." He went back down, and shut the door.

"Strongest list since Mr Thorley's," said Felix.

"We don't talk about Mr Thorley's," said Alex. And Maya underlined the volcano rumble twice.

Part Seven. The Wrong Kind of Laughing

On Wednesday, something happened that made us all feel cross.

Gideon Fox, from the class above, walked past the shed with his friends. He is a big kid. He is the kind of big kid who walks as if the playground is his. He saw Mr Heston coming out with his stick, and he did a wobbly walk behind him, going clomp, clink, clomp, clink, with a silly face. His friends laughed.

Mr Heston didn't turn round. But his shoulders sagged, just a little, as if he had heard it before.

Felix went very red. He said, "That is not funny."

"It's only a joke," said Gideon.

"A joke is when everybody's laughing," said Alex. "He isn't."

Gideon shrugged, and he and his friends went off, but one of the friends looked back, a bit uncertain, and then looked away.

We stood there for a bit. It was quiet. Willow, who had been sitting on the shed step, walked slowly after Gideon, stopped, gave him a long cold stare, and came back. It was the most disapproving thing we have ever seen a cat do.

Then Mr Heston turned round, and said, in a gentle voice, "Thank you, you two. But you do not have to stick up for me."

"We do, though," said Alex.

"That's what friends do," said Felix.

Mr Heston looked at them both for a long moment, and a tiny spark floated up out of his beard.

"Well," he said. "Making Club starts in ten minutes. Anyone who likes."

Part Eight. The Beetle That Wouldn't

Making Club had Alex, Felix, Maya, Kenji, Ollie, Elfine and Marion, and Dot from Reception, who had only been at the school a little while. Dot is very small and very quiet, and she came in last and stood by the door. Mr Heston gave her the job of oiling the golden helpers' hinges. She did it with her tongue between her teeth, and the helpers said, "Thank you, Dot," in their tinkly voices, and she went pink all the way to her ears.

Mr Heston handed each of us a tray of little parts. Gears, wires, springs, tiny silver screws.

"Today," he said, "we are making a beetle. A bronze beetle that walks."

Nobody had ever made a beetle before. It did not go well.

Felix and Alex made theirs together. Felix wound the spring. Alex put in the gears. They stood it on the bench, and it went whirr, and then the legs flew off in three directions, and the whole thing fell over and lay on its back, fizzing.

"That's a good start," said Mr Heston, cheerfully, sweeping the legs into a tin. "My first one ran away."

The second try was better. The beetle took one step, went tick, wobbled to the left, and sat down.

"The screws won't hold," said Felix. "I keep tightening and they keep coming loose."

"Ah," said Mr Heston. He took the little screwdriver, and turned it the wrong way round. "Mine turn the other way. All my screws do. Righty-loosey, lefty-tighty. I have always made them like that. It's a habit. It makes my things hard to take apart, which is useful, and hard to put together, which is less useful."

"That's the wrong way round!" said Ollie.

"It's the other way round," said Mr Heston. "It's different. There is no wrong."

Alex noticed that the beetle had a gear in it with a tiny hole, and none of us could reach inside. He pointed.

"Dot," said Felix. "Can you reach?"

Dot's fingers were the only ones small enough. She put the last tiny screw in with the tip of her finger, with her tongue out, and turned it the Heston way. Then Alex wound the spring, and Felix set the beetle down on the bench.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

It walked all the way across the bench, turned round at the edge as if it had thought about it, and walked back.

We cheered so loudly that Willow got up and left the room. She came back, and sat in the doorway with her back to us, which means she was happy but didn't want to say so.

Part Nine. Ms Crabtree

On Friday, the Inspector arrived.

She was tall and thin, with a grey coat, a very straight nose, and a clipboard held like a shield. Her badge said MS CRABTREE, SCHOOL INSPECTOR. She had sharp little eyes that looked at everything and wrote it all down.

She went round the whole school, with Mr Harris trotting behind her. She looked at the library (Mr Jackson waved). She looked at the dinner hall (Mrs Ibbs corrected her spelling). She looked at the playground, where Mr Thorley made a small rumble, and Mr Pickering the lollipop man held up his lollipop at her, just in case.

At last she got to the shed. Mr Heston opened the doors with a flourish.

"Welcome," he said, "to the Making Club."

Mr Heston had decided to show her the Making Club properly. The helpers had tea ready. The beetle walked across the bench. Dot held up a very small golden spoon she had polished, and said, "I did that." Ms Crabtree wrote it down.

Then Mr Heston pulled the cloth off the thing at the back.

It was a GIANT. It was made of bronze, shiny as a new penny, and it was as tall as the shed. It had thick arms and legs, and big round hands, and a smooth face with two orange eyes that glowed softly like a night-light. In the middle of its chest was a tiny little door, open, and inside, little gears turned. At the back of its left ankle was a round bronze cap, the size of a jam-jar lid.

"This is TALOS," said Mr Heston. "He guards things. I made him a long time ago, to look after an island. He is very loyal, and very careful. The only thing you must remember is..."

He turned round to point at the sign on the bench. It was still lying flat. The paint had dried, but it hadn't been hung up yet. Mr Heston had been so busy making tea that he had forgotten.

"...the only thing you must remember," he said, a little slower, "is to ask first."

Maya whispered, "Oh no."

Ms Crabtree frowned. She wrote something down. She looked at Mr Harris, and said, "Is this safe for children?"

"Er," said Mr Harris.

And then she did something she shouldn't have. She walked up to Talos, picked up his enormous bronze hand, turned it over, and said, "It looks like a toy."

Part Ten. Intruder

Talos's eyes flashed bright red.

There was a deep WHIRRRRR, and he turned his head to Ms Crabtree. His voice was like two dustbins banging together.

"INTRUDER."

Ms Crabtree dropped her clipboard.

"INTRUDER. PROTECT. SCHOOL."

"Talos, wait!" shouted Mr Heston. "She is a guest! Talos!"

But Talos's gears were spinning too fast. He stepped out of the shed, THUD, THUD, THUD, straight past us all, and into the playground.

Then he began to run.

Everything shook. Windows rattled. Dinner ladies hid under tables. The playground flag went twang. Talos ran round the whole school, shouting, "INTRUDER! INTRUDER!" Mr Pickering stuck out his lollipop and said "STOP!" in his firmest voice, and Talos stepped carefully over him, and carried on.

Carefully, Alex noticed. He had stepped over Mr Pickering. He had not touched anyone.

"He doesn't want to hurt anybody," he said.

"He thinks everyone is an intruder," said Maya. "That is not the same."

Mr Harris ran in circles. Ms Crabtree hid behind a bush with her clipboard on her head. Mr Heston went limping after the giant, clomp, clink, clomp, clink, and every step was slower than the one before. He was out of breath, and his face had gone white.

"I didn't make him to frighten anyone," he said. "I made him to help. Why won't he listen?"

Part Eleven. The Plan

It was Mrs Tibbs, our teacher, who took charge of the little ones. She walked calmly out into the playground with her whistle, and said, in her very ordinary voice, "Reception, hands up if you would like a story in the hall."

Dot went first. She is small, but she held up her hand, and took the hand of the smallest child next to her, and walked them in a line to the hall door, with Elfine and Marion at the back to count heads. Dot had not been brave enough to speak in assembly yet. But she said "This way, this way," twelve times, to twelve children, very clearly, and they went.

"I will stay with them," said Mrs Tibbs. "You see to the giant. Mr Harris, please stop running."

"I am not running in circles," said Mr Harris, running in circles.

Meanwhile Mr Heston had sunk down on the bench with his head in his hands. We sat on either side of him.

"Mr Heston," said Alex. "Every machine has a way to switch it off."

"Every one," said Felix.

Mr Heston lifted his head. A very faint smile began under his beard.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it does. Talos has one single vein, from his head to his foot, and all of his energy is in it. At the bottom, in the ankle, there is a little bronze plug. If you turn it out, the energy drains away and he goes to sleep."

"So somebody has to turn the plug out," said Kenji.

"Yes. But I cannot run fast enough, and he is the size of a house."

Alex looked at Felix. Felix looked at Alex.

"We'll do it," they said together.

"No," said Mr Heston. "It is much too dangerous."

Maya said, very quietly, "Mr Heston. They know it is. They are scared. But they are clever, and careful, and they are not going alone."

Mr Heston looked at them. His eyes were very bright.

"Then you will do it my way," he said. "Not too close. I will be right behind you the whole time. Gloves first, because his ankle is warm."

One of the golden helpers appeared, carrying two pairs of thick leather gloves, and gave one pair to each twin. Mr Heston took a small silver spanner out of his apron. It glowed warm in the twins' hands.

"My best," he said.

Part Twelve. Please

Talos came round the corner of the school for the third time. The ground shook. He was heading straight for the gate, with two furious red eyes.

Alex and Felix stood on the tarmac, side by side, holding the spanner between them. Mr Heston stood a little way back. Their knees were knocking. Their hands were shaking in the gloves. Both of them were frightened, and both of them stood exactly where they were.

"He is cross because somebody touched him without asking," said Maya, behind them. "That is the only rule he has. Nobody asked him anything all day."

"Then we'll ask," said Felix.

He took a big breath. He had to shout. "TALOS! PLEASE! MAY WE HELP YOU?"

The giant did not stop. But his stomping changed. THUD, thud, thud, slower. His great head turned.

"MAY WE?" shouted Alex. "WE ARE ASKING!"

Talos slowed. Thud. Thud. Right in the middle of the playground, the giant was only walking.

Something small, dark and elegant had walked out in front of him.

It was Willow.

She had come from the shed step, in her slow, dignified way, and sat down in the exact middle of the giant's path. She wrapped her tail round her paws. She looked up at the great red-eyed face as if it were a late bus.

Talos stopped. One enormous foot hung in the air above her.

He stood on one leg, wobbling, with a very surprised hum in his chest. Then, slowly, so slowly, he put that foot down beside her, and stood still, with his eyes flickering orange and red.

Willow did not move. She blinked, once. It was not a hug. It was an instruction.

"NOW," said Alex, and we ran.

Part Thirteen. Backwards

The two of them got to the left ankle. It was warm, like a radiator. The round plug was right where Mr Heston had said, under the heel. Felix held the ankle steady. Alex put the spanner on the plug.

They turned it the way you turn everything.

Nothing happened, except that the plug got tighter. Talos's eyes flared red again. He lifted his foot.

"Back!" shouted Mr Heston, and the twins jumped away. The foot came down with a BOOM where they had been, and the whole playground jumped. Gloves, spanner and twins all went in different directions.

"I can't do it!" said Felix, from the ground.

"It's too tight!" said Alex.

"Left foot," called Mr Heston, limping closer. "Back of the heel! Try again!"

They tried again. The spanner slipped. Talos was starting to turn his head. Felix pulled the plug as hard as he could, and Alex pushed on the spanner, and the plug did not move at all.

Their hands hurt. They were nearly crying. Alex stopped pushing. He was thinking of a very small silver screw on the Making Club bench.

"Felix," he said. "The beetle."

Felix stared at him.

Alex said, "Mr Heston's things turn the other way."

Felix turned round, and shouted over his shoulder, "Mr Heston! Which way does Talos turn?"

"Which way..." Mr Heston's face did a very complicated thing. Then he laughed, a short, startled, wonderful laugh, and he said, "Backwards. The other way. Always the other way. I am a silly old god, I forgot to say."

"Together," said Alex.

"Together," said Felix.

They put the spanner on the plug and turned it the Heston way. It moved. It turned once, twice, a third time, and it came out with a loud POP.

Part Fourteen. The Leaf

A hiss of steam shot out of Talos's ankle. His eyes flickered from red to orange to yellow, and then to the soft sleepy glow of a night-light. His great arms drooped. His knees folded, and he sat down, slowly, like a lift going down, in the middle of the playground. A long, tired, creaking sigh went out of him: WHEEEEEEE.

Then he closed his eyes, and he was still.

Nobody said anything. Nobody moved. A single leaf came down, turning over and over, and landed on his head.

Felix and Alex sat on the tarmac, breathing hard, with their gloves hanging off.

"We did it," said Felix.

"We did it together," said Alex.

Willow got up, stretched, and walked once round the giant's enormous foot, and then went back to her place on the shed step, and began to wash.

Then Ollie began to clap, and Kenji, and then the whole school, and the dinner ladies came out from under the tables.

Mr Heston limped over, very slowly, and he knelt in front of the sleeping giant. He put his big hand on Talos's cheek.

"I'm sorry, old friend," he said.

Then he turned to Ms Crabtree, who had come out from behind her bush and put her clipboard back where it belonged. He stood up straight.

"That was my fault," he said. "I should have hung the sign. I should have asked everyone to ask. I am very sorry. If you want to close the Making Club, I understand."

Ms Crabtree looked at him. She looked at the sleeping giant. She looked at us, and at the whole school, standing very quietly, looking at Mr Heston with big serious eyes.

"I touched him," she said, "without asking. That was my mistake, and not yours. And I have never heard such an honest apology."

Mr Heston blinked.

"I came to inspect a school," she said, "and I have found a man who makes bronze giants, and children who look after each other, and a headteacher who runs round in circles."

"I do not run in circles," said Mr Harris.

"You do," said Ms Crabtree. "But you are getting full marks."

She wrote something on her clipboard, tore off the page, and handed it to Mr Heston. It said: EXCELLENT. ESPECIALLY THE FRIENDSHIP.

Part Fifteen. The Chair

That might have been the end of the day, except that a little later we heard a clunk.

It came from inside the shed.

We rushed in, and there was Gideon Fox in the corner, in the golden chair, with the cloth on the floor and the rope trailing from his foot. He had gone in to look at the helpers, because the rest of the school was outside, and the rope had looked like a game. Now two golden bands were wrapped round his tummy, and he could not get up.

He was bright red. His friends had gone very quiet in the doorway. Nobody was laughing now.

"Help," said Gideon. "It won't let me go. I only sat down."

"Don't wriggle," said Mr Heston at once, in a calm, kind voice, and he was kneeling by the chair before any of us had moved, despite the stick. "It tightens if you wriggle. That's it. Good. Nobody is cross with you, Gideon. This is a very old chair, and it is my fault for leaving it where it could happen. I should have put it away years ago."

"I'm sorry," said Gideon, and his face crumpled. "I'm sorry about before. I was mean about your leg. I thought it was funny, and it wasn't."

"Thank you," said Mr Heston. "I hear you. Now, let's get you out."

There was a catch under the arm of the chair, small and stiff and hidden in the gold. Mr Heston could not reach it with his big hands.

"Felix," said Alex. "Can you reach?"

"Which way does it turn?" said Felix.

"The other way," said Mr Heston, and for the second time that day, he grinned.

Felix turned it backwards. Alex held the bands steady. The catch went click, and the golden bands slid off, and Gideon jumped up, bright pink, and held out his hand.

Mr Heston shook it. "That took courage, Gideon. Thank you."

"Can I come to the Making Club?" said Gideon.

"We could use another pair of hands," said Mr Heston. "Some of them have to be big ones."

Gideon's friend, the one who had looked back on Wednesday, said, "Can I?" And Mr Heston said yes to him, too.

The golden helpers carried the chair out of the shed. Mr Heston watched them go, with his stick under his arm. "It's going in the melting pot," he said. "I don't need it any more. I have friends for things like that now."

Part Sixteen. Tea in the Sun

At home time, Mr Heston sat on a bench in the sun, with the two golden helpers pouring tea, and we all sat round him. Even Gideon. Willow sat on the end of the bench, and Mr Heston scratched her ears with one scorched finger. She allowed it.

"How did you learn to make all this?" asked Kenji.

"Practice," said Mr Heston. "Nine years in a cave, mostly getting it wrong."

He told us, "When I was thrown off the mountain, I thought nobody would ever want me. I thought being different meant I was a mistake. But I learned something in that cave. Being different means you see the world in a way that nobody else does, and that is how you make things that are new."

He looked round at all of us. "I thought of a golden helper because I couldn't walk fast. Nobody else would have thought of it. It is a very good idea, and I only had it because of my leg."

Dot, who is very small and very quiet, said, "I'm good at small."

"You are," said Mr Heston. "You are the only one who could reach the screw. So that was a very big thing."

Felix said, "Alex notices and I ask. Nobody else does it that way."

"And it works," said Alex.

"It does," said Mr Heston. "Because you are different from each other, too. Different is clever."

He took two small bronze badges out of his apron, shaped like spanners, and he pinned one on each twin. They were still warm.

We said it together, all of us, even Gideon, and Dot loudest of all:

"DIFFERENT IS CLEVER."

Part Seventeen. A Crunch in the Hall

On the way out of the gate, we heard a very strange noise from the school hall.

It was a small, sweet tune, played on something that sounded like a set of little reed pipes. It went up and down, and round the corner, and every now and then it stopped, and was replaced by a loud, happy CRUNCH.

The hall door was ajar. The big hall light was flickering, buzz, flick, buzz, and the corridor floor was covered in a thin layer of sawdust from the scenery cupboard. In the sawdust was a line of prints.

They were not shoes. Each one was shaped like two neat little toes. They went in, all the way up the corridor, and stopped at the hall door. One piece of green wool was caught on the handle.

On the door was a note in Mr Harris's writing. It said: AUTUMN PLAY. NEW DIRECTOR. PLEASE REMAIN CALM.

The tune started again, and from somewhere inside, a very cheerful voice said, "Crunchy."

Alex grinned. Felix grinned.

"Monday," they said, at exactly the same time.

The End.