For Arthur and Elsie, welcome to a

  world of boneheads, nincompoops and

  holibobs. And that’s before you start

  reading these books! Love Daddy.

  Thank you as always to Lizzie and Chloé.

  Sorry for all the extra grey hairs.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used

  fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information

  and material of any other kind contained herein are included for

  entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for

  accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published in Great Britain 2018 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

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  © 2018 Gary Northfield

  The right of Gary Northfield to be identified as author and illustrator

  of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-8204-4 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  ADVENTURE TIME!

  OLYMPIC GOLD MUDDLE

  BEAST QUEST

  LOYALTY CAD

  HEAVY METAL

  SPA-RRING PARTNER

  AMAZEBALLS

  STRING THEORY

  LET SLEEPING BULLS LIE

  APPLE WATCH

  TROJAN ZEBRA

  I KID YOU NOT

  GET KNOTTED

  DON’T GET TOUCHY

  GOLDEN BOY

  HE AIN’T HEAVY

  JOURNEY TO THE UNDERWORLD

  SPIRITED AWAY

  JOURNEY’S END

  EPILOGUE

  ROMAN NUMERALS

  GARY’S GLOSSARY

  EXTRAS

  NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  So you think you know about

  Julius wasn’t like any other zebra and wasn’t going to put up with this stranger’s nonsense!

  Exciting right?

  CHAPTER ONE

  ADVENTURE TIME!

  “Oi!” cried Julius at the stranger. “You can’t just go around chucking my friends through the air!”

  “I told you!” laughed the muscle-bound man. “I am HERACLES, son of ZEUS, and I seek the champion named JULIUS ZEBRA and his friends for an exciting adventure!”

  “Listen, Hairy Keith, son of Zoots,” retorted Julius.

  “Heracles!” corrected Heracles moodily.

  “That’s what I said,” continued Julius. “I’m not looking for any more adventures!”

  Heracles seemed taken aback, and he bent over to have a good look at Julius. A big grin crept across his face and he gave a huge belly laugh.

  “YOU?!” he exclaimed scornfully, and he took another close look at Julius, prodding him in his tummy and examining Julius’s scrawny limbs.

  Heracles suddenly felt a kick to his shins and he spun round to find a crocodile looking at him crossly.

  “You take that back, you big bully!” Lucia fumed. “Julius IS a champion, so you’d BETTER say sorry! I don’t care WHO you are!”

  Heracles laughed again. “Ha ha har!” he guffawed. “What strange, spirited creatures you are!” He gazed closely at the strange menagerie that stood before him. He grabbed Felix and held him in a headlock.

  “And YOU, antelope, are YOU a great champion?”

  Heracles let poor Felix drop to the ground as he paraded up and down in front of the animals, chuckling to himself.

  “As you are no doubt aware,” he boomed, “due to my vast legendary status, spanning the centuries and traversing all the known lands, I was tasked to complete twelve arduous labours.”

  “But it appears I was DECEIVED!” continued Heracles. “And one of my labours has since been UNDONE!” The demi-god waved his arms defiantly towards the skies. “My father and ruler of all the gods, ZEUS, demands that I finally complete this labour if am to take my place on Mount Olympus.”

  He turned directly to the animals. “I seek great champions to aid me on this quest, yet all I find are puny beasts CLAIMING to be the heroes of legend!”

  He turned to face them and placed his giant hands on his hips in a dramatic pose. “So you leave me with little choice. You must PROVE your greatness to me!”

  Cornelius had heard enough. “We don’t have to prove ANYTHING to you!” squeaked the little warthog, wagging his trotter. “In fact, how do we know YOU are who you say you are, eh?”

  Heracles strode towards a rocky outcrop where two gnus stood minding their own business. He crouched down and threw his two big arms around the boulder.

  “If you have heard of me,” Heracles declared, “then you know I am the STRONGEST BEING that has EVER lived!” Then, with a great roar, he began LIFTING the enormous rock in the air, his face going a deep red as the veins in his forehead looked ready to pop.

  A ripple of applause rose from the entranced animals.

  “Bravo!” cried Felix. “I’m TOTALLY convinced!”

  Heracles performed a small bow, before hurling the boulder, with gnus in tow, towards the lake.

  Julius was furious. “Can you PLEASE stop chucking animals about!!” he yelled.

  Heracles laughed as he flexed his muscles. “Calm down, zebra. Have I not just proved that I am indeed the mightiest in all the lands?”

  He placed a dusty hand on Julius’s shoulder. “And now, you must prove who YOU are!”

  “WE TOLD YOU!” interrupted Cornelius, still unimpressed. “We’re not looking for any more adventures, so PUSH OFF!”

  “Yeah!” agreed Julius. “Why should we listen to you anyway? What’s in it for us?”

  Heracles let out another of his deep guffaws. “What’s in it for YOU?!” he laughed.

  “IMMORTALITY!?” parroted Julius. “We don’t need your ‘immortality’, sunshine! Now sling yer hook!”

  Julius turned to Cornelius. “What’s ‘immortality’?” he whispered.

  “Immortality is where you get to live for ever and ever,” replied Cornelius. “A bit like a god.”

  Julius raised an eyebrow. “So what, you don’t die?”

  “Not usually,” said Cornelius.

  Julius ran after Heracles, who had begun slowly striding away. “WAIT!” he called out. “We’ll do it! We’ll prove our greatness!”

  Heracles turned round with a smug smile. “Excellent!” he proclaimed. “Already you show wisdom beyond your years!”

  “What’s Julius doing?!” cried Lucia, perplexed. “I thought we’d told that big buffoon to get lost?”

  Cornelius held his head in his trotters. “Yes, but now that Heracles has promised us all immortality, Julius has had a change of heart!”

  Brutus poked his nose into the conversation. “Immortality?” he sniffed. “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “Like I just told Julius, it’s when you get to live for ever, like a god,” said Cornelius, holding his snout. “Hey, I thought your mum told you to get rid of that stinky seaweed wig?!”

  “Nothing comes between a zebra and his wig!” replied Brutus, brushing it gently with his hoof. “But forget all that – did you say we can be GODS?! NOW you’re talking my language!”

  As Cornelius buried his face once again in his trotters, a familiar figure approached the group.

  “You’re ALIVE!” cried Cornelius.

  “Yes,” growled Milus, brushing dust off his fur, “I’m alive.” He gestured at Julius and Brutus. “Why are those IDIOTS talking to that lunatic?”

  “We’re all going to be GODS!” piped up Felix. “That big chap just promised us!”

  Milus flopped backwards into the rough sand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  OLYMPIC GOLD MUDDLE

  Hunched over, Julius placed his front hooves on the line scratched in the dirt. He bent his back legs, poised like two coiled springs ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice.

  “ON YOUR MARKS!” boomed Heracles, who stood to one side with his arm raised in the air. “GET SET…”

  “GANGWAY!” cried Rufus as his long legs carried him through the mêlée and out clear in front.

  “That’s really not fair!” huffed Cornelius as he scuttled behind, desperately trying to keep up. “I’ve only got little legs!”

  Suddenly the warthog felt something hard land on his head, and was shocked to find Brutus clomping over him like a stepping stone!

  But, as Brutus went to leap off Lucia’s head, a great tug on his tail yanked him out of the air and hard onto the dusty earth.

  As the barging animals scrambled around the lake, Julius steeled himself with a deep breath and charged ahead with a great roar of determination. Julius was DESPERATE to prove to Heracles he was the legendary Champion of Rome worthy of his quest, and there was NO way he was going to let these idiots beat him!

  Heracles sighed in solemn disappointment at the big tangle of arguing animals that lay at

his feet.

  “You cannot be the celebrated heroes whose names echo around the Roman Empire,” he said, tutting and shaking his head.

  “Well, apart from me, of course!” announced Julius brightly, dusting himself down. “I’m a proper legend, me!”

  Heracles studied Julius quietly for a moment. “You are probably the MOST ridiculous!” he declared.

  “Well, how rude!” protested Julius, frowning.

  Julius let out a big gasp. “But I’m Julius Zebra!” he cried. “Champion of Rome, Saviour of Britannia, Liberator of Enslaved Beasts AND former Pharaoh of Egypt!”

  Milus growled. “If your name gets any longer, donkey, I’m definitely going to have to eat you.”

  Unconvinced, Heracles strode to the edge of the lake. “Follow me!” he declared.

  Thrusting his hands into the water, he pulled out a large, flat, smooth stone. Standing at the edge with his back to the lake, Heracles swung the heavy stone in his outstretched hand across his chest. He then quickly and dramatically spun round three times, before loosing the stone across the entire expanse of water.

  Heracles turned to Julius and the others. “You lot next!” he commanded. “Hit that tree and I’ll know for a FACT that you’re worthy of helping me complete my labour!”

  “That’s ridiculous!” blurted Felix. “That’s MILES away! We’ll NEVER hit it from here!”

  “This just gets stupider and stupider!” huffed Brutus, folding his arms in indignation.

  “If you do not hit it, then you will have failed and I, in turn, will also have failed,” said Heracles. “You will NOT be the bold adventurers that I have been seeking.”

  Julius stepped forward and walked to the water’s edge. “Watch THIS!” he said.

  After a quick scrabble around in the musky water, Julius pulled out a suitable stone.

  Julius stood with his back to the lake and held out the stone in front of him, just like Heracles had done.

  Then, desperately trying to remember the next moves, he spun his arms like windmills and threw himself into full-body rotation, twirling round and round, his arms outstretched like a spinning top. With a great gurgling grunt, he launched the stone high into the air.

  Backwards.

  The whole lakeside erupted into laughter.

  “Nice work, legend!” snickered Milus.

  Cornelius ran up to his friend and patted him on the back. “Don’t listen to them, Julius,” he said. “I’d like to see them get it right the first time! Why don’t you go next, Felix?”

  “NO WAY!” spluttered the antelope, clutching a new rock he’d just found. “I collect rocks, not chuck them away!!”

  Suddenly, Rufus strode up carrying Julius’s stone. “Make way!” he said confidently. “I’ll show you how it’s done!”

  Rufus held the pose for about ten seconds before everyone started to get restless.

  “Throw it, then!” laughed Brutus. “I thought you said you saw it on a jug?”

  Rufus’s face grew bright red with embarrassment and he started sweating. “Yeah, well, they didn’t show the next step.”

  “But you just watched Heracles!” Lucia reasoned. “Just copy him!”

  Heracles buried his face in the palms of his hands. “We are doomed,” he moaned. “Totally lost…”

  “Give me that stone,” growled Milus, snatching it from Rufus. The straggly-maned lion flipped the discus-shaped stone into the air and deftly caught it behind his back with his other paw.

  Milus held up his empty paw to shield the sun from his eyes in order to get a clear look at the tree. The lion then took up the pose demonstrated by Heracles, held it for two seconds, then spun round quickly three times, releasing the stone long and fast towards the tree.

  Heracles gave the lion a big pat on the back and ruffled his mane. “Yes, lion, that was INDEED impressive,” he conceded. “A heroic effort!”

  Unhappy at having his mane ruffled, Milus went to lunge at the burly Greek, but Rufus and Lucia held him back.

  “Careful, Milus!” warned Cornelius. “The Heracles of legend defeated many lions!”

  But Milus was having none of it. “If he’s so tough and legendary,” he sneered, “why is he so keen to recruit us idiots?”

  Heracles towered above Milus, his imposing size casting a great shadow over the tatty lion. “And who says I’m going to recruit you?” he snapped. “NONE of you have yet completed my tasks!”

  He leant into Milus’s face. “You came close, lion, but you DIDN’T HIT IT!”

  Suddenly Cornelius splashed into the water and found himself a big flat stone. “Let’s put a stop to this nonsense, once and for all!” he squeaked.

  Heracles burst into deep, rumbling laughter. “And I suppose YOU will hit it, little piglet?”

  Ignoring the taunt, Cornelius took up position on the lakeside facing the tree. But this time, Cornelius eschewed the familiar pose as displayed by Heracles and Roman jugs and adopted his own unique stance.

  Holding the stone tight under his belly, Cornelius skimmed it across the lake and it skipped majestically across the surface of the water all the way to the faraway tree, clattering into it with a faint clonk.

  Heracles lifted Cornelius up high and everyone cheered again.

  “You’ll need brains as well as brawn where you’ll be going!” laughed Heracles.

  But, while everyone was caught up in the celebrations, Julius spotted his brother splashing about by the water’s edge.

  “Brutus, what are you doing?” asked Julius.

  “I haven’t had MY go!” shouted Brutus as he swished his arms around. “I want to be immortal too!”

  He held up a massive rock.

  “This’ll do!” he declared. “WATCH ME, EVERYBODY! WATCH ME!”

  Brutus stood at the edge of the lake and held up his extremely heavy rock.

  Cornelius tried to stop him. “Brutus!” he shouted. “That’s completely the wrong-shaped rock!”

  But it was no use. Sticking his tongue out in concentration, Brutus began twirling very quickly, his rock held outstretched in his hooves.

  With a deep, grunting “OOOFF!!” Brutus FLUNG his boulder high into the air and over the lake, but its great size and weight meant it didn’t stay airborne for long. With a loud PLOP, the rock plunged into the water.

  And with a huge ROAR, a giant hippo leapt from the lake clutching her head in pain.

  “Oh, good work, Brutus!” sighed Julius.

  “LEG IT!” cried Brutus as everybody made a mad dash away from the angry hippo.

  “NOW I’m impressed!” laughed Heracles. “You’re all pretty good at running away and there’ll be PLENTY of that on my adventure!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  BEAST QUEST

  The journey to the port of Leptis Magna, where Heracles’s ship was anchored, was a few hours away. Thankfully, Heracles had his own horses and cart for them all to ride on.

  As Heracles drove them towards the port, there were grumblings of disquiet among the animals.

  Cornelius shuffled up next to Julius to talk to him without being overheard. “Julius!” he whispered. “I’m really not sure why on earth we’re doing this.”

  “To gain immortality!” replied Julius just as quietly. “You heard the man.”

  “Yes, I know, but why us?”

  “Because we’re CHAMPIONS!”

  “Shh!” said a panicked Cornelius, waving his trotter. “Not so loud!”

  “Cornelius wants to know why we’re going on an exciting adventure!” whispered Julius.

  “I thought we were all going to be immortals?” replied Felix.

  “That’s what I told him!” said Julius.

  “Don’t you want to be immortal, Cornelius?” asked Felix, all concerned. “It’ll be a brilliant laugh! Imagine living for ever; I’d be able to collect every rock ever invented!”

 

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