UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge English Readers Level 2

Series editor: Philip Prowse

Apollo's Gold

Antoinette Moses

Cambridge

UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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http://www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 1999

First published 1999 Fourth printing 2002

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Illustrations by Mike Dodd

Typeset in 12/15pt Adobe Garamond [CE]

ISBN 0 521 77553 1

Contents

Chapter 1 Get well 5

Chapter 2 Gold 11

Chapter 3 Poulati 15

Chapter 4 The fire 21

Chapter 5 The man called Takis 25

Chapter 6 On the yacht 29

Chapter 7 Terrorists 34

Chapter 8 In the cave 38

Chapter 9 Caught 41

Chapter 10 Apollo's Gold 46

People in the story

Liz: an English archaeologist, twenty-seven years old,

works in Athens.

Stavros: Liz's boss, a professor of archaeology.

Eleni: she has a restaurant in Poulati on Sifnos.

Yiannis: Eleni s brother, a fisherman.

Nikos: a policeman on Sifhos.

Takis, Mike and Mr John: three men on a yacht.

Chapter 1 Get well!

It began with a, visit to the doctor. 'You need a holiday,' the doctor told me. 'You need a rest.'

'I can't take a holiday,' I answered. 'I'm too busy.'

'No, Liz,' said the doctor. 'You don't understand. If you don't take a holiday, you're going to get very, very ill.'

'I'm just tired,' I said. 'I feel tired.'

'No,' he said. 'It's more than that. Are you doing too much? You teach, don't you?'

'Well, yes,' I said. 'I'm teaching and studying archaeology at the university.'

'What else are you doing?' he asked me.

'I'm learning to speak Greek,' I replied. 'And I'm writing a book.'

'I see,' he said. 'You're learning to speak Greek, you're writing a book and you're working at the university. Don't you think that's too much? How many hours do you sleep at night?'

'Four or five hours most nights,' I told him.

'It's not enough,' he said. 'You need to slow down. Is your husband here in Greece with you?' the doctor asked.

'No,' I told the doctor. 'I was married but my husband left me. Last year.'

'I understand,' said the doctor.

'No,' I thought, 'you don't really understand. Because you don't know that my husband left me and went to live with one of his students. Because you don't know that I am

still very angry. I am both angry and sad. You don't understand because you don't know that I had to leave London to be away from my husband who is still working at London University.'

Only a year ago everything was wonderful. I had a good job in London. I had a wonderful husband. I loved him and he loved me. Or I thought he loved me. But then I found out that he was actually in love with someone else. My wonderful world wasn't real.

But that was a year ago. Now I lived in Greece and had a job I enjoyed. And I had a wonderful, kind boss, Stavros. Stavros looks like a big animal and has a black beard. But he's a very good archaeologist. Sometimes I think that he can feel what is under the earth, even before he begins to look for it. And he's very kind. I love working for him.

After I left the doctors I went to see Stavros at the university.

Stavros is very big man, but his office is so untidy that sometimes it's hard to find him. As usual there were pots and bits of pots all over his desk. Stavros knows almost everything about Greek pots. Every day I spend with him, I learn something. When I walked into his office, he was looking through a magnifying glass.

'Oh!' I said. 'You've got that pot again. That's great.'

Stavros put down the magnifying glass. 'Yes,' he replied. 'The police gave the pot to me this morning. Two men were trying to take it out of the country. The police caught them at the airport.'

'That's wonderful,' I said. 'It's a lovely pot. It belongs here in Greece. In a museum.'

One of the biggest problems for all archaeologists is

stealing. As an archaeologist you want to find things because you want to learn about them. You want to learn about the people who lived in a place. You want to learn about the things they made. You can spend all your life looking at these pots and still learn new things. Pots tell you how people cooked and how they lived and what they did. But the people who steal just want to take the pots and make money. And usually they want to take them out of