Nine Out of Ten

The boy went back to his home in Como, with his family. He hadn't told anyone about the octopus incident. One day his tutor gave him the task of composing a story, to test how his Latin was coming along.

The boy spent a long time on his story. He told it in the first person singular. He told of how, on a holiday with his family in Naples, he had ventured far out onto a reef and engaged in a mighty tussle with an octopus that was trying to drag him down into the sea, and of how he had eventually escaped.

He was pleased with his story, and so was his tutor.

A well told story, said the tutor. It is grammatically correct in every way, containing well chosen and evocative adjectives and adverbs, while all the verbs are properly placed at the end of each sentence. I shall award you nine out of ten. If the story had not been so ridiculously fanciful, you would have got ten out of ten.

Ooh! said Lavender. That's MEAN!

Woaah! said Baby Pierre. But your story was TRUE!

Yes, said Gaius. It was.

How do we know? said Anoctopus. We only have your word for it.

We know because the story is that the story was true, said Gaius.

Wup! said Anoctopus. Well said, old natural historian from Como! May I ask whether you are the famous Pliny the Elder?

I am, said Gaius, modestly.

So you know a lot about volcanoes? said Anoctopus.

More than I care to, said Gaius, if you include my last brush with one.

I am currently studying volcanoes, said Anctopus. Have you by any chance read The Twenty One Balloons?