Travelling Light (Winner, Cramp!)

Dimitrios and Konstantinos were bored. The teacher was going on an on, making the class repeat the letters of the alphabet. Both boys knew all 24 letters by heart, and were fed up of the lesson.

"Psst," hissed Dimitrios, passing a folded piece of paper to Konstantinos under the papyrus.

Konstantinos quietly unfolded the piece of paper and read, "It's boring living in this age. Shall we travel back in time?"

"How?" Konstantinos mouthed back.

"Library," Dimitrios moved his lips to respond.

As soon as the bell rang for break, both boys ran for the library. They knew where to go - the Harry Potter shelf in the Fantasy section. Somehow, Dimitrios had overheard the librarian say she kept an actual time-turner there, hidden behind the huge tomes.

They pretended to browse normally till they heard an argument at the Librarian's desk about a fine for overdue books. The second-grader concerned said she thought it was fine for books to be overdue, and the Librarian was trying to get 100 WDC GPs out of her. Anyway, this was distraction enough and the boys began pulling out books in earnest.

They triumphed just as the second grader left the library. Nobody noticed that Dimitrios was now holding a tiny, shining object in his right hand. They hurried out of the library and to a secluded corner of the playground.

"Now to get out of Modern Greece," Konstantinos gloated. "Which ancient period do you want to get into?"

"Why not the Greek Dark Ages: 1100–800 BC ... ? They sound sort of fun."

"All right. Let's read the instructions on this thing and figure out how to get there."

"This time-turner seems to work differently from Hermione's. We don't have to turn it, we just have to whisper to it three times."

"You do that, then."

"No, you. Your voice is clearer."

After some no-you-ing, one of the boys whispered, and the two found themselves floating delightfully backward. The light grew dimmer and dimmer. Finally, it was pitch black.

They had arrived in the Greek Dark Ages. 800 BC., to be precise.

And since they had started out in a classroom, they found themselves sitting in an ancient Greek classroom. They couldn't see their classmates or teacher, but they could hear them.

"Now, if someone will answer this question correctly, there shall be light in these dark ages," the teacher was saying. "Here comes the question - how many letters are there in the ancient Greek alphabet?"

"TWENTY FOUR!" both boys shouted, forgetting for the moment that this was in the modern Greek alphabet.

However it didn't matter. The answer was correct. You see, the Greek culture aims to make it easy for time-travelling children.

Suddenly, everyone could see. And what they saw was Thomas Edison, atop a ladder, having just fixed the light-bulb in place.

"You've brought light to your fellow classmates," he announced, looking at Dimitrios and Konstantinos. "Correct answers bring light!"

And everyone cheered.