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5 So Daedalus held his tongue and set to work. When the palace was finished, he looked at it with pride, for there was nowhere in the world so fine. But when he found out the purpose of the maze in the cellar, he shuddered with horror.
6 For at the heart of that maze, King Minos put a creature that was half man, half beast—a thing almost too horrible to describe. He called it the Minotaur, and he fed it on men and women!
7 Then Daedalus wanted to leave Crete at once, and forget both maze and Minotaur. So he went to King Minos to ask for his money.
8 “I regret,” said King Minos, “I cannot let you leave Crete, Daedalus. You are the only man who knows the secret of the maze and how to escape from it. The secret must never leave this island. So I’m afraid I must keep you and Icarus here a while longer.”
9 “How much longer?” gasped Daedalus.
10 “Oh—just until you die,” replied Minos cheerfully. “But never mind. I have
plenty of work for a man as clever as you.”
11 Daedalus and Icarus lived in great comfort in King Minos’s palace. But they lived the life of prisoners. Their rooms were in the tallest palace tower, with beautiful views across the island. They ate delectable food and wore expensive clothes. But at night the door of their fine apartment was locked, and a guard stood outside. It was a comfortable prison, but it was a prison, even so. Daedalus was deeply unhappy.
12 Every day he put seed out on the windowsill, for the birds. He liked to study their brilliant colors, the clever overlapping of their feathers, the way they soared on the sea wind. It comforted him to think that they at least were free to come and go. The birds had only to spread their wings and they could leave Crete behind them, whereas Daedalus and Icarus must stay forever in their luxurious cage.
13 Young Icarus could not understand his father’s unhappiness. “But I like it here,” he said. “The king gives us gold and this tall tower to live in.”
14 Daedalus groaned. “But to work for such a wicked man, Icarus! And to be prisoners all our days! . . . We shan’t stay. We shan’t!”
15 “But we can’t get away, can we?” said Icarus. “How can anybody escape from an island? Fly?” He snorted with laughter.
16 Daedalus did not answer. He scratched his head and stared out of the window at the birds pecking seed on the sill.
17 From that day onward, he got up early each morning and stood at the open window. When a bird came for the seed, Daedalus begged it to spare him one feather. Then each night, when everyone else had gone to bed, Daedalus worked by candlelight on his greatest invention of all.
18 Early mornings. Late nights. A whole year went by. Then one morning Icarus was awakened by his father shaking his shoulder. “Get up, Icarus, and don’t make a sound. We are leaving Crete.”
19 “But how? It’s impossible!”
20 Daedalus pulled out a bundle from under his bed. “I’ve been making
something, Icarus.” Inside were four great folded fans of feathers. He stretched them out on the bed. They were wings! “I sewed the feathers together with strands of wool from my blanket. Now hold still.”
my Notes
shudder: to tremble or shake
aCTIvITy 1.13
continued
delectable: very pleasant to taste or smell
spare: to give up something not needed
Unit 1 • Stories of Change 59
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