Clotho the Fate

by Joan Holub

  Everyone else soon gathered around the extra-large table for lunch. Zeus sat dead center in front of the cake, with Hera on one side and Athena on the other. Next to Athena sat Aphrodite, then Artemis. Demeter sat by Hera.

  Before sitting down, Clotho set Arachne loose on a nearby wall. “It’s for your own safety. You can still watch the festivities from here,” she informed the spider when Arachne protested. Truth was, it had occurred to Clotho that some guests might not appreciate a spider hanging around with them at lunch. Plus, she was seated next to Medusa and remembered how her snakes had gotten overly excited when they spotted Arachne in the shop yesterday.

  Just like a little kid, Zeus quickly tore through his gifts, his eyes lighting up at the sight of each one. There were thunderbolt-shaped barbells, tunics with thunderbolt-design embroidery, a pair of flying sandals that did tricks, a Thunderopoly board game, a bobblehead Zeus toy, a new saddle for his winged horse, Pegasus, and much more. (Clotho and the other students planned to present all of their puppets to him later.)

  As soon as the final gift had been opened, a lavish lunch was served with all of Zeus’s favorite foods. There were fancy bowls of yambrosia (a magical, yummy dish whose main ingredients were yams and ambrosia); Underworld stew flavored with asphodel; nectaroni and cheese; celestial soup with noodles shaped like planets and stars; yogurt with pomegranola; and ambrosia salad.

  Everyone raised glasses of nectar punch to cheer for Zeus’s continued good health.

  “This is delicious,” Aphrodite said, fluffing her golden hair with one hand as she put her goblet to her lips and took a long sip of the sparkling punch. With that very first sip, her skin began to shimmer more brightly, like it had been dusted with a fine golden glitter. As other immortals drank, the same happened to them—all except for Clotho, of course.

  Once all the party guests had eaten their fill, they gathered around to enjoy Apollo’s band playing the “Happy Birthday” song. Athena and Hera lit candles on the thunderbolt cake. Zeus made a wish out loud (which was that he’d get the biggest piece of cake). Afterward, he blew out his candles with one humongous puff of breath, which was so strong it ruffled the hair of everyone seated around the table.

  When the cake was served, Zeus naturally got his wish. “Yum. This is the best!” he exclaimed, after forking up the first bite of his gigantic slice. Everyone else dug in too.

  Ares, Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Medusa, Tantalus, and Clotho finished their cake quickly, then gathered at the puppet theater they’d set up. They kneeled behind it in a tight group, puppets on their fingers and their hands held high enough to be seen onstage, while keeping their heads low so their faces would remain hidden.

  “Where’s Pelops?” Clotho asked Tantalus when it was almost time to begin the performance. She’d noticed that his green-caped puppet wasn’t on his finger. Everyone except him was going to wield two puppets or more, since they had twenty-four (a dozen Olympians plus a dozen Titans).

  His eyes went shifty. “Oh, I lost him. Doesn’t matter. He was just for fun, not really part of the show. I can still narrate without him.”

  It was true that Pelops wasn’t intended to be part of the action, but Clotho was surprised that Tantalus wasn’t more upset about losing his puppet. He’d seemed really excited about making it yesterday.

  But there was no more time to ponder this. Why? Because it was showtime!

  12 Puppets

  MOMENTS LATER, TANTALUS ANNOUNCED, “TONIGHT we present for your entertainment a rollicking reenactment of the Titanomachy. Also known as the Olympian versus Titan War!”

  He then launched into his narration. “Thunder-Zeus and his Olympian pals are just minding their own business,” he told their audience as Clotho and the others calmly walked their Olympian finger puppets back and forth along the edge of the theater stage.

  “Look out! Here comes big bad Crabby-Cronus. This scaredy-crab Titan ruler is afraid the Olympians will grow up to overthrow him. So what does he do? It’s horrible. Just watch!” Tantalus went on.

  Everyone at the table laughed at the slurping, crunching sounds Medusa made as her crab-shaped Cronus puppet proceeded to gobble as many Olympians as he could. (Because that was what the real Cronus had done in hopes he could stop an Olympian immortal from overthrowing him!)

  Later in the show, the guests laughed even louder when Medusa’s Cronus puppet was tricked into barfing up those Olympians he’d gobbled down. To show this, the puppeteers tossed their puppets a couple of feet in the air, then let them fall down to the stage floor.

  Zeus got so into their antics that he stood up from the table at that point and punched an encouraging fist in the air. “Rally, fellow Olympians, and declare war on the Titans!”

  The Olympian puppets did just that. “After ten years of fighting, the puppet Thunder-Zeus gets an idea from an oracle,” Tantalus narrated. “Thunder-Zeus invites Mr. Cyclops and his hundred-armed brothers and sisters to help fight the Titans.”

  Clotho grinned at the obvious delight Ares, Apollo, and Poseidon took in tossing red-yarn bits of fake blood around on the puppet stage during a very silly battle. (The actual battle had been terrible, but this pretend one was lighthearted and meant to amuse the lunch guests.) There were pratfalls, funny voices, and goofy stunts galore. Hearty laughter and cheers rang out at all the silliness.

  Just as the Olympian finger puppets were about to win the war, Demeter jumped up from the lunch table and gave a shriek. “Eek! What’s this in my cake?” she exclaimed, putting her fingers to her mouth.

  The puppet show came to an abrupt halt as everyone’s attention fixed on her. They watched Demeter open her mouth and pull out a gooey lump, which she then set on her plate. Even though it was covered in cake frosting, Clotho recognized what it was.

  “It’s one of our puppets!” yelled Artemis.

  Shouts of astonishment were heard. “Ew!” “Yuck!” “What’s going on?”

  “How did a puppet get in my birthday cake?” Zeus demanded to know.

  No one had an answer for that.

  Demeter coughed. “I think I swallowed a piece of it. I was so busy watching the show that I didn’t notice what I was eating.” Sure enough, a few pieces of yarn were missing from the puppet’s shoulder, Clotho saw.

  “That’s Pelops! Tantalus’s puppet. It’s wearing a green cape, see?” exclaimed Apollo, pointing at the evidence on Demeter’s plate.

  “And exactly who is Tantalus?” Zeus roared. It dawned on Clotho just then that Tantalus probably hadn’t been officially invited to this party. He’d just sort of invited himself as they were creating the puppet show yesterday.

  “Heh-heh.” Unfortunately, the mortal boy snickered at that very moment, drawing attention to himself. Carrying something Clotho couldn’t see clearly, he was creeping away toward the exit.

  Bits of angry electricity zapped from Zeus’s muscular arms as he leaped up from his throne. “You think this is funny, mortal?” he boomed out. He banged his fist so hard on the table that all the plates and cutlery rattled. His eyes narrowed as he demanded, “What have you got behind your back?”

  Tantalus froze in his tracks. Slowly and reluctantly, he raised his hands to show what he held—a flask of nectar in one hand and a bag of ambrosia in the other. Gasps sounded.

  “You dare to steal the food of the gods?” bellowed Zeus, planting both fists on his hips. “What were you planning to do with those?”

  Good question, thought Clotho.

  Though he was shaking with fear now, Tantalus stuck out his chin rebelliously. “I was going to Earth to share this stuff with other mortals! Along with the news that immortals can and do make mistakes. And they can be tricked!”

  Clotho gasped when he said this. If he was referring to her Meleager mistake, he didn’t bring it up right then, however. Instead he said, “I just now tricked the goddess Demeter into eating a bit of my puppet. I mean, funny, right?” His smile fell when no one laughed. Did he really expect them to?<
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  Zeus’s eyebrows slammed together in anger. “You have offended and insulted all immortals with your rude trick. You could have made Demeter choke! On top of all that, you attempted to steal food and drink meant only for us immortals!”

  “It’s not fair that we mortals are denied immortality,” Tantalus shot back. “We should get to share the nectar and ambrosia that allow you to live forever!”

  More gasps and murmurs ran through the room. “How dare he argue with the King of the Gods!” “That mortal boy is too bold!” “Uh-oh, Zeus is not going to put up with that!”

  Medusa rolled her eyes at Tantalus. “Hate to tell you this, goofball, but nectar and ambrosia don’t work on us mortals. Duh. If they did I’d already have used them to turn myself into an immortal, so I could do magic like my two goddessgirl sisters.”

  “Oh.” Tantalus’s shoulders slumped at this information.

  Suddenly Clotho recalled what her sister Lachesis had said twelve long years ago as she’d watched this boy’s Thread of Fate rise toward the heavens. “Looks like Tantalus will enjoy a mostly happy life,” she had murmured.

  What went wrong? What had brought him to this terrible moment? she wondered.

  Then her breath caught in her throat. Could this be her fault for tangling his thread with Meleager’s? Had some of Meleager’s unfortunate destiny rubbed off on Tantalus, and Tantalus’s fortunate one on Meleager?

  While Meleager’s life had been extended because of her boo-boo, Tantalus’s life seemed about to be cut short. Or at least made unhappier than it might have been. She had to fix things. But how?

  Tantalus thrust out his chin. “Immortals do make mistakes, though,” he insisted foolishly. “You all saw how I tricked Demeter. And just ask that Fate about Meleager!”

  Clotho stiffened when his finger pointed her way. Gulp. Seemed he wasn’t going to give her a free pass after all. Zeus turned his gaze on her. “Ah, yes. Meleager. The log burning in the fireplace. When it turned to ashes, his Thread of Fate was supposed to end. Yet it did not.”

  “H-how did you know about th-that?” stuttered Clotho.

  “I’m the King of the Gods! I know everything,” thundered Zeus. From the corner of her eye, Clotho caught a glimpse of Tantalus trying to sneak away again.

  Zeus saw him too, and swung his head back toward the boy. “Stop right there!” he commanded. “As I said, you have offended the gods! Do you know what happens to mortals who do that?”

  “Uh-oh, here we go,” Arachne squeaked, rolling all eight of her eyes. Surprised, Clotho turned her head to see the spider drop from a long silky strand hanging from the ceiling onto her shoulder. Luckily, her voice was so small that only Clotho heard it. And Medusa’s snakes were curled close to her head, napping in spite of all the commotion.

  Zeus’s piercing blue gaze bore into Tantalus. “I hope you enjoy your new home in Tartarus!” he exclaimed. Of course, Tartarus wasn’t a place anyone enjoyed being, so Zeus was only being sarcastic.

  Finally Tantalus showed the good sense to become truly terrified. Trembling, he dropped to his knees and begged for mercy. “P-please, spare me! I wasn’t thinking. My thoughts got t-tangled up.” Then, to Demeter, he added, “I’m sorry.”

  Taking pity on the foolish mortal, Demeter said to Zeus, “No need to be too harsh. I wasn’t done any permanent harm.”

  Hera nodded, her voice soft as she put a gentle hand on Zeus’s arm. “He’s just a boy. And he didn’t succeed in sharing the nectar and ambrosia with other mortals.”

  This seemed to calm Zeus somewhat, but he didn’t back down entirely, probably fearing that if he did so, other mortals would hear of it and think him weak. “All right,” he said. “I’ll come up with another punishment, then. Let’s see, what will fit his crime?”

  “Remember how you punished the Titan Prometheus?” nudged Athena. “That seemed fair.”

  When Arachne muttered, “Again with the punishments,” Clotho shushed her. Honestly, someone was going to smush that spider one of these days if she didn’t behave!

  Now Aphrodite spoke up too. “What Tantalus tried to do is kind of similar. He wanted ambrosia and nectar to help mortals. When Prometheus set the Hero-ology classroom on fire at MOA, it was a misguided effort to help mortals on Earth obtain the gift of fire.”

  “Right! So for Prometheus’s punishment I decided that every time he took a bite of liver—his least favorite food—more liver would magically appear on his plate. Whoa! That was a good one, if I do say so myself. And I do!” Zeus cracked up, delighted and impressed by his own cleverness.

  Just then Clotho had a thought that might save Tantalus but still please Zeus. “What if whatever punishment you decide on for Tantalus takes place here in Game On!” she suggested. “It could be carried out in the new Tartarus Two game instead of in the actual Tartarus in the real Underworld, which would be way harsher, I’m guessing.”

  “You got that right,” Persephone mumbled. She and Hades had just arrived, apparently having fixed their game’s bathtub leak.

  “Perfect!” roared Zeus. Latching onto Clotho’s idea, he pointed a finger at Tantalus. “I sentence you to report here to Game On! after school every day for the next month.”

  A smile broke out on Tantalus’s face and he jumped to his feet. “That’s my punishment? To play a game here every day for a month? Awesome!”

  “Not so awesome,” Zeus corrected him. “You will play a game all right, but you will lose every time.”

  “Huh?” Tantalus’s face crumpled in disappointment.

  Just when Clotho began to hope that Zeus might forget about her mistake with Meleager, her sisters walked in. Oh no!

  “Are we late? What did we miss? We just happened to run across a magic breeze and learn we were invited to Zeus’s birthday party today,” said Lachesis.

  Atropos glanced toward Clotho. “Why didn’t you tell us about the invitation? The breeze said it had been delivered to you.”

  “Oh really?” Zeus caught Clotho’s guilty expression and raised an eyebrow. “Party’s over!” he announced abruptly. “Hera, please shoo everybody out except the three Fates. I want to have a private talk with them.”

  “Well, that party was kind of a bust. Not even one fly showed up!” grumbled Arachne as everyone but Zeus, the Fates, and her departed.

  When Clotho just groaned, Arachne added, “What? Are you stressing? Don’t worry. Even if Zeus decides to turn you into a spider as punishment, at least you’ll still be immortal.”

  “Great,” Clotho whispered back. “Not!”

  13 Amazing Arachne

  ONCE THE OTHER PARTY GUESTS had gone, Zeus turned to the three Fates. “Do you know how close we came to real trouble just now? If mortals come to believe that immortals make mistakes just like they do, they’ll lose respect for us. That’s why I make rules, to avoid that kind of misunderstanding. Yet you broke them. Explain yourselves!”

  “Huh?” said Lachesis.

  “I don’t understand,” said Atropos. With confusion and suspicion in their eyes, both sisters turned to stare at Clotho.

  “I’m sorry,” Clotho told them. “This is all my fault.” She looked at Zeus. “I didn’t mean to mingle with mortals.” She went on to explain how she’d broken Rule #3 yesterday. Then she told of the tangled web of deceit she’d begun to weave twelve years ago. How she’d failed to admit she’d tangled Meleager’s thread, and that his thread had brushed Tantalus’s as their two threads floated heavenward.

  Gathering her courage, she said to Zeus, “I hope you can forgive my mistake. But about Rule Number Three—”

  “ ‘But’?” Zeus roared, crossing his strong arms over his chest. “There are no ‘buts.’ My rules are ironclad. And you must obey them!”

  Clotho flinched. But instead of backing down, which probably would have been the smart thing to do, she tried again. “The thing is, mortals don’t like the Fates. I hoped that if they got to know us, they’d see we aren’t so bad. But the only way for th
em to get to know us is by breaking your Rule Number Three—by mingling.”

  “Mortals don’t like you?” Zeus echoed, uncrossing his arms and appearing shocked. “Well, that’s ridiculous. What’s not to like?”

  “She’s right,” Lachesis agreed meekly, surprising Clotho with her support. “Mortals think we boss them around and make willy-nilly decisions about their lives. Decisions they sometimes don’t like.”

  Atropos nodded. “They send us angry letters.”

  “Angry letters?” Zeus boomed, causing all three girls to jump. “Hmm, that’s not good. I mean, they don’t need to be your best friends, but they shouldn’t dislike you either. You do them a service. Left to their own devices, without destiny providing a path for their lives, they’d make way more bad decisions than they already do. We need to fix this. But how?” Deep in thought, he stroked the tip of his curly red beard as he paced around the balcony. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

  The sisters watched him for a while. Then Clotho boldly piped up again. “What if the Threads of Fate we spin, measure, and cut didn’t impose an absolute life limit or life path? Maybe instead the threads’ predictions could be changed through a mortal’s wise decisions? So that their destinies aren’t so fixed.”

  Atropos cocked her head, looking intrigued. “I get it. So if a mortal uses good sense and works hard to make good choices in life that we Fates didn’t anticipate, they might live longer and more happily than their threads predicted?”

  Clotho nodded.

  Lachesis looked between the two of them, her eyes sparkling as she caught on. “That would mean they might even accomplish things that were not a known part of their destiny at birth. How exciting!”

  “Could they really do that, though? Sad to say, some mortals are not very bright,” mused Zeus.

  “Maybe they could. With our help. We could make ourselves more available to them,” Clotho suggested tentatively. “And sort of… well… coach them. Encourage them to look for ways to change their lives if they are unhappy with them. If they feel they have some say in their futures, maybe they won’t get so mad at us.”