Persephone the Grateful

by Joan Holub

  Their journey took them almost directly south from Mount Olympus. As she and Pirithous flew, Persephone kept them beneath the cloud line for a better view of the towns, villages, farms, mountains, lakes, and rivers below.

  “This is fantastic!” Pirithous enthused, turning his head this way and that to peer at everything they passed over. “If I could make these sandals work on my own, I’d fly all the time!”

  His enthusiasm was infectious. Flying was nothing new to Persephone, so she’d begun to take her ability to zip through the skies for granted. Now she took the time to enjoy the sights and feel grateful for this too.

  “Hey, look!” Pirithous shouted a short time later. “That’s Larissa below—where I live. I recognize the theater. It’s the biggest in the whole Thessaly region!”

  Persephone glanced down. The large open-air theater below them was similar to most theaters in Greece. Built into the side of a hill, it was shaped like a huge bowl, with the stage at the bottom and terraced benches running up the sides.

  “Wow! It’s nice,” she told him. As they sailed beyond it, she asked, “So how did you and Theseus meet, anyway? And how long have you been friends?”

  “We met four years ago, when we were eight years old, at a play at that very theater,” Pirithous informed her. “During intermission a bunch of us decided to act out one of the play’s battle scenes using wooden swords. This older boy thwacked Theseus hard on the arm. Theseus was super brave, though. He didn’t cry out but just kept on fighting.”

  Pirithous paused and smiled, as if remembering that moment. Then he went on. “Later, when some girl hit my leg hard enough to make me fall, I jumped up and kept on fighting too. He and I were so impressed with each other’s bravery that we switched seats to watch the rest of the play together so we could critique all the fight moves. We’ve been friends ever since.”

  “What a great story,” said Persephone. “Speaking of friends…”

  Looking around, she checked on the rest of their teammates. Antheia and Theseus had been flying a few hundred feet ahead of her and Pirithous for quite some time now. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Makhai was not far behind them. She scanned all directions. “I don’t see any of the other teams,” she said to Pirithous. “If we did choose the correct destination, it looks like we’re off to a good head start.”

  “Yeah, fingers crossed,” he said. “We keep this up and we’re sure to win!”

  “You think?” Persephone grinned. Already she was picturing the shelf by her bed in the dorm, where she could display her trophy once she had it. Or maybe she’d put it in her bedroom at home instead. Hmm.

  As they continued to fly along, Pirithous began to pepper her with questions about her favorite activities (gardening and cheer team), food (a tie between nectaroni and cheese and yogurt with pomegranola), and color (possibly yellow, but she did like her new salmon-colored chiton a lot). He seemed to want to know everything there was to know about her!

  But when she began to tell him about Hades, Pirithous abruptly changed the subject. “Theseus and I will have to leave MOA after dinner tonight,” he told her. He smiled at her sadly. “I wish I could stay longer. Then we’d have time to get to know each other better.”

  Did he mean as friends? Something about his tone gave her the impression that he might be crushing on her. Was he? Persephone wondered. She couldn’t very well ask him, because what if she was wrong? That would be embarrassing. Even worse, though, what if she was right?

  Aphrodite would probably be able to tell if Pirithous was crushing, but she wasn’t here, unfortunately. Persephone bit her lip in confusion. Surely this mortal boy had read in Teen Scrollazine how she and Hades hung out together a lot. Though Pirithous’s attention was flattering, her heart belonged to that godboy.

  Thinking about Hades made Persephone wish she were flying with him right now. They wouldn’t need to hold hands, since he was immortal, like her, but they probably would have anyway.

  She and Pirithous were silent for a while, each thinking their own thoughts. If Hades saw her holding hands with him, would he be at all jealous? He never seemed to be. Not even that one time when the mega–pop star Orpheus had pulled her up onto the stage during a performance, autographed her arm, and even given her a kiss! (Just a quick, light one on the cheek.)

  Thinking about that made her regret her jealous feelings toward Minthe yesterday even more. Next time she saw that girl, if ever, she’d be over-the-top nice to her to make up for her earlier jealousy, she decided. Maybe she’d even suggest some planting ideas to beautify her river or something.

  By now she and her teammates were flying over the Gulf of Corinth, which separated mainland Greece from the Peloponnese peninsula. One of her backpack straps had gotten tangled. As she untwisted it with her free hand, she noticed that way, way behind her and Pirithous, she could just make out the figures of students from other teams. Either they, too, had learned that they could ask questions of the new and improved scroll-gadgets, or they’d found out the location of the white blackbirds at the library.

  She was about to point out the approach of the others to the rest of her team when Pirithous’s hand abruptly slipped from her grasp. Without her immortal magic to keep him aloft, he began to plummet straight down toward the waters of the gulf!

  “Help!” he cried out. “Save me!”

  Persephone’s eyes widened in horror. Panicking, she swooped down and grabbed his hand again only seconds before he would have plunged into the gulf waters.

  “Ye gods! I’m so, so sorry!” she apologized as she pulled him back upward to safety. She was always so careful when flying with mortals. How could this have happened?

  Pirithous brushed his long blond hair out of his eyes and gave her a huge smile. “Thanks, Persy. I knew you’d rescue me!”

  Huh? He didn’t seem that upset, she thought suspiciously. Had he let go of her hand on purpose? Had this been some kind of a test? Or some oddball attempt to make her like him? Didn’t he realize the danger he’d put himself in? And what was up with calling her Persy? She didn’t really like nicknames. Before she could decide what to say to him, Makhai caught up to them.

  Naturally, he’d seen what had happened. Zooming in circles around them, he taunted, “Good job, Klutz-ef-phoney. Not!”

  Great, another nickname she didn’t want. Argh!

  Makhai’s gaze moved to Pirithous, then back to her. “Can’t say one mortal would be much loss, but still… Zeus would be mad if you’d actually doom-dropped this guy to smithereens.” He grinned as if he’d just made the funniest joke ever.

  Pirithous tightened his grip on Persephone’s hand as his other hand clenched. With narrowed eyes, he shook his fist at Makhai. “You leave her alone!” he spat out. “She saved my life!”

  Makhai’s eyes widened. “Whoa, buddy. Take it easy. I was only messing with you. Can’t you take a joke?”

  “Sure,” Pirithous replied. “But if that was your idea of a joke, you should probably stop trying to tell them.”

  “Huh?” Makhai frowned.

  Uh-oh, thought Persephone. Mortals should know better than to insult an immortal. Especially one as bad-tempered as Makhai.

  “You are not funny, dude,” Pirithous went on, putting himself at even more risk for retaliation. He unballed his fist and flicked his fingers. “Why don’t you show us how fast you can make your winged sandals fly and buzz off, god-dude!”

  To Persephone’s surprise, Makhai did exactly that. His dark purple cloak billowed behind him as he sped on ahead of her and Pirithous. She grinned at the blond mortal boy. He sure knew how to handle Makhai! He grinned back at her, looking a bit like a lovesick puppy.

  Uh-oh. Before he could get the wrong idea and think she was flirting with him or something, she said sternly, “Hang on tight from now on. I can’t have you falling again.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “I won’t let go.” Then he blushed a deep cherry red.

  For Z
eus’s sake! He was crushing on her. She was almost sure of it! Now she really wished Aphrodite were here. An expert at deflecting crushes without hurting feelings, she’d know how to handle this. But boys didn’t crush on Persephone every day like they did on Aphrodite. They practically tripped over themselves to do that goddessgirl’s bidding. Thinking all this, she began to sympathize with Hades’ seeming inability to deal with Minthe’s one-sided crush on him. It wasn’t easy!

  “C’mon. We’d better hurry,” she told Pirithous briskly, “or the other teams will catch up to us.” Hearing her, her winged sandals picked up their pace. In a blur of speed they dashed on toward Mount Cyllene.

  8

  The White Blackbird

  THE MINUTE HER WINGED SANDALS touched down near the top of the snow-dusted mountain, Persephone dropped Pirithous’s hand. “Look, there’s the rest of our team,” she told him, pointing. Their teammates, Antheia, Theseus, and Makhai, already stood some fifty feet ahead of them, staring up at a small stand of scrubby trees. At least a couple dozen blackbirds (black ones, not white ones) were roosting in the tops of the trees’ branches. They flapped their wings and cawed up a storm as Persephone and Pirithous approached.

  “Haven’t seen any white ones like the gadget told us to find,” Antheia called out as Persephone and Pirithous hurried to join their teammates.

  “Oh. Too bad,” said Persephone. “Maybe if we keep watching, one might come along in a few minutes?”

  “Let’s hope so. We need to hurry. The other teams aren’t far behind us,” said Theseus. He nodded toward Pirithous. “Let’s walk farther down the mountain. Maybe the white blackbirds don’t roost at this high altitude.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Makhai.

  Persephone and Antheia shared a look. Apparently the company of mortal boys was preferable to the godboy over that of girls, even if the girls were immortal. They both laughed.

  “Who needs ’em,” Antheia joked as the three boys darted off.

  Persephone giggled, then looked around. “Hey, you know what? I think this is where Hermes was born,” she told Antheia. “In a cave somewhere on this mountain.”

  Hermes was a familiar sight at MOA. He ran a delivery service, and his mighty white-winged silver chariot was constantly crisscrossing Greece to deliver packages, and sometimes messages, to and from MOA and elsewhere. Occasionally he even gave rides to students. When Zeus had suddenly remembered he had a daughter living down on Earth and summoned her to Mount Olympus, for example, Hermes had picked Athena up and flown her to the Academy for her first day of school. (Zeus was amazing, but he could be quirky like that. Plus he had a thunderous temper sometimes if things didn’t go his way!)

  “Really?” said Antheia as they both wandered nearby, their eyes peeled for birds with white feathers. “I never knew that about Hermes. Too bad he’s not here now, bringing us a message about where to find those white birds!”

  “Hey! Over here. We see something!” Theseus shouted in their direction.

  Immediately, the girls rushed off toward the three boys. When they caught up to them, Theseus held a finger to his lips and pointed up at a particular scrubby tree not far away. Caw! Caw! A group of blackbirds was roosting in that tree too.

  “Look! Is that a white one?” Antheia pointed eagerly to the top of the tree.

  Persephone gasped. It was a white bird. Almost the same size and shape as a blackbird, only white! As everyone began to exclaim over the white blackbird, however, she felt a seed of doubt take root and begin to grow inside her.

  “The white bird is slightly smaller than the other blackbirds,” she noted aloud. And now that she looked more closely, she saw that it had some brown on it. “And its head is more gray than white. In fact, it looks an awful lot like the snow finches I see in winter at the feeder in my backyard at home.” A new thought popped into her head. “Hey, remember what Muse Urania told us back in class? ‘Sometimes we see what we want or expect to see.’ Think this could be an example of that?”

  “Of us only wanting it to be a white blackbird, you mean?” asked Pirithous.

  Persephone nodded.

  “So you don’t think it’s a white blackbird, then?” Antheia asked, a look of disappointment on her face. “You think we need to keep looking?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s a white blackbird,” Persephone said in answer to Antheia’s first question. “But I’m also guessing we don’t need to keep looking.”

  Her teammates stared at her. “What? Why?” they murmured.

  “Because I’m pretty sure we’ve found the bird Muse Urania intended us to find,” Persephone told them. At their blank looks, she hurried to explain further. “When Muse Urania warned us that sometimes we see what we want or expect to see, I think she was hinting that that bird-watcher author guy Pausanias was mistaken in his identification. He wanted to discover an unusual bird so much that he tricked himself into believing it was a white blackbird.”

  Antheia nodded slowly. “I bet you’re right. And I bet that after this contest one of Muse Urania’s lectures will be about how naturalists sometimes make mistakes.”

  “Right,” said Persephone. “For example, even though I’m the goddessgirl of spring and growing things, I’ve made plenty of mistakes identifying various plants. Once I even mistook a patch of the herb marjoram for oregano, for godness’ sake.”

  When the others only looked at her blankly again, she went on. “They do look kind of alike, but it was a beginner’s mistake.” She chuckled. “Of course, I was only four years old at the time, so I guess I could cut myself some slack for that one.”

  “Enough talk,” Makhai said impatiently. “If we’ve found the bird Muse Urania wanted us to find, we’ll soon know.” With that he pulled his scroll-gadget from his pocket. The others did likewise. Pzzt! Suddenly a beam of green light shot downward from each of their tightly rolled scroll-gadgets.

  As if attracted to one another by a powerful magnet, the beams joined together to make a circle of light on the ground. And within that circle of light, a carved wooden box appeared. It had fancy, swirly designs on it and was about the same size as a jewelry box. A moment later the beams fizzled away, but the box remained.

  “Wait!” yelled Persephone, as Theseus dashed over and picked it up. “Don’t open it. Pandora found a box like that one time. It was filled with trouble bubbles, and when they floated out, they caused all kinds of problems!”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” said Antheia. “Those bubbles made everybody act really weird. Aphrodite even pumped her hand under one armpit to make fart noises. Which was so not like her.”

  Pirithous and Theseus laughed, while Makhai snickered.

  Still holding the box, Theseus ran one hand over his dreadlocks and glanced around their group. “Muse Urania told us we’d find a magical container at each geo-dashing location, right? This one’s obviously magical, with the green beams and all. We have to open it and take one of the objects inside as proof of where we’ve been.”

  “Okay. Sorry,” Persephone said, remembering. “I guess that means we really did solve the riddle. I wasn’t sure. And after that Pandora incident, all wooden boxes make me a bit nervous.”

  While Theseus began fiddling with the box to try to open it, Makhai snorted. “That’s dumb.”

  Heat rose in Persephone’s cheeks. But she was determined to ignore his insult. “I guess we all have things that make us nervous,” she said in as bright a voice as she could manage. “Even you, maybe?”

  “Yeah, like sniffing your underarms to see if they’re stinky?” Theseus said slyly. When Makhai gave him the stink-eye, he backed away grinning. “Hey, me and Pirithous saw you do it when you tripped over Persephone’s scrolls yesterday in the hall. Just sayin’.”

  When Pirithous laughed, she flashed him and Theseus smiles. Immediately afterward, she regretted it, though. Because Pirithous’s smile went mega-bright. Had she given him the idea that she felt the same way about him that he seemed to feel about her
? As in a crushing way? They’d only met like an hour ago. Still, Aphrodite had told her once that love at first sight was a real thing. So maybe he felt that? Even if she didn’t?

  When Antheia and Makhai went over to help Theseus struggle with the box, Persephone suggested to Pirithous, “Hey, why don’t you fly with Makhai for a while? Get to know each other.”

  Makhai stopped prying at the box to look over at them. “Uh, no, I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.

  Luckily, Theseus managed to pop open the lid of the wooden box just then, shifting everyone’s attention. Inside were seven identical bird-shaped figurines—one for each team, presumably—about three inches tall. They’d been chiseled from white stone.

  “Could you put this in your backpack?” Theseus asked, handing a bird figure to Persephone. “It seems you’re the only person on our team who brought one.”

  “Sure,” said Persephone. She slipped off her backpack, opened it, and stowed the stone figurine inside.

  Before Theseus could set the box back down on the ground, Pirithous stopped him. “Wait! Can I have a look at the figures? I’m wondering if they’re all exactly the same. I mean, what if one is better than the other in terms of winning the game, you know?”

  Theseus passed the box to him, and Pirithous examined the small stone birds, picking up one after another. “Nah, I guess they look identical,” he murmured slowly.

  “Hey, lemme see those,” said Makhai just as shouts sounded from overhead. Everyone looked up as members of Team One—Athena, Iris, Heracles, Ares, and Kydoimos—began to set down around them in their winged sandals. Athena was holding hands with Heracles, since he was a mortal and couldn’t fly on his own. (Since they were each other’s crushes, Persephone was sure neither of them minded!)

  “Rats. We shouldn’t have stood out here in the open like this where they could spot us. We gave away the location of the first clue,” said Pirithous, sounding frustrated.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they were coming here already anyway,” said Theseus. “That Athena’s called a ‘brain’ for a reason, you know? You wouldn’t believe how many things Heracles told me she invented—ships, the chariot, the plow, weaving, the flute, the trumpet, and more. She even invented the olive. Team One is going to be our biggest competition.”