by P. J. Hoover
“I love this place,” I said.
Dory didn’t respond. He only stared ahead, not moving except for the slow movement of his mouth as he chewed yet another flower.
“Dory,” I said. I angled forward so I could see his face.
“Eat your flower,” the girl said.
It rested in my palm. I felt the small weight of it.
“Dory.”
Still no response. And when I finally saw his face, I jumped back.
His eyes had turned from their normal dark green to the light, light blue of the Flower Children. And his face was the color of the ash from Mount Vesuvius.
I snapped my fingers in front of him. “Hey, Dory.”
He acted like he didn’t hear me or see me. All he did was chew.
“The flower,” the girl said, closing my fingers over it.
My head snapped back to her. It was getting easier to move with every second that went by.
“I don’t want the flower right now,” I said, even though my tummy was still grumbling. I kinda did want the flower, except when I had the flower, all I wanted was the flower. It was a weird, endless loop.
“You need to eat the flower,” she said, and her face shifted, just for a second. Her teeth looked rotten and had gaping holes where some of them were missing. And her hair, which I’d thought looked really pretty before, hung in limp strands around her face—her ashen face, the same color as Dory’s. But the shift was so quick, that once she went back to normal, I figured I must’ve imagined it.
I leaned back in my chair. “I should probably write this all down.”
She shook her head slowly. “You don’t need to write it down.”
The story. Elder Pachis. Mom. Our entire future was lost if I didn’t come back with an epic tale. And then I thought about how much I missed Mom. How after Dad went away, before we found out he was missing, she’d tell me epic stories about him and all the heroic deeds he was off doing even though she had to be as worried about him as I was. I couldn’t leave her alone. Not with him already gone.
“I do need to write it down,” I said. “I really do. Everything depends on it.”
“Nothing depends on it,” she said. “Just let the future go. Relax. Have another flower.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I could let it go.
But Mom’s face kept coming back to me. I could give up the future, maybe for myself, but not for Mom. Not when it mattered this much.
I stood, scooting my chair back. “I don’t want another flower,” I said, maybe too loud, because a bunch of the Flower Children swiveled their heads my way.
Okay, I didn’t want to draw attention. This wasn’t going well at all.
I sat back down. “I mean, I don’t want it yet. I need to … Do you guys have a bathroom?”
She nodded her head. “Of course. Follow me.”
“No. No. No. Just point me in the right direction.”
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“Totally sure,” I said.
So, she pointed back behind me, far into the city or village or whatever we were really in. All I’d seen were these outdoor tables and chairs.
“Come on, Dory,” I said, grabbing his arm.
“He can stay,” the girl said.
“He’s coming,” I said, and I yanked hard, pulling his skin. It was the first time I noticed that Dory didn’t have nearly as much hair on his arms as I did. It must be a puberty thing.
Dory didn’t put up any kind of fight. He just let me pull him up and drag him through all the people. They were all acting weird, staring straight ahead, eyes crystal blue.
The bathrooms weren’t hard to find. There were two of them, guys and girls, with signs marking which was which overhead. I started for the guys’ bathroom, pulling Dory with me, but Dory pulled back.
“I have to go in this one,” he said, pointing at the girls’ room.
“That’s for the girls,” I said. “Come on.”
“But I am a g …,” he started, but then his words drifted off, like he suddenly remembered something.
“You are a what?” I said.
Dory’s eyes were still unfocused, but it was like little thoughts were trying to go through his mind. They were just having a hard time.
“I’m a g … gorilla?” he said.
“You’re a gorilla?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean I’m a gherkin.”
“A gherkin? Dory, you aren’t making any sense.” What was in those flowers?
Wait. That was it. There was something in the flowers. Something affecting anyone and everyone who ate them.
“We need to get back to the ship,” I said. “We need to warn Odysseus.”
“Back to the ship?” Dory said. “Can’t we stay here?”
“No. We can’t stay here. We need to go.” And I dragged him away from the bathrooms and back in the direction we’d come. Back to the beach. But before the boats or dock or anything came into view, there was Odysseus himself, on the path, talking to three ladies in togas.
They held a tray out in front of him, and he reached for one of the flowers on it.
I started running. “No! Don’t eat it,” I screamed, but I was still so far away.
He picked up the flower and seemed to consider it. And then he opened his mouth.
“Odysseus! Stop! You can’t eat that!” I was closer now, and my voice must’ve carried across the wind to him because he hesitated and looked in my direction.
The three ladies turned my way, and as I got closer, their faces shifted. Ashen and dull with stringy hair and missing teeth and clothes that hung in rags. Their true appearance. Everything else was just an illusion.
“What do you say, Bard?” Odysseus called out to me.
“Don’t eat the flowers,” I said, and when I reached it, I smacked the tray to the ground.
“That was rude,” Odysseus said.
“They’re something in the flowers. Like poison. Or something. You can’t eat it.”
At my words, the three ladies took off, running back down the path. They didn’t even cast Dory a second glance.
“Poison, you say?”
“Like a drug,” I said. “It’s making people not care about stuff.”
“Is that why nobody has returned to the boat for nearly a week?” Odysseus said.
“Nearly a week! Are you kidding? It’s been like a half hour.” That was horrible news. The hourglass may be slowed down, but it was still ticking away the time I had left to get back to Ionia.
“A half hour,” Dory said, finally coming up behind me. The focus was returning to his eyes, just like the color was returning to his face.
“No, young Bard. The entire lot of you has been gone for days.”
This was not good.
“I’ve heard of this place,” Odysseus said. “It is the Isle of the Lotus Eaters. People get trapped between the slices of time on this island. They never leave. It is a dangerous place.”
That was a complete understatement.
“We need to get the guys and get out of here,” I said. If we didn’t do something, the guys were never going to want to leave.
“Exactly my thoughts,” Odysseus said, and we set out back to the city of the Lotus Eaters.
“Don’t eat any more flowers,” I said to Dory once the people came into view. A bunch of them stood up and came our way with trays.
I ran straight for the table where we’d been sitting. But the girl was nowhere in sight. Instead there were a couple of kids that looked younger than me and Dory.
“Have you guys seen the girl that was here a few minutes ago?” I said.
I wasn’t sure if that was accurate. It could have been yesterday. If nearly a week had gone by, then my concept of time was way off.
They didn’t respond. They only looked at me slowly with their blue eyes and went back to chewing the flowers. So I left them and dashed around the city, looking at every single person I could find. But the girl was nowhere. If I
lost the scroll, I might as well jump off the nearest cliff. I had to have the scroll. There was no choice in the matter. And I was not going to give up looking for it.
“To the boats,” Odysseus bellowed. I noticed he had Polites next to him, helping him gather up the guys. None of them seemed to want to go. But Odysseus was persuasive. I wasn’t sure what he said to them, but slowly, one by one, they got up and started down the path. Maybe he promised them more flowers back on the boat.
I kept searching until I finally found her. She sat with Eurylochus, feeding him flowers. His normal dark polished skin was like ash. Maybe we could leave him here, leave him behind.
No, that was horrible. We couldn’t leave anyone behind. Even if he was a moldy piece of bread.
“I need my scroll,” I said to the girl.
“Why?” she said, like my statement confused her.
“Give it to me now.” I didn’t have time for games or questions.
“I don’t have it.” She pressed a flower to her cheek and let out a deep sigh.
I got right in her face. “You either find my scroll right this second, or I will find a way to destroy every single flower on this island. You will never have another one.”
This was complete baloney. I had no clue how many flowers there were or how I’d destroy them. But the threat was enough. Her already wide eyes got wider, and she moved from table to table, searching for it.
I searched alongside her, and when she finally found it, under a beach umbrella, her face both relaxed and grew serious. She held it out to me and implored me with her eyes.
“Make us famous, Homer,” she said. “Let the Flower Children be remembered. Let us be a warning to others.”
The only person I planned to let read my story besides Dory was Elder Pachis, so I didn’t think I’d be making anyone famous. But I nodded and took the scroll and ran.
Long story short. We all made it back to the boat. The men were seriously unhappy when they found out there weren’t any flowers on board, and Odysseus had to tie them to the benches and make them not eat until they’d gotten all the flower out of their systems. They were furious until they weren’t. And then they were just back to normal. I wrote it all down, as fast as I could, because I knew our journey would be ending soon. We were going to be to Ithaca in a matter of days.
A week later, we spotted a new island in the distance. I was sure it was Ithaca. Of course, once again, I was completely wrong.
INTO THE CAVE
I RAN TO THE GALLEY TO TELL DORY ABOUT THE island. Actually about the fact that the island wasn’t Ithaca. Odysseus only had to glimpse the outline through the fog to make that assessment.
“We’re not home, men,” he’d said.
The guys let out a collective grunt of annoyance. And impatience. They’d been getting grouchier by the day. Four fights had broken out in the last two days alone. One nose had been broken.
“You promised us Ithaca,” one of the stupider guys said. I think his name was Moronios or something like that. He never knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“And Ithaca I will give you,” Odysseus said. “But not today.”
“So where are we then, oh great king?” Eurylochus said, sauntering over to stand next to Odysseus like they were equals.
Odysseus didn’t even look his way. “I’ve not seen this island before. We should investigate.”
Here I’d hoped he’d say something along the lines of “we should proceed with caution and not attack the villagers” or “don’t eat the flowers.” But no, just a simple, “we should investigate.”
“Should I go ahead and scout out the area?” Polites said.
Odysseus clasped him on the back. “No, my friend. We’ll all go. This island looks fertile and green, and I feel good omens rippling off it.”
The only thing I felt rippling off it was just one more delay before we got home. But fine, I totally understood that we needed more provisions. I just hated that every time we stopped for them, something went wrong.
“This time could be different,” Dory said when I filled him in on what had happened above.
“You really think so?” I said.
“Yeah, sure,” Dory said. “We’ve totally seen the worst of this trip.”
So, I rolled up my scroll and refilled my pen with ink, and we set out, catching up to Polites once we got ashore. Rocks and shells littered the hillside, but we managed. He stopped every so often to pick up new shells for his braids since a bunch had come off in the last couple weeks.
Of course, some of the guys charged ahead, including Moronios. He kept saying, “First to the booty! First to the booty!” If anyone was listening, they’d know the Greeks had arrived.
“So this Ajax guy that Odysseus fought,” I said. “Whatever happened to him?”
“He set out on his own ship,” Polites said. “To return home to his father, King Telamon.”
“King Telamon,” I said. “No way! Our king is King Telamon, but he doesn’t have any kids.”
Polites shook his head. “Wrong you are, Homer. He has two sons, both heroes of the war with the Trojans.”
That definitely wasn’t right. It must be a different King Telamon we were talking about. Our king didn’t have any living kids. Nobody to carry on the throne.
“How about others?” I said. “Were there any other Greek heroes?”
“Sure,” Polites said. “There was Nestor and Peisistratus and Menelaus and Agamemnon. All great men. Oh, and Achilles. We can never forget Achilles.”
“What about girls?” Dory said. “Were there any girls?”
Polites laughed. “Girls! War is no place for girls.”
“But certainly there were some,” Dory said. “Like maybe not in the actual fighting.”
Polites cleaned some sand out of his eyepatch and readjusted it. “Well of course. There was Cassandra. And Clytemnestra. And Helen. Without Helen, the war never would have happened.”
“She’s the one who got kidnapped?” I remembered the guys talking about her in the Horse.
“Yeah,” Polites said, lowering his voice. “The guys aren’t supposed to mention her. Makes Odysseus really upset.”
“And why’s that?” Dory said. “Is it just one more reason to not have girls in the story?”
I’d never quite realized what a feminist Dory was, but hey, I was cool with that. I was all about diversity in stories. I’d be happy to add some girls if they had a place in the story.
“It’s because Odysseus didn’t want to fight in the war in the first place,” Polites said. “He wanted to be home, with his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. Newly born, just before the war started. He’d be over ten by now. But Agamemnon sailed up to the island one day and dragged Odysseus along.”
“So why didn’t Odysseus just say no?” I asked. It seemed simple enough to me. If you didn’t want to fight, then why do it?
“Why are you here?” Polites said. “Did you choose this?”
I tossed a rock onto the beach far below as I thought about his answer. I wouldn’t be here if Hermes hadn’t sent me here. And Hermes wouldn’t have sent me here if Elder Pachis hadn’t told me I needed a story. And I wouldn’t have needed a story if I’d done better in school. It was like a weird convoluted path arriving here, and in an equally convoluted way, I was completely responsible for it.
“I got in trouble,” I said, which was as close to the truth as I could summarize. “This was my only choice.”
“I figured,” Polites said. “And for Odysseus it was much the same. This war was his only choice, no matter how much he may not have wanted it to be.”
“So, what’s up with his wife?” Dory said. “You think she’s sitting home back in Ithaca waiting for him?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Polites said. “Odysseus thinks she is, and he’s going to return home to her no matter what.”
“I think girls should be in stories more,” Dory said. “They should be the main characters, not little sup
porting characters. It’s like people think that if stories have girls in them, then guys won’t read them, but that’s totally not true. As long as the story is good, people will read it no matter what.”
We crested the top of the hill we’d been climbing. We were super-far behind all the other guys who were running off toward the hills.
“Does Homer know?” Polites asked Dory.
Dory shot him a glance like he was about to skewer Polites with a spatula.
“Does Homer know what?” I asked. Seeing as how I was Homer, I figured if I knew what they were talking about, I’d be most suited to answer it.
“Nothing,” Dory said.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s something. What is it?”
“It’s nothing. I told you.”
“Tell me now, or I stop teaching you to read and write,” I said.
“You can’t do that,” Dory said. “You promised. And if you go back on a promise, you’ll die a horrible torturous death.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Just tell me.”
“There’s no reason in keeping it a secret from Homer,” Polites said. “He won’t tell anyone.”
“Right,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.” And then the weird little conversation we’d been having back on the Island of the Lotus Eaters came back to me. “Wait, does this have something to do with you being a grrrrr …” What was it again? “A gorilla? A gherkin?”
Dory put his hands on his hips. “I’m not a gorilla, Homer. I’m a girl.”
The trees. The birds. The air. Everything stopped moving.
“You’re a what?” I said. Surely Dory had just told me he was a gorilla. Not what I thought I’d heard.
“A girl,” Dory said. “You know, as in the opposite sex.”
“Great Zeus!” I said. “That totally makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Dory said.
I motioned with my hand. “The way you stand. The way you roll your eyes. The way you stomp your foot when you’re angry. You are a girl.”
“Shhh …,” Dory said. “Don’t say it so loud.”
Polites was the only one around, so I wasn’t worried about anyone hearing.