by Joan Holub
“It was all my idea. Please don’t make trouble for my family, okay?” Cassandra said anxiously.
“We’re not mad,” Aphrodite assured her, coming over. “We just want you to know that your fortunes weren’t accurate.”
The golden-haired goddessgirl, who was dressed all in pink, was as dazzling as Cassandra remembered from Zeus and Hera’s wedding. So dazzling that for a minute Cassandra couldn’t reply. Then finally she found her tongue. “You mean they didn’t come true? You didn’t lose your fashion sense for a while?” she challenged Aphrodite.
“Um,” said Aphrodite. “But that’s not what your fortune said.”
Cassandra turned to Athena. “You didn’t say ‘A horse, of course’?”
“Well,” Athena said uncertainly.
“So my fortunes weren’t true? They were completely wrong?” Cassandra asked. All three of the goddessgirls in the shop stared at her, looking confused.
Their confusion told her everything she needed to know. Her fortunes had come true. But then the slips had changed to make these goddessgirls think they hadn’t. Just like with the Trojan horse. All because of the curse. The curse put on her by that godboy . . .
Apollo! At the very second she thought his name, the bell on the door tinkled again. And he walked right into the store! Cassandra’s breath caught and her eyes narrowed. Grrr.
Then her eyes flicked back to the goddessgirls again. “The fortunes you found in those cookies did come true. And their accuracy wasn’t a fluke,” she insisted. But even as she said this, she knew that the curse had defeated her. There was no way they’d believe her when the “proof” of her prophecies’ falseness was printed right there on those magically altered little slips of papyrus.
Cassandra felt ready to explode. But really, what had she expected? She’d wanted to stir up a little trouble for Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, and their friends. And she had. Enough to bring them in here to make trouble for her, unfortunately!
The only fortune that was truly important, though, was the one she’d given Zeus. Everybody knew he was impulsive. And he’d acted on the carousel fortune, just as she and Andromache had hoped. They hadn’t guessed he would actually build a carousel here in the IM. Still, Cassandra had a feeling that the carousel somehow held the key to fully executing their payback plan!
“Hey! We’re sorry about the dud fortunes,” Helenus said to the immortals. He glared at Cassandra.
“Why don’t you all look around the store?” Laodice coaxed their visitors in a cheerful voice. “What kind of cookies are your favorites? Pick some out. No charge.”
“Well, thanks,” said Athena. “I’ll take some for my dad. He’s got a real sweet tooth.” As sorry as Cassandra felt for herself, she was glad that good old Laodice had succeeded in covering for her by distracting the goddessgirls.
Meanwhile Helenus fawned over Apollo, asking him questions about MOA and archery and war-related stuff. Chastened, Cassandra worked the counter, busying herself with filling cookie orders and hoping these immortals would all leave soon.
After a few minutes of listening to the goddessgirls, though, she had to admit they didn’t seem as bad as Andromache claimed they were. They weren’t being rude to her sister and brother or anything. In fact, they were being very polite.
Then, while dropping a handful of coconut ambrosia bites into a papyrus bag, Cassandra smelled peppermints. Leaving the bag on the counter, she grabbed a quill pen and some papyrus and started writing.
As she did, she felt Apollo glance her way. Eyeing her curiously, he left Helenus talking to Artemis and came over to the counter. “Hi. Do I know you? You look familiar,” he told her.
Cassandra gazed at him wordlessly. Then she slid the fortune she’d just written across the counter to him. It read: You will meet someone who looks familiar.
Looking surprised and impressed, the dark-haired godboy studied her even more closely. “Nice work. But for a fortune it’s kind of general, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Cassandra wadded up the fortune and tossed it away. “You’re right, though. We have met before. Twice, actually.”
He stared at her even harder. Then suddenly his brows rose. “Yeah! I remember now. You were my bridesmaid at Zeus and Hera’s wedding.”
He was right, though they hadn’t said more than two words to each other at the busy wedding. He’d chosen her to accompany him down the aisle by drawing her name from a helmet filled with names of girls who were dying to be chosen as bridesmaids. She’d known he was going to pick her name, but of course nobody had believed her when she’d told them so. Anyway, that wasn’t the meeting she’d wanted him to remember. Had he completely forgotten their earlier meeting in the temple? And his curse?
He cocked his head, studying her. “Your hair was curly back then.”
She shrugged. “I wanted it to have more waves and volume, so I tried a body wave for the wedding. Usually my hair is straight, though, like now.”
“Well, I think it looks good the way it is,” Apollo said, to her surprise. He immediately blushed.
“Uh, thanks.” She sort of wished he wouldn’t be nice to her like this. It made it harder for her to dislike him.
“So, you wrote those fortunes we got,” Apollo mused. “What did mine mean? ‘Your curse you should reverse’?”
“Are you sure that’s what it said?” she asked, surprised that he’d recalled it correctly. By now most other people would have gotten it all mixed up.
He nodded. Then he straightened, a strange look coming over his face. “Can I borrow your pen?” he asked.
When she shrugged, he took her pen and a piece of papyrus and wrote something. She watched him, trying not to notice how cute he was with his wavy black hair and dark eyes.
As he finished writing, her mom burst into the store, her eyes twinkling with excitement. “I have amazing news! Zeus has just offered to help us put on a fantastic event in the store. There’ll be carousel rides, food and drink, and more. And best of all, an author named Homer will autograph his new scrollbook, The Iliad!”
So that’s what Homer’s book was called. In her version of it, Cassandra hadn’t seen the title in her vision.
Just then Apollo pushed the papyrus he’d scribbled on across the counter toward Cassandra. She read it silently. Your mother will have amazing news.
Cassandra lifted an eyebrow at him, and then repeated his words to her. “For a fortune it’s kind of general, isn’t it?”
When Apollo burst out laughing, she couldn’t help giggling a little too. Catching Athena’s eye, she waved her closer and handed her the bag of coconut ambrosia bites.
“Thanks! My dad’s going to be absolutely thunderstruck when he sees these,” said Athena.
Since Zeus was often known to hurl thunderbolts, Cassandra grinned at her humorous use of “thunderstruck.” She had planned to be rude to these immortals if she ever got the chance. Especially to the Three A’s. But now she was kind of in awe of them. Because although they didn’t have to treat her and her family as equals, they were. And they were actually pretty funny. And nice. And up close, immortals simply inspired awe!
Still, she couldn’t forgive some things. As Athena and her friends talked to Helenus and Laodice a bit longer, Cassandra turned back to Apollo. “You really don’t remember the other time we met?” she asked.
He looked at her blankly. Which made her kind of mad, actually. How could he not remember the curse that had ruined her life, even if they had only been little kids at the time?
Before she could remind him of that first meeting, the doorbell tinkled again and Andromache came in. Her friend sent her a smile, then glared at the immortals big-time. Behind their backs, though, Cassandra noticed.
She looked down at the fortune she’d given Apollo only ten minutes ago. Predictably, it now read: You will not meet someone who looks familiar.
Tears of frustration welled in her eyes, and she wadded the paper into a ball. “Um, I have to go,�
�� she told him abruptly. Without another word she rushed into the back office.
Andromache followed her. “Awww. You look upset,” she told Cassandra. Her eyes were full of sympathy. “Having to be nice to those rotten immortals just so your family wouldn’t get mad at you was awful, huh? That must’ve been awful.” Putting an arm around her, Andromache gave Cassandra a comforting hug.
Cassandra knew that Andromache expected her to agree that the immortals were awful. But when she tried to summon the angry feelings she’d nurtured for so long against all the immortals—especially Apollo—she just couldn’t do it. Because now that she’d met some of them, they didn’t really seem that bad. It was all so confusing.
Out in the shop the bell tinkled yet again. Andromache peeked into the bakery from the office. “Good. They’re gone. Those immortals think they’re such hot stuff. Always messing in mortal business. Stuck-up troublemakers, that’s what they are. Why did they come into the store anyway? For free cookies?” Her eyes gleamed with curiosity.
Cassandra cringed at Andromache’s expression of ill will toward the immortals. Is that what she had sounded like too, up until today? “It’s okay. I guess I sort of invited them in a way,” she admitted. She plopped down at the office desk, picked up a quill pen, and twirled it in her fingers.
Andromache’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you do that? They’re your enemies! They’re the reason we had to leave Troy and come here!”
Andromache had had a crush on Cassandra’s oldest brother, Hector, before the war. In Cassandra’s opinion that was the whole reason Andromache resented the immortals so much. She probably figured that, if not for the Trojan War, Hector would still be around and in like with her.
“Having those immortals invade this bakery is almost like inviting the Trojan horse through the gates of Troy,” Andromache went on.
At the mention of the Trojan horse, Cassandra stiffened. Andromache was right. Those immortals had caused massive trouble for her and her family. For all of Troy. What had she been thinking, having fun with them?
“I didn’t invite them exactly,” she said. “I just meant they came here because of those payback fortunes we sent.”
Andromache folded her arms. “So did you ask them to explain the trouble they caused us? And did Apollo apologize for the curse? Did Athena say she was sorry about the Trojan horse? And Aphrodite? Did she say she felt bad about making Paris fall in love with Helen in the first place?”
“Well, no,” Cassandra admitted. “Those things never came up.”
Suddenly she smelled lemons. It was a scent that rarely came to her with predictions. Lemon fortunes were usually a bit sour, but they never came true unless the people they were intended for found out about them. Automatically Cassandra grabbed the nearest piece of papyrus. It was some of the yellow polka-dot kind they used to make labels for the trays of cookies on the store shelves. She began to write. When she finished, Andromache looked at what she’d written.
Athena’s horse will crack itself up.
Aphrodite will be embarrassed by really baaad makeup.
Apollo will stand speechless in the middle of chaos.
“Ha! Those are fun,” said Andromache. “Write some more.”
After having met the immortals, Cassandra felt kind of bad that these fortunes seemed so mean. But she couldn’t help the predictions that came to her, and the immortals would never know about them. So no harm done, right? Besides, she enjoyed making Andromache laugh. As the smell of lemon came again, she put pen to papyrus.
6
The Carousel
Cassandra
A DOZEN CHOCOLATE NUT CRUNCH thunderbolts,” boomed a powerful voice. “With sprinkles.” It was Monday morning, and Zeus—King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens—was standing in the Oracle-O Bakery, already placing his second cookie order of the day.
Athena hadn’t been kidding about him having a sweet tooth! thought Cassandra as she watched from the bakery kitchen. From her current spot she could see out to the counter, where Laodice and Helenus were helping Zeus, and beyond them into the store.
“Fortunes spoken or written?” Helenus asked Zeus in an awe-filled tone.
“Spoken, of course,” said Zeus in a voice that crackled with authority.
“Certainly,” said Laodice, shooting their brother a questioning glance. Helenus must be nervous, thought Cassandra. Why else would he have asked Zeus that? Immortals always got Helenus’s magic spoken fortunes. Except for the ones Cassandra herself sent to MOA without permission last week.
Cassandra wasn’t the only one watching Zeus buy cookies. The construction in the scrollbook shop next door was now finished. While doing the cleanup, the workers kept peeking into the bakery through the open archway that connected the two stores, so they could stare in wonderment at the bakery’s powerful customer.
A crowd had gathered out in the IM atrium too, to peer through the bakery’s front windows. The King of the Gods was a busy guy and didn’t come here often, so immortals and mortals alike were naturally curious!
Once word got around that Zeus had bought thunderbolt cookies, Cassandra figured other customers would also want to order them. So she started making more of the chocolate nut crunch cookie dough.
As she kneaded a big ball of dough in the bakery kitchen, she watched her sister choose twelve perfect thunderbolt-shaped chocolate nut crunch Oracle-O cookies and put them into a tissue-lined white box. They all had Helenus’s fortunes inside them, of course. Not Cassandra’s.
She couldn’t help noticing that Laodice’s hands shook a little as she handed the cookies over to Zeus. Probably afraid of accidentally getting zapped by the tiny sparks that ran up and down his muscled arms, thought Cassandra. Zeus lit up with excitement just like a little kid as he took the box. Unable to wait he opened it on his way out and began munching a thunderbolt before he’d even left the store.
“You have an electric personality!” the cookie told him as he pushed open the door.
Cassandra rolled her eyes. That was no fortune. By giving him “prophecies” like that, Helenus was just stroking Zeus’s ego like their mom had asked him to. Understandably, Hecuba didn’t want anything to go wrong during Zeus’s visit! Especially the upcoming author event the King of the Gods had helped plan.
Elaborate invitations had gone out this morning to a guest list that included royalty, immortals, and the greatest heroes on Earth. A big announcement had also been placed in the Greekly Weekly News to invite mortals to the bakery and scrollbook shop this coming Saturday. It was going to be tons of fun, with Zeus and Homer as the star attractions.
Even now Cassandra’s mom was out in front of the bakery in the atrium with the goddessgirl Pheme and the Teen Scrollazine artist. Pheme was going to include an “Events Too Amazing to Miss” article about the author book signing party in her gossip column. Her mom had bartered with the artist, trading cookies for the painting of a new bakery sign with the name she’d decided on earlier. It was already up and now read, ORACLE-O BAKERY AND SCROLLBOOKS. Just this morning her mom had asked him to add a tagline that read: Cookies so good, the King of the Gods shops here!
Beyond the bakery storefront, a big mob of people milled around the atrium. Since the storeowners and their families needed extra time to prepare for the big event, IM school had been canceled for the week. So there were lots of IM kids hanging out, mostly watching the MOA students work their magic.
The MOA-ers had come back this morning to set up the carousel and had bought tons of supplies from different stores in the Immortal Marketplace. Because of them, business was booming for everyone!
Rumor had it that after the author party, the carousel that was being built would become a permanent attraction in the atrium. Right now the immortals were creating carousel animals big enough to ride on.
Cassandra wanted to go watch the students’ progress too. But she was needed in the store. With so many people in the IM, the bakery’s sales were the best they’d ever been.
And now that word had gotten around about Zeus’s fondness for their cookies, even more people were coming into the store. The bell tinkled constantly. If this kept up, and with the bookshop to run too, the family was going to have to hire some help.
Catching her eye, Cassandra’s mom gestured through the window to her to come outside the store. “Watch the oven, okay?” Cassandra told her sister and brother as she passed them. Then she pushed out the front door and went to see what their mom wanted.
“Will you take some cookies out into the atrium and offer them to the MOA students working on the carousel?” Hecuba asked her. “It’ll be great publicity if everyone sees immortals enjoying them.”
It was a good idea, but Cassandra had mixed feelings about hanging out with immortals. “I don’t know, Mom. Laodice and Helenus won’t be able to handle things inside on their own, so I’m not sure—”
“I’ll help them,” a voice offered. Cassandra looked over her shoulder to see that Andromache had come along.
“Andromache! You’re such a dear,” Hecuba told her, giving her a quick hug. The girl beamed, obviously pleased. The reason she lived here in the IM with her aunt and uncle was that her parents traveled a lot. But her aunt and uncle already had four kids of their own and were really into their Magical Wagical store business, so they didn’t have much time for Andromache. She probably didn’t get many hugs, except the ones Cassandra and her mom gave her, thought Cassandra.
“You’ve got a wonderful touch with baking,” Hecuba went on.
Andromache’s smile grew even wider. “I can stay all day.”
As the two girls hurried back inside the bakery, Cassandra asked, “Are you sure you want to help? You wouldn’t rather laze around this week, at least in the afternoons while there’s no school?”