by Joan Holub
Poseidon’s expression turned to one of delight. There were few things he liked more than attention and praise. “Sure!”
While he and Homer were talking, Athena went to her desk and unfurled her Hero-ology textscroll till she got to the map section. About ten minutes later Homer came to sit across the aisle from her. “What are you doing now?” he asked.
It was hard to think with this author dogging her every move. But since he actually sounded interested and because she wanted his new book, The Odyssey, to be as accurate as possible, Athena told him: “Researching.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding a little bored.
She expanded on her answer. “I’m looking up information on the fastest, safest route to get my hero home to Ithaca.”
As Athena spoke, she could hear winds whipping up over on the game board. Good. Those helpful winds would keep Odysseus on course, she thought. And since the crosswinds were all trapped in the bag he’d received, he wouldn’t encounter any storms with the potential to be a problem for his ships.
Bringing her attention back to Homer, she said, “There are dangerous currents, sea monsters, and coasts with hazardous rocks that Odysseus will need to avoid. I don’t want him to make any more mistakes if I can help it.” She paused. “I guess authors like you have to do research when you write a book too, huh? So you can get the details correct, I mean.” She hoped he’d take the hint and be more careful of his facts from now on.
“Details, schmeetails,” he said, flicking a careless hand. “I think scrollbook readers care more about excitement, adventure, and funny stuff than accuracy.”
Athena glared at him. This was her chance to ask him why he’d left her horse out of his first book. Had he considered it an unimportant detail? It seemed like a pretty exciting event to her! “But if you’re telling a nonfiction story about something that really happened, don’t you—”
Just then Medusa came over. She stared at Homer through the lenses of her stoneglasses. “You’re in my desk,” she said, interrupting what Athena had been about to say.
Homer’s eyes went to Medusa’s snakes, which were standing up on the top of her head, hissing in his direction. “Oh, sorry!” He leaped from her chair.
Medusa sat down in his place. Seeing that Mr. Cyclops wasn’t looking, she opened her nail polish and started painting her fingernails green. “You’d better check on your hero,” she commented to Athena after a minute, without looking up. It was almost the same thing she’d said last Friday when Odysseus had been in trouble.
“Huh? Why?” Athena’s head whipped toward the game board. A crowd that included Aphrodite and Poseidon had gathered around it near the spot where she’d left her hero statue.
“Apparently, Odysseus’s men thought there might be gold in that leather bag you gave him, so they opened it when he wasn’t looking,” said Medusa, casually blowing on her nails to dry them. “The winds inside flew out and caused a storm that drove Odysseus’s ships to the land of the Laestrygonians.”
“Awesome!” said Homer. He hadn’t left after Medusa took back her seat, but had just dragged over an empty chair that belonged to some other student.
“No!” wailed Athena. The Laestrygonians were grumpy giants! She grabbed her Hero-ology scroll, jumped from her desk, and ran to the game board. Homer was right on her heels, still jotting down Medusa’s words on the scroll he held.
The giants were already tossing rocks from seaside cliffs toward Odysseus’s ships, which had sailed near their island and now floated below the cliffs like sitting ducks. By the time Athena reached the board, eleven of Odysseus’s twelve ships had sunk. Only her hero’s ship had survived. By now it had sailed to another island.
Athena found a list of islands in her Hero-ology textscroll and ran a finger down it, trying to determine who resided on the one he’d landed on. “A sorceress named Circe!” she declared after a minute.
Aphrodite leaned over to read the brief description about Circe. “Likes to turn men into swine. Uh-oh.”
Sure enough, there were already little pigs running around the island. The sorceress had wasted no time in turning all the men on Odysseus’s ship into snuffling, grunting pigs.
“Does anyone see Odysseus? Is he a pig now too?” Athena asked anxiously.
“So was he a pig?” Artemis asked her a few hours later at lunch when Athena was relating the latest awful news about Odysseus.
Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite were at their usual table, but they were minus Persephone, who had finished lunch earlier and gone to the greenhouse outside in MOA’s courtyard to tend to some plants. She was growing them to make garlands to decorate a ring of tall support columns that surrounded the carousel in the Immortal Marketplace. She and Artemis usually had Hero-ology in the morning, but Zeus had taken their classes to the IM to work on the carousel today.
“No, he escaped,” Aphrodite explained, since Athena had just taken a bite of a nectarghetti and her mouth was full. “And luckily, he was able to convince Circe to change his crew back to men again too.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Artemis.
“Yeah, but Homer took it all down for his new book,” said Athena after she swallowed. “It’s so embarrassing and truly horrible. In a single class period my hero lost eleven ships and almost all of his men!”
A few minutes later Apollo came over from the godboy table. After pulling a chair up to the end of the girls’ table, he sat on it backward, as if straddling a horse.
“So, who here takes advanced Spell-ology?” he asked, looking around the group.
Athena raised her hand a little, saying, “Me. Fifth period.”
“Oh yeah! I remember you did an un-statue curse on Pandora earlier in the year when Medusa turned her to stone, right?” he said. “So maybe you can help me. I want to reverse a difficult curse, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Athena nodded. “I’ll be glad to help, but I’ll need more information.” She held out a hand and counted three steps on her fingers. “First, who spoke the curse? Second, when was it spoken? And third, what were the exact words of the curse?”
“Me, seven years ago, and I don’t remember,” said Apollo. He must’ve read the concern on Athena’s face, because he quickly added, “Yeah, I know. The fact that I don’t recall the words of the curse is going to make reversing it hard.”
“Try ‘impossible,’ ” Artemis murmured doubtfully.
“Can you at least tell me who or what you cursed?” asked Athena.
“Cassandra,” he admitted.
“From the Oracle-O Bakery?” Aphrodite asked in surprise.
Apollo nodded.
“I didn’t know you knew her seven years ago,” said Artemis.
“I didn’t. I mean, I don’t remember it, but she says we met in a temple and I cursed her so that no one will believe her fortunes.”
Artemis arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe that’s just a story she made up. Pheme told me that no one on Earth believes her fortunes. They all say she’s a liar.”
“Thing is, I actually think her prophecies do come true,” said Apollo. “But as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who believes that.”
Artemis studied her brother’s face a few seconds, and then gasped with sudden realization. “You’re in like with her, aren’t you? You’re crushing on a mortal who everyone says is a liar!”
Apollo’s cheeks flushed and he stood up. Pointedly ignoring his sister, he said to Athena, “Maybe we could talk in private?”
He and Artemis usually got along great, but he could get huffy when she tried to question his decisions or tell him what to do, Athena knew. But in her opinion Artemis was right to worry. His previous crushes had pretty much ended in disaster!
“You don’t have to leave,” Artemis mumbled apologetically. “I’ll zip my lip.”
Apollo slowly sat back down and then flashed Artemis a conciliatory smile. “Okay. Thanks, Sis.” Except for occasional squabbles, he and Artemis were really very close.
“I’ve done a spell-reverse before,” Athena mused aloud. “But I’ve never tried to reverse one that’s so old.”
“Yeah, you have to be careful about that,” Aphrodite added as they all stood and gathered their lunch stuff. “Remember those pleated chitons that were popular when we were all eight years old?” When Athena and Artemis nodded, she went on. “Well, back then this mortal girl asked me to make her fashionable. So I cast a spell to help her and she started wearing pleated chitons. A year later, when the chitons went out of style, she begged me to reverse the spell, but I couldn’t.”
“So she’s still wearing pleated chitons?” Artemis guessed.
Aphrodite nodded. “Worse. And ugly hats, too, thanks to my botched attempt to reverse the spell. So be careful.”
Athena and the others couldn’t help laughing. To that poor mortal girl, however, it was probably no laughing matter!
“I have an idea where we might get some help,” Athena told Apollo. “Come with me.” After taking her tray to the tray return and saying bye to Artemis and Aphrodite, Athena went with Apollo to the Spell-ology classroom.
“Ms. Hecate?” Athena asked, popping her head in the door.
Ms. Hecate, the Spell-ology teacher, looked up from the work she was doing at her desk. Her long, wavy black hair was sticking out from her head, gently swirling all around her, like it was floating on water. Only there was no water, of course. Her hair was floating on air! Several pens and scrolls hovered a few inches off her desk, moving around under their own power too.
When she waved Athena and Apollo to come in, though, her hair lowered itself until it hung normally in long waves around her. And the pens and scrolls settled to rest on the desk.
“Just experimenting with a new antigravity spell,” she told them. “Can I help you?” The classroom was empty except for the three of them.
After pulling two chairs up to the teacher’s desk, Athena and Apollo sat. Then they briefly explained Apollo’s problem. Or Cassandra’s problem, actually.
“And you say she’s a fortune-teller?” Ms. Hecate asked when they had finished. They nodded.
“That’s quite a conundrum,” she told them. “Old spells are tricky. Time can warp them. If you knew the words to the spell, it wouldn’t be a problem, but—”
They waited quietly as she thought for a minute. The only sound in the room was the drumming of her long, sparkly purple fingernails on the desktop as she concentrated really hard on finding a solution.
Eventually she spoke in a musing voice, “Hmm, a forgotten-curse reverse. Yes, that could work.”
“How could what work exactly?” Apollo asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Ms. Hecate’s eyes twinkled. “You must get the accursed subject to speak seven prophecies within seven minutes—one for each year that has passed since you spoke your curse. Afterward, say these words to her: ‘Esrever esruc nettogrof.’ ”
Athena ran the words through her mind. “That’s ‘forgotten-curse reverse,’ spoken backward!” she said.
Ms. Hecate nodded. “Oh, and one more thing. The seven-fortune forgotten-curse reverse must take place within a prophecy contest.”
Athena looked at Apollo. “Do you think you can get her—um, the subject—to take part in a contest. And speak seven prophecies in seven minutes?”
“Worth a try,” said Apollo.
“There’s no guarantee it will work, but do let me know what happens,” Ms. Hecate said. “And good luck!”
After they replaced their chairs at the desks they’d taken them from, Athena and Apollo thanked the teacher. Then they hurried outside to the courtyard. The students who were assigned to work on the carousel were starting to leave for the Immortal Marketplace. Athena spotted Aphrodite and Persephone sitting side by side on a stone bench, putting on pairs of winged sandals. Long, leafy garlands with colorful flowers lay in a heap beside them.
Artemis was calling her milk-white, golden-horned deer to her chariot. Quickly Apollo jumped into the back of it along with Hades, Poseidon, and Ares.
Homer climbed inside too. “Can I drive?” he asked Artemis as she hitched her deer to pull them.
Everyone within hearing, including Athena, gasped. Artemis never let anyone drive her chariot! Especially not after a stowaway who’d come to MOA in the back of Hermes’ delivery chariot had “borrowed” her chariot and almost wrecked it.
“Absolutely not,” Artemis told him firmly. She glanced at Athena. “Want to ride with us?”
“No, that’s okay,” said Athena, taking a few steps backward. “Looks pretty crowded in there already. I’ll wing it with Aphrodite and Persephone instead.”
Artemis sent her a knowing grin, probably guessing that she wanted a break from Homer’s company. “Okay! See you there!” With that, she whistled to her team of deer and they whisked the chariot off toward the Immortal Marketplace.
Athena called to Persephone and Aphrodite to wait up, then ran back up MOA’s front granite steps. Pushing through the heavy bronze front doors, she shucked off her sandals, and then grabbed winged sandals from a big basket of them over by the wall. As soon as she slipped them on, the sandals’ straps twined around her ankles, and silver wings at her heels began to flap. With her feet hovering several inches above the ground, she zipped back out to the courtyard to join her two friends.
She, Aphrodite, and Persephone gathered the garlands Persephone had made in their arms, rose higher, and sped off down Mount Olympus. The ends of the long flowery garlands streamed out behind them as they flew across the sky toward the Immortal Marketplace.
8
The Prophecy Contest
Cassandra
BAM! BAM! SOMEONE WAS HAMMERING. It was Tuesday afternoon, and the students from Mount Olympus Academy were back at the IM, working on their carousel. Cassandra could see them through the store window of the scrollbook shop as she half-listened to more of Homer’s many demands for this Saturday’s signing.
“I want a big platter of Oracle-O cookies set here and a jar of jelly beans here,” Homer was saying now. He drew her attention to spots on either end of the big decorative table that she and Helenus had set up for the book signing. “So things are balanced. Symmetrical.”
“Sure,” Cassandra said distractedly. When she glanced out the window again, Persephone was hanging long festive swags of flowers and greenery on columns around the carousel in the atrium area. And Hades was using a hammer to nail the greenery in place.
Other students were waving their arms around and chanting spells to magically paint or decorate their animals or the carousel itself. Yesterday afternoon Zeus had been testing the carousel mechanics and had made the platform with the animals turn a few times. Luckily, Athena’s offensive horse had wound up on the opposite side of the carousel, so Cassandra couldn’t see it right now.
“Make sure the cookie icing and all the jelly beans are blue,” Homer said, interrupting her thoughts. “To go with my hair, which matches the blue ribbon tie on my Iliad scrollbooks.”
Cassandra glanced from the window to his spiky blue hair, and then to the ribbon tie on the single copy of his scrollbook lying on the table next to Mr. Euripedes’ hourglass. He’d bought it at Magical Wagical, and it had a cool timer bell. She frowned. “The cookie icing won’t be a problem. But Sweetza Treatza is the candy store here in the IM, and they only sell multicolored jelly beans, all mixed together. So—”
But Homer wasn’t listening. “This chair won’t do,” he announced as he tried out the big oak chair behind the table.
“What’s wrong with it?”
He frowned, squirming around on its seat. “For one thing it’s not blue like I wanted. Don’t you have a chair that looks more author-ish? A blue one with a gold tasseled cushion, maybe?”
Grrr. How was he expecting her to come up with the exact chair he wanted? Did he think she could magic one up like those immortals out in the atrium could have?
The book event wasn’t for four more days. She
wasn’t sure she’d survive till then with this picky pompous pipsqueak author driving her crazy. However, earlier this morning her mom had gone to speak with Zeus at MOA about some details of the event. So it was up to Cassandra to humor Homer as much as she could. After all, her mom had entrusted her with the job of being his assistant. Which pretty much meant catering to his every whim.
Homer sighed. “And here in the center of the table where I can smell them, I’d like three scented candles. The calming aromatherapy kind.”
The calming aromatherapy kind? All of a sudden Cassandra realized something. Homer was nervous. Saturday was going to be a big day for him as well as for her family’s store. Naturally he just wanted everything to go right. So did her mom. So did Cassandra.
“German chamomile candles are blue, so I’ll try to get some of those,” she said helpfully. “And maybe I can borrow a blue chair with a gold cushion from the Chairs & Thrones Galore Store in the IM. I’ll ask,” she added.
Homer nodded gratefully, then picked up a blue quill pen and the partly blank notescroll he always seemed to keep handy. He began practicing ways to write his autograph. He showed her three different signature samples, one in big blocky letters, one swirly, and a scribbled one that was completely unreadable except for the H at the beginning.
“Which autograph style do you think I should use on Saturday during my signing?” he asked.
“Does it really matter?”
“Yes! Every detail counts. This book has to do well, or my editor won’t publish my next one.” He hesitated, then leaned toward her earnestly. “You claim you can see the future, right? So tell me which signature will bring me the most success.”
“Um, sure,” said Cassandra. She really hadn’t realized how much pressure he was under! “Maybe the swirly one?” she said.
“Liar, liar, chiton on fire,” said a voice. She looked over to see that one of her least favorite people was back. That annoying Agamemnon. He grinned at her, then said to Homer, “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust her. She’s always wrong. And she’s bad luck, too. She told me so herself.”