by Maz Evans
“What are you afraid of?” Elliot asked.
“A single day without you,” said Mom softly, kissing his hair.
They lay in silence for a while. Elliot bathed in the calming peace of his mom’s hug as his mind finally quieted. It had been so long since he’d been able to confide in her. Perhaps he was wrong to keep so much from her? Mom was still his mom. She’d know what to do. She always did.
“Mom,” he began quietly. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Anything, my darling.”
“It’s about that loan … ” said Elliot, his heart thumping.
“Loan?” laughed Josie. “I wouldn’t take out a loan. Remember what Grandad says—neither a borrower nor a lender be … ”
“You did,” said Elliot gently, as he felt Josie’s arms tense around him, “to pay for Grandad’s funeral.”
“What do you mean?” she said anxiously, her voice trembling as she pulled away from Elliot and ran her hands through her hair. “Funeral? What are you talking about? Grandad’s outside, feeding the chickens, why are you … ?”
Elliot climbed silently out of the bed. It was cold outside the covers.
“Shhhh. Don’t worry, Mom—my mistake,” he whispered, smoothing the quilt until it looked as though he’d never been there. “Time to sleep.”
She instantly calmed down and settled back into bed. He kissed her on the forehead and stroked her hair.
“Are you all right, Elly?” She smiled sleepily. “You look worried. Penny for your thoughts?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” whispered Elliot. Turning away, he switched out the light and wiped his cheek. “Night night.”
Elliot’s eyes sprang open very early on Thursday morning. It was the day of the State Opening of Parliament.
“What have you and your friends got planned today, Elly?” asked Josie as Elliot loaded the dishwasher with their breakfast things.
“Not much.” Elliot smiled, cheekily throwing a dishcloth at his mom, who threw it back with a giggle. He was only planning to talk his way on to a mission to steal the Crown Jewels and save their home. Not much at all.
Last night, a grimy, sweaty Hephaestus, having locked himself in his forge beneath the cowshed since Monday, had finally emerged, proudly bearing a beautiful crown that was the spitting image of the Imperial State Crown. The blacksmith gave a demonstration of the “improvements” he had made to the original, before reluctantly handing it to Aphrodite, who was eventually persuaded to take it off her own head and place it in Hermes’s bottomless bag.
The Olympians had rehearsed their plan down to the very last second. They had been practicing endlessly, enacting every moment in meticulous detail, thanks to the security vans and guards that Hermes was able to create from wheelbarrows and mice. By Thursday morning, the Gods were confident nothing could stop them.
But no amount of begging could persuade them to take Elliot and Virgo along. As the Olympians prepared to leave for London, they were watched by two very grumpy onlookers.
“We’ll be back by lunchtime,” said Zeus.
“You will get the Earth Stone, won’t you?” asked Elliot. The Really Scary Letter’s deadline was tomorrow. This was his only chance to find twenty thousand pounds, or he was going to lose his home.
“Of course!” Zeus grinned. “We’ve got hours. I can get married, divorced, and wed the bride’s sister in half the time.”
“What a ridiculous outfit,” said Pegasus, who was decked out in full ceremonial regalia.
“Nonsense, you look splendid,” said Zeus as he mounted his steed dressed as a red Beefeater guard.
“I wasn’t talking about mine,” snorted Pegasus.
“Behave yourselves, you little monkeys,” giggled Aphrodite to the children, as she and Athene squabbled over who was driving, with Hermes and Hephaestus squashed in the back. “Hold tight everyone, here we goooooooo!”
Elliot and Virgo watched with faces like thunder as Aphrodite’s car raced down the track toward the nearest road for the low-way.
“Off we go!” cried Zeus as Pegasus soared into the sky, remembering at the last minute to wear the invisibility helmet, vanishing himself and Pegasus into thin air.
“So,” grumbled Virgo, as she and Elliot walked back through the gate and commanded it to close, “do you want to go over that homework Athene left us?”
“No,” sulked Elliot, kicking a stone in frustration. “It’s not fair, we should be going too. I … we need that stone. Today.”
“I know,” said Virgo. “We were managing perfectly well ourselves. In a kind of releasing-a-Death-Daemon sort of way.”
They gave each other a sullen glance. But one look at each other’s miserable faces was enough to make them burst out laughing.
“Come on,” said Elliot as they reached the shed. “Perhaps if we get this algebra done, Sergeant Athene will give us the night off.”
Out of nowhere, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Argus landed at their feet.
“I wish my paper route was that easy,” said Elliot, picking up the newspaper and unfurling its pages.
“The one that Aphrodite has been doing for you every day?” scoffed Virgo.
But Elliot didn’t answer. He was reading the front page.
“Uh-oh,” he whispered at last. “Virgo, listen to this … ”
CROWNING GLORY
By Cicero, News Editor
The Argus can’t see any reason nor rhyme
Why Zeus and his gang are resorting to crime
Word reaches our paper that those crazy fools
Are planning to pinch one of England’s Crown Jewels
This morning they travel to fair London town
To sightsee, then nab the Imperial Crown
Hephaestus has made one from silver and gold
And Hermes will swap this new crown for the old
Her Majesty’s gonna be mad as a snake
To find that her crown is a lousy old fake
This terrible heist truly beggars belief
The king of the Gods is a dirty old thief …
“This is not good,” said Elliot.
“No, it is not,” agreed Virgo, whacking another mole with a notepad as it hastily retreated from the shed. “The standard of journalism at the Daily Argus is utterly reprehensible—it has moles everywhere, but this level of press intrusion—”
“Who cares?” snapped Elliot. “If we’re reading this, then so is every other immortal in the world, including Hypnos and Thanatos! They’ll know the plan to swap the Imperial State Crown at the Tower! We have to warn the Gods!”
“All right, they won’t have gotten far—we’ll call Hermes,” said Virgo.
“No, we won’t,” said Elliot, pointing at the forgotten iGod on the sofa next to a copy of Salve! magazine.
“Not again! And they’ve taken all the transport with them. Unless we take Hermes’s bike? The AAA finally towed it back.”
“The AAA?” asked Elliot.
“Amazing Amazonian Autorepairs,” said Virgo. “Those ladies are ferocious with a wrench. Can you drive?”
“I’m twelve, you prune,” said Elliot. “Charon?”
“He’s on strike until this evening,” said Virgo, pointing at the paper. “The Argonauts are launching a cheaper service. Come on! You know how things work here, how else can we get to London?”
“The train!” cried Elliot. “If we run, we might just catch the 6:42 from Little Motbury!”
“Hurry up, then,” shouted Virgo, as the gate opened for her to race down the track. “Let’s go!”
“Wait for me!” said Elliot, grabbing his backpack in such a rush that he neither remembered to shut the new fence nor noticed the winged figure lurking in the shadows, which quickly dissembled into a rat and sniggered behind them all the way to the train station.
Patricia Porshley-Plum had a problem. She was not accustomed to problems—problems were something she paid other people to deal with, thank you very much. But if she wanted
Home Farm—and she really did—she was going to have to overcome this one. And the problem was that dirty great fence.
Five days after their luncheon (lunch was for common people, and anyone who called the midday meal “dinner” deserved to be shot), Patricia Porshley-Plum needed to see Josie Hooper again to conclude last Saturday’s arrangements. Patricia could feel that land—and the hundreds of thousands of pounds it could yield her—within her avaricious grasp. She just needed to get to Josie one more time to put everything in place.
Patricia was a firm believer in the basic right to privacy. So she always made sure her telescope was positioned where no one else could look at it—she loathed nosy parkers. Through the telescope, she had been watching the developments on her neighbors’ land over the past few days with considerable concern. No one had come to the farm for months; she knew that the Hoopers didn’t have two brass farthings to rub together, and yet suddenly they could afford teams of workers to undertake landscaping and refurbishment. Had they come into some money? Had they already paid off their debt? And who were these strange new relatives? She hadn’t seen them at the funerals of … whatever the grandparents were called, so why show up now? Something strange was going on.
That pesky—if rather dashing—chap had held her off on Monday, so Patricia had been determined to go back that night and get hold of Josie herself. But when she arrived at Home Farm, a huge wooden fence had sprung up around the property. She knocked, called, shouted, and kicked the wretched thing, but the gate wouldn’t open—Patricia even thought she heard the faint sound of a raspberry being blown.
Patricia wasn’t one to let anything stand in her way. After all, she’d not become chair of the parish committee by backing down when she lost the election. Grit, determination, and the strategic use of a shotgun had won the day that time—and Patricia would win the day again.
So she did what any respectful neighbor would do. She hitched her tweed skirt in her knickers and tried to climb over the fence, but immediately erupted in bright blue boils.
On Tuesday, she tried to take a pair of bolt cutters to the gate. The moment they made contact with the lock, Patricia discovered she could only speak Swahili for the rest of the day.
On Wednesday she had tried to chainsaw the fence, but was rewarded with twenty-four hours of earsplitting farts, which nearly burned a hole in her sofa.
But finally on Thursday, with only a day before Home Farm was lost, her moment arrived. As Elliot raced out of the farm, he was so intent on catching the train, he didn’t notice that he’d left the fence open. But Patricia Porshley-Plum never missed a trick.
Before Elliot reached the station, Patricia had Josie dressed and in her car. And as Elliot and Virgo’s train started the journey to London, Patricia had Josie Hooper right where she wanted her.
Nearly a week into her first visit to Earth, Virgo felt she was making outstanding progress with her mortal research. They were a curious category, but she found their endless diversity fascinating. Being aboard the “train” was another opportunity to observe mortals in action, and she felt an unfamiliar sensation, a tingling in her stomach, at the prospect of something new.
“I’m hungry,” moaned Elliot less than an hour into the journey, confirming Virgo’s observation that young mortal boys ate more than a hundred-headed Hydra. “I’m going to the buffet car. Stay here and don’t be weird.”
Content for a short while to sit and watch the English countryside go whizzing past the window, it wasn’t long before Virgo’s curiosity demanded a look around the train. There was nothing “weird” about her perfectly natural desire to explore her new habitat, and Virgo was perfectly satisfied with her decision to ignore Elliot’s rule.
The train was an intriguing mixed bag of mortals. There was the large lady in car C who had locked herself in the “toilet”—Virgo was still unsure of the purpose of these small rooms, but the smell from the “toilet” in car F deterred her from investigating further. In car J, a small child put on a spectacular performance, making pink milk erupt from his mouth. Strangely, the mortal in the suit opposite him didn’t seem to enjoy the show, nor appreciate Virgo’s enthusiastic applause.
Many mortals seemed displeased that the train was running fifteen minutes late. Time was a big concern in the mortal mind, which was odd because they didn’t appear to have anything particularly important to do. As Virgo arrived back at her seat, she wondered what it must be like to live in this strange, imperfect world. A man carrying a box around his neck stomped up to her seat.
“Tickets, please,” he barked.
“Sorry?” asked Virgo, startled.
“Your ticket,” snapped the mortal rudely. “I want it.”
“Oh, I see,” said Virgo, her brow furrowed in confusion. “But it’s mine.”
This annoyed the mortal. Mortals often became annoyed extremely quickly over nothing. Virgo suspected it was because their clothing was too tight—this mortal could barely fit his rear end into his pants.
“Miss, if you cannot produce a valid ticket for your journey, I will be forced to charge you a penalty fare. Do you have a ticket or not?” he huffed.
“Yes, I have it here,” said Virgo, pulling her train ticket from her pants pocket. “So you want this?”
“Yes,” sighed the man.
“You want me to give you my ticket?”
“YES!” he shouted more loudly and quite unnecessarily.
“All right,” said Virgo, holding the ticket out.
“Thank you,” sighed the man, reaching for it.
Virgo whipped the ticket away again.
“That’ll be nine pounds and fifty pence,” she said.
The mortal gave her a look that could unblock a drain.
“What?”
“My ticket,” said Virgo. “If you really want it, it’ll cost you nine pounds and fifty pence, the same as it cost Elliot. Be grateful I’m not adding a surcharge for your appalling manner and the front-row view of your backside.”
“I am not going to pay for your ticket!” shouted the man. “Just give it to me!”
Now Virgo was a guest in this realm, but she was not about to have her property stolen, particularly by someone incapable of purchasing the optimal pants. This simply would not do.
“I will not,” said the indignant Constellation, putting her ticket back in her pocket. “We’ve all paid good money just to sit on your train—which is covered in some revolting pink mess, by the way—and yet here you come, refusing to pay a penny and stealing everyone’s tickets. It’s a disgrace.”
“That’s it!” cried the man, throwing his hat on the floor. “Get off my train! Get off, you rude, obnoxious—”
“Come to think of it,” said Virgo, “I don’t see why we should have to pay for this journey at all. The train was going to London anyway. Why should we have to pay for a service that you are using for free? No, not only will I not give you my ticket, I insist upon a full refund … ”
As he wound his way back down the speeding train, Elliot could hear some choice language coming from the car ahead of him.
“Please not,” he whispered, praying that it had nothing to do with Virgo.
But as he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of the Constellation standing on a table, trying to encourage fellow passengers to rise against the tyranny of South Coast Trains while the conductor jumped on his hat in a temper.
Before Elliot could calm the situation, the train jolted so violently it threw Virgo from the table where she had been holding forth.
“Ow! What was that?” cried Virgo from the floor, rubbing her silver head.
“I don’t know,” said Elliot, bracing himself between the seats as the train made another sudden jolt. “But I’m guessing it isn’t train traffic ahead.”
“What the ’ell’s going on?” shouted the conductor down the emergency intercom to the driver.
“Er—Brian. There’s someone in my cab,” yawned the driver. “He’s blowing a trumpet at me
and I’m … I … er … I’m feeling a bit … zzzzzz … ”
“Kevin? Kevin? You need to—” The train lurched violently again, dislodging a suitcase from the luggage rack onto Brian’s head and knocking him out cold.
“Hypnos!” cried Elliot and Virgo, stepping over the unconscious Brian to race to the front of the train.
Thrown from one side of the train to the other, they forced their way through the screaming passengers, the suitcases littering the floor, and the scalding-hot coffee that flew at them with every shudder. Eventually they burst into the driver’s cab. The wind from the open window nearly blew them straight out again, but they forced their way in. The driver was comatose in his chair and outside the window was Hypnos, waving his trumpet.
“Have fun, kids!” he laughed. “I’m off to see your buddies at the Tower. Choo-choo!”
He dissembled into a wasp and buzzed away.
“He’s crazy!” Elliot shouted above the noise of the wind. “He’s going to kill us all!”
“How do you stop this thing?” yelled Virgo.
She frantically pulled all the levers and jabbed the buttons on the train’s dashboard, but nothing would slow the train down. It shot through a station with a gust that threw the waiting passengers all over the platform. Elliot and Virgo were smashed against the dashboard, and Elliot felt his father’s watch crack in his pocket.
“How many people can you carry in your star-ball?” he yelled.
“For the last time—I can’t use my powers!” shouted Virgo as the train shot through another signal.
“But just say you could—in an emergency—how many?”
“Barely one,” Virgo yelled. “But there must be another way to get you off this train … ”
“It’s not just me—what about all these people?” said Elliot. “We have to stop the train!”
Elliot and Virgo frantically searched for anything that might show them what to do as they charged on through red signals, sending alarms ringing inside the train and out. Elliot racked his brain, desperately trying to think of something, anything that might save them. Virgo grabbed hold of his arm.