Zeus and the Thunderbolt of Doom (Heroes in Training)
Page 4
From somewhere down below, Zeus heard voices. They sounded like they were coming from deep in a cave. Or from inside Cronus’s belly!
“Let us out! Help! Can you hear us?”
The Olympians! Was Poseidon among them? If he could somehow make the bolt let go, and if he could somehow trick Cronus into swallowing it, maybe Poseidon would catch it and fight his way out. Then the thunderbolt could be his problem instead of Zeus’s.
Without warning, Cronus’s fingers released him. Zeus fell feetfirst straight toward a gaping black pit full of teeth. Nooo! He wanted Cronus to swallow the bolt, not swallow him!
In the nick of time Zeus spread his legs. He landed with his feet braced on either side of Cronus’s nose. A big tongue swiped around, reaching for him. It’s now or never, he thought desperately.
Drawing back one arm, Zeus yelled, “Fly!” He hurled the bolt down the Titan giant’s throat. Then he looked down at his hand, hardly able to believe it. The thunderbolt had obeyed him. It was gone!
The giant’s eyes widened. His mouth snapped shut as if he’d accidentally swallowed a bug. A lightning bug! His face turned red, and he wrapped his hands around his own throat. He swayed, like a giant oak tree in a storm.
Zeus lost his footing and tumbled backward. He began to fall. Catching a button on the front of Cronus’s tunic, he hung on for dear life.
“Wait! I know what to do!” Sunhead ran to stand behind Cronus. He wrapped his beefy arms around his chest, just above the spot where Zeus was hanging. Sunhead linked his fists over the king’s solar plexus. Then he pulled, hard.
King Cronus turned a sickly green. And then suddenly . . . BLEAEAH! He barfed! Big time.
A huge stream of ookiness blasted out of his mouth like water from a fountain. Only it wasn’t water. It was gross stuff. The force of it slammed into Zeus, knocking him toward the ground. He slid down Cronus’s belly like it was a vomit slide.
Sploosh! Zeus fell into the big barf swamp that was forming at the king’s feet. It was a swirling mess of epic proportions. There were beast bones, unidentifiable gloppy goo, and five lumps. The lumps were each about the same size as Zeus. And they were moving!
Zeus stood up. Or tried to. He kept sliding and landing on his butt again.
“Eew!” a voice shrieked. “This is disgusting!” It was a girl. She was slipping and sliding too. Despite the goo that covered her, Zeus could see that her long hair was golden. And her eyes were as blue as his own.
Meanwhile, Cronus was moaning and holding his stomach. Seeming to all of a sudden figure out what had happened, he managed to yell, “Get them!”
Then things happened fast. The Titan giants began grabbing up the lumps. One giant snatched up the cone-stone, too.
Zeus tried to get to his feet. He had to fight the giants off! But just as one of them reached for him, Zeus was swept downhill. Carried off on a whooshing river of yuck. At the bottom of the hill he slammed into a rock.
Instantly everything went dark, and he knew no more.
CHAPTER TEN
Olympians
P.U. SOMETHING STINKS!” ZEUS SAID woozily.
“It’s you,” said a girl’s voice. “I’ve already bathed in the waterfall.”
Zeus remembered that voice. The girl with the long golden hair!
Suddenly everything came back to him. He leaped to his feet, looking around for the Titans. It was morning. He was at the bottom of a hill, surrounded by enormous boulders and trees. He’d slid a long way from where the Titans had built their fire. King Cronus and the others were nowhere in sight.
He sniffed himself. The stink was definitely him. Ugh. At least he was finally free of the thunderbolt. He looked around again, making sure it wasn’t sneaking up on him or anything. Was it still in Cronus’s belly, or—
“So he’s finally awake?” asked a boy’s voice.
Zeus turned his head to see a boy with turquoise eyes coming toward them. The girl and the boy were both about his age, as far as he could tell. “You wouldn’t be Poseidon by any chance?” Zeus asked the boy.
“Who wants to know?” asked the girl.
But the boy nodded at the same time. “Yeah, I am. And she’s Hera.”
“Yes!” said Zeus, pumping a fist. Despite all that had gone wrong, he’d managed to succeed in his first quest. He’d followed the cone-stone and found Poseidon. Turned out Poseidon was a kid, not his dad. It was disappointing, but finding his parents would just have to wait.
“What’s your name?” Hera demanded.
“Zeus.”
Hera and Poseidon gave each other a startled look. “Isn’t that the name Cronus called out before he swallowed the cone-st—” Poseidon started to say. Hera elbowed him before he could finish.
“Swallowed what?” Zeus asked.
Hera put on a fake kind of smile. “Oh, nothing. How did you find us, anyway?”
“I was sent here to rescue you. By an oracle. And by this.” Zeus lifted the chip amulet that hung around his neck.
Poseidon stepped closer to examine it, then fanned his face. “Maybe you should take a shower before we talk.” He pointed toward the waterfall beyond some trees nearby.
Quickly Zeus went to bathe in the waterfall and wash his tunic. Afterward he put his wet tunic and sandals back on.
When he returned to his companions, he explained everything. He told them all that had happened to him since leaving Crete. Including how Pythia had called him a hero in training.
“Well, she sure got that wrong,” Hera scoffed.
“Gosh, don’t try to spare my feelings or anything,” said Zeus.
“No, I just meant—” She glanced at Poseidon. “Think we can trust him?”
Poseidon shrugged. “Your call.”
Hera studied Zeus intently, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think we’ll trust you quite yet. You could be one of Cronus’s spies.”
“I’m not!” Zeus insisted.
“You can prove it to us, then,” she said.
“How?”
“There were three more of us imprisoned in Cronus’s belly,” Hera told him. “Hestia, Demeter, and Hades. We escaped, but the Titan giants made off with the others. If you help us rescue them, we’ll tell you a secret. A big one.”
They’d been captive in a belly for ten years. What kind of secrets could they know? wondered Zeus. “King Cronus said you’re Olympians. What’s that?” he asked.
“We don’t actually know,” Poseidon replied.
“But it’s something the king is afraid of,” added Hera. “So that must mean we have some kind of magic powers.”
“If only we knew how to use them!” said Poseidon.
With a loud rumble, the ground next to them suddenly split open. Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon jumped back. A cloud of glittery mist appeared. Pythia’s face glowed within it.
“It’s her! It’s the oracle I told you about!” Zeus exclaimed.
“Trouble, trouble, boil, and bubble!” the oracle murmured. “You must find the trident. One that will point the way to those you seek. One that—in the right hands—has the power to defeat the first of the king’s Creatures of Chaos.”
As quickly as the mist appeared, it disappeared again.
“Huh? Which hands are the right hands?” asked Poseidon.
“Probably mine,” Zeus and Hera said at the same time.
Zeus rolled his eyes. He’d grown up around girls. But the nymph, the bee, and the goat who’d raised him had always let him have his way. He had a feeling this girl was going to be different.
“Come on, let’s get going,” Poseidon said. “See that hill over there? Maybe if we climb to the top, we can figure out which way to go.”
“So we’re supposed to find a trident,” said Zeus as they started to walk. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Hera and Poseidon nodded. The three continued on for a bit without saying anything more. Finally Zeus said, “One question. What’s a trident?”
Hera and Poseidon both shrugged.
“No idea,” they admitted at the same time.
“Well, I do know that ‘tri’ means ‘three,’” said Hera.
“Like us?” said Poseidon. “There are three of us.”
It wasn’t much of a clue. Zeus frowned. How were they going to find the trident when they didn’t even know what it was? An hour later they reached the top of the hill.
Hera gasped. “Look!” On the distant horizon they saw land’s end. Beyond it the entire sea was boiling.
Zeus felt his skin prickle. He repeated the oracle’s words. “Trouble, trouble, boil, and bubble.” Then he added, “I have a feeling that’s where we’ll find the trident. Our journey could be dangerous, though. Are we up for this?”
Hera lifted her chin. “Of course.”
Poseidon nodded, but he looked a little nervous. “I hope the trident’s not in that sea. I don’t know how to swim.”
Overhead the clouds darkened suddenly. The air crackled. Uh-oh! Zeus knew what that meant. But before he could warn his new friends—
Ka-pow!
The thunderbolt was back! It stood before him, crackling and sparking. He started to run downhill trying to get away from it. The bolt chased him.
“Small!” Zeus commanded, breathlessly coming to a stop at the bottom of the hill. In a flash the thunderbolt shrank to the size of a dagger. It hovered in the air before him, darting around as if wanting to be held. Zeus thrust his hands under his armpits so that the bolt couldn’t get to them.
It buzzed around him, looking for a way in. Finally seeming to give up, it slid under the belt at the waist of his tunic. At least it hadn’t managed to get stuck to his hand again.
“Good Bolt,” said Zeus as Hera and Poseidon caught up to him. “Stay.”
Poseidon’s eyebrows went up in awe. “You have a thunderbolt for a pet?”
“Seems like it,” said Zeus. “C’mon. Let’s get going.”
Hera rolled her eyes. “Who made you boss, Thunderboy?”
“Thunderboy?” Zeus echoed. He liked the sound of that.
Beyond the hill, he could feel the sea calling to him. Could feel his destiny beckon.
“Follow me,” he said more firmly. And to his surprise, they did. With long, confident strides, he led the others toward the boiling sea.
Joan Holub is the award-winning author of more than one hundred and thirty books for young readers, including Zero the Hero, Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers and Swirly Stars, and Shampoodle. She lives in North Carolina. Visit her at joanholub.com.
Suzanne Williams is the award-winning author of more than thirty-five books for young readers, including Library Lil, Ten Naughty Little Monkeys, and the Princess Power and Fairy Blossoms series. She lives near Seattle in Washington State. Visit her at suzanne-williams.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin paperback edition August 2012
Text copyright © 2012 by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams
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Library of Congress Control Number 2012939508
ISBN 978-1-4424-5263-3 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5787-4 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5264-0 (eBook)