Freya and the Magic Jewel

by Joan Holub

  “Eski?” Skade echoed.

  To explain, Idun pulled a tiny wooden box the size of a single ice cube from the pocket of her hangerock. “Behold my eski.” When she gave the box a shake and set it on the ground, it expanded into a box large enough to hold many apples. After this demonstration she folded her eski back to ice-cube size and pocketed it again.

  As Skade and Sif asked Idun more about her special apples and eski, Freya pondered the closet she’d been given. Her clothes weren’t going to fit. Her podmates didn’t have the same problem, she noticed as she glanced around the room. Idun’s and Sif’s clothes neatly filled their closets without being squashed together. Skade’s clothes filled her closet only two-thirds full!

  Skade picked up her skis and boots and headed out their pod’s door. “I’m going to stow these on the rack in the mudroom. Be right back.”

  “ ’Kay,” Sif and Idun murmured.

  Freya peered at the outside of her closet. It had hooks on each of its tall sides. Phew! She got busy hanging bulky outerwear things like her cloak and sweaters on the hooks, and sticking her other clothes inside the closet.

  After a few minutes she noticed Idun and Sif staring at her in stunned amazement. Or rather at her clothes. Did they think she had too many?

  But then Idun gushed, “Your clothes are adorable!”

  Sif nodded. “Love that teal hangerock.”

  Freya beamed. “Thanks. I designed and sewed everything myself. I’m kind of into fashion.”

  “Wow!” the two girls said, oohing and aahing over various items she unpacked.

  The minute Freya finished emptying her bag, Skade rushed back in. “All the other girls are choosing pod names!” she informed them breathlessly.

  Freya and her roomies stepped outside their pod. Bam! Bam! Various pod groups were using the heels of their snow boots as hammers to hang cute signs on their pod doors, naming their groups.

  “Look, those light-elves are calling themselves the Shooting Stars,” noted Sif. “And that other pod of light-elves is the Northern Lights.”

  “Angerboda’s pod came up with the name Polar Bears. One of the human pods is named Snowbells,” said Skade.

  “Awww! Those names are all so cute!” said Idun.

  “Quick! We need a pod name too!” said Freya. It needed to be a good one. No way did she want to give those girlgiants an edge over her own group that could later get them teased.

  They all quickly agreed they needed a name, but no one was sure what name to choose. For long moments they stood outside their pod, studying the signs of other groups and thinking hard.

  “How about the Apple Turnovers?” Idun suggested at last. It was a name that suited her, of course, but not necessarily the rest of their group.

  “Snowcats?” Freya suggested.

  “Snowswans?” countered Sif.

  “Ski Skunks?” said Skade. “Oh, wait, that name stinks.”

  The girls burst into giggles. The pod names they came up with afterward became sillier and sillier.

  “Girlpoddesses?”

  “The Quad Pod?”

  “The Podettes?”

  “Think Podsitive?”

  They weren’t coming up with usable names, but at least they were having fun! Freya felt happy. She was beginning to feel like part of a group, just like back home.

  And then Angerboda had to ruin everything. She hefted a large mailbag, ambled over with two girlgiants from her pod, and dropped the bag at Freya’s feet. “This came to our pod for you before you got here,” Angerboda announced. “Forgot to mention it.”

  Humph! Since this bag of mail had apparently been delivered to the girlgiants’ door, Freya guessed that whoever had brought her stuff to the dorm had intended her to share their pod all along. That was okay, though; she was glad she wasn’t rooming with Angerboda.

  As her podmates and the girlgiants looked on, Freya kneeled and opened the mailbag. As she’d expected, it was filled with slabs of wood, stone, metal, and bone. Angular symbols had been carved or burned into the slabs to form rune messages. Freya was accustomed to getting fan mail like this.

  That nosy Angerboda leaned over and quickly read the runes on the topmost stone slab. “ ‘Dear Freya: You are sooo beautiful. Will you be my girlfriend? Write back soon.’ ” The rune writer had glued a flower onto the stone too, but by now it had withered. It was time-consuming to write in runes, so the letters Freya got were usually short like that.

  Freya closed the bag, but it was too late. Angerboda had read the letter aloud in such a booming voice that most of the girls in the dorm had probably heard it.

  “How many boyfriends do you have, anyway?” Angerboda asked, eyeing the mailbag and wrinkling her nose.

  Freya’s gaze swept the circular hall, taking in the looks she was getting from girls who’d overheard. Many were simply curious or amused, but others appeared jealous or disapproving. Though Freya had never been in like with a boy, Angerboda was making it seem like all she cared about was boys! It wasn’t her fault that tons of them wrote to say they were crushing on her. Most of them didn’t even know her!

  “None. No boyfriends,” Freya replied loudly, hoping all these other girls would hear and believe her. “I’m the girlgoddess of love and beauty, so people write to me about their romantic problems. Sometimes with misguided crushes, too.” Yes, Freya liked fashion and helping people with their in-like issues, but there was a lot more to her than Angerboda seemed to assume. It wasn’t fair that this girl was trying to cut her down in front of her new podmates.

  Angerboda sniffed snarkily. “Mm-hmm. Sure.” Having drawn negative attention to Freya, the snooty girlgiant smiled smugly. Then she and her friends turned on their heels and left.

  Luckily, a banging sound shifted everyone’s attention to the main hall doors. “Look! Class schedules are being posted!” a cheery light-elf called out. She was bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands with excitement as some thin slabs of wood were tacked up on the inner doors by a Valkyrie holding a huge hammer. After she left, everyone gathered around to view the list.

  Freya didn’t really want to look. It had never been her plan to stick around AA long enough to get involved in classes. She probably shouldn’t have even unpacked her bag! Still, she supposed it was too much to hope that she’d rescue Brising, find Gullveig, and talk Frey into returning to Vanaheim before first period tomorrow, so she might as well check for her name. As it turned out, the list only showed which class each student would report to first. In her case, it was Norse History.

  Later, before she went to bed, she opened the shutters and looked out her pod’s small window. Gazing up into the leafy branches of the splendid World Tree, she suddenly wondered, Where are the classrooms?

  Then, deciding that question would have to go unanswered till morning, Freya closed the shutters again and snuggled under her covers in her podbed. Because, brr, it was cold outside!

  12

  Cool Classes

  THE GIRLS LEFT VINGOLF HALL the next morning at the same time that the boys poured out of Breidablik. For the first day of classes (maybe her only day of classes, if she could quickly accomplish her secret to-do list!), Freya was wearing another favorite outfit. This one was a woolly gray hangerock with embroidered red felt leaves, overhung with her nine necklaces.

  Since the Valhallateria stood between the two dorm halls, the students all wound up going inside to breakfast together. Everything felt rushed and confused on this first morning of school. Freya didn’t even get to speak to Frey till they met on their way outside again after eating.

  “Happy Frey-day!” she told him. Because this day of the week, Friday, had been named in his honor when he was born.

  He grinned at her. “Thanks.” They were standing alone. Now was her chance to start him thinking about the idea of returning home. However, just as she was about to launch into that topic, Kvasir and Njord came along, and then Frey’s new friends Thor, Bragi, Od, and Loki joined them too.


  “I wonder where the classrooms are?” Thor said as more and more kids gathered, standing around and also wondering where to go.

  And then something happened that made Freya forget for the time being about bringing up her back-to-Vanaheim plan. Out of nowhere doors suddenly appeared to hover in midair, scattered high and low among Yggdrasil’s leafy branches with no visible means of support. Pop! Pop! Pop! Signs sprang up along the golden forest fernway to indicate which doors opened to which classes.

  The doors took intriguing shapes, not just the usual rectangles, but circles and triangles and trapezoids, and even object and animal shapes as well. Seeing Freya, Idun came over and asked, “What do you think is holding them up?”

  “Magic, I imagine,” answered Skade. Along with Sif, she had come up behind Freya, Idun, and the boys.

  “Look! Aren’t those little baby Bifrost bridges cute?” Sif added.

  Freya had been so busy studying the doors that she hadn’t noticed the numerous small tricolor rainbow bridges that had also popped up here and there, high among Yggdrasil’s leaves. A series of branch ladders, vine tunnels, vine swings, and vine slides had also materialized. In combination, these would allow students to travel up, down, and around the branches to get wherever they needed to go.

  Showing no caution at all, Skade grabbed a fragile-looking vine swing that hung from a branch overhead, sat on its seat, and began swinging. “Wheee! I’m off to Dragon-Dodging class!” she yelled excitedly. When she’d swung high enough, she leaped off the swing onto a wide branch and then disappeared through a dragon-shaped door.

  “Right behind you!” called Thor, following her.

  “Ditto!” said Bragi, Kvasir, and Njord, who were also in that class.

  Seconds later Idun and Sif waved bye as they scrambled up branch ladders to their first-period class together. Its door was round, and a sign on the path indicated that the class was called Odin’s Eye.

  “Hope I get that class later,” Od remarked. He had come up beside Freya without her noticing.

  “Me too!” enthused Freya. It sounded fascinating. Of course, she wouldn’t be around to take that class or any other for long, since she planned to return to Vanaheim.

  Freya, Frey, Loki, and Od walked along a branchway with other students, searching for signs that would point them toward their first-period classrooms. As they walked, the sounds of construction reached their ears from somewhere far below. Bam! Crunch!

  Frey sent Freya a sideways look. “Sounds like Mason is hard at work on the wall.”

  “Not too hard, I hope,” Freya said earnestly. With everything that had happened since dinner, she’d temporarily managed to put Mason out of her mind. But now she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. Unfortunately, Yggdrasil’s branches grew too thick along the path for her to see down to the wall.

  “Don’t worry,” Loki assured her. “That wall would take three seasons for anyone working alone to rebuild. He has only three days.”

  Having stopped at a sign that read TREE LORE, Frey sat on the edge of a vine slide. “This one’s mine. See you at the V for lunch if I don’t see you before!” he exclaimed to the others. Then he launched himself into the slide and looped the loop upward toward a door shaped like one of Yggdrasil’s giant ash-tree leaves.

  “The V?” Freya repeated, scrunching her nose in confusion.

  “Short for ‘Valhallateria,’ ” explained Od. “I heard some other kids calling it that too. Probably came up with the nickname because of the V-shaped door handles.”

  Freya nodded as they continued on along the path. “Good. Because ‘Val-whatchamacalla-teria’ is really a mouthful!”

  Od laughed, then sent her a more serious look. “Hey, um, sorry about last night. I had the two dorms mixed up. Didn’t mean to send you to the boys’ one. I wound up at Vingolf, which was kind of embarrassing. Made a couple of girls scream when I stuck my head inside the main room.”

  Freya laughed. “Poor you. But s’okay. Unlike you, I realized the mistake before I went in the wrong door.” She was glad he hadn’t tricked her, because that meant her estimation of his good character hadn’t been mistaken.

  “Od wound up lost in the snow for, like, an hour last night,” Loki teased. “He was practically a snowsicle by the time he finally found his way to Breidablik. Despite the fact that the two halls aren’t far apart.”

  “Oh no!” Freya said, gazing at the other boy in concern.

  Od shrugged. Good-naturedly he said, “What can I say? I have no sense of direction, so I get lost easily.” Still, he seemed a little embarrassed by Loki’s remark.

  Freya tactfully changed the subject. Looking around, she said to Od, “I wonder which way Norse History is?”

  “You’re brave to ask me about directions after last night,” he replied, chuckling. “But I think that could be it.” He pointed to a sign at her feet that read NORSE HISTORY.

  She giggled at having missed seeing it. Then she looked straight up above the sign to see a door shaped like a ship.

  “I have history first too,” Loki told her.

  “And that’s my class,” said Od, pointing at another sign. With a smile and a nod at Freya and Loki, he headed up a branch ladder on the opposite side of the path to a class called Gnashing and Smashing.

  “See you,” Freya called after him. Then she and Loki started over the mini Bifrost bridge that connected to their classroom. Instead of going through the ship-shaped class door right away, though, Freya ducked her head around it first to confirm that, just like that blue office door yesterday, there was nothing behind this door either.

  Loki grinned. “These doors are pretty strange, aren’t they?” he said. Then he pushed through the ship door, which immediately opened into a classroom that looked like the inside of a big wooden sailing ship! “Cool! They’re actually some kind of weird portals!”

  Freya entered behind him. “I guess they each lead to a different classroom?”

  “Hall,” corrected a sleepy-sounding grown-up voice. “Here at Asgard Academy we call them halls, not classrooms.”

  The voice belonged to their teacher, Snorri Sturluson. So named, they soon discovered, because during class he tended to fall asleep and snore very easily! But his class was still super interesting and went by in a flash. Toward the end of it he supplied each student with a verbal list of the rest of their classes. It wasn’t practical to write everything down when it meant carving into wood or stone, so students had to memorize their lists as the teacher recited them. Freya repeated her other four classes over and over to herself: Odin’s Eye (yay!), Runes, Findings, and Ragnarok Survival Skills.

  After Heimdall tooted his horn to signal the end of first period, students emptied out of their hall doors. They were eager to find friends and compare schedules to see if they shared the same classes.

  Freya was crossing another of the baby Bifrost bridges when she heard loud thumping and smashing that sounded like huge rocks clashing together. Mason must really be working hard, she thought uncomfortably. He was out of view at the moment, but from her vantage point she could see the wall now. Already, gaps in it had been filled in, and it was much taller than before. He was making surprising progress. She bit her lip. What if he succeeded?

  Freya jumped when someone behind her made a kissing sound. Mwah! She whipped around to see Angerboda with two of her girlgiant pals. They must have noted the headway Mason was making on the wall too. Angerboda had made the kissy noise to tease her about that promise to give her heart to Mason if he finished his task.

  “Gosh! Was that a sneeze? I hope you aren’t catching a cold,” Freya replied politely, pretending she’d misunderstood.

  Angerboda frowned but then perked up again. “I’m fine. But I’ve got a giant feeling you’ll be facing a wall of disappointment soon.”

  Her friends giggled at that, but Freya didn’t find it at all funny!

  “Freya! Come look!” It was Frey. He beckoned her over to another baby Bifrost bridge a short dist
ance away where he and Loki stood looking downward. Here they could easily see both the wall and Mason through Yggdrasil’s branches.

  Freya gasped. Mason was no longer scrawny! He had muscles now and stood ten feet tall! If that wasn’t enough bad news, he’d found an enormous, strong-looking white-spotted brown horse to help him move the stones. “Mason’s a giant? But he has those bushy eyebrows. I thought he was human!”

  “I guess some giants have bushy eyebrows too,” said Frey. “Besides, I just noticed his eyebrows have a lot of white in them. Must be a frost giant.”

  Just then Mason looked up and spotted the three of them on the bridge. Immediately he shrank to nongiant size. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted up to her and waved. “Hi, Freya!”

  “Cheater!” Loki yelled down at him. “You said the wall would keep us safe from Jotunheim. But if you’re a frost giant, you’re from Jotunheim!”

  “Never said I wasn’t,” said Mason. “And you didn’t ask. Plus, I only said the wall would protect against troublemakers.”

  “You’re still cheating, though. You can’t use a helper!” shouted Frey. He pointed at the horse.

  Mason folded his arms, looking stubborn. “Loki said I can’t be helped by anyone else. A horse is not an anyone, because that refers to people.” As the horse easily nudged another heavy stone into place in the wall, he gave it a fond pat and told it, “Good boy, Unlucky.”

  “Unlucky. That’s the name of that carved horse he wore on a cord around his neck! It must be magical,” Loki said.

  Just like my tabby cats! thought Freya. “Oh, great,” she moaned. In her opinion, that helpful horse really was unlucky. For her!

  Tooot! Heimdall’s horn sounded just then, so they all had to take off for second period. In her Odin’s Eye class things started looking up. And down and all around. The focus of the class, she learned, would be on using a huge, super-magnifying telescope called the Eye that could flex and sneakily extend to let them gaze almost anywhere! She had wondered how Odin could keep track of all the worlds at once. Now she knew. She felt a pang of disappointment that she didn’t plan to be here long enough to get really good at using this amazing telescope!