Pandora Gets Jealous

by Carolyn Hennesy

Iole threw herself between Pandy and Helen.

  "Pandy, don't do it! This is crazy! It's absurd! It's incongruous] It's . . ."

  "Shut up, dummy!" Helen reached around and snatched the box out Pandy's hand. The two girls examined it carefully, not touching the red seal.

  "This doesn't look so horrible. It's just a box. And there's no lock on it. Zeus would never trust your loser dad with evil in a box with no lock," said Hippia.

  "Whatever," said Pandy. "Now give it back."

  "Maybe. In a minute. We'll see," said Helen, the fake sweetness gone. Pandy realized the enormity of her mistake. These girls were never, ever going to accept her or her friends. They were just as mean as they'd always been. Nothing had changed.

  "This isn't the seal of Zeus. Just looks like you melted some wax and drew a thunderbolt in it," said Helen, and she started to draw her finger over the great red seal.

  "Don't, Helen!" Pandy shouted. "Don't touch it! You can't ever touch the seal."

  "Why not? It's just a glob of wax! Probably had your little simp of a brother do some finger painting on it."

  And she put her forefinger on top of the great mark of Zeus.

  "See? No big . . ."

  But she couldn't get her finger off the wax, which was now slowly starting to bubble and foam.

  "Oh! Ahh . . ."

  "Give me the box!" said Pandy.

  "Take it!" screamed Helen, thrusting it toward Pandy.

  But the box wouldn't leave Helen's hands. Hippia tried to wrench it away, and in doing so also touched the seal. Her hands stuck to the box like it was made of tar. The wax was melting and steaming away in a fine mist that splattered and burned Helen and Hippia, and they were screaming wildly. And then, in the middle of their foreheads, both girls began to grow wide, curving, black horns. Then their teeth began to go wide and flat in their mouths. Pandy had only heard tales of creatures called rhinoceroses—until now. Iole had backed up to the cupboards, but Pandy and Alcie were rooted where they stood.

  "Gods, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Pandy whispered over and over, watching the girls undergo their transformation. Suddenly, with a force of will she didn't know she had, she unrooted herself and swiftly leapt forward. She grabbed the back of the box, and gave a tremendous tug. The box easily left Helen's and Hip-pia's hands, but the force of Pandy's pull and lack of wax on the adamantine clasp caused the lid to fly open toward Pandy.

  With a start, she dropped the box, which landed only inches from Helen and Hippia.

  There was a tremendous crack of thunder.

  Nothing horrible came out. Nothing came out at all.

  There was a long pause.

  "Look at me!" screamed Hippia, her words sounding mushy over her big teeth. "I will totally get you for this, you little . . ."

  Just then, the ground started to shake slightly.

  "Look," whispered Iole.

  A black tendril of smoke was creeping slowly out of the box. It was joined by a green tendril, and then a gray one. Brown, red, rust, yellow. One by one, an ugly rainbow of smoke was rising into the sky The smoke started to pour out faster and faster until it was a geyser. Stumbling, Helen and Hippia got too close to the torrent and brushed against it.

  Instantly, both girls began to shape-shift very quickly, changing from rhinos to large whiskered rats to spotted razorback boars to pink-and-red-striped pythons to overgrown lime green skinks and everything in between. Their skin hardened into brown leather, crystallized into scales, then became coarse gray fur. Bristle hairs the thickness of bush twigs sprouted from pointed pigs' ears as they changed from serpents to swine. Their misshapen feet became talons, morphed into hooves, then claws, and at last disappeared entirely. Finally, they turned into large black legless salamanders, gasping for breath and flopping on the stones like fishes.

  The torrent of smoke continued with a roar. Then it stopped abruptly. Pandy stared at the box. She saw something like a fine silvery mist slowly start to rise. She quickly snapped the lid shut. On its own, the adamant clasp flipped back into place. The ground was shaking violently and Pandy could see the sky now streaked with lines of red, yellow, and gray, flying fast over the countryside in all different directions. Loud wails and cries were starting to erupt throughout Athens.

  Pandy had no idea what she was doing when she picked up the little box. She only knew she had to get it back home. She turned, sobbing, to her friends.

  "Run!" she cried. "Run, run, run!"

  Alcie took off like a deer, but Iole was just staring at what used to be Helen and Hippia. Pandy grabbed her hand and pulled her along the portico. The new school buildings were crumbling around them. The marble columns at the front entrance were tottering precariously, and they barely missed being hit by pieces of the roof as it slid off. Students were fleeing in all directions. Pandy heard a loud explosion behind her and, looking back, saw a tall spurt of red ash coming from the middle of the school. So the rumor was true, the amphitheater was on top of a volcano!

  She ran fast, past collapsing buildings and uprooted trees. Past people stumbling about, hurt and crying and confused.

  Not one of the girls stopped running over the shaking ground, around flooded streams, past overturned oxcarts and tumbling boulders, until each was at home under her own pallet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back Home

  "Pandora!"

  Prometheus burst through the outer door and into the main room, tripping over a sea green floor pillow and knocking down two costly antique oil lamps.

  "Pandora . . . get down here!"

  Sybilline stood in the hall before the large looking glass, adjusting her silver girdle and giving her cheeks a last pinch, trying to make herself resemble the nymphs in the frescoes painted on the walls around her.

  "Where is she, Syb?"

  "She's upstairs in her room, I suppose. She ran past me a few lines on the sundial ago. Why are you yelling?" She caught sight of him in the glass. "Prometheus, what have you got on?"

  "Wet straw, muck, mud . . . you name it!" Prometheus covered the floor with huge, angry strides. "I, the strongest and cleverest of the Titans! I, who held fire in the palm of my hand, who chained the Stymphalian Birds, who listened unharmed to the Sirens' song, who picked out the fiercest three-headed pup for Hades' guard dog! And now, I'm covered in . . . muck."

  He slumped the only clean part of himself, his shoulder, against the wall.

  "I knew something was wrong when I saw the sky darken so early. I didn't even finish the Atropos family atrium. Haven't you been listening to the runners? The whole city is in ruins!"

  She gave a short laugh.

  "No, Syb . . . I mean it's really in ruins. I'm not talking about the way they keep the Acropolis Museum and Theme Park for the tourists. The new Parthenon is on fire. Mount Hymettus is spewing lava. The Aegean is cresting the sea wall. I saw it all. And people have gone insane. The Menelaus twins? Those nice boys with the father who's always at war? They were in the paddock as I passed their house! They ran over and picked up a handful of this . . ."

  He looked down at his toga.

  "... I don't even want to think about what it is . . . they threw a wad as big as your head right at me. And where, exactly, do you think you're going?"

  Sybilline gave herself a last look.

  "I'm late for work."

  "You're not going to work!"

  "Shh . . . keep your voice down!"

  "Syb," he whispered, "I know you stopped listening to anything I have to say a long time ago . . ."

  "Oh, you silly . . .," she clucked.

  "But I forbid you to go to work!"

  "You forbid?" Sybilline turned to her husband and gently tugged on his beard. "That's very funny. I'm sure the temple office is still open."

  "Fine. Just great," Prometheus said. "The city is crumbling because of your daughter and you're going to work to take dictation from the God of Heaven."

  "Honey, if you don't lower your voice," said Sybilline, "he'll chain you
back to that rock and let his eagle go feasting on your innards again. And what do you mean 'my daughter'? What has Pandora done?"

  "You'll see! I knew it . . . I knew we shouldn't have kept it in the house. Pandora!" he called again. "She took it. . . the little thief!"

  Sybilline glanced out at the garden sundial.

  "Yes, well, whatever it is . . . deal with it as you think best."

  "Oh, I'm going to . . . just you watch."

  But his wife was already out the door.

  "Pandora!" he yelled, striding over to the bottom of the stairway. "Pan—"

  "What?"

  Pandy stood just above the curve of the stairs, next to the altar of Athena, one arm wrapped tightly around her training girdle, the other hand fiddling with a piece of sacrificial goat.

  Prometheus cleared his throat. He started to pace the length of the room.

  "Hi there."

  "Hi, Dad."

  "How ya doin'?"

  " 'kay."

  "How's things?"

  "Fine."

  "How's school?"

  "Good."

  "Anything new happen today?"

  "Um . . . like what?"

  "Oh, I don't know," Prometheus said. "Like maybe you got your algebra test back? Maybe you saw that boy you really like? Maybe you stole the box from under my bed and released the greatest evils ever created into the world? Anything like that happen today?"

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, oh! Where is it?"

  "It's next to my diary"

  He shot past her on the stairs.

  "Come on, missy."

  She followed him to her room.

  "Get it, please."

  Pandy got the box from the wooden shelf where she'd hidden it.

  "Come on," said her father, and she followed him into her parents' room. Prometheus pulled out Sybilline's jewel box from under the pallet. Then he grabbed two small clay jars from a high shelf.

  "Now this one," he said, thrusting the jewel box under her nose. "This is the box you knew you could take to school! This is the show and tell box! You can play with anything in here!

  "And you know where I keep my liver!" he went on, waving one of the small clay jars.

  "Or here . . . ," he said, holding up the other jar. "Here's a little bit of the eternal flame. Not many kids have this lying around the house."

  Prometheus was starting to turn purple, the veins in his forehead looked ready to burst.

  He put Sybilline's jewel box back and brought out the carved metal and onyx case. "But this was off limits! No touching!" He shook the case gently. "Hmm . . . sounds empty! Why is that, only ill-begotten daughter of Prometheus? Is it because you stole the wooden box that was in here?"

  "Dad . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "Dad . . . I couldn't bring your liver to school. Not again. You can't even tell what it is anymore."

  "What about the fire?"

  "Fire's no big deal now."

  "But fire is a family friend, Pandora! It's very much an enduring presence," he said. "You could have blown on some ashes, for Hades' sake! You could have heated the whole school!"

  "You made me promise not to show that to anyone!"

  "I ALSO MADE YOU PROMISE NOT TO TOUCH THE BOX!"

  "Oh . . . yeah."

  "What about your mother's Zeus presents?" Prometheus said.

  "Geez, Dad, look around . . . all the kids' moms have stuff from Zeus!"

  "So all that business about corn cakes and talking about Demeter . . . that was just a bunch of. . . well, it sure was, wasn't it? You must really take your father for a fool, Pandora. Well, I guess you showed us all, didn't you?"

  Pandora felt more miserable than she could ever remember. She held the wooden box out to him.

  "Dad, I never, ever meant for it to be opened, I swear! I just told everyone what it was and that no one could ever open it 'cause if they did all of the evil things inside would get out and mankind would be miserable forever."

  "And?"

  "And then I started home to put it back under your pallet."

  Prometheus clenched his jaw.

  "Well, when . . . did . . . you . . . open . . . it?"

  "It was later . . . Helen-and-Hippia-came-up-to-me-and-told-me-that-I-could-come-to-a-pre-Bacchanalia-party-and-that-Alcie-and-Iole-could-come-too-but-only-if-they-could-see-the-box. I so didn't think it would matter if they just looked at it. But before I knew it, it was too late."

  "As if a liver-eating eagle wasn't enough in my lifetime," Prometheus said, taking the wooden box. "Do you have any idea exactly what was in here?"

  Just then, there was the sound of another volcanic eruption from the direction of the middle school.

  "Well, I kinda do now."

  "Kinda, Pandora? Kinda? Well, let me tell you exactly what was in this box. Ares . . . God of War? He put in Rage. The kind of rage that makes people want to tear each other to shreds for no reason at all. Apollo and Artemis put in Vanity. Average citizens will sit at their looking glasses for days on end, oohing and aahing over themselves until they starve. Athena put in Greed, but not simply the 'Oh, I'd like to have a few more drachmas in my pocket' kind. No. It's the type of greed that makes a son kill his parents for the last crust of flatbread.

  "There was only one beautiful thing that was kept in this box, and that was Hope. Why? Because we just didn't need Hope if there was nothing to make us despair. Maybe I should have told you exactly how bad it would be if you disobeyed me, but I thought that you were old enough that my word alone was all you needed. I guess I was wrong."

  "Oh, Dad," she started to really sob. "I'm so sorry"

  "Uh-huh." Prometheus was tired. He put everything away but the wooden box. "Okay . . . no diary for an entire season. And you're going to sleep on the floor. No staying late after sacrifices to talk with any youths . . ."

  At that moment, Sybilline blew sideways into the sleeping room; her girdle askew, a lump growing on the side of her forehead.

  "I couldn't get to the temple! There's rioting in the streets. People are driving their chariots on the wrong side of the roads. Lava is covering everything, centaurs are looting the marketplace, and my manicure is ruined! I'm afraid Zeus will think I quit without two weeks' notice! What will happen to my severance package . . . and my insurance benefits? Oh no"—she began to tear at her golden hair—"you remember what he did to me three months ago . . . when I didn't show up on time for my job interview . . ."

  Suddenly, a bolt of lightning shot out of the ceiling, and Sybilline was reduced to a cloud of ashes, floating gently down to cover two charred sandals and a girdle.

  Prometheus stood over what used to be his wife.

  "Happy, Pandora? Look what you made Zeus do to your mother—again!"

  Once before, when she'd been scheduled to meet Zeus for her initial job interview, Sybilline had stayed too long at Calypso's Clay Pot Beauty Emporium. Zeus was so enraged at her obvious lack of interest that he vaporized Sybilline with a thunderbolt as she was having her toenails painted. It was only after much begging by Prometheus to Athena that Zeus restored her.

  "Sabina!" Prometheus called downstairs. "I need an urn, please! And bring a broom."

  "Get them yourself, you good-for-nothing, cloven-hoofed goat!" came the answer.

  "Sabina, now, please!" he roared. "Do you see now, Pandora? Do you see what happens when the world is infected with pettiness, contempt, and insolence? Sabina has been with us for years, and now listen to her. That's the first sign of disrespect."

  The ancient woman shuffled into the room holding a broom and an urn.

  "Here you go, but don't expect. . ."

  She shrieked, seeing the sandals and silver girdle lying under a pile of ashes.

  "Oh, Gods, not again!"

  "Sabina, will you please clean up my wife?"

  As Sabina started to sweep, Prometheus knelt and whispered to the pile, "Honey, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'll try to get you restored again as soon as the lava
cools."

  He turned to Pandy.

  "And . . . you're grounded for the next three moons. And I want you to write an apology to your school principal, and . . . wait a minute! What's this?"

  From the wooden box, still gripped in his hand, a faint whooshing sound could be heard. He shook the box gently.

  "Great Aphrodite . . . something's still in here! Pandora, when you opened the box . . . tell me exactly what you saw!"

  "Um, after all the black and green and red things flew away, there was something kinda misty and silvery trying to get out. So I closed the lid fast!"

  "Misty and silvery?" he said. "And . . . and . . . you closed the lid? Well, of course you did. How would you know, right? Pandora, you closed the lid on Hope. Hope is still trapped inside."

  "Is that good? No. No, that's bad. Gods, I can't do anything right."

  "Pandora!" He spoke sharply, as Sabina handed him the urn with his wife. "Stop it this instant! This isn't about you anymore. Look at the city! Think of the people!"

  He began to pace.

  "I have to . . . to . . . think. Should I. . . open it? No . . . there might be something else besides Hope . . . another evil. Better not take a . . . a . . . chance. I have to think!"

  He stopped abruptly and looked at his daughter.

  "Pandora!" he said. "Pandora, on top of everything else, you've left the world without Hope!"

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Apology

  Dear Principal Diogenes

  I am very sorry I released evil into the world yesterday during the school Project. My dad has grounded me for three moons, and I'll miss the Spring Bacchanalia. But I deserve it.

  My mother probably won't be my parents/master confrence next weak because gus turned her into a pile of ashes(again)

  Please don't expel me.

  If I had known any of this would happen, I would have broughtmy dad's liver(again)

  Sincerely,

  Pandora,

  daughter of Prometheus of Athens

  Maiden, master Epeus's class

  P.S. helen of Sparta and Hippia of Thornax are in the portico. If you find two things that look like black lizards, thats them.