Medusa the Rich

by Joan Holub

  “Thanks for the ride, Principal Zeus,” she called to him as he unharnessed Pegasus from the chariot. She knew he’d spend at least an hour grooming and feeding his favorite winged horse before going inside. So with a quick wave she ran up the granite steps and escaped into the Academy.

  Her golden chiton got a few curious stares from the students she passed on the way up the marble staircase to the girls’ dorm, but fortunately her sisters weren’t around to demand answers. Pheme and Pandora weren’t either. Though the latter two were Medusa’s friends, they were also nosy. She needed to think carefully about how, when, or even if she was going to reveal the news of her golden touch to them or anyone.

  After making it safely down the hall to her room, Medusa set her bag on the floor so she could use her left hand to unlock her door. Since she was right-handed she had to fumble a bit with her key, but she eventually got the door open. Once inside, she tossed her bag onto her bed first thing, then relocked the door behind her.

  Anxious to put her gold finger to use and try out her new superpower, she glanced around the room. Atop her desk sat a green feather pen preloaded with green ink; a nearly empty bottle of green fingernail polish; and a fist-size, ugly, lopsided ceramic pot with an ill-fitting lid that she’d made back in fourth grade Crafts-ology class. Perfect practice materials! She reached for the pot with her right hand. Naturally, as soon as she picked it up, the pot turned to gold.

  Now it wasn’t so ugly, though it was still lopsided. She took the lid off the pot and peered inside it. She’d expected it to be empty, but at the bottom she found a cheap bronze pin in the shape of a jellyfish and about the size of her thumb. She’d forgotten all about that pin!

  “Hmm. Why didn’t you turn into gold when I touched the pot?” she asked it, not expecting an answer, of course. Touching just one rose had transformed all the roses in King Midas’s garden to gold. “There must be some logic to how this golden-touch stuff works,” she said to herself. She hoped she’d figure it out sooner rather than later. Maybe Dionysus would have some clues to offer about the “golden” rules. If she told him what she’d done. He’d seemed reluctant to give the golden touch to Midas at first. How would he take the news that she had it now?

  Reaching into the lopsided gold pot, she pinched the jellyfish pin between her right index finger and thumb and plucked it out. Before her very eyes the pin changed from dull bronze to a shiny gold. Cool! She remembered how in first grade she’d once used her meager allowance to buy this pin at the Obol Store back home, which sold lots of cheap knickknacks. Well, the pin wasn’t so cheap anymore!

  Setting the pin and the pot on top of her desk, she then picked up the feather pen next. As gold zipped over it, the feather stiffened and stood straight up. When she tried to write with it, being careful not to let her right index finger touch the paper, she found that the ink inside the pen had also turned to solid gold and the pen would no longer write.

  Last of all, she touched the bottle of fingernail polish. Voila! Both the bottle and the polish within became a sparkly gold.

  Taken together, all four items would fetch a pretty pile of drachmas in trade. And she knew just the store in the Immortal Marketplace where she could trade them. A certain greedy, tricky shopkeeper there owed her a favor and would doubtless prove willing to buy these objects.

  Before unpacking her bag, she opened her closet and groped around inside it with her left hand until she found a pair of fitted felt gloves. When she slipped the right-hand glove over her fingers, it turned gold. Luckily, like her chiton, it stayed soft and supple.

  As a test she reached inside the closet again and poked an empty wire hanger with her gloved index finger. Success! The hanger did not change to gold. Which meant that the glove would keep her from accidentally turning other things to gold, until she could think of something more effective.

  Medusa smiled to herself. Wearing this glove was sort of like wearing her stoneglasses. The former would keep her from turning objects to gold, while the latter kept her from turning mortals to stone. Controlling her golden touch was going to be a snap!

  Humming to herself, she slipped off her gold chiton and hung it up at the back of her closet. Then she pawed through her other chitons, looking for one that wasn’t too out of style or worn out. All of her chitons were green and, like so many of her other things, they were hand-me-downs from her sisters. Choosing the least shabby of them, a pale green knit whose hem was starting to unravel, she slipped it over her head.

  “This will do for now,” she told her snakes. “But once we get to the Immortal Marketplace and I make a trade for a pile of drachmas, I’ll buy a whole closetful of new chitons if I want to. And some special treats for you guys too. First, though, I’m going to pay the fifteen-drachma entry fee for the Comicontest!”

  Elated, she gathered up the nine comics she’d chosen the previous day, plus the new comic she’d drawn at King Midas’s cottage. She put them inside her big green school bag, planning to take them all to the IM and deposit the comics in the contest box by the atrium. Lastly, she tossed in the gold pot, feather pen, and fingernail polish. She was about to add the jellyfish pin, but then she changed her mind and decided to keep it instead of trading it away.

  After pinning it onto her chiton (which wasn’t exactly easy with her right hand in a glove!), she grabbed a snake snack sack from her closet shelf and tossed a handful of dried peas and carrot curls to her snakes.

  Snap, snap, snap! Given the speed with which they scarfed down the treats, they must have been ravenous. Which made sense. She was hungry too. None of them had had any breakfast! Deciding she’d wait and get something to eat at the IM, Medusa grabbed her school bag and was out the door.

  As she started down the hall, she tried to figure out how she could get to the IM fast. Located halfway down Mount Olympus, the marketplace was far enough away that it would take several hours to walk there. Not fun.

  Traveling by winged sandal would be ten times faster, but she couldn’t operate the sandals by herself since she wasn’t immortal. She’d have to be holding hands with a goddessgirl or godboy to make the sandals work. And whoever she asked to go with her would probably want to know why she was wearing a gold glove. She’d better start thinking of some good answers if she wanted to keep her golden touch hidden for a while.

  “Yoo-hoo, Medusa, wait up!” someone called to her as she neared the door at the end of the hall. Drat. It was Pheme! As always, the orange-haired goddessgirl’s words were accompanied by cloud-letters that puffed above her head to spell out everything she said. Which meant that her words could be read far and wide. Being the goddessgirl of gossip, if she got wind of Medusa’s golden touch, it would be all over the school in no time.

  As Medusa hesitated near the door, Pheme caught up to her. She zeroed in on the golden-gloved hand right away. “What happened? Did you peek in Athena’s diary?” she asked.

  “Huh?” said Medusa. “What are you talking about?”

  Pheme’s hand flew to her mouth as if she’d just realized she’d almost given something away that she’d rather have kept secret. When cloud-letters echoing her words rose above her head, she brushed them away with both hands. “Oh nothing,” she said in a fake-casual way. “It’s just something I heard. That Athena keeps a spell on her diary. If anyone tries to read it, I, um, heard that the spell makes their hands turn red. Get it? So they’re caught red-handed!”

  Medusa stared hard at Pheme. “Mm-hm. I see.” She’d have bet anything that this nosy girl had discovered the diary spell the hard way, by getting caught red-handed herself.

  Interesting. And since the brainy Athena wouldn’t just leave her diary lying around, Pheme must have snooped in her room to find it. This made Medusa extra glad she kept her door locked, unlike most students. She shifted her gaze to Pheme’s hands, wondering how she’d managed to remove the red-hand spell.

  Noticing, Pheme stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I was just going to the cafeteria to get some lu
nch,” she said as they went through the hall door and started down the marble stairs together. “Want to eat with me? You can tell me about your trip with Dionysus and Principal Zeus. Might make a good article for my column in Teen Scrollazine.” Pheme had been writing a gossip column for the scrollazine for some time now.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Medusa said, having a sudden brainstorm. “I’m on my way to the IM to do some shopping. If you go with me, I’ll treat you to lunch there.” Pheme was immortal, plus she had wings. So Medusa might not even need the winged sandals if Pheme came with her.

  “Really?” Pheme’s brown eyes lit up, and her small orange wings fluttered at her back. “I’d love to go.”

  “Will I . . . um . . . need winged sandals?” Medusa asked uncertainly as the girls reached the main floor and started toward the Academy’s bronze front doors. She eyed the communal basket of sandals by the exit. Pheme had only had her wings for a short time—they were a reward from Principal Zeus for an act of bravery—and Medusa hadn’t flown with her since she’d acquired them.

  Pheme shook her head. “My wings have magic that’s strong enough to keep two aloft. But you’ll still need to hold on to my hand.” She glanced curiously at Medusa’s gloved hand again.

  “I’ve got a . . . um . . . skin condition,” Medusa improvised quickly. Seeing Pheme’s look of horror, she added, “Don’t worry. It’s not contagious or anything.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried,” Pheme said. But from the relief in her voice, Medusa knew her friend was fibbing.

  After the two girls pushed through the door, Medusa tactfully offered Pheme her ungloved hand to hold. Then they were off to the marketplace, where they arrived in hardly any time at all.

  7

  Shopping Spree

  THE IMMORTAL MARKETPLACE WAS BEAUTIFUL and enormous, with a high-ceilinged crystal roof. Medusa kept a tight hold on her green schoolbag as she and Pheme walked between the rows of columns that separated the various shops. Here you could buy pretty much anything your heart desired. And that included the newest Greek fashions at clothing stores such as the Green Scene, as well as tridents, spears, and athletic equipment at Mighty Fighty, which (not surprisingly) was every godboy’s favorite store.

  The girls paused briefly outside Arachne’s Sewing Supplies, where the window held an enticing display of colorful yarns, ribbons, and fabrics, before continuing past Cleo’s Cosmetics. Walking on, they passed Demeter’s Daisies, Daffodils, and Floral Delights, a plant shop owned by Persephone’s mom. It was from her that Persephone had inherited her green thumb.

  “Want to eat at the Hungry, Hungry Harpy Café before we go shopping?” Pheme suggested, gesturing toward the restaurant a few doors down.

  Medusa had never been out to eat in the IM ever. She couldn’t afford it. Until now. “Sure!” she told Pheme. “Definitely.” There was plenty of time to trade in her gold and enter the Comicontest too, after lunch. And she was starving!

  “Ooh! Awesome! I’ve heard they test customers’ wits by trying to sneak off with the food they serve them.”

  “That’s weird,” said Medusa, frowning. But Pheme wasn’t listening. As the girls came even with a pet supply store called Ship Shape, the gossipy girl asked, “Have you ever been in that place? It’s fantastic!”

  Medusa glanced toward the pet store’s blue door. “Just once. They only sell stuff for birds and fish, though. Not snakes.” Still, it was a cool store. Inside was a freshwater pool! You entered on a gangplank that rested on pontoons and led to the ship that served as the store. Actual fish swam in the pool, and birds flew in and out of the hole in the roof above the shop.

  The Hungry, Hungry Harpy Café was within sight now. It was just past the gift store with the blabby gift box puppets that had landed Medusa in hot water a while back by alerting guards to her snakes’ wedding gift shoplifting attempt.

  While Pheme was looking ahead to the café, Medusa glared at the gift store puppets as she walked past them. Her snakes hissed at them too. The puppets nearest the window went round-eyed in surprise and alarm after all. Humph! They deserved it. They’d sounded the alarm. So it was pretty much their fault she’d ended up having to clean her sisters’ room a gazillion times in exchange for Stheno and Euryale keeping her and her snakes out of trouble.

  Upon reaching the café, Medusa and Pheme grabbed the H-shaped door handles and entered. The walls and ceiling inside were decorated with secondhand items including an antique violin, some rusty farm equipment, paper fans, and sparkly costume jewelry.

  Pheme elbowed Medusa gently in the side. “Think they stole all this stuff to bring here?” Her excited words puffed above her head for anyone to read.

  Instinctively Medusa clutched her bag to her chest. She hadn’t remembered that Harpies had a reputation as pickpockets and thieves, or she never would’ve agreed to come here. If they found out she had a bag full of gold, would they try to steal it? She swiped a hand through the air, dispelling the cloud letters. “Shh! Tone it down. Don’t draw attention to us,” she urged Pheme.

  A Harpy waitress hurried over to the two girls. Even though the Harpies were the goddessgirl Iris’s sisters, they looked nothing like Iris, and had much larger wings than her more delicate ones. “Come in, come in,” the waitress said, her broad wings flapping at her back. “Have a seat at the counter. We’ve just started to serve lunch. Can I bring you two blue-plate specials?”

  Pheme and Medusa looked at each other uncertainly. Since neither of them had actually eaten here before, they had no idea what the food was like. “Sure,” Medusa answered for both of them. They’d just have to hope they liked whatever they were served. At the counter the girls seated themselves on cute stools made from old leather trunks. Medusa held her bag on her lap, taking no chances.

  She had slipped on her stoneglasses as soon as the girls had landed at the IM. Now she peered through them at a gray-haired old man who was seated on a stool farther down the counter. As he reached for a cup of coffee, a second Harpy waitress appeared out of nowhere. She swooped down on him and yanked his half-finished plate of a sandwich and chips off the counter.

  “Give that back!” he yelped as she hurried off with it. “You know I wasn’t done eating!”

  “Now, Phineas,” cooed a third Harpy. “You wouldn’t keep coming back if you didn’t like the service. Right?”

  The old man muttered something that sounded like, “Darn thieving Harpies!” Then he wrapped both his gnarled hands around his coffee cup as if he feared the waitress might return to take that, too!

  “Keep an eye on your plate,” Medusa cautioned Pheme as the first waitress returned and set their blue-plate specials—delicious-looking fish and chips with a side salad—in front of them. It was good advice, only Pheme didn’t heed it.

  When a bell over the café’s door jingled a few seconds later, the nosy girl turned her head to see who the new customer was. Instantly one of the Harpy waitresses who’d been hovering nearby reached out and snatched a few fries from Pheme’s plate.

  “Hey,” Medusa protested, grabbing the Harpy’s arm in her gloved hand before the waitress could steal any more. Clueless, Pheme was still staring over her shoulder at the customer who had just come inside, probably trying to figure out if it was someone famous and worth interviewing.

  “Nice glove,” said the Harpy, eyeing its shiny, gleaming fabric. “Is it real gold?”

  “Do I look like I could afford real gold?” Medusa replied cagily. As the Harpy’s gaze swept the old hand-me-down chiton she wore, Medusa tightened her other hand’s hold on her green bag, adding, “Hey! I think that customer over there is calling you.”

  With a cackle the waitress moved away. Having totally missed out on what had just happened, Pheme turned back to her food. Maybe she’d concluded that the customer wasn’t anyone famous after all.

  “Eat up,” Medusa told her. “I’ve got lots of shopping and other stuff to do.” And that stuff included entering the Comicontest. Her comic-scroll co
llection and the contest fee had to be in the entry box by sundown.

  There was another reason for her to hurry, too. She didn’t trust those Harpies not to somehow steal her glove right off her hand! Even now they were all three whispering together and eyeing it. If they did steal it her gold-making finger would be exposed, and that could lead to disaster if she accidentally touched something. The sooner she and Pheme were outta there, the better.

  Luckily, the café soon became crowded, allowing the girls to finish their specials with no further interference from the Harpies, who were kept busy filling orders and snitching food from other customers. Medusa paid for both her meal and Pheme’s, using the last of her allowance. Until she sold some gold, she was broke! She breathed a sigh of relief when they made it back out the café door with her glove still on her hand, and her bag over her arm.

  “Mind if I run back over to Cleo’s Cosmetics?” Pheme asked right away. “I need a new tangerine lip gloss.” Orange was her favorite color. Any shade.

  Perfect, thought Medusa. She’d needed an opportunity to ditch Pheme for a while so she could run her errands in secret. “Sure, go on,” she said. “I’ll do a little window shopping and meet you back at Cleo’s in a few.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Because once she had some cash, she would shop till she dropped!

  As soon as the girls separated, Medusa hurried over to Mr. Dolos’s Be a Hero store. It sold all kinds of products such as drinking mugs and posters with autographed pictures of mortal heroes on them. She’d vowed never to have any dealings with the slimy shopkeeper again after he’d tricked her into letting him put a scary-looking picture of her head on some shields he’d sold in his store. But now she had need of him.

  The short round man behind the store’s counter paled a bit when she came up to him. “Hi, Mr. Dolos.” Thunk! Medusa set her green bag on the counter.

  Nervously running a hand through his slick, black hair, Mr. Dolos peered beyond her. “That godboy friend of yours isn’t with you, is he?” he asked anxiously. He was wearing the same bright yellow-and-black-checkered tunic he’d been wearing the last time she’d seen him. Or maybe not the same one. He probably had a whole closetful of those tacky tunics!