Medusa the Rich

by Joan Holub

A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Mr. Dolos’s forehead. He whipped out a black-and-yellow-checkered handkerchief and mopped at his forehead. “Um . . . not at all.” Keeping a wary eye on Dionysus and on Medusa’s snakes, too, he asked, “Just how many copies of your collection were you expecting my company to publish?”

  Medusa toyed with the QoM charm on her necklace, considering the matter. She’d want copies for herself, for Dionysus, and for some of her friends, of course. And maybe even for her sisters and her parents. She counted in her head. “Twenty copies should do it,” she concluded.

  Mr. Dolos breathed a sigh of apparent relief. “Deal!” he said. “You can pick them up here in the store one week from today.”

  Relieved as well, Medusa scribbled her signature on the permissions letter. When she handed it over to Mr. Dolos, he studied her hands. “No glove, I see,” he commented. “I hope that doesn’t mean you won’t be wanting to exchange more gold objects?”

  She’d never told Mr. Dolos that she had the golden touch, but he must have figured it out. Either that or her sisters had shared their suspicions when they’d gone to talk to him behind her back. “No more gold. Sorry,” she said with a quick glance at Dionysus. She hadn’t told him about the purchases she’d made when she’d first gotten the golden touch, but since he was still absorbed in her comic-scroll and didn’t seem to hear, she decided there really wasn’t any need to.

  The two of them left the store shortly thereafter. After stopping for shakes at the café, they held hands and chatted about general stuff while skimming back to the Academy in rented winged sandals. They were almost over the MOA courtyard when Medusa said, “I just remembered there was something you wanted to ask me when I was mailing that necklace to King Midas. What was it?”

  For some reason Dionysus looked startled. His arm jerked a little, and she felt her hand slip from his. She grabbed at him and missed. “No! I’m falling!” she yelped. This was one of her worst nightmares. But before she could tumble to the marble tiles below, Dionysus swooped down and caught her in his arms.

  “Got you!” he said. Then he gently set her down on a bench at the edge of the courtyard. He took a deep breath, then said, “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” she replied a little shakily.

  He ran his fingers through his curly hair. “I wasn’t . . . I mean, I was just kind of nervous about what I wanted to ask you before . . . because I know you think the whole idea is kind of dumb, but . . . the Temple Games are in two weeks, and . . .” Looking flustered, he ground to a halt.

  Medusa adored the fact that this cute, violet-eyed godboy, star of almost all the school plays, could still become tongue-tied at times. She decided to put him out of his misery. “The answer is yes,” she said with a grin. “I’d love to champion you at the games and cheer you on big-time!”

  “You would?” Dionysus asked, like he couldn’t quite believe he’d heard her correctly. When she nodded, he jumped up and pumped a fist in the air. “Woo-hoo!”

  “One thing, though,” she said, standing up too. “I’m a pretty awesome swimmer, so I’m thinking I’ll join the games myself. So maybe we could be on the same team and you could be my champion as well?” She touched the QoM charm on her necklace at her throat. “In fact, this’ll be my favor. You could wear it in the games for luck. You know, like when Hera gave Zeus her lace handkerchief.”

  He looked startled for a moment, but then as his gaze fell on the necklace she always wore, a realization dawned. “Hey! QoM. I just got what that necklace charm of yours stands for. The Queen of Mean. Your comics, right?”

  She laughed, nodding.

  “Sure I’ll wear it. I’ll give you a favor too, and we’ll be each other’s champions!”

  It wasn’t every guy who’d wear his crush’s necklace. Her crush was so awesome! Without thinking, she lifted on tiptoe and planted a light kiss on his cheek right in front of the other students who happened to be in the courtyard too. She could hardly believe she’d done that. It made two kisses in a single day!

  “Woo-hoo!” he whooped again.

  As they walked across the courtyard a few minutes later, Medusa glanced toward the gym. “I wonder if Poseidon has been able to fix the pool.” When Dionysus sent her a questioning look, she remembered she’d forgotten to tell him about turning the pool’s water to gold.

  After she explained, he said, “I’ve still got a few drops of the magic river water left. It should do the trick if Poseidon was unable to reverse things. You go on ahead, and I’ll check.”

  “Thanks,” Medusa said gratefully. “See you later,” she called, taking the steps leading up to the Academy’s front doors.

  She hadn’t been back in her room for more than a few minutes when her sisters knocked on her door. “So you’re back,” Stheno said, flopping down on Medusa’s spare bed. “We came by a little while ago. Where were you?”

  “Long story,” said Medusa. But before she could begin to explain all that had happened, Euryale interrupted.

  “Save it for later, Dusa,” she said, dropping to lie down on the bed Medusa usually slept in. “We’re zonked. We’ve been gone all day. After Mom and Dad left, we went shopping at a brand-new marketplace that just opened up in Thebes.”

  “Yeah, shopping is so tiring,” Stheno put in. Medusa sat on her desk chair, since her sisters were hogging both beds. “They’ve got an even bigger Green Scene there than the one at the IM.”

  “And we ran up some pretty big bills,” Euryale said, getting to the real reason for their visit. “So we need you to hand over more drachmas or make us some gold. Now would be good.”

  “Sure,” said Medusa. As quick as a wink she jumped up and went from one bed to the other, touching each of her sisters with her right index finger.

  Shrieking, they leaped to their feet. “What did you do that for?” yelled Euryale.

  “Now we’ll turn into . . .” Stheno’s words died away as she looked down at herself and saw she hadn’t changed to gold. Her sisters stared at each other, then back at Medusa, not getting it. “Hey, where’s your glove?”

  Medusa grinned big and waved her ungloved right hand in the air. “My golden curse . . . um . . . touch is gone. I’ve been cured.”

  “What?” both sisters exclaimed in horror.

  “But that’s terrible!” Stheno said. She looked a bit greener than usual—quite ill, as a matter of fact. “You have to get Dionysus to give you the touch again. Or maybe you could talk him into giving us the golden touch? Or at least telling us the spell so we can give the touch to ourselves?”

  Medusa folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. “No way.”

  “But,” said Euryale, her voice sounding anxious, “how will we pay our bills?” She glanced around the room. “You must have some gold left.”

  “So you want to borrow money from me now?” Medusa asked, quirking an eyebrow in amusement. Talk about a reversal!

  “You could give us that jellyfish pin,” Stheno said, her eyes zeroing in on the front of Medusa’s chiton.

  Medusa’s hand went up to feel the pin. She had forgotten she was wearing it. Would she miss it? she wondered. Until the past few days, she’d never worn it much anyway. She just didn’t wear that much jewelry. Only her QoM necklace most of the time. “All right,” she said at last.

  As she began to unfasten the pin, Stheno’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?” she said to Medusa. “That’s very decent of—”

  “So what’s the catch?” Euryale interrupted to ask. “What’s it going to cost us?”

  Cost them? Medusa hadn’t thought about asking for anything in return. “How about a dozen room cleanings?” she joked. “Apiece.”

  Her sisters blanched.

  “Just kidding,” Medusa told them quickly. She wouldn’t want her sisters messing around in her room anyway. She liked keeping her stuff private. And frankly she was tired of her interactions with her sisters always involving exchanges of favors.

  “Tell you what
,” she said to them as she held the jellyfish pin out to Stheno. “You can have this for free. All I ask for in return is your undying gratitude.”

  “Huh?” said Euryale. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  But Stheno seemed to understand. She smiled at Medusa as she took the pin. “Thanks, Dusa. I really, um, appreciate this. And we are . . . grateful, right, Euryale?”

  Euryale looked at Stheno like she was nutso, but then rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess it was actually pretty nice of you, Dusa,” she said on her way out the door.

  As Medusa closed her door behind her sisters, she realized she’d forgotten to tell them about her comic-scroll contest win. She started to call them back, then stopped herself. Although she planned to give them copies, they weren’t likely to enjoy how she’d depicted them. In fact, those comics would probably put Stheno’s undying gratitude to the test. On the other hand, even Euryale might be nicer to her in the future if she became worried that Medusa might write more comics that revealed the unflattering truth of how her sisters treated her!

  She grinned at the thought. Then her stomach growled, and she remembered that the shake with Dionysus in the IM café had been the sum total of lunch. She’d had nothing else to eat since breakfast. Neither had her snakes.

  “Sorry, guys. Who’s hungry?” Her snakes stood up straight on her head as if all raising their hands to say, I am!

  She opened her closet and took out a snake snack sack. Then she tossed a handful of dried peas and carrot curls into the air. Snap! Snap!

  “I struck gold the day I got you guys,” she told them, smiling softly as joy filled her. “And I never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never want to lose you again. That’s twelve ‘never’s, one for each of you.”

  They wiggled their heads up and down, nodding to show her the feeling was mutual. Then, as she tossed up more peas and carrots, they gobbled down the snacks.

  Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!

  Don’t miss the next adventure in the Goddess Girls series!

  Coming Soon

  JOAN HOLUB has authored and/or illustrated over 140 children’s books, including the New York Times bestselling picture book Mighty Dads (illustrated by James Dean) and Little Red Writing (illustrated by Melissa Sweet). She lives in North Carolina and at www.joanholub.com.

  SUZANNE WILLIAMS is the author of over fifty books for children, including the award-winning picture book Library Lil (illustrated by Steven Kellogg). She lives outside Seattle, Washington, and is online at www.suzanne-williams.com.

  Together, Joan and Suzanne write the Goddess Girls, Heroes in Training, and Grimmtastic Girls series.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

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  First Aladdin paperback edition April 2015

  Text copyright © 2015 by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

  Cover illustrations © 2015 by Glenn Hanson

  Cover designed by Karin Paprocki

  Cover illustration copyright © 2015 by Glen Hanson

  Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

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  Book design by Karin Paprocki

  The text of this book was set in Baskerville.

  Library of Congress Control Number 2014953870

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8830-4 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8829-8 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8831-1 (eBook)