Iris the Colorful

by Joan Holub

  “Yeah. Like Pheme said, how is a pitcher going to help fight that gigantic beast?” Antheia wondered aloud, pawing through some stuff on a chair. She was trying to be brave, but her voice shook.

  “I don’t know,” Iris admitted as she dug through a pile of things on the floor in a far corner of the office. All she came up with was a random sandal and a case of Zeus Juice. A few minutes later she and Antheia turned to the file cabinets. They yanked out drawers, and checked through them one by one.

  “So, how long have you liked Zephyr?” Antheia asked out of the blue.

  “What?” Iris said in surprise. They kept their voices low, so none of the others would overhear.

  “I saw you talking to him in the courtyard after I left the grove. And I could tell you were crushing. You should’ve told me.”

  At first Iris started to deny liking Zephyr, but then she remembered what Hera and Zeus had said about the advice the Gray Ladies’ had given them. Hmm, she thought. Maybe that advice could apply to her situation too. Good communication was important between any two people, after all. And lying to her best friend about Zephyr, even it was to keep from hurting her, had not been good communication.

  “You’re right,” Iris admitted. She tried to explain. “I was still sorting through my feelings when you said you liked Zephyr. So I backed off.” Antheia’s aura was a cool shade of indigo right now, so at least Iris’s confession hadn’t made her mad. Not yet, anyway.

  Antheia tugged open another file cabinet drawer. Finding it full of maps, she shut it and tried a different drawer.

  “The same thing happened with Poseidon and Apollo,” Iris told her cautiously.

  Antheia paused in her rifling of the file cabinet to send Iris a shocked look. “What? Are you kidding me? You liked both of them too? Wow, I didn’t know.” She fiddled with some lightning-bolt-shaped game pieces from a Thunderopoly game she’d just come across. Seeming to recall the urgency of their mission, she dropped them and went back to digging around for the pitcher.

  A few seconds of silence passed before she added, “Or maybe I sort of did. The thing is, I never know which boys are crush-worthy. And I trust your opinion. So if you seem to like a boy okay, I figure he’s a good choice.”

  Iris blinked. “So you go after him before I even have a chance to decide if I truly like him? Or if the boy might like me?”

  Antheia looked stricken now. “I guess I do. Did. I’m sooo sorry!”

  “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to—” Iris began. Suddenly her hand touched something smooth in the back of the last file cabinet drawer. She pulled out . . . the pitcher. “Found it!” she shouted gleefully. Without another word she jumped up and ran for the door. As she carried the pitcher down the hall to the front doors of the Academy, Antheia, Athena, Aphrodite, and Medusa were right alongside her.

  The five of them burst out onto the front steps of MOA. High in the air across the courtyard, Typhon and the King of the Gods were still battling it out. And now the four winds were helping. But they and Zeus seemed no match for such a fearsome creature.

  “Zeus is too far away for me to ask him what he wants me to do with this pitcher!” Iris moaned.

  “Maybe we can figure it out ourselves,” Athena said. “What do we know about it?”

  “The pitcher? It looks old, for one thing,” Medusa replied.

  “And it acts like a lie detector when you drink from it,” added Aphrodite.

  “It does?” said Antheia and Medusa at the same time.

  Iris nodded. “I drank from it, but then told the truth. So I don’t know if it really works to catch a lie or not.” When Antheia looked surprised at this announcement, Iris added, “I’ll explain later.”

  “I wonder what would happen if someone drank from it and did lie?” Athena mused. “Its inscription says there are consequences, but—”

  Iris gasped as she remembered again what Zeus had said about Typhon. That the monster was not very bright. Suddenly she had an idea of why Zeus might’ve asked her to find the pitcher.

  “That’s it!” she said. While holding the pitcher tightly under one arm, she formed a ball of magic in her opposite hand, drew back, and pitched the ball skyward. Brrrng! Dazzling colors rushed from her fingertips, sailed in a high arc past Typhon’s nose, and then shot downward to end far beyond the courtyard.

  “Wow!” said Antheia. The other girls murmured their amazement too. The rainbow looked more vibrant and strong than any Iris had created before!

  Even Typhon seemed mesmerized by it. He’d stopped in his tracks to stare.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Medusa wondered aloud.

  “I think he’s fascinated by Iris’s rainbow. He’s probably never seen anything so colorful,” said Antheia.

  “Right. He’s been trapped in Tartarus since the end of our war with the Titans,” said Athena. When Medusa looked blank, she added, “Mr. Cyclops, Hero-ology.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Medusa, who sometimes seemed to spend more class time painting her fingernails green than studying.

  Appearing delighted by the colors Iris had created, Typhon had faltered in his fighting. But maybe not for long. Without giving herself a chance to chicken out, Iris leaped atop the rainbow she’d made. The other girls gasped in surprise as she slid upward along its slope.

  “What are you doing? Go back!” Zephyr called when he saw her gliding up the rainbow toward Typhon. He zoomed over to her and began to follow protectively alongside as she ascended, all the while keeping a wary eye on the monster.

  Iris’s hair, which was turning all sorts of colors one after the other, swirled and whirled around her in the wild winds. “No. I’m staying. You guys need my help. But just in case we’re blown to smithereens by Typhon, I have to tell you I’m so sorry about what happened in the olive grove before.”

  “You want to talk about that now?” he asked.

  She nodded, still concentrating on sliding smoothly upward. “We weren’t making fun of you. Antheia really likes you. But she didn’t know how to tell you, so she asked me to help her do it. I didn’t really want to write those notes for her, or hide behind the tree and tell her stuff to say, but she’s my bestie. So—”

  “I came to the grove because I like you,” interrupted Zephyr. “And I thought the notes meant you liked me back.”

  “I do!” she blurted. She put her fingers over her lips, wishing she could call her words back. Then she remembered about good communication and how it was, well, good.

  And she was even gladder she’d told Zephyr the truth when his head whipped around to gaze at her. Because he looked rather . . . happy.

  But for now Iris had a job to do. An important delivery to make. Only, first she had to get a certain monster’s attention. “See you later,” she told Zephyr firmly. Since the monster had started attacking again, Zephyr reluctantly left her side, returning to help his brothers fight.

  “Hey, Typhon!” Iris called out as she reached the top of her rainbow.

  “WHAH?” the beast boomed. Although he looked her way, his dragon fingers and coiled serpent legs still fought the four winds and Zeus. And it looked like Typhon was winning!

  Iris held up the pitcher before the monster’s fiery eyes. “See this pitcher?” she told him. “I need to deliver it to Zeus. It’s his most prized possession, so please, I beg of you, let me take it to him. He would be hurt beyond all reason if you took it from me. He might even start crying.”

  She waited, hoping Zeus had heard her and would confirm her statement. However, just then, one of Typhon’s coiled legs knocked the King of the Gods far across the sky. Four of his other legs coiled around Boreas, Zephyr, Notus, and Eurus and squeezed them tight. With his enemies held captive for the moment, Typhon reached out two dragon fingers and snatched the pitcher from Iris, just as she’d hoped he would. In his ginormous hand it looked like a thimble with a tiny handle!

  “Oh no! I can’t believe you did that, you . . . you horrible monster!” Iris wailed,
pretending to be upset.

  Typhon grinned as if she’d just given him the best compliment ever.

  Encouraged, she went on, “Please, please, I beg of you, give it back!” she called to him in a faked, worried tone. “The water inside is precious to Zeus. He would be totally devastated if you drank it.”

  “HEH! HEH!” Typhon laughed his loud, dark laugh. Then he pulled out the round stopper, carelessly tossed it over his shoulder, and lifted the pitcher to his mouth. He swallowed the water inside the pitcher—which was no more than a drop to him—in one gulp.

  “Oh no! I can’t believe you did that too!” Iris cried out again. “When I visited the Goddess Styx this morning, she told me you were too dumb to think for yourself. And she said it was Gaia’s idea for you to fight Zeus and that without your mommy’s—that is, Gaia’s—help you’d still be stuck in Tartarus.”

  “WHAH?” roared Typhon “HER WRONG!” With each word he spoke, there came a flash of lightning. Somewhere within the dark swirling clouds, Zeus was still fighting the monster, tossing thunderbolts right and left. But they were like sparky toothpicks to Typhon. He was that huge!

  “Really?” Iris said, faking surprise. “I guess Styx was lying, then.” She paused, wanting to phrase what she said next very, very carefully. “So,” she said at last, “does that mean that you escaped Tartarus on your own? And that it was your idea—and your idea alone—to come here to fight Zeus?” She held her breath as she awaited his reply.

  Typhon stopped thrashing the four godboys with his snaky limbs as he considered her question. If she could have seen an aura around him, she might have been able to guess how he would answer. But he was a completely colorless character. No aura whatsoever.

  “Well,” she prompted him. “Are you and Gaia working together?”

  A shifty look came into his eyes. “NO. ME NOT IN CAHOOTS WITH MY MOMMY. ME OWN BOSS. ME ESCAPE TARTARUS BY MYSELF. AND ME THINK OF IDEA TO BEAT ZEUS.”

  A smile tugged at Iris’s lips. Because she was pretty sure she’d just caught him in a big fat lie! Would it do the job? She waited to see what would happen, and she didn’t have to wait long.

  “UGH, ME DIZZY,” Typhon suddenly complained. He dropped Zeus and the four winds pronto and put a dragon-fingered hand to his forehead. The air began to whoosh like crazy as he began turning around and around, spinning faster and faster until he became a blur. He’d turned into a tornado again!

  If Iris had been perched upon a less sturdy rainbow, she surely would have been blown away. But her rainbow held, and her feet stayed firmly planted upon it.

  Meanwhile the Typhon tornado began to shrink, coiling smaller . . . and smaller . . . and smaller, until he was the size of a whirlpool in a bathtub. One end of the whirling tornado funneled itself into the pitcher, which was still held aloft on his winds. With a tremendous slurping, sucking sound like water going down a drain, the rest of the tiny, whirly gray monster followed, corkscrewing itself all the way inside. Then it disappeared. Captured! Instantly the air went still.

  The pitcher began to fall toward the ground. If it broke, Typhon would escape!

  “No!” Iris called out. As the pitcher sailed downward, it passed a half-dozen feet from her. She made a wild dive for it. Her fingers grabbed the pitcher’s handle, and she covered its opening with the flat of her other hand. “Gotcha now, monster!” she cried out, hugging the pitcher close. But now that she’d jumped off the rainbow, she began hurtling downward as well.

  She couldn’t create another rainbow to land on while holding the pitcher with both hands. Yet she couldn’t very well drop the pitcher and set Typhon free again. But then again, the pitcher—and she—would break on impact. What was she going to do?

  Oomph! Just a few dozen feet above the courtyard, she landed on a soft, springy cushion of air. Zephyr winged over, still blowing hard to create the winds she now rested upon, his cheeks puffed and round. He’d saved her!

  She nodded toward the pitcher she’d managed to hang on to. “Where’s its stopper?” she called to him.

  “Here!” Boreas shouted, flying it over with Notus and Eurus. “I caught it when Typhon tossed it away. Let’s seal that pitcher once and for all.” To her surprise the annoying boy was acting serious now and really trying to be helpful. Was it possible Mr. Frosty-Pants had a good side?

  As Iris stuck the stopper into the top of the pitcher, sealing Typhon’s doom, Zeus soared toward her and the four winds on Pegasus. “Good work! I’ll take that.”

  Iris gladly gave him the pitcher while the windy godboys gathered around. “What will you do with Typhon this time?” she asked.

  Zeus stared at the pitcher for a second, pondering Typhon’s fate. “I guess even Tartarus wasn’t strong enough to hold this guy,” he finally replied. “Especially since Gaia knew he was there. So I’ll take him to a secret place he’ll never escape from and where his rumbling won’t even be noticed. A volcano, whose location I won’t reveal to anyone.”

  With that, he and Pegasus took off for the secret location of the volcano and quickly disappeared into the distance. And just like that, the clouds of Typhon’s rampage gave way to clear, sunny skies.

  11

  Iris of the Rainbows

  ALL WAS PEACEFUL AT THE Academy the next day. The sky dawned a bright blue with puffy white clouds and a sunrise that looked tickled pink to Iris. Zeus had deposited Typhon in the depths of the volcano somewhere and returned sometime during the night.

  After breakfast he summoned all MOA students to the courtyard, where they gathered for a dedication ceremony to unveil the new anemometer. It still sat in the courtyard amid the rubble left from Typhon’s attack, and the linen drape now covered it again.

  Zeus stood at a podium halfway up MOA’s granite steps. First off he called the anemometer’s creator, Pygmalion, up to give a short speech.

  “I am the greatest sculptor who has ever lived, and this is the greatest anemometer ever created in the history of the world,” the sculptor declared bluntly. “I hope it proves useful, Olympians. Please enjoy it.” Then he gave a little bow and left the podium.

  “Still so humble,” Iris heard Aphrodite say from somewhere behind her. There was a teasing smile in her voice. Back when Aphrodite and the Egyptian goddess Isis had argued about which of them was the real goddess of love, Pygmalion had helped judge the outcome. He was rumored to have acted quite pompously, and it seemed obvious that he still thought very highly of himself.

  “And now . . . miraculously unharmed by Typhon . . .” In a dramatic move Zeus whipped off the huge sheet of linen that covered the statue. “The new MOA anemometer!”

  Gasps and cheers sounded throughout the crowd. As Iris studied the device again, which she’d never really had a chance to do before, with Typhon attacking and all, she had to admit that Pygmalion was pretty much right about the awesomeness of his talent. The anemometer was amazing! And he’d sculpted it in record time.

  About ten feet tall, its main post was labeled N, S, E, and W for the different directions. And a life-size sculpture of a different windy godboy had been carved on each of the four sides of the post. Their cheeks were puffed out as if they were blowing out the swirls of wind that Pygmalion had sculpted around them. As the device turned, the figures of the wind-brothers did as well. So each got a chance to face prominently forward at one time or another, and no one of them appeared more important than another. Nice work, Pygmalion, thought Iris.

  There were oohs and aahs as everyone admired the anemometer. Then Zeus spoke again, calling the four gods of wind to the podium. “I want to thank Boreas, Zephyr, Notus, and Eurus for their help in defeating Typhon. This anemometer will always serve as a reminder of their prowess in battle and their dedication to Olympian might and right. They will be leaving us soon, but they are welcome back at MOA anytime.”

  Everyone clapped and cheered as each godboy spoke briefly. “My brothers and I fought well,” Boreas declared, being generous with credit for once. “Though I think I de
serve—”

  “Ahem!” Zeus interrupted. A warning perhaps that he’d said enough? Taking the hint, Boreas broke off. There was an awkward pause as he took his place beside his brothers again.

  Then Zephyr punched his fist into the air. “Hooray for blowhards!” Which made the audience laugh and cheer some more. The four godboys high-fived, then left the podium.

  After that the crowd began to break up. Lots of students crowded around the four windy brothers. But almost immediately Zephyr came over to Iris and drew her aside. “So we never finished talking before. And I’m wondering if you’re going to let Antheia stand in the way of liking me?”

  “Well, it’s just that she liked you first,” said Iris. “Or at least she said so first. And I don’t steal crushes from my BFF.”

  “I admire that kind of friend loyalty. But I’m never going to crush on Antheia,” Zephyr told her. “Because it’s you I like.”

  A warm feeling flooded through her at his words. Then something beyond her seemed to catch his attention. “Hmm. Maybe that whole Antheia thing’s not going to be a problem anymore,” he said.

  Iris turned to see that Aphrodite was walking with Antheia, sort of herding her toward where Boreas was standing. The three of them began talking. Then Aphrodite slipped off, leaving the two alone. Antheia’s and Boreas’s heads were soon together, and they were chatting and laughing away about something.

  Iris could hardly believe it. She’d guessed that Boreas liked her friend, and she’d been wondering if she should steer Antheia in his direction, in spite of his boastful, bullying ways. And now she didn’t have to decide. Aphrodite had done the matchmaking for her. Three cheers for the goddessgirl of love!

  Somehow Aphrodite must’ve figured out that Antheia and Boreas were meant for each other before they’d figured it out themselves. Which made Iris feel confident that even though she had reservations about Boreas, he’d turn out to be perfect for her friend. She had a happy feeling that Antheia’s affections were about to make another switch.