“No.”
“No?” My jaw drops. “My skull was inches from tile.”
“Did it hit the ground?”
“Well, no,” I stammer. “But if you had—”
“Everything all right here?” Stella chirps. She’s been making her rounds of the partners, checking on the whole I-trust-you-you-trust-me status.
“No,” I snap. “It’s not all right. He sucks as a partner.”
Stella glares at me. Right, like she’ll listen to any words against Xander.
“This exercise,” she says slowly, “is not about your partner.”
I just cross my arms. As if anything I say is going to convince her that Xander’s at fault here.
“Hold this for me.” She hands Xander—who spears me with a nervous scowl—her clipboard. Holding out her hands, she says, “Try with me, Phoebe.”
“Yeah, right.”
Her jaw clenches so tight I can see it.
“Just try,” she practically growls.
Fine. Whatever. I spin around, fling out my arms, and hesitate. My heart is still pounding from my almost crash with Xander.
“This time,” Stella says, her voice soft and reassuring, “don’t think about trusting me to catch you.”
“Good,” I retort. “Because I don’t.”
“Instead,” she continues like I didn’t snap at her, “think about trusting yourself not to fall.”
“What?” That doesn’t even make any sense.
“Just try it.”
Fine, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I think, I. Will. Not. Fall.
I fall back.
She catches me yards before I hit the ground.
I hear clapping.
When I open my eyes, I see Stella and Xander on either side of me, standing over me.
“Congratulations,” Stella says, beaming. “You just earned your first merit badge.”
I stare at her clapping hands. “You’re not holding me,” I say stupidly.
She shakes her head.
“Then who—”
I twist my head back. No one is there.
“You are,” Stella says triumphantly.
I crash to the ground in a heap.
CHAPTER 6
PSYCHODICTATION
SOURCE: ATHENA
The ability to communicate telepathically, whether in words, feelings, or other ways, with another hematheos. Communication should not be attempted without proper training, because of rare but serious risk of brain aneurism. (See Psychospection for the ability to read another’s thoughts.)
DYNAMOTHEOS STUDY GUIDE © Stella Petrolas
WHEN I PUSH THROUGH the glass door of the ice-cream parlor, the owner waves. “Afternoon, Phoebe.”
I tell myself Demetrius knows my name because he prides himself on knowing every student’s name—not because I have an ice-cream problem or anything.
“How was camp today?” he asks.
Demetrius, a descendant of Clio—the muse of history—and a major throwback to the fifties, keeps the place in perfect Happy Days style. Chrome and sky-blue vinyl everywhere. A long bar with round, counter-height stools. A pair of cramped booths in the back with mini-jukeboxes on the tables. And just about any ice-cream flavor you could ever imagine.
I shrug. “Fine.”
“Phoebe,” Nicole calls out from one of the booths.
Troy waves and says, “Hey!”
“Be right there,” I say, then turn to Demetrius to place my order. “I’ll have my usual.”
My mouth starts salivating at the thought of that perfectly spherical scoop of mint chocolate chip perched on a crunchy brown sugar cone. Knowing Griffin is going to crack down on our training nutritional plan any minute now makes the indulgence even more enticing. Allure of the forbidden and all that.
“Not today,” Demetrius says. “I’ve got something better.”
Better? What could be better?
“Try this,” he says. “On the house.”
I take the cone and eye it suspiciously. It looks like pretty average ice cream—vanilla colored with little white flecks.
“Thanks,” I say, a little defeated. But it’s not like I can resent free ice cream.
“Try it.”
With a shrug, I dart out my tongue for a quick sample. My taste buds explode with a long-forgotten flavor.
“Oh my gods,” I gasp, staring at Demetrius. “You didn’t!”
He smiles smugly. “I did.”
Nicole, tired of waiting for me, shouts out, “He did what?”
I stare, wide-eyed, at my new favorite person on the planet.
“This ice-cream genius,” I say between licks, “re-created Ben & Jerry’s White Russian. Perfectly.” I shake my head in awe. “My all-time favorite.”
Demetrius winks at me. “You’re welcome.”
“I could just jump over this counter and hug you.” I take another lick.
He actually blushes. “Go on,” he says, gesturing me away. “Your friends are waiting.”
“Thanks.”
As I slide into the sky-blue booth next to Nicole, Troy asks, “Why are you getting apoplectic over ice cream?”
“This isn’t just any ice cream,” I explain. “This is the best flavor ever invented. B&J discontinued it years ago and I haven’t had a taste since. Here,” I say, holding out the cone, “try it.”
Troy turns kind of green and shakes his head adamantly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, jabbing the ice cream in his direction.
“Oh gods,” Troy yelps, then claps one hand over his mouth and the other over my wrist, shoving me away.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask Nicole.
“When he was in Athens last week,” she says, giving Troy a sympathetic look, “he finally told his parents he wants to be a musician.”
“Good for you!” I congratulate Troy, who still looks more green than not. We’ve been trying to get him to come clean for months. He’s from a long line of doctors—like millennia long—so of course that’s what his parents want him to be. But music is in his soul. He’d be miserable as a doctor, and I know his parents would understand that. “What does that have to do with ice cream?”
“It’s not the ice cream, exactly,” she explains. “It’s the sugar.”
I give her a look that repeats, So?
“His parents were not exactly thrilled by the news.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Troy adds, returning to a mostly normal, mostly pinky-tan color. “They hit the roof.” He shudders. “Literally.”
“I still don’t—”
“They cursed my taste buds.”
That sounds rotten. “What does that mean?”
“Until I agree to become a doctor,” he explains, “every time I eat something sweet, it tastes like . . . something not sweet.”
“That sucks.” If this were anything other than White Russian, I’d toss it out in friendship solidarity. But, as I said, it’s White Russian! I ignore my guilt, trying to be as discreet as possible about my ice-cream ecstasy.
“That’s not the worst of it,” he says, sounding even more dejected. “They enrolled me in SIPP.” When I look confused, he adds, “The Summer Intensive Pre-med Program. Instead of writing songs and practicing, I’ll spend all summer in class.”
Nicole pats his hand. “You’ll get through it, Travatas.”
“There’s a weeklong anatomy segment,” he complains. “Anatomy! We’re going to dissect . . . something. I just know it.”
“Maybe you can do a virtual dissection or something,” I suggest, taking a bite out of the sugar cone. “Nola and I did that in freshman biology.”
“Whatever,” he says, waving me off. “I don’t want to talk about it. What’d you do in camp today?”
Popping the tail end of the cone into my mouth, I reach into my pocket.
“I earned my first merit badge.”
I slap the little round patch onto the table.
At first I’d tho
ught Stella was joking. A merit badge? For not cracking my skull on the tile? Wow, what an achievement. But then she’d handed this to me and said, “One down, eleven to go.”
Just like the ones that covered Nola’s Girl Scouts vest in elementary school, this merit badge is round with a thick ring of color surrounding the central picture. In this case, the ring is white, the background is sky blue, and the picture depicts a white whooshy wave of wind.
“Aerokinesis,” Troy says. “Cool.”
“Did you fly?”
“Not exactly.” I pull the badge across the table and slip it back into my pocket. “More like hovered to keep from smashing my head against the courtyard floor.”
Nicole and Troy exchange a look. They both say, “The trust fall.”
I nod, pretending I’m not crazy proud of myself. But I am.
The study guide says—yes, I finally read it—aerokinesis is the ability to move air. In this case, moving enough air under my falling body to hold it suspended. That’s pretty darn cool.
“Show us,” Nic says.
“What?” My hand is still in my pocket and I smooth my fingers over the edge of the patch. “You want me to trust-fall in here?”
“Nah.” She waves off my suggestion. She reaches across the table and grabs the saltshaker, setting it in from of me. “Move this using air.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Come on,” Troy says. “We want to see what you learned.”
I hesitate. What if I can’t really control that power? What if I send the salt flying all over the room? That probably mean years of bad luck or something. Or what if I accidentally conjure an entire salt mine? Or if I zap us to the Dead Sea? Or—
“Stop dragging your feet.” Nicole points at the shaker. “Go.”
“Fine,” I say, but not before throwing her an annoyed scowl.
Then I turn my attention to the salt. Keeping in mind what Stella said—I know, right?—I concentrate on trusting the shaker to move. I’m not thinking about the salt or trying to move it or wishing it would move, I just picture it already there. In my mind, the shaker is in front of Nicole. I believe. I trust.
Everything glows. When I blink through the light, I see the little glass shaker slide smoothly down the table. The paper napkin from my cone flutters as the shaker passes.
Nicole catches the shaker as it slides to a stop.
“Nice,” she says with a grin.
I release a huge sigh of relief. All I can think is, It actually worked! Sure, I’d caught myself before smashing skull to pavement, but it wasn’t a conscious effort. This time I actually knew what I was doing. I had a goal. I met that goal.
And nothing blew up!
One step closer to not getting smoted.
“Maybe Goddess Boot Camp is the best thing that could have happened to your powers this summer,” Troy says. “Zeus knows it’s better than what’s happening to me this summer.”
“At least you’re not stuck with Stella and Adara,” I reply.
Okay, so Stella’s not at the top of my evil-harpy list at the moment. But Adara’s holding strong at number one.
“That reminds me,” Nicole says. “I might know what happened to the record.”
“The one about Phoebe’s dad?”
I know, I know. We weren’t supposed to tell anyone about going into the secret archives. But really, Troy is one of our closest friends. It’s not like he’s going to tell anyone.
“What?” I ask.
“After you ran off to camp,” she says, “Philipoulos was so mad about finding it gone that she ranted a bit. She kinda forgot I was there.”
“And you didn’t try to remind her.”
She flashes me a mischievous smile. “She said the only way someone could have slipped past the security of the closet elevator without her knowledge was if they had been a library aide. Anyone who wants a book from the archives has to fill out a request slip. Since Mrs. P is the only librarian on staff, once she has approved their request, she either sends an aide to retrieve the book or goes herself. Which means . . .”
“It had to be a student.” I shake my head. “Why would a student want to steal my dad’s trial record? Or any record? I mean, it’s not like it’s breaking news or anything.”
“There could be dozens of reasons,” Troy says. “Like someone looking for a loophole in an Olympic ruling, for example.”
His hazel eyes flick to Nicole.
“Or someone wanting to uncover a secret,” she snaps. “Or do a research paper. Or write an article for the Chronicle.”
The Chronicle? The school newspaper? A puzzle piece falls into place.
“Adara writes for the Chronicle.” It would be so typical for her to torment me like this. “She could have done it.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Troy says. “Don’t accuse her without—”
“She never worked in the library,” Nicole interrupts. “But there’s another possibility.” She pulls a computer printout from her back pocket and sets it in the middle of the table. “Read this.”
Troy and I both lean forward to see where she’s pointing.
Electronic Catalog and Historiography of Olympus REPORT
Search String: past student employees
Time Frame: 5 years
Query Results: 11 entries
“How did you get this?” Troy asks as I scan the list. “Access to ECHO is insanely restricted. You remember what happened in eighth grade when I tried to change my failing algebra grade.” He shudders at the memory. “Sometimes my fingers still tingle when it rains.”
“I didn’t access the system,” Nicole says. “Philipoulos left the printout on her desk when Mr. Sakola asked for help finding the Atlantis collection in the map room. You’d think he was Adonis, the way she dropped everything and—”
My eyes pop out when I see the third name on the list.
“Did you see this?” I point at the third name.
Nicole breaks off and says, “Yeah. I thought that was kind of interesting.”
“What?” Troys spins the paper around. After a quick glance, he says, “Holy Hades!”
“Tell me about it.” I slump back against the vinyl seat. “And just when I thought we were getting along.”
The third name on the list is Stella Petrolas.
As we walk through the village—a little aimlessly because I’m not so eager to go home and face Stella—I know I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Just because Stella could have stolen the record doesn’t mean she did. I mean, she was with me when the note arrived. Even Stella isn’t powerful enough to be in two places at once. Of course she could have gotten someone else to leave the note. Or she could have stolen the record, but not have been behind the note. Or she could have nothing to do with anything. Or—
“Let’s go to the bakery,” Nicole says.
“No thanks,” Troy grumbles, looking miserable.
“Come on,” Nic says with a smile. “If anyone can make delicious sugar-free treats Lili can.”
“Huh-uh,” I say, pulling myself out of my Stella ponderings. “Bakery’s closed. Griffin and Aunt Lili went to Serifos today to get a fresh stock of berries.”
“That’s weird,” Nicole says. “I could have sworn I saw . . .”
She trails off, her dark blonde eyebrows scrunching down into a frown.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She shakes her head, like she’s trying to forget whatever she thought she saw. “Never mind.”
“What, Nicole?” I demand. I can tell from the way she’s evading that it’s bad. A burning ache starts low in my stomach. “Tell me what you saw.”
“On my way here”—she gives me an apologetic look—“. . . I saw Griffin.”
No. That’s not possible. He’s at the farmer’s market on Serifos. That’s why we rescheduled our run for this morning. That’s why I got up early on my summer vacation. Griffin wouldn’t have done that to me for no reason. He wouldn’t lie to me. Ev
en when he wanted to hate me when I first got to Serfopoula, he didn’t lie to me.
But Nicole wouldn’t lie to me, either. Not about this.
There must be a reasonable explanation.
Confused, I look up at her. Her blue eyes look sympathetic and a little wary. Nervous.
“What else?” I ask.
She shakes her spiky blonde head, like she doesn’t want to tell me. The burning ache takes over my entire stomach, making me regret my hasty consumption of Demetrius’s White Russian.
“Just tell me.” I take a deep breath. I know she wouldn’t be all concerned like this for no reason. “Where did you see him?”
“Going into the bookstore.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “With Adara.”
“Oh,” I say quietly.
I’m not surprised. After the way he’s been behaving—to me and to Adara—this is not completely unexpected. He’s been spending as much time with her recently as he has with me. I’ve been busy the last few weeks—forced into servitude over Stella’s graduation, helping get Mom and Damian out the door for their honeymoon, learning how to wield my powers while surrounded by ten-year-olds. He’s been busy, too—helping out Aunt Lili in the bakery full-time, getting math tutoring so he can take calculus next year, swapping spit with his ex-girlfriend.
Stepping back from the ledge of conclusion, I make myself consider other possibilities. It could be totally innocent—they could have coincidentally arrived at the bookstore simultaneously and decided to walk in together.
Or, the part of me that still stings from jerky Justin’s betrayal screams, it could be totally not innocent.
Griffin, I tell myself, is not Justin.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I say, trying to sound like I believe it. “They probably just ran into each other.”
“Yeah,” Troy says.
He’s a horrible liar.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Nicole agrees. “It’s nothing.”
She’s a much better liar, but has much lower tolerance for self-deception. The friend part of her wants to reassure me. The Nicole part of her wants me to be prepared for the reality of the situation.
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