by Barbara Dee
She smiled. “So you’ve chosen your character, I hope?”
When I told her yes, I’d chosen Persephone, she asked why.
“I just really like that myth,” I said, shrugging. “It’s always been my favorite.”
“Okay, but the project is not about liking a myth, or a particular character. It’s about empathy, remember? You need to do it first person, feeling Persephone’s emotions, thinking her thoughts. Do you think you can relate to her that way?”
I was prepared for this. “Oh, definitely! Because of the way Hades and Demeter fight over her. It’s like how my mom and dad compete over me.”
But as soon as I said this answer, I thought: Except not anymore. Not really. The truth was, ever since that time Mom stuck up for Nicole, everyone had been getting along okay. Nicole wasn’t avoiding our house all the time. Mom and Dad had stopped trying to make me choose sides. They’d even stopped competing about who was a better nurse.
So why did I like this myth so much, anyway? Why did I feel this strong connection to Persephone?
Ms. Farrell tucked some loose wisps of hair behind her ear. “Okay, Norah,” she said. “I know you’ll do a great speech. But I hope you’ll keep thinking about that story.”
“What do you mean?” I felt almost scared, as if my teacher had just read my mind.
“I just mean dig deeper. Don’t go with the obvious. Ask yourself if there’s more there for you to say. More to connect with.”
“Like what?”
“Just keep thinking.” She smiled, pressed her hand on my shoulder, and walked off to talk to Cait.
THE DOG
The rest of the day, I tried not to think about what Ms. Farrell meant. But I couldn’t shake the suspicion that once again, she was asking me to be Cancer Girl, turning the whole Persephone myth into a story about My Leukemia.
And here was the funny thing: I wasn’t even mad this time. A few things had happened—the bake sale disaster, seeing Ayesha again, that conversation with Griffin at my house—to make something shift inside of me, somehow. Now I didn’t think, How dare Ms. Farrell force me to give a speech about something private! Something nobody in the class can understand! I thought: What did she mean about digging deeper? Is there something about the myth—which I’ve read more than a zillion times—that I’m not getting? It seemed impossible.
And yet:
Persephone had been playing in the meadow, innocently gathering flowers, when out of the blue the earth cracked beneath her, and she got sucked down to the underworld. Which, the more I thought about it, was a bit like getting cancer. Because two years ago, there I was, minding my own business, going to school, hanging out with Harper and Silas, when BOOM. The earth cracked open, and down I fell.
And Phipps was sort of like the underworld, in a way. I mean, all the people there were extremely nice, especially Dr. Glickstein, Raina, and Ayesha. But being there still felt like being Nowhere, especially in the middle of the night. And the chemo drugs were awful, even if they saved my life.
And now here I was, rescued, back on earth with Demeter. (And Dad, who I guessed was Zeus? Although he only had one girlfriend.) All of that made sense to me. But if there was more to say about that myth, more to connect with, more that had to do with me, I didn’t see it. So I couldn’t imagine what Ms. Farrell wanted, why she wasn’t satisfied.
* * *
At dismissal, Dad was waiting for me in his car.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked as I slid into the passenger seat. I knew she’d changed her plan to go back to California right away, but other details were still fuzzy.
“Actually, she’s interviewing,” Dad said. “At Columbia University.”
I screamed. “You mean for a job? Back here, in the city?”
“Yep. The bicoastal family thing has been very hard on her. She wants to live closer to her beloved offspring.”
My mouth dropped open. “Omigod, that’s incredible! I’m so happy! Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she’s convinced she won’t get hired. But your mom is a brilliant teacher, and I’m convinced she will. Nicole’s even making a celebratory dinner tonight.”
“She is? For Mom?”
“Yep.” He reached over to pat my knee. “Also for you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You went back to school today, didn’t you? We know it hasn’t been easy, and we’re all so proud of our tough girl. How did it go?”
I told him about the speech project, how Ms. Farrell wanted me to “dig deeper” into the Persephone myth, but I felt like I’d already struck the bottom.
“Maybe pick a different myth?” Dad suggested.
I was horrified. “No, Dad! I absolutely have to do Persephone! It’s my myth!”
“Hmm. Well, if it’s your myth, don’t give up on it, then.”
We turned the corner onto Maple Avenue. And maybe if Mom had been in the car to enforce the No-After-School-Socializing rule, I wouldn’t have said anything. But it was just Dad and me—and I’d always had the feeling he was a little calmer about the Parent Rules. So I asked if we could stop at Silas’s house, which was the next block over.
“Silas?” Dad repeated. “I thought you two weren’t such good friends lately.”
“We’re not. I just need to yell at him about something.”
“I don’t know, Norah. You heard what Dr. Choi said about needing your rest—”
“Five minutes! Please, Dad? I’ll talk to Silas really fast!”
He grunted. “Five minutes. And if you’re not out in five, I’m honking my horn.”
I got out of the car and ran up the driveway to Silas’s house, a place I’d been a million times, although never in the last two years. Nothing about it seemed different, although when I rang the doorbell, a dog started barking inside. Silas had a dog now? This was new.
The door opened. Silas was holding a squirming shaggy gray dog by the collar.
“Oh,” he said, startled to see me. “Hi.”
I didn’t bother smiling. “Can I come in for a sec? My dad’s waiting.”
“Sure.” Wrestling with the dog to keep it from jumping on me, he led me into his kitchen, where the TV was blaring.
“You got a new dog,” I said brilliantly.
“Actually, Jasper belongs to my grandparents, and he pees all over the place. What’s up?”
“Not much. I heard you got suspended.”
“Yeah. I can’t go back to school until next Monday.”
“Silas, what’s going on with you? You keep letting Kylie get you into trouble.”
He released Jasper, who ran over to sniff my jeans. “I don’t care,” he said. “It’s worth it.”
“How can that possibly be true?”
“I just really like her.” He was blushing so hard I had to look away. “Like you like that new kid, Griffin.”
My stomach dropped. “What? Silas, where did you—how do you even know about that?”
He shrugged. “Everyone knows. It’s not a secret. So anyway, you should understand.”
“Actually, I don’t! Because the situations are completely different! Griffin is a really sweet person. But Kylie doesn’t care one bit about you—”
“That’s your opinion. In my opinion, she’s beautiful.”
“Silas, I never said she was ugly!”
“I even wrote a song for her. You want to hear it?”
“NO THANKS.”
“Well, you’ll hear it in school. I’m doing it for my speech.”
I felt like bopping him. But what good would it do? Silas was hopelessly in love. And I’d read enough Greek myths to know that love could make you stupid.
I petted Jasper’s shaggy head. “Anyway, Harper said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah. You want a glass of water? Or some soda?” He opened his refrigerator door and stared inside, as if he was searching for something. But then he closed the door empty-handed.
I could tell he was stalling for s
ome reason, and that made me nervous. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“Um. Well, all right.” He hugged his arms like he was shielding his body from attack. “It’s about why I never visited you in the hospital.”
“You already told me that, didn’t you? You said you wanted to, but you couldn’t. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Yeah. I know how it sounds.” He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I could hear Jasper chewing something in the living room, and also the humming of the refrigerator. And just when I thought these noises would be the end of the conversation, he said:
“Hey, Norah. Remember that dumb game we used to play? On our bikes?”
I shrugged. “You mean the one with the evil elves? And how we’d have to ride around finding magic crap to break their spells?”
“Yeah. I was thinking about it the other day when I was putting out the garbage. It was so dumb.”
“I know.”
“But also really fun.”
“Okay.”
“And I was thinking how nice it was, just riding around the neighborhood. We did that every afternoon, didn’t we?”
“Uh-huh.” What does this have to do with anything?
“And I guess that’s how I still think of you, on your bike. I know it’s stupid of me, okay? But when you got sick, and I knew you didn’t look like that anymore, and maybe you wouldn’t be okay, or just not, you know, riding your bike, I couldn’t . . .” He shook his head helplessly. “It just felt like you were done with the game, but I wasn’t.”
A loud honking sound, which I knew was Dad.
Was this it? Was Silas finished with his big explanation? He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know.
But he was right about one thing: I was done with our game. And maybe that wasn’t only because I’d gotten sick.
“Have to go,” I said.
Silas’s head drooped. Then his shoulders started shaking, and I could tell he was crying. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave him a piece of paper towel. To hand it to him I had to get up close—close enough to get a whiff of his laundry detergent. I’d always liked the scent of his clothes—just chemicals, I knew, but now a smell memory of the little kid I used to hang out with.
Poor Silas, I thought. This was so hard for him.
Not as hard as for ME. But still.
He’s really such a baby.
He dried his eyes. “Ugh. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry, I’m the World Not-Talking Champion.”
That was when Jasper peed on my sneaker.
“Jasper! Bad!” Silas shouted. “Sorry, Norah. He’s mad that my grandparents are on vacation.”
I shook my foot. “Maybe he needs to go out.”
Silas groaned. “He always needs to go out.”
“Do you walk him?”
“I guess. Some.”
“Let’s go walk him together.”
“Now?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Silas and Jasper followed me out of the house. We went over to Dad, who rolled down his window.
“Hey there, Silas,” he said. “Long time, no see.”
“Dad,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Silas and I are going to take his grandparents’ dog for a walk. I know you want me to go home and rest, but this is very, very important. I could have just snuck out the back door, but I promised not to freak you out again by disappearing, so I’m telling you exactly where I’m going. I’ll be home in an hour. Okay?”
I held my breath, ready for an argument. But I think Dad saw something in our faces, or heard something in my voice.
Also, at that moment, Jasper put his front paws on Dad’s window, and drooled.
“Okay,” Dad said, waved at us, and backed out of the driveway.
POMEGRANATE
When I got home exactly one hour later, the house smelled like hot fruit. Maybe Nicole was baking a pie, I thought, my mouth watering as I entered the kitchen.
“Hey, girl.” Nicole barely looked up at me as she whisked something in a small saucepan.
“Hi,” I said, poking my nose into a saucepan, where red juice was bubbling. “What are you making?”
“Pomegranate Chicken. An ancient Persian dish, extremely yummy.”
I stared at her. “Pomegranate?”
“Uh-huh. Don’t tell me you’ve never had pomegranate seeds.” She held up a bowl of tiny red seeds, small glistening rubies that looked almost poisonous.
“No,” I replied. Because I thought it was the food of the dead! Not an actual, literal thing to eat, just something in a myth, like ambrosia or manna. But with bad associations, especially for Persephone. “I think I once had a pomegranate-flavored lollipop or something. But I never ate the real fruit. How does it taste?”
“Delicious! But hands off those seeds; I need them for my recipe.” Nicole seemed jumpy as she shooed me out of the kitchen. Was she nervous about cooking for Mom? Why would she be? She wasn’t planning to poison her, was she?
Norah, this isn’t a myth; stop it, I scolded myself. Mom and Nicole are getting along just fine!
Nicole poked my arm. “All right, I’m busy, so don’t distract me now, please. Go wash up and set the table, okay?”
“Sure.”
While I was upstairs in the bathroom, the doorbell rang. I could hear Mom’s voice as she came in, and then a happy cheer from Dad, followed by a loud cheer from Nicole. All the cheering made it sound as if Mom got the job. I did a little dance with elbows.
But here’s the strange part: Instead of going straight into the living room to give Mom a hug, I snuck into the kitchen. I absolutely had to taste those pomegranate seeds, even though Nicole needed them for her recipe.
Because the more I thought about the Persephone myth—and I’d thought about it the whole walk home from Silas’s—the more I was convinced that the pomegranate was the key. D’Aulaires’ said Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds while “lost in thought.” Stress eating, Harper had called it.
But that didn’t make any sense. Persephone wasn’t a zombie—she’d know when she was eating something, especially after going so long without food. And if the fruit was so delicious, she’d taste it, right? Ayesha once told me about this other version, where Hades tricks Persephone into eating the pomegranate seeds, but that wasn’t any more believable. I mean, if she was already eating other stuff, maybe he could sneak a few seeds into the recipe—but she wasn’t eating anything, period. So how could she not realize she was eating the pomegranate?
While the red liquid simmered in the saucepan, the unused pomegranate seeds were still on the counter in a small bowl. I grabbed a handful of juicy seeds and stuffed them into my mouth, half expecting the kitchen floor to open, and me to get sucked into the crevice.
Nothing happened.
The seeds were delicious, tart, a little like raspberry—but more like the lollipop version of raspberry than the actual fruit. And there was another flavor, a deeper one, in the background. What was it? I couldn’t figure it out, so I grabbed another handful.
“Norah?” Suddenly Nicole was behind me.
I spun around, flailing my arm, which crashed into the saucepan handle, sending the whole thing to the floor. Splat.
“Oh, no! Oh, Nicole, I’m so sorry!” Frantically, I grabbed some paper towels and tried to sop up the red juice. “Maybe if we squeeze it out—”
Nicole crouched beside me with a sponge. “No. It’s just gone. That’s okay.”
“But it’s not! I feel terrible! You were making something special for us, for Mom, and you told me not to eat your pomegranate, so I had no business—”
Nicole put her hand on my arm and smiled, showing the gap between her front teeth. “You wanted a taste. It’s not a crime; don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s just food, silly.”
* * *
We had a great dinner anyway. Nicole used the few extra pomegranate seeds left in the bowl, combined them with apples, oranges, and lemons she fou
nd in the bin of our refrigerator, and invented a fruity sauce for the chicken. Even Mom had to admit it was delicious; she didn’t snark once about Nicole being a “foodie.”
The whole time, we talked about Mom’s new job. It would start in the spring, she said, and it was “probationary,” which meant that basically it was a tryout. (“But what job isn’t?” she said, laughing.) For now, Mom needed to return to California, settle things in her lab, pack her apartment. When she said she’d be back here around Thanksgiving, Nicole shouted, “You’d better be! Because I’m cooking!”
“You’d better be cooking,” Mom replied, and Dad laughed.
So did I. Our family was weird, pretty much the opposite of a Greek myth. No poison fruit, no thunderbolts, no curses or spells. All the grown-ups were friends—Mom and Dad, Mom and Nicole. However it had happened (and it must have been sometime when I wasn’t looking), I was really glad about how we were all getting along.
Also about Mom’s new job, and the fact she’d be living close by. When Dad brought out a bottle of wine and the grown-ups clinked glasses, I clinked my water.
“Here’s to only good things from now on,” Dad said. “For all of us.”
“Only good things,” Mom agreed, glancing at me with wet eyes.
“Only good things,” Nicole repeated, smiling at everyone.
But that’s impossible, I thought. You can’t have only good things.
And that was when I had my speech. It came to me at the dinner table fully written, like a gift from the gods.
OMIGODS: SPEECH DAY IN MS. FARRELL’S SECOND PERIOD ENGLISH CLASS
Cait (speaking while signing in American Sign Language): “Hello, my name is Echo. I’m using sign language because Hera took away my ability to speak my own thoughts. But I still have opinions, and there are a few things I need to say.
“First, to Hera: I’m sorry I distracted you when you came to the woods looking for Zeus. I now know he was having an affair with one of the nymphs, but I swear to you I didn’t know it then. I didn’t distract you on purpose, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Not being able to speak my own thoughts anymore is a terrible curse—and honestly, I don’t deserve it. If you would let me speak my own words again, I’ll praise you all day long, I’ll tell you stories and jokes, I promise not to make bad puns or waste my breath on silly comments or gossip. Please, please lift your curse and let me speak like myself again. Repeating other people’s words all day is driving me crazy. I bet it’s driving everyone else crazy too.