Goddess Boot Camp (11 page)

Behind me, Nicole gasps. I notice her stop and stare at a book. She runs her fingertips reverently over the burgundy leather spine before tugging it out. Mrs. Philipoulos doesn’t notice, but I have a feeling she would freak out a little if she saw Nicole grabbing something off the shelf. I try to distract her.

“How do you keep track of it all?” I ask.

“Hephaestus designed an amazing computer system that scans, categorizes, and keeps track of every document.” She keeps hurrying down the aisle, getting farther and farther from Nicole. “He’s not just the god of blacksmithing, you know.”

“Yeah,” I say, picturing his computer-geeky descendants. “I know.”

“Aha!” she explains, pulling to stop. “Here we go. Shelf B2-S18D.”

She quickly skims a finger across a shelf of books, mumbling the call numbers as she goes. “Chi Sigma 597.10, Chi Sigma 597.1099, Chi Sigma 597.121—wait a second,” she says, skimming back a few books and then ahead again. “Chi Sigma 597.1099 and then Chi Sigma 597.121. Where is Chi Sigma 597.11?”

I look for myself. She’s right. The book is gone.

“That’s not possible,” she says. “This is a noncirculating collection. No one can check out an Olympic record. No one.”

My heart sinks.

Great. The one and only record of my dad’s trial is missing. That’s like waving a bowl of cookies and cream under my nose and then telling me ice cream’s off-limits. Almost having that record in my hands makes me even more desperate to know everything. All of a sudden I have a million more questions. What’s in the record? Who took it? Why did they take it? And, most important at the moment, does whoever sent me that note know where it is?

“Afraid I won’t catch you?”

I look back over my shoulder at Xander, standing there looking all cool and passive. He’s holding his hands out, palms up, but in a casual way.

“You’re not exactly inspiring confidence,” I say, nodding at his hands. “Besides, I’ve done this same thing like a million times before. It’s stupid.”

All around me, ten-year-olds are giggling. We’re in the courtyard again, though I think we should really be on a softer surface. At the moment we’re supposed to be doing that team-building trust exercise where you fall back and someone catches you. I’d much rather crash on grass than on the hard-tile mosaic of the courtyard floor.

All the giggly girls have been paired up, and one after another, they’re falling back into one another’s arms.

“You almost let me fall!” one girl—Larissa, I think—squeals. She’s a descendant of Hades, but with her golden blonde hair and dark green eyes, she doesn’t look like any Hades descendant I’ve met.

“I did not!” her partner, curly-haired Gillian, protests. “I was just softening your fall.”

While they argue, I turn my attention back to Xander, who is still watching me patiently.

“You’re right,” I say. “I don’t trust you.”

He shrugs. “This exercise isn’t about trusting me.”

I scowl. “It’s not?”

“No.” He shakes his head slowly. “It’s about trusting yourself.”

“I don’t get it.”

He just shrugs again and holds out his hands.

Clearly, explanation time is over.

I debate it for a minute longer. I mean, he’s definitely strong enough to catch me—that’s why I’m paired with him and not a ten-year-old—and definitely more likely than Stella or Adara to catch me. But the question is:
Will
he catch me? There’s a dark spark of mischief in his lavender eyes that suggests he likes breaking rules no matter the consequences. He’s trouble and likes it that way.

“Tell me something about yourself first.” I’m not about to risk bodily injury trusting someone who won’t tell me more than his name and grade.

He looks indifferent. “Like what?”

“Like—” I almost ask why he got expelled, but then change my mind. That might be too personal for a first question. And after what Griffin said about some people being touchy about their ancestor god, that’s not a smart choice, either. Instead, I go for something safe . . . ish. “Are you subjecting yourself to weeks of ten-year-olds just to spend time with Stella?”

I am totally bluffing. I mean, he’s shown no indication so far that he’s interested in
anything
about this camp, let alone one of the counselors. But she’s definitely interested in him. I’m looking out for my girl, testing the waters to see if her crush might be reciprocated. Maybe plant the seed of interest in his mind.

I don’t expect an admission.

His dark blond brows lift just the tiniest bit, betraying his surprise. Then, shocking the crap out of me, a flush of pink crawls up his neck.

Gotcha!

He grumbles, “Let’s just get on with the exercise.”

“Fine,” I say, satisfied with my victory.

Besides, if he drops me, I’ll have an excuse to skip out on the rest of these stupid exercises. I’ll be bleeding from the head, but I’ll be doing it at home.

Holding my arms straight out to the side, I close my eyes and fall.

Halfway to the ground, my eyes fly open. He’s not going to catch me. He’s not going to—

A split second before I hit the ground, his hands slip under my pits. My heart racing, I scramble upright and whirl around. “You almost let me drop!”

“You did not trust.”

“Of course not!” I smack him on the shoulder. Hard. “You were going to let me fall.”

“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 thought 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.