New Olympus Trilogy: Teenage Goddess Teenage Star Hell on Earth (2 page)

“You’re pretty, too,” I said, but she shook her head.

“Pretty doesn’t cut it in this crowd.” She scrutinized me critically. “You on the other hand could be beautiful, if you cut and coloured your hair, lengthened your lashes and wore some make-up. Those boobs are already great. All natural?”

“Certainly,” I replied, a bit taken aback.

“Certainly,” Melinda repeated. “’Sure’ would have been enough. Your English is too formal, sort of grown-up. You’ll have to drop that.”

“If I can.”

“Hello, sis,” I heard from behind, and saw Hell approaching with a tray of the chicken and some pinkish pudding on the side. He joined our table. “We’ll be in the same class, it seems.”

I nodded, resignedly. “In that case I’ll expect you to help me with math, if necessary. This is Melinda, from Colombia. Melinda, my brother Hell,
er, Helmuth.”

“
Buenas tardes, Melinda,” Hell said, and they briefly broke into a fast Spanish dialogue. I preferred to look around a bit more, hoping for a glimpse of Jason. After a couple of minutes, Melinda said, “Where did you learn Spanish so well?”

“Vacations in South America,” Hell said, vaguely. “Myra is just as fluent.”

Melinda smiled at me. “Good for you.”

“I
find languages easy, but math is another story. What languages will we be having?”

“French, Latin, Spanish, and some German and Italian for those who are interested.”

“No Russian, Chinese or Arabic?”

“Nope.”

“No challenge there,” Hell concluded.

“You look a bit young for our grade,” Melinda said to him.

“He’s fourteen, but his IQ is off the charts,” I explained.

“
Look out for Paul, then. Don’t let him catch you all alone. He’s a bully, and has it in for anyone with good grades.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Hell replied, grinning in anticipation. This Paul wouldn’t know what hit him if he ever tried it on with my little brother. “Does he bully girls as well?”

“Not usually. He already feels superior to all of us, I guess.”

Hell and I exchanged looks. Maybe even without Jason, this school jaunt might offer some interesting possibilities.

4

I didn’t see Jason until the start of history class the next morning. He’d arrived straight from L.A. and came in looking a bit sleepy and rumpled and delicious. I could have given up ambrosia forever in exchange for
his company. I knew better than to betray these feelings, though a faint flush crept over my whole body.

The lack of my powers was a great nuisance. I’d looked at myself critically, after Melinda’s remarks, and had to admit that she was right: by current standards I was too unadorned. What was the use of perfectly smooth skin, good teeth and even features, if the result looked boring? I also suspected that my overly straight nose
, which I share with the rest of my family, was no longer in fashion these days. Modern people mostly had a small dip where the nose begins. 

Normally I relied on my divine glamor, a whole-body shining light
I could turn on or dim down at will. It made me irresistibly attractive to any human, male or female. I’d been instantly popular with the young people I had met on our holidays, without making any effort. It had seemed only natural to expect that I could also fascinate Jason as soon as we met.

Had Dad been trying to deliberately sabotage my first serious attempt to attract a boy? If so, that was grossly unfair; he had used his own glamor in the distant past to make out with a variety of human females, sometimes under very questionable circumstances. Mom still had not quite forgiven him.

If he expected me to give up right away, he was mistaken. At least the other girls were only human, too, so the playing field was even. I had a lot to work with, and unlimited funds. If Jason was not attracted to me, maybe we were not meant to be; but I’d give it a good try.

The newcomers of the term - Hell, I and two others - were made to introduce ourselves to the class. As I
stood out in front and faced the students, I couldn't help gazing full-on at Jason. He looked bored and distracted, barely listening to my words.

“My name is Myra
Dollinger… My last school was in Switzerland, not far from Geneva. I am interested in swimming, books, movies, and mythology.” As I spouted that boring list, I wanted to shout at Jason,
Look at me!
  But I was without my powers, and the only one to understand my mental voice was Hell. I could have done without his look of compassion.

Christabel, who was seated to
Jason’s left side, passed him a note that he seemed to find a lot more interesting than my lame introduction.

So far, not good.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Christabel. According to Melinda’s little character sketch the night before, chances that we’d be friends were not good. Yet surely it would be ridiculous for a Goddess to feel jealous of a human girl. Even if she triumphed now, in another hundred years she’d be dead and gone and I’d still be young and beautiful (well, at least when I got to use my glamor.) My mother had often been jealous, with good reason, before father finally reformed sometime in the Victorian age. Though it was long before my birth, I knew all about it. I wasn’t at all keen to follow in her footsteps.

Somehow we got through history class. For a while, I distracted myself by watching Jason, but he sat at an awkward angle from me, and I just got a stiff neck from that effort. The rest of the class seemed endless. The prospect of sitting through many more like it was quite appalling. Hell and I at least had eternity to look forward to
. How these humans with their short lives could stand to waste so much time just sitting around was a mystery to me.

The next class was French. The teacher, Monsieur
Amande, was pleased when he discovered that Hell and I were both fluent.

“Of course, since you’re Swiss, it’s only to be expected,” he
commented, “but it’s still excellent to have you both in my class. Maybe you could tutor a few of your less advanced classmates.”

I nodded eagerly, hoping that Jason might be in need of French tuition, but nothing more was said about it. Then we had Math, even more boring...

5

Somehow we made it to lunchtime. I was quite hungry, and hoped that th
is meal would be more edible than the last one, though it seemed unlikely. From the school brochure, which I’d finally got around to reading, I had learned the food at Rockview was nutritionally balanced and optimized according to the latest scientific theories. No wonder it tasted so dull.

Melinda, Hell and I ended up at the table next to Christabel’s this time. Her table had filled up
very quickly; when Jason came by with his tray, there was no place left. She told the burly guy at her right - Paul - to leave, but before he could do so, Jason just said, "Never mind", shrugged and sat down next to Hell at our table.

“Hi, guys” he said to us all. “How's the fish?”

“Hello,” we chorused in return. Melinda added, “Just what you’d expect, tasteless as usual. I suppose you got much better food in L.A.”.

Jason began eating, though with little enthusiasm. “Yeah, the food was ok
ay, but when you’re rushing around all the time you don’t really get to enjoy it. I’m not sure how long I can keep up this commuting between Colorado and California.”

After a minute or so, he
finally looked at me – me! His eyes really were as deep blue as in the pictures I'd seen, and he had long, beautiful lashes. I could not help smiling.

“Myra – right? You’re from Switzerland? How come you were enrolled here, of all places? They have great schools in Europe.”

“Dad wants us to go to Harvard,” I explained, sticking to our cover story.

“And what do you want?” He smiled back at me. I'd seen that exact smile on the screen, magnified, and yet the effect was far stronger now.
My pulse quickened.

“Oh, I just want to enjoy life for now. Though I’m not sure yet this school is the right place to do so. How do
you
like it?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay – except for the food. They really need to find a chef who knows what he’s doing.”

“Or she,” Melinda amended.

Jason shrugged again, as though to say, whatever.

“Have you been to Cannes?” he asked me.

“Yes, but not for the film festival.
Cannes is a bit crowded for my taste, though the countryside further inland is very pretty.”

“I’m supposed to go for the next festival
, in May,” Jason said, “with the director of
Hurricane Riders.
”

“I hear it has spectacular action sequences
.” Hell perked up at this subject. “Did you work with a stunt double? That's a job I'd love to do.”

“There were three doubles, actually.
Yeah, I got to meet them and had to show them exactly how I move, but they wouldn’t let me do any of the dangerous stuff myself." He speared a bit of broccoli on his fork, morosely. "There were some scenes I could easily have done, but my agent was totally against it. At least a third of the movie’s length you see one of them, instead of me.”

“It must be dull to come back to school after all that,” I
suggested.

“The first couple of days it seems like a return to sanity. But then school gets to be boring again, and I start to read scripts and fan mail in my spare time.”

“What spare time?” Melinda asked. Everyone smiled. “If you have any, you can give it to me.” Jason shook his head.

He
’d finished the fish and rose in a fluid motion. “I’m getting some dessert – anyone else wants any?”

None of us accepted his offer, as t
he rice pudding had not looked very tempting. Jason walked over to the buffet to help himself.

“He seems nice enough,” Hell grudgingly remarked when Jason was out of earshot. “Not as stuck up as you’d expect.”

“
I
didn’t expect anything of the kind.”

R
eturning from the buffet, Jason was neatly intercepted by Christabel, at whose table a free space was now available. She took him by the arm and he sat down next to her with his rice pudding.

“Well, they’re old friends,” Melinda murmured.

I took a sip of water, wondering if I should leave.

“Poor Jason,” we heard Christabel say in a honey-sweet but carrying voice. “You don’t have to sit with the new guys, when you have so many friends here.”

“I didn’t mind,” Jason said, spooning his dessert. “How’ve you been?”

A tinkling laugh. Christabel’s voice was an octave higher when she talked to Jason, compared to
those times I had heard her speak in class.

“I spent most of the summer on our private island in the Pacific. You’ll love it when you finally come to visit, Jason.”

“I’m sure,” he replied vaguely, looking her over. “You don’t have a tan to show for it. That fair skin must be quite a handicap on a tropical island.”

Christabel dramatically tossed her red mane to the side. “Who cares, with dancing and parties every night?”

Jason said nothing and ate some more rice pudding. I was starting to wonder at the dull and inconsequential nature of human conversation. Was it always like this? Did it have something to do with the blandness of the food?

“That Swiss girl you were talking to seems a dead bore,” Christabel said. I jerked in my seat. She had to have known that I could overhear. My anger mounted, swift and terrible. She was lucky I didn't have my powers, or I might have smitten her with something painful right then. Melinda and Hell exchanged a look.

Jason looked pained. “Chris, -“

“Come on, Jason, you’re at school now and don’t have to be kind to your fans. Here you can be yourself.”

“But I'm-“

“We’re going to have fun this year, Jason,” Christabel cooed, putting her hand on his biceps with a possessive air. “Don’t waste your time on nonentities.”

This was it. War had been declared. I rose and said to Hell and Melinda, loudly enough for the other table to hear,

“Let’s get out of here – there’s too much bitchiness in the air for my comfort.”

“All right,” Hell muttered, and Melinda also got up after a momentary hesitation. We left without acknowledging Jason again, but sat down together on a sofa in the deserted entertainment lounge just next to the cafeteria.

“Christabel seems to hate you,” Melinda told me. “She has at least eight supporters in the class and can make your life very difficult.”

“That’s over a third,” Hell calculated. “Why would she hate Myra, if they haven’t really spoken more than a few sentences to each other? Why the gratuitous insults?”

“To put Myra in her place, of course. I think it’s your body language,”
Melinda told me, “the way you look and stand and hold your head, as though you considered yourself the equal or superior of anyone.”