Pheme the Gossip Read online

  She didn’t see anything. But she did feel something. Her fingertips were starting to tingle. They were turning pink! They went even pinker, before darkening to red. Startled, she let go of the diaryscroll. It shut with a snap, and she rammed it back into Athena’s desk drawer.

  Then she jumped up and just stood there staring at her hands in horror as the red spread. It zipped along her fingers, past her knuckles, and all the way up to her wrists, where it finally stopped.

  Aghhh! Both of her hands looked like she’d dipped them in bright red paint. Athena’s spell had worked.

  Pheme had been caught red-handed!

  2

  Stowaway

  FREAKING OUT, PHEME RAN FOR THE DOOR. SHE forgot to look both ways as she left the room, but luckily there was no one around. She scurried to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Maybe the red stuff would wash off.

  “Anyone in here?” she called out as she dashed inside the bathroom. Her words puffed above her head. When no one answered, she went straight to the sink. Using lots of soap, she scrubbed and scrubbed her hands. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, the red wouldn’t come off.

  Giving up, she stared at her pale, worried face in the mirror above the sink. She watched her reflection run red fingers through her short, spiky orange hair.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispered aloud. She turned away from the mirror and glanced wildly around the room. There had to be a way to break Athena’s spell. But how?

  She paced, trying to remember the spells she’d learned in Spell-ology class over the years. None of them dealt with this exact situation. Still, maybe she could tweak one to make it work. Like that one for getting rid of pimples!

  “Icky spots upon my face . . . uh . . . fingers,” she began. Then, she remembered that the next line went: With this spell all zits erase.

  She’d need to reword the spell carefully. After all, she didn’t want to erase her fingers. Just the red. And she also needed a word that rhymed with “fingers.” In a sudden burst of vocabularistic creativity, an idea came to her. She began again:

  “Icky red stuff on my fingers—

  With this spell no trace of it lingers!”

  She glanced eagerly down at her hands and waited for her fingers to tingle like before. Then she’d know that the spell was beginning to take effect. But nothing happened. Her hands remained a bright cherry red. Argh!

  Unable to think of another spell to try, Pheme considered other options. How about gloves? No, she decided. Wearing gloves would be weird and draw everyone’s attention. And this was one time when she definitely didn’t want attention!

  Getting a sudden brainstorm, she dashed out of the bathroom and headed for the Beauty-ology classroom. The teacher, Ms. ThreeGraces, had all kinds of makeup in there. And more important—makeup removers. Maybe one of them would remove the red and undo this red-handed disaster.

  Otherwise she didn’t know how she was ever going to explain that she’d been snooping in someone’s diaryscroll. A diaryscroll was pretty private. If Athena found out and told Zeus, she hated to even imagine his reaction.

  At the very least he’d probably ask someone else to be floor monitor and refuse to give her the recommendation she needed for the Teen Scrollazine job. At the worst he might zap her with one of his thunderbolts!

  Hiding her hands in the pockets of her chiton, Pheme hurried down the marble staircase. The Beauty-ology classroom was on the main floor of the Academy. Three floors down from the girls’ dorm.

  Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the cafeteria doors opened across the hall. Out stepped the four most popular goddessgirls in the entire school. Golden-haired Aphrodite, green-eyed Persephone, arrow-packing Artemis—and diaryscroll-owning Athena.

  Athena was pretty much the last person on all of Mount Olympus that Pheme wanted to see right now. What a nightmare!

  The goddessgirls were laughing about something. Like Pheme, they were all immortals, so their skin had a beautiful golden shimmer. (Mortal MOA students like Medusa and Pandora didn’t have shimmery skin.) As soon as the four friends noticed Pheme, they clammed up. Guarded expressions stole across their faces.

  Even though her hands were hidden, Pheme couldn’t help worrying that Athena would somehow guess what she’d done. In fact, her cheeks were probably as red as her hands right now. From embarrassment and guilt!

  Pheme tried to act normal. Only, she was nervous and couldn’t think what to say. So she just stood there, staring bug-eyed at the girls.

  They were starting to give her weird looks. Unfortunately, they were also unintentionally blocking her way down the hall to the Beauty-ology classroom. Abandoning her plan to go there for now, she turned and bolted out the bronze front doors of the Academy, then down the granite steps to the courtyard.

  Taking long, deep breaths of fresh air, Pheme tried to calm down. Athena couldn’t have guessed anything. The girl might be brainy, but she wasn’t psychic!

  Hermes’ silver-winged chariot was still parked in the middle of the courtyard. Remembering the hand she’d seen—or imagined she’d seen—popping up from between packages, Pheme went over and peeked inside the back of the chariot.

  It was empty. Which meant Hermes had already finished his MOA deliveries. He was probably hanging out with Principal Zeus in his office for a while before taking off again.

  Hearing some godboys coming up from the sports fields, Pheme ducked behind the chariot. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now.

  With her back against the chariot, she sank down till she was sitting on the courtyard’s mosaic tiles. Her weight caused the chariot to roll forward a couple of inches, but then it stopped.

  When the boys were safely past, she drew her hands from her pockets to examine them, hoping with all her heart that the spell had worn off. Nope. Still red. Her stomach sank. Rats.

  “Hey! Thanks a lot!” a boy’s voice complained from behind her. Startled, Pheme thrust her hands back inside her pockets. She glanced around worriedly. Had someone seen?

  “Over here,” the voice said. “Stuck, thanks to you.”

  Pheme whipped around. Sure enough, there was a boy lying on his back underneath the chariot behind her. She knew everyone at MOA, but she didn’t recognize him. He looked about the same age as her, with sky-blue eyes and curly hair as golden as the sun.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Whoa,” said the boy, watching the puffy cloud-letters escaping her lips. “Awesome skill. I guess that means you must be a goddess, right?”

  She nodded. Of course, her shimmery skin was a dead giveaway too.

  “Mega-awesome! I’ve never met a goddess before!” He yanked on the hem of his tunic, which was wedged under one the chariot’s wheels. It must’ve happened when the chariot had rolled forward.

  “Um, sorry,” she said as she watched him try and fail to wiggle the hem free. “Guess that’s my fault. I’ll help you. But turn your head away first. And don’t look till I say so.”

  He shot her an odd glance but did as she asked. She took her hands out of her pockets and tried to push the wheel. It wouldn’t budge.

  “What’s up with your hands?” he asked, having turned his head toward her again.

  “I told you not to look!” she said, sticking them back into her pockets.

  “Sorry,” he said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “I have trouble doing what I’m told sometimes.” He gave her a cheeky grin.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Hiding,” he said matter-of-factly. “I rode here in the back of Hermes’ chariot. When he disappeared with a load of boxes, I jumped out. Then some nine-headed teacher came by, so I dove under here to hide.”

  “Ms. Hydra,” Pheme informed him. “She’s not a teacher. She’s Principal Zeus’s administrative assistant.” Pheme worked for Ms. Hydra as an office helper one afternoon a week. Tons of stuff was always happening in the front office. It was pretty much the perfect place for snoopi
ng on school business.

  The boy gave the hem of his tunic a hard yank. There was a small ripping sound.

  Pheme pulled her hands out again and grabbed the chariot wheel she’d leaned against earlier. “Stop. That isn’t working. Help me rock the chariot instead.”

  “Okay,” said the boy. “But hurry. Hermes is bound to be back soon.”

  As they both grasped the wheel, the wheels in Pheme’s mind began to spin. “So you’re a stowaway?” This was definitely news. Big news. Maybe it was exactly what she’d been looking for!

  The boy shrugged as he tugged at the wheel. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Just then the chariot finally budged, rolling backward a few inches. At the same time, they heard Hermes coming down MOA’s front steps.

  The boy slid out from under the chariot. “Yikes! I can’t let Hermes see me. He’ll tell my mom! And take me back home before I—” But then he cut himself off, like he was worried he’d said too much.

  Pheme’s eyes sharpened, and her gossip-gathering instincts went on high alert. But before she could get his name or find out anything else about him, the golden-haired boy scrambled to his feet.

  “Bye, Red!” He gave her a cocky wave, then ran off downhill—away from the Academy.

  She chased after him, determined to ask her questions. A few minutes later she stopped, panting. Rats! She’d lost him.

  Hearing a flapping sound overhead, she looked up and saw Hermes’ winged cart zoom off into the clouds. Well, that boy wasn’t leaving MOA now that his ride was gone. If she kept an eye out for him, she’d find him sooner or later. And then she’d get some answers.

  In the meantime she had other things to worry about. Like red hands. Stuffing them firmly inside her pockets, she turned back toward the Academy.

  3

  Red, Bright, and Eew!

  BY THE TIME PHEME REACHED THE COURTYARD, lunch had ended. There was still some time before fourth period, so students were trickling outside to enjoy the nice, sunny weather. They gathered in small groups near the flower boxes and statues set here and there. Or on the granite steps or marble benches rimming the courtyard.

  As Pheme started up the steps, she passed some girls sitting together and chatting. One of them, a goddess with rainbow-colored eye shadow named Iris, stopped speaking and eyed her warily. When Pheme returned her stare, Iris casually looked away.

  How disappointing! In Pheme’s experience the students who didn’t look away were often the ones with the good gossip. They usually waved her over, wanting her to spread news that would benefit them somehow. Stuff that would make them more popular at MOA or more famous down on Earth.

  Of course, sometimes those who avoided her gaze turned out to have good gossip or secrets too. Figuring all of this out was almost a full-time job. And Pheme was great at it!

  Hearing a familiar laugh, she froze halfway up the steps. Above her Athena and her friends were on their way down. Great. Just great.

  As usual the four goddessgirls were laughing, looking like they were having fun. It always seemed to her that they didn’t have any problems. But she knew that wasn’t true. Because every now and then she discovered that one of them did have a problem. And since she was the goddessgirl of gossip, she usually couldn’t help telling the world about it!

  When Athena glanced at her, it was Pheme who looked away this time. Hoping she didn’t look too guilty, Pheme rushed on past.

  For one awful second she suddenly wondered if she’d remembered to straighten the stuff on Athena’s desk before leaving her dorm room. She was usually so careful about things like that. But she’d been frantic. Inside her pockets she crossed her red fingers that if she had forgotten, Athena wouldn’t notice.

  Near the top of the steps Pheme saw Pandora. Her blue-streaked golden hair made her kind of hard to miss. She was asking questions of a couple of girls who seemed to be trying to ditch her.

  One of them noticed Pheme and pointed her out to Pandora, saying, “Oh, look. I think Pheme wants to talk to you.” When Pandora glanced over at Pheme, the girls darted away.

  Oblivious to the snub, Pandora flashed Pheme a genuine smile and waved. Pandora never seemed to mind Pheme’s gossipy nature and didn’t try to use her to spread gossip either. Maybe that was because she was as curious as Pheme was nosy, so they had a lot in common. The two of them, ignored by many students, had become friends.

  “Where’ve you been?” Pandora asked when Pheme caught up to her. She brushed back the question-mark-shaped bangs that were plastered to her forehead. “I saved you a seat at lunch, but you didn’t show.”

  Pheme hesitated. She couldn’t very well tell Pandora the truth—that she’d been snooping in Athena’s and her room. “I wasn’t hungry,” she said smoothly. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled loudly. “Then,” she added to the words that had already puffed above her head.

  “Want this?” Pandora drew an apple from her pocket and held it out. “I was going to save it for later, but I can get another one.”

  Pheme automatically started to reach for the apple. In the nick of time she caught herself. She shoved her red hands deeper inside her pockets.

  “No, thanks. You keep it,” she told Pandora. “I’ll grab something from the snacks table in the cafeteria. Ta-ta!” She angled her head and smiled a good-bye. After all, she couldn’t very well wave!

  At the top of the steps, Pheme paused uncertainly in front of the Academy’s bronze doors. She stared at the big golden door handles. Uh-oh. How was she going to open them without anyone seeing her hands?

  Turning sideways to the door, she reached out one hand, still keeping it tucked inside her pocket. The fabric of her chiton stre-e-etched as she tried to grab the handle. Rats. It wasn’t enough. She was going to rip her chiton if she forced it any more.

  She was about to take a chance and pull her hands from her pockets, when a group of godboys—Ares, Apollo, Poseidon, and Eros—came up behind her.

  “Going in, or staying out?” asked Poseidon. Impatiently he tapped the end of his trident, a three-pronged spear, against the top step. “C’mon. We’ve got to drop off some stuff before we head to the gym for the chariot safety lecture.”

  Pheme jumped a little as water droplets sprayed from the trident. She wanted to wipe them off her arm, but didn’t dare. At one time Pandora and Medusa had both had crushes on this handsome turquoise-skinned godboy of the sea. But Pheme just thought he was a drip.

  “I . . . uh . . . ,” she stuttered.

  Before Pheme could say anything more, Ares spoke up. His face was full of pretend amazement. “Pheme? Speechless? This is a first,” he cracked.

  “I’m going in, I guess,” she said quickly.

  “Well, don’t hurry on our account,” Apollo teased when she still didn’t budge. The dark-haired godboy of truth, prophecy, and music was Artemis’s twin. His band, Heavens Above, played for all the school dances.

  Ares was Aphrodite’s crush. But despite his blond hair and muscles, Pheme had never really understood what Aphrodite saw in him. Because sometimes he could be a bit tough. A bully almost. Of course, he was the godboy of war, so that went with the territory. And being around Aphrodite seemed to soften his hard edges some. So maybe they did make a good pair.

  The boys had all laughed at Ares’ “joke.”

  All except Eros, that is. “Never mind them,” he said now. His glittery gold wings fluttered gently at his back as he stepped toward the door.

  Pheme studied his wings while he reached for the door handle. Very few students possessed wings. They were so cool. And speedy.

  You could move pretty fast with the magic winged sandals available to all students at MOA, but real wings were even better. If she had a pair, she could spread gossip way faster than she could now.

  Eros shifted the bow and quiver he carried over one shoulder. Then he pulled open the door and held it for her. Her eyes darted away from his wings. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her staring.

  “After you, m’lady
.” He waved an arm wide and held his friends back so she could go in first.

  Pheme liked his apple-red cheeks and the mischievous twinkle in his chocolate-brown eyes. They made him look happy. She could never decide if he was cute or handsome. But he was definitely gallant. And fun. That’s probably why he had lots of friends.

  “Thanks,” she told him. With her head held high—and her hands safely inside her pockets—she stepped through the doorway.

  “Cool doodles in class today,” he said as she passed him.

  “Huh?” she asked, surprised when he followed her.

  “In Hero-ology. I saw your notescroll.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She was a little hyper sometimes and doodled all over her notescrolls. A habit of hers when she was thinking. “Well, see you.” She sped up, heading for the Beauty-ology room. She was on an un-red-handing mission. The last thing she needed was him and his friends hanging around her right now!

  “Did you shoot yourself in the foot with your own arrow or something?” she heard Apollo tease Eros behind her. The other boys laughed.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Eros said good-naturedly.

  What was that about? she wondered.

  Because Eros was the godboy of love, his arrows had a special power. Whoever they pierced fell immediately in love with the next person they saw. It was kind of a dangerous gift, in her opinion. If Eros made a mistake, people who didn’t like each other one bit could suddenly think they were in love!

  Did Apollo mean he thought Eros liked her? Pheme considered that weirdly new idea as she hurried down the hall. Hmm. Eros had chosen her to accompany him down the aisle in Principal Zeus and Hera’s wedding. They’d been one of seven bridesmaid and groomsman pairs. And ever since the wedding Eros seemed to go out of his way to be nice to her. But he was nice to everyone.

  The idea that he could be crushing on her was dumb, she decided. It wasn’t like he’d purposely selected her to be a bridesmaid. It was just that she’d won his contest. Her name, written on a slip of paper, had been one among dozens tacked to a target Eros had set up. When all was ready, he’d taken aim and shot an arrow from fifty paces.