Idun and the Apples of Youth Read online

  Neither boygod need worry about facing those “responsibilities,” Idun thought as the girls crept closer. As long as they kept eating her golden apples of youth, they’d never grow old.

  Unfortunately, Heimdall caught sight of Idun and her friends before they could give Loki a scare. “Thunder Girls!” he boomed in his usual loud way. He’d given them that nickname when they’d first started at the academy because he’d been irritated at the thundering sounds their snow boots made when they raced over the bridge.

  Far from feeling offended, however, the girls had decided they liked the nickname. Thunder was powerful, after all, so it indicated they had girl power! They’d even chosen “Thunder Girls” as their group’s name and written it on a cute sign that they’d hung on the door of the room they shared in the girls’ dorm.

  Loki must have realized that the girls had overheard him and Bragi talking to Heimdall. His face went pink with embarrassment, and his dark-blue eyes flitted downward for a moment. He recovered quickly, however. “Move along, Blunder Girls. This is guy talk. So unless you’re planning to shape-shift into guys, just keep on walking. Oh, wait, I just remembered that none of you except Sif can shape-shift. And she can’t do it very well!”

  “Grr,” growled Sif. But it was true that her shape-shifting skills were limited. She could only become a swan or a tree. That was all.

  Over her shoulder, Freya murmured to the other three girls. “If he only knew.”

  “If he only knew what?” asked Heimdall. You couldn’t sneak any whispers past this guy. Not with his super-keen hearing! And when Freya wrapped her arms around the bag containing her new cloak, his shrewd gaze moved to it. “What have you got there, Thunder Girl?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just bought a new cloak,” said Freya.

  “A shape-shifting one,” Skade boasted.

  Instantly the boys’ attention became riveted on the girls. “Yeah, right,” scoffed Loki.

  “ ‘Yeah, right’ is right,” blurted Freya, unable to let his put-down pass. “My cloak will help me chase after anyone who plays tricks on us from now on. Tricks like pretending to be a troll.”

  “Or stealing apples,” added Idun. She was referring to something that had happened a while back, when Loki had shape-shifted into an eagle and stolen one of her precious apples of youth while she was picking them in her special grove. Of course, if the feathered cloak were hers, she could chase him off herself if he ever tried that again!

  Heimdall plunked his fists at his hips and demanded, “What’s this about shape-shifting?”

  Bragi reached for his lyre, which was strung over one shoulder. Hazel eyes twinkling, he strummed it. Then he began to sing softly.

  “Girls crossing the Bifrost on their homeward walk

  Are making us curious with shape-shifting talk.”

  He finished with a flourish of his fingers across the strings and then grinned at Idun for some unknown reason. When she automatically smiled back, he perked up, looking pleased. It almost seemed like he’d sung his song hoping to make her do just that! But why would he? she wondered.

  She only knew Bragi a little. He was in a couple of her classes. Clever with words, he was known to practice new songs while walking in the forest. She’d often heard him while she was picking her apples.

  Loki was eyeing Freya’s bag. “So you’ve got a shape-shifting cloak in there?”

  “Yep. I bought it at Midgard Mall,” Freya told him matter-of-factly.

  A look of dismay flitted across Loki’s face. But then it was replaced by his trademark smirk. “You found a shape-shifting cloak in a shop at the mall? I don’t think so. If you really have one, prove it. Let’s see it work.”

  Freya jutted out her chin. “Sure, no problem!”

  Uh-oh, thought Idun. Everyone knew Loki was the best shape-shifter at Asgard Academy. And he liked it that way. What would he do when he saw how powerful Freya’s new cloak was? Would he try to steal it, like he had Freya’s necklace and Idun’s apples not long ago? Loki had a reputation as a troublemaker at the academy. One that was well deserved!

  Still, despite the tricks he’d played on her and others, Idun was convinced there must be some goodness in him. No one could be all bad, right? Maybe, like with trolls, his bad rap wasn’t necessarily fair.

  Suddenly the words spoken by the sweater with the crystal ball image on it in the mall came back to her: “Do a good deed, and you’ll get what you need.” If she could somehow help keep Loki out of trouble, that might allow him to improve his reputation. And that would be a good deed indeed. One that would benefit him and everyone at AA! But how this deed would help her get what she needed—namely, the feather cloak—she wasn’t sure.

  Before she could give this more thought, they all heard a familiar sound.

  3 A Plan Hatches

  TOOOT!

  Freya had been reaching for her new cloak, probably intent on proving its powers, when Heimdall lifted his horn to his lips. Now her hands flew to cover her ears instead.

  Idun and the others covered their ears too. The blast signaling that lunch would be over in fifteen minutes was so loud that Idun could almost feel her brain rattle around inside her skull. Everyone took their hands from their ears as Heimdall lowered his horn, and Bragi exclaimed: “I would swear on old Ymir’s hat that even Nidhogg just heard that!”

  “Heard it from way down on the third ring?” Loki scoffed. “Doubt it.” Nidhogg was a dragon that dwelled in the third ring’s dark, foggy world of Niflheim, where he gnawed on Yggdrasil’s third and lowest root.

  At Loki’s unkind comment, Bragi’s face fell a little.

  To make Bragi feel less embarrassed, Idun smiled at him, saying, “So you think Ymir wore a hat?”

  “Sure. It’s cold in Jotunheim,” Bragi replied, perking up. “And if Ymir’s hat was a wool one, that’s probably where sheep came from!”

  Everyone (except the solemn Heimdall) laughed at this, even Loki. Long ago, the giant Ymir’s bones had become mountains; his hair, trees; his skull, the sky. Even his eyelashes became a wall that encircled the human world of Midgard. Who knew? Bragi’s woolly sheep guess could be right!

  Suddenly Skade’s stomach rumbled loudly. “I’m starving!” she exclaimed.

  “Me too,” chorused Freya and Sif.

  Idun shot them a surprised glance. “Really? Didn’t you eat your apple snacks?” She’d finished hers back at the mall. So although she was hungry again, she wasn’t starving.

  “Oh, um, sure. Shopping makes you hungry, that’s all,” said Skade. But she didn’t quite look at Idun as she said this.

  Was Skade lying? wondered Idun. She had a feeling her roomies hadn’t eaten or appreciated her apple snacks at all, and that hurt.

  “Same as you, I’m hungry too!” Bragi rhymed. “I played Spydkast with some of the guys all morning.” Spydkast was a competition that involved running and then throwing a spear as far as one could. Slipping back into rhyme, he added, “It was tons of fun. But as usual, Thor won.”

  Red-haired Thor was the biggest and strongest boygod in the entire school. He had a short-handled hammer named Mjollnir, which always returned to his hand no matter how far he threw it. With the help of that hammer, Thor had led the effort to keep frost giants and other enemies from getting through the wall around Asgard.

  “Yeah, I was kind of busy myself,” said Loki, smirking. “Trolling for fun, you might say.”

  Before the girls could respond to his taunt, Heimdall warned, “Better get a move on or you won’t make it to lunch before the Valhallateria closes.”

  A moment later Heimdall ushered the two boys and four girls to stand before a pair of gold doors. These hovered in midair without visible support at the end of the bridge. The doors were actually a magical portal. It was the quickest route to the academy, whose many buildings were scattered among Yggdrasil’s humongous lofty branches high above Asgard’s villages and towns.

  With a last glance at the boys, Heimdall surprised them w
ith a wink and a rhyme of his own: “And don’t go growing a beard, ’cause you’ll look very weird!”

  Hmm. Maybe the security guard had a better sense of humor than anyone credited him with, thought Idun.

  Once through the portal, the six students were abruptly whisked away! Idun’s long brown hair and skirts whipped wildly as she was whooshed with the others through a lengthy vine tunnel. The giant hollowed-out vine was big enough to walk (or whoosh) through. Seconds later, they all tumbled to land high in Yggdrasil, upon a branch that was so wide you couldn’t see from one side of it to the other. Entire forests of trees way smaller than Yggdrasil, plus various flora and fauna, thrived upon this branch and many more like it.

  Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Idun saw that Sif, Skade, and Freya had landed on their hands and knees about ten yards behind her. Loki and Bragi had wound up ahead of all of them.

  Idun had somehow managed to land on her feet. But her legs had gotten tangled in her skirt while she’d whirled through the vine tunnel. When she tried to untangle herself now, she lost her balance and fell backward onto a snowbank.

  “Whoa!” she called out. She was trying to push herself to stand when Bragi came over to help. She grabbed his hand. “Thanks… uh-oh… oh no!” She slipped, accidentally pulling him down onto the snowbank too.

  “Sorry!” she told him. She tried to scramble to her feet on her own and so did he. But after slipping and sliding, both fell back in the snow. Thump! When they tried again, they bumped heads. Idun reached both arms toward him. “How about if we hold hands, but lean away from each other while we push up with our feet?” she suggested.

  Bragi nodded, grabbing her hands. “I’m a fan of that plan!”

  And it worked! Once they were both standing up again, it suddenly dawned on Idun that she was holding hands with a boy for the very first time. Immediately she yanked her hands away and took a step backward. Her face burned with embarrassment. “Uh… thanks,” she mumbled. Glancing around nervously, she noticed the sparkling gold-thatched roof up ahead through Yggdrasil’s branches. The Valhallateria.

  “Sure. No problem.” Bragi seemed unruffled, his hazel eyes sparkling. Making no attempt to rhyme this time, he said with a grin, “If you ever need someone to stop you from standing up in snow again, I’m at your service.”

  Idun giggled.

  Bragi’s grin widened. He stooped to pick up the apple-hat she hadn’t realized she’d dropped, and handed it to her. “I am sometimes clumsy and must confess, I don’t often rescue damsels in distress.”

  Loki overheard this last remark as he tromped through the snow to join them. He rolled his eyes at Bragi. “Give the corny rhymes a rest, dude. She rescued you. She’s not some damsel in distress.” Then he grinned. “But maybe she’s the apple of your eye?”

  It was an obvious reference to her goddess role as keeper of the apples of youth, Idun knew. But was Loki also hinting what she thought he was hinting?

  She looked over at Bragi. Maybe so! A blush as red as an apple (only not Idun’s magic ones, which were all golden) was stealing over his face. “I… um… I…,” he stuttered. It was the first time Idun had ever seen the talkative boy at a loss for words. Bragi’s talkativeness was one of the things she liked about him. He was always in a good mood and usually seemed to have no trouble coming up with stuff to say.

  “Oh, get over yourself,” Loki told him, bumping his shoulder lightly with a fist. “I was just joking.”

  “Let’s get going before we miss lunch,” urged Skade, as the other three girls caught up to Idun and the two boys.

  “Here’s an idea,” Loki said to Freya as all six of them hurried toward the Valhallateria. “For once I’m not all that hungry. So why don’t you let me try out this so-called shape-shifting cloak while the rest of you eat?”

  Freya arched an eyebrow. “Sure. Just trade me your yellow shoes at the same time.”

  “Whaaa?” said Loki, taken aback. “No way.”

  “Ditto,” said Freya. “The cloak is too precious to share, just like your shoes. Got it?”

  “Oh, all right,” Loki grumbled. “Promise you’ll show me what the cloak can do after lunch, though? Pretty please?” Then he grinned. It was an endearing grin. One that constantly helped him get out of trouble and also get what he wanted.

  “I guess,” Freya said reluctantly. She probably only gave in because she knew Loki wouldn’t give up until he’d seen her cloak in action. Or maybe it was that tricky grin of his.

  When they reached the Valhallateria, Bragi pulled on one of its V-shaped door handles and then held the door open to let the others enter first.

  Loki grinned. “You’re such a gentleman,” he teased as he sped through the door ahead of the girls.

  Freya rolled her eyes as they followed Loki inside. “That’s something no one would ever accuse Loki of being.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” agreed Skade.

  “Thanks, Bragi,” Idun called over her shoulder after moving inside. Catching his eye, she smiled at him. Loki shouldn’t have teased him about being a gentleman. If she’d gotten to the door first, she would’ve held it open too, same as Bragi. Good manners were… well… good!

  They were so late by now that most of the V’s tables were either empty or being cleared off. Skade and Sif dropped their shopping bags on a nearby table. Freya hung on to hers. Probably a good idea with that sneaky Loki being so interested in her cloak. Luckily, he’d sat down at a table across the room. And now Bragi was crossing the V to join him.

  “Drinks! Quick!” yelled Sif. They all knew the rule. You could still get served a meal as long as you were seated with a beverage in hand before Heimdall’s end-of-lunch toot blared.

  The four girls immediately rushed for Heidrun, the larger-than-life ceramic goat fountain. It stood in the middle of the room upon a flat, rectangular tabletop formed from green-painted “leaves.” A great pedestal shaped like a stout tree trunk supported the tabletop itself. After grabbing green glass hrimkalders—short cups with rounded bottoms—they filled them with sparkly apple juice that poured out of spigots on all sides of the ceramic goat.

  Back at their table again, Freya, Skade, and Sif stashed their bags under their chairs. All had legs made from bent metal spears, with backs and seats made from thick wooden shields set at right angles.

  “Phew! Made it!” Sif exclaimed as Heimdall’s horn announced the end of lunch service. However, just then, a pear zoomed through the air past the girls’ noses.

  “Uh-oh.” Freya hunched her shoulders. “The downside of coming late to lunch is about to begin.”

  The girls’ gazes flew to the carved wooden friezes that covered all four of the Valhallateria’s walls. Painted in blues, yellows, greens, reds, and other bright colors, the sculpted friezes were filled with scenes of heroic warriors who were mostly feasting or marching. Although these warriors usually stood still like figures in any normal painting, they sometimes began to actually move. And fight.

  “Attaaack!” With resounding battle cries, sculpted warriors hurled food across the room at foes on opposite walls. They grabbed turnips, carrots, potatoes, apples, bread rolls, and whatever else they found for ammo within their paintings.

  Whoosh! A turnip whizzed over the girls’ heads. They ducked just in time and it continued on to the opposite frieze, and whacked a warrior on the shoulder. Thwack!

  Returning fire, that warrior threw a potato at the turnip-tossing warrior on the opposite wall. Thump! “How do you like them taters?” he yelled when the potato found its target.

  These daily end-of-meal battles were basically funny food fights. But to the heroes in the paintings, this was war! They taunted one another. “Take that! And that! Losers! Na-na-na-na-nah!”

  Meanwhile, Valkyries that worked as servers during meals zoomed around the Valhallateria, their booted feet hovering inches above the floor. One of them rushed up to the girls’ table now, balancing a six-foot-wide tray of meals atop the palm of her hand.

/>   Even as the bombardment ramped up around her, she managed to calmly hand out plates containing salad, strawberries, and open-faced meat-and-cheese sandwiches. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled spoons, knives, and rolled-up napkins from rows of loops down the sash across her chest and passed those out too.

  Skilled at avoiding flying food, she kept an eye out and flapped her wings to swoop and dive out of harm’s way now and then. However, she couldn’t see everything. Thonk! A large, ripe plum suddenly splatted and smooshed against the carved V on the front of her gleaming metal helmet. Tall wings on either side of the helmet quickly bent to brush the resulting goo away like windshield wipers.

  “There’s a reason we wear these helmets,” she quipped cheerily before she zoomed back toward the kitchen to reload her tray.

  “Look out!” yelled Skade.

  Idun and the others ducked as a volley of bread rolls went sailing in an arc overhead. Though these food battles were a bit aggravating, they were nothing like the real battles that had once taken place during a war between Asgard and Vanaheim. It was because of that devastating war that Odin had recently established Asgard Academy, with the goal of improving relations among the nine different worlds. As part of his plan, he’d brought Idun and other students here to this school. He was hoping they’d set a good example for all nine worlds in learning to get along.

  To encourage his goal, students were required to sit with students they didn’t normally hang out with for at least one meal per day in the Valhallateria. Which meant that Idun and her three friends would all sit apart at dinner, since they’d chosen to sit together now.

  Looking a bit concerned, Freya scooted her shopping bag farther under her chair so it wouldn’t get food-bombed. “I wish I hadn’t told Loki about my shape-shifting cloak,” she fretted as she took a sip of apple juice from her hrimkalder.

  “Too late now,” said Skade. Calmly she jerked her head to one side as a carrot flew past her ear. Then she took a big bite of her open-faced sandwich.