by Joan Holub
There was an awkward pause. Then Persephone smiled at Hestia. “So where are you guys off to?” she asked politely.
Before Hestia could even open her mouth, Pheme blurted out, “To an ice sculpture contest up north. I’m going to write a special article about it for Teen Scrollazine.” She smiled at Hestia. “Come on, girl, let’s get going!” She said good-bye for both of them, and they started across the courtyard.
If she became friends with Pheme, she’d probably never have to speak at all, Hestia thought wryly. Pheme would do all the talking. It would make things easy, but that wasn’t really what she was hoping for in a new friendship.
Bending, Hestia loosened the laces that kept the silver wings at the heels of her sandals still. The sandals’ straps magically twined themselves around her ankles, and the freed wings began to flap. Pheme had no need for winged sandals since she had real wings. Putting on a burst of speed, the two girls took off.
Flying high, they whooshed over the top of the Academy. The magnificent building stood five stories high. Its polished stone walls and tall Ionic columns sparkled in the sunlight. But what Hestia loved best were the shallow sculptures celebrating various historical feats of the immortals that were carved just below the Academy’s peaked rooftop.
In her opinion there was no grander place in the world than MOA.
After passing over the Academy, the two goddessgirls flew over many small farms, villages, and towns, but there were fewer of these the farther north they went. It was all quite exciting to Hestia, since she rarely traveled. Unlike most immortals, who were always dashing off to do amazing things, she supposed she was a homebody at heart. Still, she was in an adventurous mood today and ready to see something new!
Pheme didn’t ask her any interview questions right away. Instead, they chatted about classes, other students, and the sights they saw below.
Time passed quickly, and soon a gray-black sea churned below them. Pheme shivered and pulled her cloak close around her. There were small holes in the back of it for her wings, Hestia noticed.
Pheme pointed downward. “Brr. Look at those jagged white-and-blue icebergs floating in that water. I hope we don’t turn into ice sculptures ourselves before we get to where we’re going.”
Hestia laughed, but as usual she didn’t find the cold bothersome. She raised the arm she’d looped her bag’s handles over. “Will snacks help? I brought some.”
Pheme nodded enthusiastically. “Good thinking. I’m starving.”
Honk! Honk! As Hestia reached into her bag, a flock of snow geese appeared in the sky and came straight toward them. “Incoming!” she yelled.
Pheme’s eyes whipped to look ahead, her expression alarmed. With expert moves both girls leaned this way and that, dodging around the flock to avoid a crash.
“Phew! That was close. I think we really deserve these snacks now, don’t you?” said Hestia once they were safely past the birds. She pulled out one of the sandwiches she’d made and handed it to Pheme. Then she pulled the other one out for herself.
“Definitely,” said Pheme. Her wings flapped rapidly to keep her aloft as she took a bite. “Mmm. This tastes awesome! What’s inside?”
Hestia glowed with pride. “It’s a spread I made up with various nuts, soft cheese, herbs, and a few other ingredients.” She took a bite of her sandwich too. “Ooh! It is yummy!” They both laughed. Then she cocked her head. “Maybe I’ll add a little bit of onion next time I make it, though.”
As they munched, Pheme began prompting her with questions. Hestia was careful in her replies at first. But she quickly loosened up. Pheme was so easy to talk to. This friend thing wasn’t turning out to be all that hard, she decided happily.
To Hestia’s delight, Pheme ate every last bite of the sandwich, oohing and aahing over it. After they munched the apples she’d brought, Hestia passed Pheme a chocolate ambrosia bar.
At her very first bite of it, a look of dreamy pleasure came over Pheme’s face. “Scrumptious!” she exclaimed. “Your recipe too?”
Hestia nodded. It really made her happy to see others enjoy the food she made. “I baked them two days ago and thought they’d all been eaten. Luckily, Ms. Xena had hidden two away in a kitchen cupboard and said we could have them.”
Pheme arched an eyebrow. “Who’s Ms. Xena?”
“You know, Ms. Xenarthra,” Hestia said, thinking Pheme must not have known Ms. Xena’s shortened name. When Pheme still appeared confused, Hestia added, “She’s one of the cafeteria ladies. The one with the snout.”
“Oh. Her. The anteater lady who goes around sucking up crumbs?” Pheme made an ick face.
“Mm-hm,” said Hestia. “She does have odd eating habits, but she’s totally cool. She helped me get my kitchen apprenticeship.”
“Really?” said Pheme. Her eyes lit up with interest. “Tell me more.”
It felt good that someone was curious to know more about the things Hestia cared about, and Ms. Xena was definitely one of those things. So as the two girls flew on, Hestia told Pheme all about the cafeteria lady. She included some funny stories about cooking mishaps, like the over-peppered yambrosia that she, Ms. Okto, and Ms. Xena had all laughed over. She smiled with pleasure when Pheme laughed too.
“Okay if I mention Ms. Okto and Ms. Xena in the article I’m going to write about you?” Pheme asked. “I think readers would love to hear about those ladies.”
Hestia hesitated. Pheme had been questioning her so skillfully that she’d sort of forgotten that this was about gathering information for an article. She’d just thought they were talking. For a fraction of a second she remembered what Asca had said about Pheme. Even though she wasn’t really cold, Hestia clasped the neck of her hood to tighten it over her head as the wind grew brisker.
Thing was, she kind of wanted Pheme’s approval. Besides, she was pretty sure Ms. Xena would enjoy seeing herself in Teen Scrollazine. And that lady deserved some recognition. She worked so hard, yet Pheme and probably others didn’t know her name anymore than they knew Hestia’s. Unless there was a problem in the cafeteria and a student needed to complain to someone about it, the kitchen staff was likely as invisible as Hestia was! It would be good for students to find out how awesome Ms. Okto and Ms. Xena were.
“I think that might be cool,” Hestia said at last. “They read your column in Teen Scrollazine. Or at least Ms. Xena does. But maybe I should ask them first if it’s—”
“Hey, I think we’re here!” Pheme announced, her words drowning Hestia’s out.
Hestia glanced down. Below them, a flat sheet of ice stretched out as big as an island. It was dotted with oversized, frozen statues of gods and goddesses. Lots of people were milling around the statues, studying them.
“Look! It’s Zeus! A statue of him, I mean,” said Pheme, pointing. Sure enough, among the towering, glittering ice sculptures, there was one of the MOA principal. He sat atop his winged horse, Pegasus, with his arm raised to hurl a mighty thunderbolt.
“Wow, it’s amazing! And there’s one of Athena,” said Hestia, forgetting all about their previous conversation. “It’s so lifelike. Let’s go in closer.”
The girls landed just in time to hear someone with a megaphone announce, “Judges! You may begin!”
Hestia’s jaw dropped when three figures suddenly burst out of an igloo to zoom across the ice toward the sculptures. They looked like hairy haystack triplets on ice skates. The peppy gray haystacks varied in height—one short, one medium-size, and one tall. Carrying clipboards in their hay-hands, they glided toward the sculptures. Never coming to a full stop, they visited each one in turn, whizzing around it and making notes before moving on.
This was odd enough. But the weirdest thing about the figures was that they had only one eyeball between them, and they kept passing it around. It seemed to be the only way they could see!
“Those are the judges?” Hestia asked in astonishment as she tried to find her footing on the ice. She attempted to grab on to an icy pedestal to get he
r balance, but her hands just slid right off.
Pheme nodded, sliding around too. Her head was turning this way and that, probably scouting for news scoops. “Yep. They’re the Gray Ladies,” she said. “Also known as the MOA counselors.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of them,” Hestia said. “Look at them go! They’re like champion skaters or something. I’m having trouble just standing and walking on this slippery ice without falling.”
But she’d spoken too soon. Just then the shortest of the Gray Ladies went hurtling toward the backside of a statue. Gasps sounded as onlookers feared an imminent crash. At the last minute the short lady crouched low, though, and slid through the legs of the statue to get to its other side.
“Smooth save!” someone cheered, and the Ladies all grinned and waved. It was then that Hestia noticed that one of them had a single big white tooth. The others had no teeth at all!
“Besides knowing a lot about ice, those Ladies are pretty opinionated,” Pheme told her. “That’s probably why they were asked to judge this contest. Their office is an igloo only a few mi—” She stopped midword, her interest abruptly caught by something, or someone, across the ice.
“Pygmalion!” she shouted excitedly. “I wonder if he sculpted any of these statues. I’ve got to ask him what he thinks of them. My readers will be dying to know!”
As Pheme skate-walked over to the famous sculptor, she called back over her shoulder to Hestia, “Catch up with you later, okay?”
“Okay.” Hestia really wanted to see the statues, and it would be nice to do so in quiet. Pheme was anything but that! Hestia wandered up one row and down the next, pausing before each of the sculptures to admire the artistry of the sculptors who had made them. She slipped and slid a lot at first, but after a while she got used to walking on ice. You just had to take careful steps and not hurry.
Unless you were a haystack on ice skates, that was. She watched the school counselors jump one after the other over a life-size chariot carved from ice and then twirl around a sculpture of a three-headed dog while making notes on their clipboards.
The detail in the sculptures was incredible. Hestia gasped in amazement when she came upon one of Heracles fighting the fierce Nemean lion, which had once terrorized a town. The figures were posed so that Heracles was brandishing his enormous club as the wild-eyed lion lunged for him. Every muscle in the mortal boy’s raised arm was clearly defined. Wow!
There were monsters carved from ice too. Hestia recognized them from studies in Beast-ology class at MOA. The creature with a fire-breathing lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent tail was a Chimera. And the one-headed, two-armed, three-bodied, four-winged, six-legged beast was a Geryon. Luckily, it wasn’t real, because Geryons had very stinky breath. There were also scaly dragons of various shapes and sizes.
Along the very last row of sculptures, Hestia came upon the especially well-executed sculpture of Athena she and Pheme had glimpsed as they’d flown in. The icy Athena was dressed in battle gear and was frozen in the act of springing out of the top of Zeus’s head—which was actually how she’d been born. Sounded weird, but events like that were pretty normal when it came to immortals. For instance, Aphrodite had been born from sea foam!
Lost in wonder at the beauty of the sculpture, Hestia was startled when the Gray Ladies glided up with their clipboards in hand to surround her. Slipping on the ice, she fell backward. Ouch!
Her eyes went from one haystack lady to the next. They were circling her now on their skates, passing their big round detachable eye among them to study her as closely as they had the statues on display. Each time the eye was popped into a face, it made an icky squelching sound.
As Hestia scrambled to her feet again, the tall Gray Lady spoke up. She was in charge of the tooth now. Apparently, it was what allowed her to talk. “Name two art forms that take a long time to create and yet always disappear in a short time,” she demanded.
“Huh? Is this some kind of quiz?” mumbled Hestia. Still zooming around her, they all three nodded. A quiz after school hours didn’t seem fair, but maybe this was important to them, so she did her best to figure out an answer.
“Well, these ice sculptures are an art form, right? They must take a long time to carve,” Hestia said, gesturing around her. “But they’ll melt quickly when warmer weather comes.”
A small gap opened up between two of the haystacks. Hestia took advantage of the opening and started to edge away. However, the medium-size haystack grabbed the tooth and then zoomed around the circle to block her exit, asking, “Does their short-lived nature remind you of another art form, Hestia?”
Hestia’s eyes widened, and she took a step backward and then had to spin her arms to keep from falling again. “How do you know my n-name?” Students she’d been in classes with at MOA for years still didn’t know who she was, and she’d never even seen the Gray Ladies before today.
The small haystack grabbed the tooth and made a tsking sound. “We’re the MOA counselors. We know a lot of things about students attending the Academy. It’s part of our job.”
Hestia eyed them warily. What else did they know about her? she wondered. That she didn’t have many friends? That she liked cooking? Then suddenly she had the rest of the answer to their pop quiz.
“Cooking!” she exclaimed. “Preparing food takes a long time. Yet it gets gobbled down fast. And like ice melts, food melts in people’s mouths.” Ice sculptures and cooking. Both were art forms, but fleeting ones.
“Bingo!” The medium-size haystack, who had grabbed the tooth again, grinned at her.
Although the one-toothed grin was a bit weird, even somewhat scary, Hestia found herself grinning back.
7
Armor
THE TALL GRAY LADY TOOK possession of the eye and the tooth now. Squish! As the other two whizzed around them, she looked Hestia up and down and then gestured toward the Athena sculpture. “Do you like it, goddessgirl of the hearth?” she asked.
Hestia blinked. These counselors knew her goddessgirl title, too? “Um, it’s cool,” she told them when she finally found her tongue. “All the sculptures are. But I think this one might be my favorite.”
The tall Gray Lady cocked her head. “Why is that?” she asked, before passing the eye and tooth to the shortest sister, who was reaching for them as she zoomed by.
Hestia thought a minute. Then she said, “The detail in Athena’s armor is amazing, but it’s the aliveness of the figures that I like most. The expression on Zeus’s face is so . . . well . . . complicated. It seems to show equal parts love, pride, and pain.”
The short Gray Lady nodded in approval. “Explain further, please.”
Hestia considered. “Well, everyone knows Zeus loves Athena. I mean, he’s her dad. And he calls her this cute nickname sometimes—Theeny. He’s obviously proud of her, too. She’s so smart. I think her braininess and wisdom are symbolized in this statue by her springing from Zeus’s head. Still, I’m guessing that it was a real pain for Zeus when that happened. A massive headache, right? Plus . . .” She paused for a moment.
“Go on,” said the medium-size Gray Lady, who now had the tooth back. The other two haystacks paused and leaned in to better hear. At least they didn’t have to share an ear, Hestia thought. Why did they care about her opinion, anyway? She looked around for a possible escape. No chance. Where was Pheme?
“O-okay.” What choice did she have? They weren’t going to let her go until they were satisfied she’d dug deep to answer their questions. “It’s just that . . . well . . . there’s another side to the pain. Because even though Zeus is the most powerful god of all, he can’t protect Athena from every problem she’ll face. You know, stuff like school drama, making mistakes, giant fire-breathing monsters she might run into. And that’s probably a real pain for someone like Zeus, who is used to being able to control everything.”
As the words spilled from her lips, Hestia’s face brightened with sudden insight. “So that must be what’s symbolized by
Athena being born with her own armor. It’s to protect herself!”
“Interesting,” said the short Gray Lady, who now had the eye and the tooth again. “Your own armor has served you well, but perhaps now is the time to shed it?”
“Huh? What armor?” Hestia asked, bewildered. She didn’t even own a helmet!
But the short Gray Lady didn’t explain. After popping the tooth from her mouth, she passed it to the medium-size Lady. That one said something even more puzzling. “When you hide your light under a cooking pot, you deprive others of your gifts.”
Light? Cooking pot? Gifts? What was all that supposed to mean? Hestia wondered as the shortest lady passed both the eye and the tooth to the tallest sister.
“And you also cheat yourself,” the tallest remarked in a tone of conclusion.
“Uh, okay. Thanks. I’ll remember that,” Hestia said, totally confused.
To her relief the guy with the megaphone suddenly summoned the three haystacks. With quick nods to her, they finally whirled, twirled, and skated off toward a grandstand festooned with flags and ribbons.
“Bye! Awesome advice!” Hestia called after them. But really, in her opinion those Ladies were beyond goofy. Before she could consider their strange words any further, Pheme appeared beside her.
“Guess what?” the orange-haired girl said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Pygmalion agreed to give me an interview as soon as the winners are announced, which should be in just a few—”
“Your attention, please!” the contest announcer shouted through his megaphone, drowning her out. “Our illustrious judges have tallied their results!”
Swiveling her head, Hestia located the announcer standing beside the three Gray Ladies on a platform in front of the grandstand. A hush came over the crowd as he brought the megaphone up to his mouth once more. “It is time now to name the winners of this year’s annual ice sculpture contest!”
