by Joan Holub
“That’s it.” Pheme nodded. “Besides, I won the contest I most care about when I got hired to do my column for the ’zine.” With a grin, she started for the swinging door.
“Hey!” Hestia called, gesturing toward Pheme’s hand. “Tater masher?”
“Oh yeah,” said Pheme with a quick laugh. “Didn’t mean to be a masher-napper.” She returned and stuck the masher back into the container where she’d found it. Then she headed out again.
Alone again once more, Hestia focused on her dessert experiments. However tasty her ambrosia filling was, it proved too soft to hold the pieces of chocolate cake together. In fact, her ambrosia-filled cake sculpture was starting to look more like a big-eared bear head than a trophy. It had turned out so awful, it couldn’t even be the consolation prize for last place. It was nearly bedtime, so she might as well pack it in for tonight.
Yawning, she stashed the cake pieces and filling in the larder. Then she started for the kitchen door. When she passed the hearth, her gaze fell on the cooking pot that hung from a hook in the fireplace. Seeing the huge kettle reminded her of her symbol idea. The one her classmates had laughed at. Mr. Phintias had said that the symbol she picked should show how she’d like others to see her, so she should choose something with power and pizzazz.
If not a cooking pot for my symbol, then what? she wondered as she swung through the door and into the cafeteria. A potato masher? She giggled at the thought. Talking to Pheme had sparked her interest in the award. She didn’t expect to win, but entering would be a way of putting herself forward as the Gray Ladies had advised in their one-toothed, roundabout way. The contest sign-up was tomorrow. Hmm. If she could just think of a halfway decent symbol . . .
Later that night, after Hestia had finished her homework and climbed into bed, Aglaia returned to their room. “Oh! Did I wake you? Sorry I’m so late,” she murmured when Hestia rose onto her elbows.
“Nuh-uh, you didn’t make me,” said Hestia. “I wasn’t asleep yet.” Suddenly, she sniffed the air and sat up straighter. “Hey! Is that smoke I smell?”
“Yep, it’s just me, a little singed around the edges,” said Aglaia. “There was a bit of an explosion in the forge just now while I was helping Hephaestus with one of his projects.”
“You’re both okay, though?” Hestia asked in alarm.
“We’re fine, which is more than I can say for my chiton.” Aglaia moved over to her closet and began to change out of it. After showing Hestia what a sooty mess it was, she balled it up and lobbed it across the room into her trash can. “Score!”
“Nice shot,” said Hestia, sitting all the way up in bed. “But what happened exactly?”
Aglaia shrugged on her bathrobe and then said, “The Service to Humankind committee asked Zeus to ask Hephaestus to make a trophy. It’ll be presented at Saturday’s banquet to whoever wins.”
“Trophy?” Hestia echoed, seeing her dessert idea go down in flames.
“Yeah. We were melting metals for the trophy mold when some thingamabobber part inside the forge exploded. You should have seen the shower of sparks!”
“Ye gods!” Hestia exclaimed. “Sure you didn’t get hurt?”
Her roomie nodded. “Unless you count getting covered with soot.” With a wave, she headed for the door again. “I’m off to take a shower.”
After Aglaia left their room, Hestia flopped onto her stomach. Back to square one. If Hephaestus was making a trophy as the award for the winner of the contest, she couldn’t make a trophy-shaped dessert. It would be too much the same. She’d have to sculpt something else. Hmm. But what?
• • •
The next morning was Monday, a school day. Hestia got up extra early and put on a pale green chiton. For half a second she considered leaving its hood down. She even stepped into the hall with her head bare, but when she heard someone coming, she pulled the hood up. Maybe tomorrow was soon enough to make another change.
She hurried down to the kitchen before breakfast and chanted her spell to light the fire in the kitchen hearth. Oatmeal was on the menu today, and she’d promised Ms. Okto she’d get things started. As the wood under the huge cooking pot ignited, so did an idea in her brain. Not an idea for her dessert, but one for her symbol. Suddenly, she knew exactly what it should be! Her new idea had power. It had pizzazz. It was perfect!
“See you later!” she called to Ms. Xena, who was just coming out of the larder with a carton of eggs. Then she hurried out the kitchen door.
After crossing through the cafeteria, Hestia pushed past the exit door and made her way down the main hall of the school. There was a crowd of students around the award sign-up sheet that had been posted on the wall near the lockers. Feeling shy, Hestia hovered nearby, trying to look busy and not draw attention to herself until everyone else had signed up and gone off to breakfast.
Alone at last, she approached the sign-up sheet, took hold of the pen attached to it, and neatly printed her name. She was just about to write her symbol idea on the blank line beside her name when she heard someone give a yelp behind her in the hall.
“Ow! Watch it!” Asca’s voice yelled.
She whirled around, spotting him immediately. He wasn’t using his camouflage, so he was pretty noticeable. Especially since he was hopping around and howling.
Just beyond him stood Kydoimos and his just-as-annoying best friend, Makhai. “Sorry, lizard-dude. Accidents will happen,” Kydoimos said. Laughing together, the two boys quickly disappeared down the hall.
She’d bet anything they’d stomped on Asca’s tail. On purpose.
“You okay?” Hestia asked, going over to him. He was holding his tail behind his back. Because he didn’t want anyone to see it was a stump? She gasped in alarm and checked the floor just in case his tail really had broken off.
“Please tell me you aren’t looking for my tail down there,” Asca said, gritting his teeth in pain. “It’s okay, see?” He swung it around to show her.
“So your tail doesn’t really pop off if you get too startled?” Hestia asked, genuinely interested.
Asca gave a snort. “No way! No more than your head pops off when you’re surprised. When it’s stepped on, it’s like when you bump your elbow hard. Throbs for a while. Then it’s okay.”
She nodded and then said, “So what Pheme wrote about your tail in her column wasn’t true, I guess.”
“Not at all,” Asca said. He was staring at her hand for some reason. She glanced down to see that she still held the sign-up pen. She had pulled it free of the string and tack attaching it to the wall. He peered beyond her to the sign-up sheet. “Putting your name in for the award?”
“Mm-hm,” Hestia admitted shyly. As she turned back toward the sign-up sheet, he stepped closer. “I’ve just got to fill in the symbol space, and then I’m done,” she told him.
At that moment Apollo came by. He nodded at Asca before veering off toward the cafeteria. “How’s it going, Stumpster!” he called out.
Looking over at him, Asca casually called back, “Hey, god-dude.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?” she asked him, her hand hovering over the blank space beside her name. “That nickname, I mean?”
Asca shrugged, seeming surprised by the idea. “Not really. The guys are always giving each other nicknames. If you think about it, immortal titles are actually nicknames too. I’m the godboy of lizardry. And you’re goddessgirl of the hearth, right? I remember Mr. Phintias calling you that in class.”
She nodded. “Before I started at the Academy I suggested to mortals in my village that they might want to keep a fire burning in a public hearth in each city, and they started calling me that. But your nickname—Stumpster. It’s not even accurate!”
“Courtesy of Pheme, that bit of misinformation has stuck to me as tight as my tail. You can’t fight it, so the best thing is to roll with it, I’ve decided. It’s no biggie. Not to me, anyway.”
Hestia wasn’t sure if he was being truly honest about the nickname not hurting h
is feelings, but she didn’t push the subject. Still, it was no wonder he’d warned her to be careful about what she said to the goddessgirl of gossip!
A shiver ran down her spine. What exactly had Pheme written about her? Was she going to get a nickname as a result? What would it be? The Cookster? Bakerrific? Recipeep? Soupergirl? She’d just have to hope for the best. Setting pen to paper, she scribbled down the symbol she’d picked—a flame!
Asca peered over her shoulder. “Cool—I mean, warm! I like your symbol.” He grinned.
“Thanks,” said Hestia, grinning back. She held out the pen to him. “Your turn,” she said, but he shook his head.
Holding both hands palms out, he took a step backward. “Nope. I think I’ll wait for a Service to Reptiles Award,” he quipped. Then he eyeballed the sheet. “I was just curious to see how many students had signed up. Seems like fifty, maybe sixty? Based on some of the names here—Kydoimos’s and Makhai’s, for instance—I’d say your odds are pretty good of making it to the final eleven.”
“Thanks,” she said. “But I don’t really care. I just want to, you know, put myself forward for a change.”
Asca’s locker was only a few down from the sign-up area, so after she reattached the pen to its string, she waited around as he headed there. He pulled a puffy green jacket from his locker and slipped it on. Seeing her look of surprise, he gave a laugh. “Lizards are cold-blooded. I never feel like I’m warm enough,” he explained.
“Really? I’m the opposite—always warm enough, never cold,” she told him.
“Then a flame is definitely a good choice for your symbol.”
Hestia smiled shyly. Then in a burst of boldness she blurted out, “I’m actually pretty good at making flames. Want to see?” Immediately, she worried that she’d sounded boastful. “Oops. I hope I didn’t just sound like that full-of-himself sculptor Pygmalion.”
But Asca just laughed, not seeming even a bit put off. “Yeah, I remember that show-off. He’s always telling everyone what a great artist he is. That’s bragging. You’re just offering to show me your skills. Nothing wrong with that. Here, though?” He scanned the mostly-empty hall. “You won’t burn the place down?”
She grinned, shaking her head. “No worries.” She took a step back from him and his locker. Cupping her hands, she chanted her spell:
“Come, spark,
Light the dark.
Blaze higher,
Make a fire.”
Instantly, a flame burst to life above her cupped palms. It glowed bright yellow-orange, with a hint of blue at its center. At first it was tiny, a few inches tall. But as she widened the gap between her palms, it grew till it was nearly a foot high.
“Cool! Um, I mean hot,” joked Asca, looking awed. “That’s totally amazing. Don’t your palms get burned, though?”
She scrunched her nose a little, shaking her head. “They get a teeny bit warm, but that’s all. It doesn’t hurt or anything.” Clap! She brought her hands together quickly to extinguish the flame.
Suddenly, she had a thought. When those haystack counselors had mentioned her “light,” had they been hinting at the very symbol she’d chosen? The flame?
When the lyrebell sounded breakfast, they headed off to the cafeteria. Asca was easier to talk to than a lot of other people. Still Hestia could still hardly believe she was walking side by side with a boy!
They split up when some godboys called out, “Hey, Stumpster, over here! We saved you a place in line!” The wry smile Asca sent her before he went to join his friends made her decide that he really didn’t mind his nickname after all.
As she picked up a tray and went to stand at the back of the line, panic started to set in as she considered her dessert for next Saturday’s banquet. It was just a little over five days away. Truthfully, though, she was glad to give up on the trophy idea. The shape had turned out to be too hard to sculpt. She needed something simpler.
Deep in thought, Hestia took a plate of hambrosia and eggs and a carton of nectar once she reached the front of the line. Then she veered off into the dining area, still thinking hard. Those oddball school counselors had urged her to share her “gifts.” Did they mean they thought she should tell the world about her cooking? If so, maybe the Pheme interview had been a wise move after all?
She was so busy mulling this over that she didn’t even notice when she sat at a table with two girls she didn’t know. Feeling their eyes on her, she blinked at them. “Oh, sorry! Okay if I sit here?”
“No problem,” one of the girls said. “Hey, didn’t we just see you making a flame in your hands in the hall? What’s that about?”
“You saw?” Hestia had been so intent on showing Asca her flame that she hadn’t even noticed the two girls. Pleased by their interest, she was talking a blue streak to the two girls before she knew it. The girls weren’t experienced cooks and seemed fascinated by everything Hestia told them. Soon they were all laughing over her story of trying to make a trophy cake that turned out to look like a bear. It was almost like she was Pheme or something!
9
Half –Truths
THE CLASSROOM WENT QUIET WHEN Hestia walked into second-period Crafts-ology two days later on Wednesday morning. She was aware of students sneaking peeks at her as she went to sit at her four-person table (as if she’d just been a topic of conversation!).
Automatically, she reached to pull her chiton’s hood over her head. But since she’d forgotten she’d cut it off this particular outfit two nights before. Argh! What a dumb idea that had been! It was just that she’d felt emboldened by her friend-making success with those two girls she’d accidentally sat with at breakfast. She’d figured she still had other chitons with hoods, just in case this whole new, bolder, shine-your-light version of herself didn’t work out as well as she’d hoped it would. However, that didn’t help her right now.
Pandora turned in her chair and leaned over to Hestia. “Did you see Pheme’s column in Teen Scrollazine?” At the next table, Aphrodite gestured toward the copy she was reading. It was open to an article titled “What’s Cooking in the MOA Cafeteria?”
Hestia’s stomach tightened nervously. “No, not yet. I knew she was going to write about me, though.” Pheme had promised her an early copy, but she must’ve forgotten.
“Is it true that the anteater kitchen lady, Ms. Xena, is only allowed to serve meals and clean up afterward, not cook?” Pandora asked now as Aphrodite listened in. “Because she’s a horrible cook and almost gave the entire MOA student body pepper poisoning once?”
“What? No!” Hestia blurted in alarm. “Did Pheme write that?”
Shooting Hestia a look of sympathy, Aphrodite leaned across the aisle and handed over her copy.
“Thanks,” Hestia told her with a small smile. She began skimming the article fast, hoping Mr. Phintias wouldn’t arrive and start class before she could finish reading it. Two seconds later she groaned. “Oh no! This isn’t right. It’s not what I told Pheme. I mean, Ms. Xena did over-pepper the yambrosia once, but that was an accident any cook could’ve made. And there’s stuff in here about Ms. Okto that—”
“Pheme means well, and she’s a good writer,” interrupted Aphrodite. “But everyone knows she mixes fact with fiction. So don’t worry.”
“And it does make her column fun and exciting, don’t you think?” said Pandora.
“But how can readers know which parts are truthful and which are exaggerations?” Hestia groaned again. “Ms. Xena and Ms. Okto are not going to be happy. I hope they don’t think I actually said these things about them.”
Hestia couldn’t bear the thought of her cafeteria-lady friends being hurt because of her. She grabbed her schoolbag and half rose from her seat. She never skipped class, but she had to go to the kitchen. Right now!
Ping! Ping! Principal Zeus’s wife, Hera, walked in just as the start-of-class lyrebell pinged. “Good morning, everyone. I will be substituting for Mr. Phintias today,” she announced from the front of the room. A rega
l-looking goddess with thick, blond hair styled high on her head, Hera owned and ran a wedding shop called Hera’s Happy Endings in the Immortal Marketplace. However, when there was a need, she also subbed at the Academy.
Hestia sank back down in her seat. Trapped. For now, anyway. She’d just have to hope Ms. Xena and Ms. Okto were too busy to bother reading the new issue of the ’zine.
“As you may have guessed,” Hera told the class, “Mr. Phintias is currently at Principal Zeus’s temple in Olympia. Now that the eleven finalists have been selected by the Service to Humankind Award committee, he and other artists are hard at work depicting their images in a mural.”
Instantly, there was a murmur of voices. “Who are the finalists?” Pandora asked. “Can you tell us?” It was nice to have her around sometimes. Especially when she asked the very same questions you were reluctant to ask but wanted to know the answers to.
Hera smiled. “The award committee has been very hush-hush about that. But my understanding is that the finalists will be revealed when the mural is unveiled tonight.” As another murmur swept over the classroom, she added, “Anyone who is interested can attend the unveiling. And I hope you all will.” Then she told them they could have a free period to work on a craft of their choice or on homework for another class.
A cheer went up. Then everyone got to work. Usually, Hestia was a model student and always followed directions. But today she hid Aphrodite’s Teen Scrollazine atop her Hero-ology textscroll so she could read Pheme’s column closely from beginning to end while appearing to read homework.
Hestia, goddessgirl of the hearth, is so shy that few people know who she is, much less that she’s an expert cook. Well, that wasn’t so bad, Hestia decided. She read on. In fact, most of the items on the menu in MOA’s cafeteria—from yambrosia to celestial salad to her new rosemary-olive bread and those yummy chocolate ambrosia bars—are her invention.
Hestia cringed. Yes, she had invented the recipes for those particular menu items, and several others. But no way was she responsible for “most” of the MOA menu. Talk about exaggeration!
