‘Hey!’ Venus cried. ‘We’re meant to be a team.’
Demi shrugged. ‘Guess you’ll have to climb after all.’
Madam Grayson, who was standing a few trees away, exaggerated clearing her throat and gave their team a reproachful look.
Demi sighed and lowered the tree. Venus shot her a glare before stepping on with the twins. Demi raised it for a second time, and slowly—very slowly—they began making their way across, the diamond ground beneath Hailey quickly replaced by the sea.
Hailey’s movements were wobbly at first, and she kept expecting to lose her balance or the seaweed to snap. But with every step that didn’t end in her falling, she became more confident and began thinking she could make it to the other side.
‘This isn’t so bad actually,’ Alec said, a bit of colour having returned to his face. ‘A Hecate must’ve spelled the seaweed to make it unbreakable.’
A scream whipped Hailey’s head around. Waves pelted the other groups as they climbed across the sea. ‘I don’t—’
A wave slammed into Hailey’s back, the water’s icy chill biting into her skin.
‘My hair!’ Venus shrieked in unison with the twins.
Hailey bit back a laugh. For the first time ever, Venus and the twins’ pristine curls didn’t look professionally styled, with their hair drenched and lank.
‘Incoming,’ Aaron warned.
Another wave hit them, this time from the front. There was no reprieve: another wave followed, and then another, until Hailey was shivering from head to toe.
‘Do something!’ Venus demanded, shoving Jayden with her hand. Hailey figured the shove was meant to spur him into action, but it knocked him off the rope.
‘Jayden!’ Demi cried, and moved to jump in after him.
‘Wait.’ Aaron grabbed her arm. ‘He’s a Poseidon.’
Jayden soared up on a wave, balancing on top of it as if he were riding a surf board. He stepped back onto the rope. ‘Next time just yell, don’t shove,’ he said to Venus, who didn’t bother apologising.
‘You’re the Poseidon. Get these stupid waves to stop.’
Another wave surged towards them, and Hailey braced for its icy chill. Jayden’s hand shot up, and the wave froze for a second before folding back into the sea with a splash.
‘I can only control one side,’ Jayden said. ‘I need my other hand to balance.’
‘I’ll use my powers on the other side.’ Aaron stretched out his palm, his force field rippling as a wave smashed against it. ‘Okay, let’s get moving again.’
Hailey inched her way across the rope, struggling to keep her grip on the now slippery seaweed—it didn’t help she was shivering, or that her arms were beginning to burn like fire. She glanced back at the other groups. Most of them had worked out some way to hold the waves back: the team closest to them had a girl who was freezing the waves, creating wave ice sculptures across the sea. Other groups weren’t as lucky to have people with powers that could stop the waves, and did their best to shimmy across while being pelted. A few students lost their balance and fell. But they didn’t give up; they fought against the waves, swimming towards the island.
‘Everyone hang on.’
Demi’s voice drew Hailey’s attention back, and she realised with a sag of relief that they’d made it to the Isle of Trials, where each team’s seaweed ropes were securely tied around a coconut tree. Demi lowered their tree enough for them to jump off.
‘I’m glad that’s over,’ Hailey remarked, rubbing her aching arms. Now that she was away from the crashing waves, she could enjoy the sun’s warmth, which banished her shivering.
‘Don’t try anything like what you did to Jayden again,’ Aaron warned Venus.
‘Or what?’
‘Or we’ll leave you out here. Your powers won’t get you anywhere.’
‘We have our shells,’ Venus contradicted.
‘Yeah,’ Nerissa said.
‘We’ll…’ Cleo scratched her head. ‘What were the shells for again?’
‘We’ll blow them and tell Madam Grayson all about how Nerissa, Cleo, and me tried to be team players and you left us here to die,’ Venus threatened. ‘You’ll be the ones getting neutralising bracelets and detentions then.’
‘I don’t even care,’ Aaron snarled.
‘Stop it.’ Jayden stepped between them. ‘Venus didn’t mean to push me off the rope. Let’s just get through this, and then we can go back to keeping out of each other’s way.’
Hailey scoffed. Venus made it a priority to get in their way. She pushed Venus’s harpiness from her mind and tried to focus on their next obstacle—a sand dune. It stretched down the length of the beach like a giant wall, barring anyone from entering. About seven other teams were already there, trying to hike up the dune, with each team spread about fifteen yards apart. The team directly to Hailey’s right was attempting to sprint to the top. They got about a quarter of the way up before one of them slipped and tumbled backwards, bowling down three of their team members before crashing back on the beach.
‘I’ve read a few books on hiking up hills like this one,’ Alec said, craning his neck to look up the dune, ‘and the best way is to link together and help pull each other up.’
‘Okay, sounds like a plan.’ Aaron grabbed Hailey’s hand, and she joined up with Alec, Demi, and Jayden.
Jayden stretched his hand out to Venus. ‘Come on.’
Venus gazed at the dune, as if deciding whether she could make it on her own. ‘Fine,’ she grumbled after a second, slapping her hand onto Jayden’s.
Hailey wasn’t fussed about hiking up a giant sand dune, but it was better than waves pummelling her. Aaron took the lead, dragging Hailey up behind him. She felt as though she were part of that game Barrel of Monkeys, but instead of collecting monkeys, their goal was to avoid breaking the link.
Inch by inch they climbed the dune, Hailey’s calves burning with every step she took in the soft sand.
‘You actually have to climb,’ she heard Jayden say. ‘I can’t drag you the whole way.’
‘We’re trying,’ Venus barked back.
‘Not very hard,’ Demi retorted. ‘You keep yanking us backwards. So stop being a princess and climb!’
‘Hey, you can’t talk like—’
‘Enough!’ Aaron yelled. ‘We’re about halfway up. Keep moving.’
Hailey wanted this climb to be over as quickly as possible. The heat was no longer pleasant. Beads of sweat dripped down her neck and legs, and her hands were so slippery she doubted she’d be able to keep her grip if she or Alec stumbled. Just a little further, Hailey told herself. The dune’s peak was about fifty more calf-burning steps away. She counted each one down, and sighed in relief when Aaron finally reached the top. One more step.
A gust of wind shoved her backwards before her foot could touch the peak. Aaron’s grip tightened, but her hand slipped free. Medusa! she screamed in her head, falling backwards and realising she was probably about to break her neck. She slammed into Alec, and everything after that was a lot of rolling and smacking into legs and arms before Hailey and her teammates landed in a crumpled pile at the dune’s base.
‘Everyone okay?’ Aaron called down from the top of the dune.
‘Get off me!’ Venus screamed.
Jayden rolled off her. ‘We’re fine,’ he called up to Aaron.
‘Your idea to link arms was stupid!’ Venus shouted at Alec, who was sitting beside her. He flinched. ‘Come on, girls, we’ll do it ourselves.’
Hailey watched Venus, Nerissa, and Cleo begin ascending the sand dune and smirked, imagining them rolling down in a giant ball again and again.
‘Do you want me to come down and help you?’
‘No,’ Jayden called back to Aaron. ‘We can do it.’ He looked at Alec. ‘I think your idea is the best, and the only way this’ll work.’ He held out his hands.
‘Let’s do this.’ Demi grabbed one hand.
Hailey grabbed Jayden’s other hand and linked back u
p with Alec. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as Demi started up the sand dune.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Hails,’ Jayden said.
‘The wind was designed to knock us down,’ Alec added.
As if on cue, Venus and the twins—who were about a quarter of the way up—screamed and tumbled down the dune, thanks to a gust of wind. Luckily, they weren’t directly in front of Hailey and her friends, so they didn’t take them down with them. Unfortunately, the wind didn’t stop. It bellowed around them, whipping up the sand, which bit at Hailey’s skin and scratched at her eyes.
‘They don’t like making things easy, do they?’ Jayden’s words were followed by coughing—no doubt he’d gotten a mouthful of sand.
‘Are you such a pathetic Zeus you can’t make the wind stop?’ Venus shouted from somewhere below.
More than anything Hailey wanted to let her suffer, to increase the wind so it knocked her down again. But that would mean hurting her friends too. Hailey swished her hand, and the wind cut off in an instant. She laughed when she saw Demi, Jayden, and Alec. Sand clung to their damp clothes and hair, making them look like sand monsters.
‘My hair is ruined!’ Venus shrieked.
Hailey glanced back and saw Venus trying to comb out clumps of sand from her tattered curls with her fingers. The twins were busy doing the same.
Justice at last, she thought. Blue skies.
‘Come on, let’s go while the wind is gone.’ Jayden tugged Hailey’s hand.
The trip was quicker this time. Sure Hailey’s legs burned worse than before, but she was terrified—much like everyone else she suspected—that her powers would wear off and the wind would return. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to attempt a third climb up the dune.
Thankfully the wind stayed away, and they made it to the top. A row of vines dangled over the other end of the dune, dropping down to more sand. From here Hailey could see a forest far below—past about ten yards of sand—and a couple of teams already running towards it, vanishing into the greenery. She shivered as she looked towards the trees, absentmindedly rubbing her heart pendant between her thumb and forefinger.
‘Hurry up,’ Demi yelled at Venus and the twins, who were still making their way up.
‘Grab the vines and climb down,’ Aaron ordered, not bothering to wait for the evil trio.
Hailey grabbed one of the leafy vines near her feet and tugged it to make sure it wouldn’t snap. It held firm, but that didn’t make her feel any more comfortable about what she was about to do. At least if she did fall, the sand below would make for a soft landing.
Hailey leaned her body out and slowly began walking backwards as she slid her hands down the vine, its leaves scratchy against her palms.
Demi was climbing down the vine next to Hailey’s. ‘Watch this,’ she whispered to Hailey. She aimed her hand at Venus and the twins, who were twenty feet above them, and then crushed her hand into a fist.
Venus and the twins’ vines snapped as if they’d been severed. The evil trio squealed and toppled down the dune, flipping head over heels a few times before they hit the bottom.
‘Nice work.’ Hailey grinned.
‘Demi.’ Jayden’s voice brimmed with reproach.
‘HELP!’ Venus, Nerissa, and Cleo screeched.
Hailey gazed down, her smile vanishing when she saw the evil trio getting sucked into the sand, which was up to their knees.
‘Quicksand,’ Alec said with fascination.
‘That stuff actually exists?’ Demi raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought it was just something they made up in the movies.’
‘Get us out of here!’ Venus yelled.
‘Please,’ Nerissa added
‘Yes… please,’ Cleo said the last word slowly, as if she’d never used it before.
‘Alec, what do we do?’ Jayden asked him as the five of them stopped descending halfway down the dune. Hailey clutched her vine tighter—no way was she letting quicksand swallow her.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like the quicksand is directly at the bottom of the dune, so we can climb down the rest of the way. And then Aaron can stretch his force field across the quicksand so we can walk over it.’
‘What about us?’ Venus demanded.
Aaron ignored her. ‘Let’s climb down—carefully.’
The leaves on Hailey’s vine rustled against her hands as she scaled down with her friends, concentrating very hard on not slipping.
‘Wait, I’ll touch the ground first,’ Aaron said when they neared the end of their vines. He dropped onto the sand and stood for a few seconds, kicking the ground. ‘All clear.’
Please don’t swallow me, sand, Hailey thought, right before releasing her vine. Her feet hit the ground. Thank you, Tyches.
‘Get us out!’ The sand was up to Venus and the twins’ waists now.
‘Us first.’ Aaron held his hands above the ground. ‘Everyone on board.’
Standing on his force field felt like standing on solid ground to Hailey, except there was a slight energy that radiated from it, prickling her feet with pins and needles.
She raced across the quicksand with her friends, afraid that if she didn’t move fast enough, Aaron’s force field might fail and she’d end up like Venus and the twins. She thanked the Tyches again when she made it safely across.
She glanced back and watched the evil trio try to pull themselves out by grabbing the edge of Aaron’s force field. He didn’t warn them when he dropped it, and with a shriek, the trio’s hands slipped into the sand. They pulled, only to get sucked in up to their elbows.
‘Struggling only makes it worse,’ Alec warned them.
‘GET US OUT!’ Venus roared. ‘If you let us die I’ll kill you!’
‘Yeah, I think we’ll leave you here.’ Demi tightened her ponytail. ‘And it looks like you don’t have your hands anymore, so you can’t blow on your shell and get us into trouble.’
Hailey smirked. Watching Venus and the twins sink was pretty entertaining, especially since there would be some safety measure to keep them from actually dying.
‘Demi,’ Jayden said in a scolding voice, ‘we can’t leave them here.’
‘Oh, yes we can,’ Demi countered. ‘Come on, Jayden, she shoved you into the sea.’
‘And they won’t really die,’ Hailey added.
‘That’s not the point. If the roles were reversed, you’d be begging Venus to get you out.’
Demi scoffed and crossed her arms. ‘I don’t beg.’
‘Just do it for me, okay?’
‘But they’re slowing us down,’ Demi whined.
‘Remember the whole point of this is to work as a team so Madam Grayson doesn’t give us neutralising bracelets,’ Jayden reminded her.
Demi clenched her jaw. ‘Fine.’ She reached a hand towards the vines; they slithered down the dune like snakes and curled under Venus and the twins’ arms. The sand squeaked like shoes on a basketball court as the vines dragged the evil trio free. ‘There, safe and sound.’
‘You’re lucky you made the right choice,’ Venus snarled, storming towards Demi.
Demi clenched her hands into fists, and Jayden quickly stepped in front of her. ‘Let it go.’
A conch shell bellowed to their right.
Hailey glanced over. She could see two other teams. The nearest one was throwing fireballs at the sand, melting it into glass so they could walk across. The other team was almost up to their necks in the sand, slowly being swallowed alive. Hailey guessed they’d blown the shell.
‘Come on,’ Aaron prompted. ‘Let’s get to the next obstacle.’
There are no monsters on this island, Hailey reminded herself, and reluctantly advanced towards the forest with her friends. They hesitated in front of it, peering inside. Everything was so green, from the canopy above, to the ferns and saplings covering the ground, and moss grew over the trunks of the trees, making the forest smell like fresh rain.
‘I hate forests.’ Alec shivered.
Aaron patted him on
the back. ‘Don’t worry, this one is guaranteed monster free.’ He passed into the greenery.
Hailey gripped her heart pendant and followed after him with everyone else. They took about three more steps before a pulse shot through the ground.
‘What was that?’ Demi’s eyes darted around.
‘A tremor,’ Alec said. ‘Which means—’
The ground shook with such ferocity it felt as if the earth were splitting apart. The crack, crack, crack of trees splitting was all Hailey could hear, making her realise with sickening terror that a forest was the most dangerous place to be during an earthquake.
The trees around them ripped from the ground, their roots snapping. Medusa! I’m going to die was Hailey’s last thought before the trees plummeted towards her.
5
Swinging Tarzan Style
‘WATCH OUT!’ Aaron shoved Hailey back as a tree thudded across the path ahead, sending a spray of leaves into the air.
Hailey whirled around, her legs tensing to sprint. BOOM! A second tree crashed to the ground, blocking her exit. Another one thudded to her right, and then one to her left, trapping her and her friends.
The earth fell still.
‘We almost died!’ Venus exclaimed. ‘I’m blowing my shell.’
Aaron grabbed her hand. ‘No. This is the next obstacle. The trees fell perfectly around us. A normal earthquake would have knocked them onto us.’
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ Hailey surveyed the four massive tree trunks imprisoning them.
‘Climb,’ Alec replied. ‘Over that tree.’ He pointed to the one blocking their path ahead; the width of its trunk was slightly higher than Hailey.
‘We don’t climb,’ Nerissa and Cleo said in unison.
‘You don’t have a choice,’ Aaron said before reaching up to grab one of the tree’s thick branches. He hung from it for a second before reaching to grab the branch above it, the muscles in his arms bulging. The earth shook again, tremors vibrating through the fallen tree. Aaron’s hand slipped off the shaking branches and he thudded to the ground. ‘Well, that’s unfair,’ he griped, lurching back to his feet.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 33
