Pandora Gets Jealous

by Carolyn Hennesy

  "Good morning, daughter," Sybilline said.

  Pandy bowed. "Morning, Mother."

  "Just a moment, Pandora," her mother said, stopping her short. "What's that on your face?"

  "It's just a bruise. Xander and I were playing . . ."

  "No, my dear, not that." Sybilline pointed to Pandy's nose. "That!"

  Pandy felt the remnants of the pimple, even smaller than before.

  "Oh, my dear," her mother sighed, "I just wish that once in your life you would listen to me. A little dab of goat's urine on those things and, poof gone!"

  "Muuuther . . ."

  Pandy hated this.

  "Sabina, would you please finish feeding Xander? I just can't get him to eat. You know, honey, I was talking to Helen's and Hippia's mothers yesterday and those girls are doing so nicely. Straight-alpha students and cheerleaders. So well adjusted. And you could be just like them, Pandora, if you could just be a little more . . ."

  "Syb," Pandy's father called from the drainage counter.

  "Well, it's true, darling," Sybilline said, cupping Pandy's face with her free hand as she handed Sabina the feeding spoon. "You have such nice features, my sweet plum, if only you wouldn't hide them. Maybe some irons for your hair, hmm? Perhaps a little more exercise and you could lose . . ."

  "Her hair's fine, Syb," Prometheus said as Pandy slumped away from her mother.

  "Hi, Dad," she said, standing on her toes as he bent down to receive her kiss. Pandy remembered a time when her father was stronger and more athletic, chasing her amongst the cypress trees during family picnics or harnessing the stallions to their chariot. Now, after years of owning his own in-home atrium construction business and dealing with all the hassles, his sturdy frame had a few less muscles and a few more wrinkles and sags.

  "Hi, honey."

  "What's for mid-meal?" she asked, and then said right along with him, "Stuffed grape leaves, flat bread, dried goat, olives, and oatie cakes."

  "Well, sweetie, if you want to make your own mid-meal . . ."

  "It's fine, Dad. Thanks," said Pandy, grinning.

  She bumped him playfully, nestling in close, loving the way he smelled of leather and cedar oil. She saw for the first time that his jet-black hair was graying a bit at the sides and his brown eyes had a slightly tired quality to them.

  "Want a bowl of creamed oats?"

  "Nah. Not really hungry. Just some of these," she said, dipping her hand into the date jar.

  "What are you bringing for your big school project, honey? It's due today, right?" asked Prometheus.

  Pandy froze, jolted out of their momentary closeness. How did he know about the project? How did her parents always know everything? Half the time they didn't care about her at all and the other half they were asking about stuff she'd just as soon they forgot about.

  She didn't want to lie to her father (she remembered what her diary had said and she wanted to kick it); lately she'd taken to sort of grunting yes or no to any of his questions. But there was no way of getting out of this.

  "Um . . . haven't really decided yet," she replied. It was kinda true, she thought: if she found anything better than a box containing all of man's misery, sealed by Zeus himself, she'd take it.

  "I might bring some roasted corn," she said, thinking fast. "Add a little water and let it bake in the sun and use it to demonstrate how Demeter, the great Goddess of the Harvest, keeps us well fed. That would show how . . . they . . . the gods . . . um . . . influence . . . us . . . now."

  She looked at her dad to see if her explanation had worked.

  "Well," he said, tightening the hemp string on her food sack, "it sounds . . . good. But after two months, I expected a bit more from you, daughter."

  "A bit more?" said Sybilline, wiping creamed oats off of her perfect fingers. "Gods, Pandora, with all of the gifts I've been given, you could take the simplest bangle and say the gods are present in our everyday lives because they are giving me . . . I mean us . . . well, your father and me at any rate, riches for our old age!"

  No one said anything.

  "Oh, never mind. The steeds of Apollo are galloping around my brain. I have to rid myself of this headache before work this afternoon. I'm off to the bath," she said, rising gracefully, one hand to her forehead. "Good luck, my daughter."

  Sybilline bent slightly to not quite kiss the top of Pandy's head, then drifted upstairs.

  "There was a happy hour celebration at the temple yesterday," Prometheus said after a moment. "Your mother had a little too much wine."

  "Guess so. Okay, well thanks for mid-meal, Dad. See you later."

  Pandy grabbed the sack and headed for the staircase.

  "Hey, silly! The academy's that way!" Prometheus said, pointing out the door.

  "Right," said Pandy, sagging a bit. All this deceit was making her slightly nauseated. "I just forgot my track sandals. Be right back."

  In her room, she unloaded her mid-meal sack and put the food into her soiled-toga basket. Then she reached underneath her sleeping pallet and pulled out the wooden box. Wrapping it in one of her silk festival veils, she hurriedly stuffed it into her sack and retied the hemp string. She found an old hair ribbon and wrapped it fast around the hemp. Finally, she stuck one of her hairpins through the neck of the sack.

  She suddenly felt exactly the way she always did when she was doing something she knew no one would like: tired, heavy around the middle, and kinda angry.

  She was almost out of her room when she remembered her track sandals. Throwing them over her shoulder, she went back downstairs and headed for the door.

  "Um, excuse me, Pandora?" said her father.

  She jumped.

  "What? Oh, sorry, Dad. Urn, what?"

  "Where's your school supply sack?"

  "Don't need to bring it today, Dad. Classes have been cancelled because of the Gods project."

  "Well then, how about a kiss for your old father?"

  "Oh . . . sure." She lifted her head up to his bearded cheek and gave him a big kiss. Before she turned to go, she hugged his waist tightly.

  "I love you, Dad. Big-time phileo."

  "Me you more, my daughter," he said.

  Pandy ran off to school, feeling like her uncle Atlas: pretty much carrying the weight of the heavens.

  The Athena Maiden Middle School was set in a large cypress grove just outside the main city walls. The city had only recently decreed that girls and maidens would be allowed to receive an education, so the buildings and the outdoor teaching groves were new and well kept. The school was very progressive, offering track-and-field classes, math and the known sciences, philosophy, and gourmet cooking. At the heart of the school was the outdoor amphitheater: a huge semicircle of rows and rows of benches set into a steeply sloping hillside. Up to six hundred students at once could watch plays or hear lectures from visiting poets, storytellers, and great thinkers standing on the stage far below. Because of the amphitheater's cone shape, even the slightest whisper onstage could be heard in the top row of seats. There was a rumor the amphitheater was actually built on top of a recently extinct volcano, which was why they could hold winter classes there with the underground heat keeping everybody warm.

  Arriving late, Pandy saw Alcie and Iole among a large crowd of students heading off toward the amphitheater.

  She threw her sandals in her school cupboard and, holding tight to the sack, dashed off to catch up.

  "Hey," Pandy said, finally reaching them through the crowd.

  "We were starting to get worried," said Iole.

  "What did you finally decide to bring?" asked Alcie.

  "You'll see. It's cool."

  "You're not even going to tell us? You're going to lump us in with all the othe> plebe-os and clayheads around here?" asked Alcie.

  "Yep."

  "Not even a hint?" asked Iole.

  "Nope."

  "Fine," Alcie replied. "Then you don't get to see my dad's toes until everyone else does."

  "Whatever. Hey, I
ole, what's on your cheek?" asked Pandy.

  Iole had painted, in yellow clay, an almost-perfect reproduction of a large fingerprint on her right cheek.

  "Just a small illustration. In case anyone wants to know exactly where Apollo healed me."

  Alcie and Pandy just looked at each other, taking their seats along with hundreds of other girls and maidens.

  For the next few hours, the entire academy watched as students demonstrated the theme of the project.

  There were weapons of all kinds brought by students whose fathers claimed to have been given them by Ares.

  Several girls brought jars of foul-smelling beauty creams, unguents, and lotions their mothers swore were presents from Aphrodite herself.

  One entire class acted out the scene of Athena giving the olive tree to Athens, thereby becoming the city's patron goddess. Both Helen and Hippia had demanded to play Athena so forcefully that now both girls stood onstage, alternating Athena's lines and occasionally shoving each other out of the way.

  Some girls had written poems, others had composed songs. One older girl even trotted out her two-headed calf, claiming that Hera had obviously blessed the family.

  "Yeah," whispered Alcie out of the corner of her mouth, "same amount of milk, twice the feed. Big blessing."

  Finally, Master Epeus's class took the stage.

  Iole followed after a girl who put on a rather elaborate puppet show: "Why We Have Winter." Pandy and Alcie were worried about the reception Iole might get with her sad little fingerprint, but in a clear voice that seemed too big for her small body, Iole told the tale of her illness, her mother's fervent prayers, and Apollo's healing touch. Her story was so simple and poignant that, not only was there a hush throughout the amphitheater, even the birds and squirrels were absolutely silent.

  When Iole finished, Pandy noticed most of the students and a few of the teachers had tears in their eyes. The applause began as Iole started to walk offstage until it built into a roar that lasted several minutes.

  "That was really great, Iole," said Pandy, as her friend slid back into her seat.

  "Nice going," said Alcie. "Okay, I'm up."

  Alcie walked onto the stage carrying a small blue silk pouch. Reaching inside, she withdrew an apparatus that looked like four blanched almonds on a thin string. She held it high for everyone to see.

  "These are my father's toes!"

  After the first collective groan, a few students started to giggle. As Alcie strode around, shaking the toes over her head and retelling the story of how her father lost the originals and had these wooden toes made, everyone joined in laughing. Then, when she said that she could always tell when he didn't have his sandals on because of the tapping sound he made, the laughter built to the point that Alcie didn't even have to open her mouth. She finally just stood there, sporadically shaking the string of toes over her head, and the students fell all over themselves in hysterics.

  Iole was wiping away the tears from her eyes as Alcie rejoined them.

  "My sides hurt. I can't walk," she panted.

  "Yeah, well neither can my dad," said Alcie.

  Pandy had been too nervous to really laugh. During Alcie's speech, she'd been untying the ribbon and hemp strand. Now she held the sack tightly in both hands.

  "Here I go."

  She walked up the steps and out into the middle of the stage, the sack held behind her, and turned to face the crowd.

  Immediately she caught the eye of Master Epeus, who furrowed his brows, already disappointed, and pointed down to his toenails.

  Some of the girls were still laughing at Alcie, but when Pandy didn't speak for a few seconds, they quieted down.

  "My name is Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena, daughter of the House . . . the Great House of Prometheus."

  She heard a few whispers and a loud hoot. She knew what they were expecting.

  "You all know the story," she plunged on, "of how my father stole fire from the Sky-Lord Zeus, and brought it down to earth so mankind could be warm and safe. And you know that Zeus punished him by letting a great eagle eat his liver each day and having it grow back each night."

  "Here we go," moaned a maiden in the front row.

  Pandy looked at the crowd of girls, whispering among themselves, not paying any attention. Some were getting up and wandering off. Even the teachers looked bored.

  "But there was a second part to his punishment that you do not know about. Something that my father never talks about because it is so terrible that many of you will. . . faint. And because that's just my dad."

  Several girls stopped whispering.

  "Besides my dad's liver in ajar, which I did not bring, Zeus gave my father a box containing"—she paused— "all of the misery of the world."

  The teachers began staring at her strangely.

  "Each of the great Olympians put something really bad into the box and they gave it to my dad for safekeeping. If the box is ever opened, plagues of every kind will. . . will . . . fly out and torment each of you for the rest of your lives. Your skin will bubble. Your hair will fall out. Wild beasts will eat you in your sleep. It will hail every day and there will be lots of floods. And there will be nothing you can do but cry and beseech the gods. Nothing!"

  In one swift motion she brought the sack out from behind her back, withdrew the box, and lifted it high over her head.

  "And they're all in here!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Uh-Oh

  There was a deathly silence in the amphitheater.

  Pandy, feeling just a little bolder now that she had their attention, slowly walked to a small stairway at the other side of the stage.

  "Some of you might not believe me," Pandy went on, descending the stairs. "It's a very simple box."

  She walked up to some terrified girls in the front row.

  "It doesn't really look all that important."

  She impulsively thrust the box right in the face of Brynhild, the Viking exchange student who constantly beat her up during wrestling. Brynhild shrieked and fell backward off her bench.

  "But here . . . ," Pandy said, pointing at the blob of hard red wax, "is the great seal of Zeus himself, with his thunderbolt!"

  She walked back up the stairs and onto the stage, but not before frightening a few more students by shoving the box under their noses.

  "I brought this to show you that, even though you all pretty much take fire for granted now, my dad—my whole family—is constantly living with the presence of the gods. And we . . . all of us, but mostly my dad . . . are saving you guys every day from a fate worse than death!"

  She stopped. Hundreds of terrified eyes stared back at her.

  "Thank you very much."

  Holding the box tightly, she walked off the stage in silence.

  Alcie and Iole met her as she descended the steps.

  "Are you kidding with that?" said Alcie, her eyebrows knitted into one long line.

  "No."

  Iole stared at Pandy, her face drained of almost all color.

  "You took an awful chance bringing it to school."

  "It's no big deal," Pandy said replacing the box in the sack. "Look . . . all gone!"

  But she was shaking hard as she started to walk away.

  "Where are you going?" said Alcie.

  "I have to get this home."

  "Fine, we'll come with you," Alcie replied.

  They walked back along the portico to get Pandy's track sandals, and were almost to her cupboard when Helen and Hippia appeared from behind a column.

  "Hey, Pandy!" said Helen. "Pretty neat trick. Fooling everyone like that," she said.

  "What?"

  "You don't really expect anyone to believe that everything bad is in that little box, do you? Everyone is talking about what a stupid joke that was and what a loser you are," said Hippia.

  "I think I overheard Master Epeus say he wished he could give you something lower than a delta. Maybe an omega," said Helen.

  "Well, that's too bad an
d I don't really care . . ."

  "Let me see it," said Helen.

  "As if!" said Alcie.

  "Come on . . . just for a sec," said Hippia.

  "Look, I know you two are insane, but there's no way . . . ," said Iole.

  "Shut up, dummy! Come on, Pandy, please?" said Hippia.

  "No way"

  Pandy turned toward her cupboard feeling like she'd just won a battle. At long last she had something that these girls wanted!

  "Pandy . . . ," Helen said in a honeyed voice. "Hippia and I weren't very nice to you yesterday, about the pre-Bacchanalia party and everything. We think it might be fun if you were there. And we were talking to Tiresias the Younger. He thinks you're very cute, and his date's come down with some sort of pox so he doesn't have anyone to go with."

  "So," continued Hippia, "let us look at the box, and we'll arrange the whole thing."

  Pandy turned, about to tell them exactly what part of Hades they could go to when Helen said,

  "Your friends can come, too."

  Gods!

  Gods, if it were only her, she would have walked away But now Alcie and Iole were part of it. Pandy was no fool. The three of them really didn't have many other friends and most girls thought the trio was very odd. Losers and plebes were the words everyone used. This was not only her chance to get in with the popular girls, but it was Alcie's and lole's as well. She looked at Iole, who stared hard back at her as if to say, "Don't even think about it." But Pandy saw a glimmer of excitement pass over Alcie's eyes, even though Alcie was trying her very best to look like she couldn't care less. It was an opportunity for all three of them to be something other than losers, something other than themselves.

  "Fine," she said at last, "but be careful and don't touch the seal."

  "Pandy!" shrieked Iole.

  "It's okay, dummy, we won't do anything to it," said Hippia.

  Pandy reached into the sack, withdrew the box, and extended it to Helen, but her arm suddenly felt as if it were made of lead. And the ache was back in her stomach.