by Joan Holub
“Or maybe Hera didn’t want to give it to Hermes because he’s loyal to Zeus. And Zeus might worm secret information out of him,” said Antheia.
Both girls peered at Hera’s scroll curiously, and Iris read the writing on the outside of it aloud. “ ‘To Ceyx, Immortal Marketplace.’ ”
“Never heard of him,” said Antheia.
“Me either. How am I supposed to find him with only a name to go on?”
Just then they heard Zeus’s loud voice boom from an open window on the main floor—his office window. “What!” he yelled. Both girls jumped a little, even though he wasn’t yelling at them.
“Somebody’s in a bad mood,” said Antheia.
Iris cringed. “Think that’s about me? Could he really be that mad about my rainbow almost beaning him?”
“I hope not,” said Antheia.
“Yeah, maybe he’s just yelling at those windy godboys for causing all this mess,” said Iris, glancing around at the chaos in the courtyard.
Antheia nodded. But she looked as uncertain about that as Iris felt.
Iris stuffed Hera’s scroll into her bag with Apollo’s and headed up the front steps. Minutes later she stood in the hall staring at a door with the words “FRONT OFFICE” chiseled on it. She went inside.
Ms. Hydra, Zeus’s nine-headed administrative assistant, was standing behind her tall desk. Beyond her was another door. The one that led to Zeus’s office. The assistant was busy helping a group of students that had gathered around her. Everyone looked a little jittery. And no wonder! Even though Zeus’s office door was shut, every few seconds Iris could hear loud banging and thumping noises beyond it.
“What’s going on in there!” Iris murmured under her breath.
“Just the four winds,” Ms. Hydra’s pink head replied without looking away from the papers she was working on. The head obviously had good hearing. Which made sense. That head’s nickname was Pinky, and it was almost as gossipy as Pheme.
So Iris had been right in guessing that this was where those windbag boys had come after they’d entered the school. Here to Zeus’s office! Mr. Cyclops must’ve been saying it was Zeus who’d want to hear the four winds’ news, whatever it was.
“I’m supposed to see the principal too,” she told Ms. Hydra’s gray head. It was her worrywart head, and the only one that wasn’t currently busy. At the sound of a sudden loud thump, the head swung around on its long neck to gaze at Zeus’s door. “Maybe you should come back another time,” it advised Iris.
For half a second Iris considered bailing. But then she shook her head. “I wish I could. But he told me to come, so I’d better stay.”
“Well, then, please sign in,” said the gray head, which was also the most efficient of the heads. “We’re trying to get Zeus organized, so I’m keeping track of who visits his office and how he spends his time.” It nodded toward a sign-in book that Iris hadn’t noticed on the desktop.
Immediately Iris whipped out her set of pens and began to sign her name in a fancy way, using a different-color pen for each decorative letter.
“Oh dear,” said the gray worrywart head, watching Iris write. “I’m a little concerned that such elaborate writing won’t fit on the line and will take up too much space on the page.”
Ms. Hydra’s smiley yellow head leaned over to admire Iris’s work. “I think it’s colorful and absolutely lovely.”
Iris managed a shaky smile in return, but it disappeared from her face when Zeus’s door suddenly blew open. She whirled around and pressed back against the tall desk as the wind began whisking things off it and sending them flying around the lobby.
“Everyone out!” all of Ms. Hydra’s heads chorused at once to the students she’d been helping. Her heads bobbing and weaving, she slithered out from behind her desk and began chasing down the papers.
Since Iris dared not leave without seeing Zeus, she stayed to help too, chasing some papers all the way to his door.
“So Typhon has escaped Tartarus,” she overheard Zeus saying. “I locked that beast up after the war with the Titans for a very good reason. He presents a terrible threat if he’s coming this way.”
Typhon? Who’s he? Iris wondered, straightening and clutching an armful of papers to her chest. They’d never studied such a creature in Beast-ology class. Trying to act casual so as not to draw attention to herself, she moved nearer to Zeus’s open door to listen.
“He’s a monster all right,” one of the windy boys was saying.
“A tornado with winds of epic proportions, greater than all four of us put together,” said a second wind.
“He’s been on a rampage, destroying villages,” added a third wind. “But now he’s gone into hiding. It’s like he’s waiting for something.”
“I wish we knew what he was up to,” said the fourth wind.
“Following the orders of whoever released him from Tartarus, no doubt. And I’m going to find out who that was, if it’s the last thing I do!” Zeus proclaimed. Boom! Zzzt! Zzzt! Iris’s breath caught in alarm at the sound. The faint smell of smoke drifted to her nose. Zeus must’ve slammed his fist on his desk to emphasize his point and zapped the surrounding area. She hoped that didn’t happen when her turn came to face him!
“Typhon’s not the brightest beast I’ve ever locked up in Tartarus,” Zeus went on. “That works in our favor but also makes him unpredictable. It’s impossible to know how or when he might strike. And what he lacks in brains he makes up for in brute strength.”
Tartarus was the most awful place in the Underworld, where truly evil people and creatures wound up. As far as Iris knew, no one—except this Typhon monster—had ever escaped that awful pit of despair.
“The safety of everyone on Mount Olympus is at stake!” Zeus said at last.
The conversation she’d overheard rattled Iris. The four winds seemed to have come to MOA to report that a monstrous fiend called Typhon was on the way. But apparently they didn’t know when he’d appear or how to stop him. The truly scary part was that Zeus didn’t seem to know either. Everyone on Mount Olympus and Earth counted on him to take care of such things and to save them from disaster. She shuddered. Was it possible that this was one disaster he couldn’t fix?
As the four winds began arguing about how to fight Typhon, objects started to whirl around the lobby again. Gusts snatched away some of the papers Iris had collected and knocked the sign-in book from Ms. Hydra’s desktop onto the floor. By now the assistant’s nine heads were bobbling every which way, trying to figure out which mess to clean up first.
“CALM DOWN!” Zeus boomed at the boys. The windy brothers gasped in awe of his mighty authority, and the strength of their indrawn breaths pulled the door shut. Slam! And then Iris could hear no more.
Just as she and Ms. Hydra finally finished setting the outer office to rights, the door to Zeus’s office opened again and the four winds trooped out past Iris. She decided that the boys must be able to control the strength of their winds, because now they hardly blew at all.
Ms. Hydra pushed the sign-in book across her desktop toward one of the boys as he passed. “Zephyr? Your brothers signed in, but I need your signature as well.”
“Sure,” Zephyr said in a friendly tone. He flicked his head up and to the side in a quick movement that pushed his wavy chestnut-brown hair off his forehead. Iris couldn’t help noticing how cute his blue wings and clear sky-blue eyes were. He looked around, then glanced at Ms. Hydra. “Got a pen?”
“I do,” Iris announced, opening her bag and volunteering her set.
Zephyr grinned at her, choosing a lime-green pen. “Thanks.” As he wrote his name, he must’ve taken note of her fancy writing on the line above in the sign-in book. Because when he handed her pen back, he asked, “You Iris?”
She nodded. “Um-hm. Hi! Welcome to MOA!” Argh! Why had she blurted that out? It wasn’t as if he and his brothers were enrolling here. Still, it was only polite to welcome newcomers to the Academy, right? Even if they wouldn’t be
staying permanently.
“Figured,” said Zephyr. “Because of your pens and all.” He gave her a warm smile, and this time she smiled back.
Boreas leaned over to study the colorful pen set she still held. “What, no frosty white or silver gray in there, Susie Sunshine? Those are my favorite ink colors. So much more dignified. I know what I’m talking about. I won the penmanship award three years in a row at our school.”
Iris shivered and stepped back. Not only was he a cold wind, but he was boastful, too! Her choice of pen colors reflected her happy personality. She knew she could be pretty cheery all the time and that it annoyed some people. Well, too bad! Because that was who she was. And it was certainly better than being gloomy all the time, or being annoying like him.
She cocked her head and joked to all four winds, “Not Susie Sunshine. More like Rachel Rainbows.”
“Or more like Harpy . . . um,” Boreas began, but then he paused, seemingly stumped for an H nickname to add after “Harpy.”
Did that mean these brothers knew that her three sisters were Harpies, even though she didn’t look at all like them? she wondered. Even some of the students at MOA didn’t know that! Although her sisters had pretty faces and normal hair, their bodies were feathered, and they had bird-claw feet, and could fly. Together they owned the Hungry, Hungry Harpy Café in the IM. And they were supercranky—pretty much the opposite of her personality.
Not willing to let Boreas know he’d embarrassed her by mentioning them, she smiled brightly. “The Happy Harpy?” His brothers and even Ms. Hydra’s yellow head laughed at that. “But I’m not—”
“Never mind,” Boreas muttered before she could say she wasn’t actually a Harpy. He seemed irritated that she’d gotten the last word. “C’mon, guys.”
“See you,” Iris said politely. Ha-ha! Boreas might be the cold wind, but by keeping a cool head, she’d bested him. Zephyr caught her eye and sent her another warm smile. As he turned to leave the office, he lifted a hand behind his back, giving her a thumbs-up.
“Hey, keep up, Zephyr!” Boreas called back to him, and Iris watched the brown-haired boy scurry to rejoin his brothers.
“Come along, Iris!” urged Ms. Hydra.
Iris looked over to see that the assistant’s impatient purple head was speaking to her. “Don’t want to keep the principal waiting. Hup! Hup! Get moving!”
As Iris passed into Zeus’s office, the impatient head called after her, “Be quick about your business. Principal Zeus is a busy guy. And he has an appointment with Hera in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.” Iris reluctantly trudged into Zeus’s domain. How would he punish her for almost striking him and Pegasus with her misguided rainbow? she wondered. Blast her to smithereens with one of his thunderbolts? Zap her silly with the electric sparks that shot from his fingertips?
And that wasn’t the only thing worrying her. Hera’s scroll was burning a hole in her pocket—er, bag. What if Zeus guessed she had it? He was powerful. Would he see right through her and know there was something she wasn’t telling him? She wished Hera hadn’t put her in this position! But her message must be something super-important, and Iris wouldn’t let her down.
Unlike Pheme, she took secrets seriously, but keeping one from the King of the Gods was making her seriously uncomfortable. She wished she didn’t have to!
3
A Mission
AT FIRST IRIS DIDN’T SEE Zeus because of the jungle of stuff that filled his office and the towering file cabinets that sat in the middle of it like buildings in a clutter city. Rumor had it that his office was messy. But this was worse than she’d imagined. Had the winds caused this, or did his office always look like a tornado had hit it?
While searching for the principal, she spied stacks of scrolls here and there and stepped over discarded oddball art projects, including what appeared to be a partly mashed architect’s model of Zeus’s great temple in the city of Olympia on Earth. She’d never been there to see it herself, but she knew that the gigantic ivory-and-gold statue of him inside the temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the world.
She stepped over a map of Greece and two board games, and then crunched three half-empty bottles of Zeus Juice underfoot. One file cabinet had been overturned, its side dented in as though it had suffered a mighty blow from a meaty fist. Gulp!
“Ibis?” the principal boomed, making her jump.
Huh? Had Zeus just called her “Ibis”? No, she must’ve misheard. Although, come to think of it, he was notoriously bad at names. So he’d either gotten her name wrong or he really did think that she looked like a long-legged, long-beaked wading bird!
“Coming,” she called in a jittery voice that sounded scared even to her. She rounded another cabinet to discover Zeus sitting on a huge golden throne behind an even bigger desk. He held a four-foot tall, solid gold Best God-Dad in the Universe trophy sideways in one hand and was lifting it up and down as he studied a scrollmap that lay open on his desk. The trophy must be something Athena had given him. How sweet! His muscled arm flexed, and electricity fizzled from his fingertips, making the trophy sizzle and pop. He looked like something was on his mind. Mayhem? Involving her?
Suddenly he glanced up, pinning her with his electric-blue eyes. “Sit,” he commanded, gesturing to the six chairs facing his desk. He dropped the trophy to the floor. Thunk!
Iris sat in the nearest chair. Crunch! She half-stood again and saw she’d just smashed a bag of ambrosia chips that had been lying on the seat cushion.
“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled. She moved over to the next chair. This one’s cushion had two holes with scorch marks around them. Come to think of it, there were scorch marks on all six chairs as well as on most of the walls and other stuff, she realized. From Zeus hurling thunderbolts at his visitors? A shiver ran down her spine as she sat again. She set her bag on her lap, then tucked her fingers under the sides of her legs to hide their trembling.
As she awaited her doom, she upside-down-read the title of the map on Zeus’s desk and discovered it was a map of the route to the infamous Gray Ladies’ office. Why was he studying that? The Gray Ladies were the school counselors. No one who went to their office in a faraway land ever talked afterward about what had happened there, so she’d always figured it must be an awful place no one wanted to think about. Godsamighty! He wasn’t sending her there, was he?
Principal Zeus shoved the scrollmap to one side and folded his beefy hands on top of his desk. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Ibis,” he announced.
“Iris,” she corrected, then wished she hadn’t. Who cared what he called her? Maybe if he decided to banish her from MOA, he’d tell Ms. Hydra to banish Ibis, and then no one would put two and two together and figure out he actually meant her.
Wait! She had to calm down. Had to convince him to forget what had happened with her rainbow out on the field. Not only that, but this might be her only chance to talk him into naming her the Goddess of Rainbows. Because how often did an opportunity to chat with the King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens one on one come along? Not very.
“About that rainbow incident,” she began in a rush.
“About those rainbows of yours,” he said at almost the same time.
“I know, I know. I didn’t mean to almost hit you with that big rainbow I made. I’m really sorry,” she went on before he could beat her to the punch. “But practice makes perfect, right?”
“Practicing something you’re interested in improving—like a rainbow—is a worthy goal, but maybe a little more work on your aim is in order?” One bushy red eyebrow lifted at her.
“A worthy goal? Really? Thanks!” she said, stunned by the unexpected compliment. If it was a compliment. She wasn’t absolutely sure. “Oh, and I’ll work on that aim part,” she added.
In truth she was surprised and thrilled that he’d noticed her rainbow-making skills at all. But maybe noticing things was what made him such an effective principal. And made him someone from whom it would be dange
rous to keep a secret, she thought, remembering Hera’s letterscroll in her bag. Which was front and center on her lap right now. Oh, why hadn’t she thought to tuck her bag under her chair when she’d sat down!
Zeus opened his mouth to continue on, probably to lecture her about the dangers of arcing rainbows at principals who have lightning-fast tempers and thunderbolt weapons.
To head him off she spoke first again. “Actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about my rainbows.” As she said the words, she started to ease her bag to one side of her lap, hoping to slip it onto the floor beneath her chair.
Unfortunately, that only drew his attention to it. And when Iris looked down, she was horrified to see that Hera’s scroll had slid halfway out of her bag. Zeus had spotted it too, and his gaze was now fixed on the name written on the outside of it.
“That looks like Hera’s handwriting.” His blue eyes narrowed. “Who’s Ceyx?”
Iris pressed back in her chair. “Oh. Um, yes, this is a message that I’m taking to the IM for Hera. I don’t know who Ceyx is, though.” The truth was best, right? After all, she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Tiny sparks of electricity started prickling all along the principal’s muscled arms. Sure signs that he was annoyed. The uneasy way Iris was acting had made him suspicious!
“You can give Hera’s letterscroll to me,” he said in a sly tone of voice. “I’ll deliver it for her.” He half-rose from his seat, reaching for it.
Quickly Iris tucked her bag with the scroll inside it all the way under her chair. She couldn’t believe she’d done that! But she took secrets seriously, and messages written in letterscrolls were secrets, in her opinion. Though she knew she might get fried for her daring, she sat up tall and said, “This message was entrusted to me, so I’ll deliver it.”
Appearing taken aback, Zeus plopped into his throne again. He seemed to study her with a new respect. Then he stroked his red beard and said, “I can see you are an exceptionally trustworthy student.” His eyes slid to the map on his desk for a second. Then he looked at her again, as if sizing her up some more. “I have an appointment in a few minutes. And while I’m away, there’s a special mission that I can only give to someone trustworthy. Are you up for it?”
