by Raine, Eliza
I stepped through and almost had a heart attack as a girl leaped from a seat in the middle of the room, long dark braids swinging behind her.
‘Professor!’ she said.
‘Zali,’ Chiron nodded. ‘I assume you’ve been sent for Pandora?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she nodded enthusiastically. She looked about my age, with warm brown skin and eyes colored like honey. She was wearing blue jeans and a top that looked like the same stuff my Mom had worn, shiny blue like fish scales.
‘Pandora, this is Zali. You’re sharing a dorm room with her.’
‘Hi,’ I said weakly. She beamed at me.
‘Don’t worry, we have a curtain separating us,’ she said.
‘I, err, I shared with my little sister. I’m used to it,’ I said, unsure what else to say.
‘Aww, that’s great!’ Zali replied. She was exactly the level of perky that my spinning head wasn’t sure how to deal with. I forced a smile onto my face.
‘Um, you said you would talk to me about Olympians?’ I said, turning to Chiron.
‘Let Zali show you around first, collect your uniform and get your room set up and all that. Come and see me tomorrow morning and we’ll go through that and your time-table.’
Time-table? So I really would be studying. My head swam.
‘Zali, Pandora has had a lot to take in today already. Please take it easy,’ Chiron smiled.
‘Sure thing, Chiron,’ she chirruped. ‘Come on, we’ll go to the dorm first, then I’ll show you the rest of campus.’ She reached for my hand and I snatched it back instinctively. Her face fell a little.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wringing my hands together. ‘I didn’t know I was coming here today. I’m a little on edge.’
‘Oh. That’s alright! We get new starters from the mortal world all the time. You’ll feel right at home in no time,’ she said, and headed towards the door. ‘Bye, headmaster!’ she sang and yanked it open.
‘I’ll be here if you need me,’ Chiron said with a final smile. I took what felt like my millionth deep breath, and followed Zali out of the room.
‘It’s so exciting to be sharing a room with someone from the mortal world. What’s it like?’ Zali said as we headed down the marble staircase.
‘Er, it’s…’ I tried to think of an appropriate description. ‘There aren’t any centaurs,’ I said, eventually.
‘There aren’t that many here either. Apart from Chiron, there’s only two in the whole school. Centaurs belong to Artemis, and she lives in a realm forbidden to most other races, so they mostly just stay there.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Which one is Artemis again?’ Zali turned to me, eyebrows raised.
‘You don’t know about the Gods?’
‘I know a bit. Like Zeus is the god of lightning, Hades is the underworld, Poseidon is the sea, Aphrodite is love, Ares is war, Athena…’ I tailed off, trying to remember what Athena did.
‘She’s goddess of wisdom. Then there’s the twins, Artemis and Apollo, Hermes the messenger god, Hera the wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, Hephaestus the god of metal and fire and Dionysus the god of wine.’ Zali ticked them off on her fingers as she went.
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Well, you’ll definitely be put in history class,’ Zali said, and pushed open a tall door to the left of the staircase. My steps faltered as I went through after her.
To describe the room as grand would be an understatement. We must have been in the main temple building and the space was enormous. The floor was shining white marble, and columns rose at regular intervals, reaching all the way up to the pitched ceiling. Stars twinkled in this ceiling too, and I thought I could make out constellations. A raised stage at the back of the room stood empty, plush curtains drawn to the sides.
‘This is the main temple, where we eat. It’s also where we do a few of our classes, and have dances. Olympus Academy has the best dances,’ she beamed at me.
‘Dances?’
‘Yep. All these curtains-’ she gestured at a series of arched doorways lining both sides of the room, ‘are classrooms. Different colored curtains for different classes.’
‘How will I know which one is which?’
‘Chiron will sort that out with you tomorrow when you get your time-table,’ she said. The dorms are this way. She strode across the massive space and I followed her, reaching out and stroking my fingers across the grooved columns we passed. They felt cool and hard and real. How had all this happened to me?
There were two more big wooden doors on either side of the stage and Zali pointed at the one on the right.
‘Girls are on the right. Boys are on the left. I’m not going to pretend that there’s not a bit of cross-over sometimes, but the penalties if you’re caught are serious so… just make sure the boy’s worth it,’ she smiled over her shoulder at me. ‘Did you have a boyfriend back home?’
I shook my head.
‘No. Boys back home thought I was weird.’ Her pretty face softened with pity and I immediately regretted admitting it.
‘Well, there’s lots of cute boys here. Although some of them are a bit… cocky.’
‘I’m not here for a boyfriend,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m here to learn magic.’
Zali pushed through the door on the right and I found myself outside again. Or as outside as you can get in an underwater dome. It looked like some sort of training ground, neat grass clipped short covering a large, square expanse. Lines were painted at intervals on the grass and tall wooden columns with arrows sticking out of them were strewn about. There was a low building along one edge, with no walls, and I could see rows of weapons inside, swords and spears and bows.
‘This is where we do our physical training. What are you best at?’
‘Best at?’
‘Yeah. Sword, spear, bow?’
‘I’ve never used a sword or a spear,’ I stammered.
‘Oh.’ Zali frowned a moment, then her face lit up. ‘Maybe you’ll be good at all of them!’
She turned and walked along the edge of the grounds, to the right.
‘What’s that building?’ I asked, pointing to a tall temple at the back of the training grounds.
‘Those are the elemental classrooms. They have to be separate from the main building because we wouldn’t want anything getting flooded or catching fire or anyone getting electrocuted. Those rooms have been made specially by the gods so that we can practice safely.’
A tingle of excitement rippled through me.
‘And those two towers at the back?’
‘The tallest one is the pegasus stables. It obviously has to go all the way to the surface of the ocean so that the poor things can fly. They can’t breathe underwater.’
‘Wait, what? Fly?’
‘Yeah. You’ve seen a pegasus?’
I pulled at my memories, dredging up what I knew about Greek mythology.
‘White horses with wings?’
Zali laughed.
‘They don’t have to be white. But yeah. Winged horses.’
‘Why are they kept in the academy if they can’t be underwater?’
She stared at me.
‘So we can learn to ride them, silly.’
‘Ride them?’
‘Sure, if you show aptitude,’ she shrugged. I let out a long breath, my skin now fizzing with excitement.
‘The other tower is forbidden to everyone except advanced students. The dorms are here, attached to the main temple but you have to come out here to get to them.’ She pointed behind us at one of the taller buildings I’d seen from the front, flanking the main temple, lined with arched windows. I stared around at the academy. It looked as though the buildings had been plucked from history, except for the fact that they were in a big underwater dome, surrounded by clear blue ocean. I heard a strange little popping noise and my attention snapped to the the training ground ahead of us. Something small and dark was flying towards us.
‘Zali-’ I started, but then I realized what it was. An arrow was
speeding towards her.
She let out a loud squeak as I threw myself at her, dragging her down to the cold marble ground, out of the arrow's trajectory. I felt a slight thudding pain in my side as I hit the floor beside her. I rolled over as she scrabbled to sit up and I heard distant giggling and sat up too, looking down at my ribs. My grey hoodie was covered in bright red paint.
‘Tak!’ Zali roared, then let out a long breath as she looked at me.
‘Paint bomb. I’m sorry Pandora, Tak was aiming for me. He’s supposed to be on a practical joke ban. I’ll give him what-for later.’ Relief washed over me.
‘I thought for a minute there it was a real arrow,’ I said, pushing myself to my feet and frowning at my stained hoodie.
‘What? And you pushed me out of the way and took it instead?’ Zali stared at me.
‘I thought I’d got both of us out of the way,’ I admitted.
‘Wow. Thanks Pandora,’ she beamed at me.
‘Um, yeah,’ I said awkwardly.
‘Don’t worry about the paint, it’ll come out in the wash no problem.’ I looked at her skeptically and pulled it off, careful not to let the paint get on anything else. I balled it up inside out and Zali took my hand, pulling me towards the dorm building.
‘Are you ready to see your room?’
6
If I was being honest, my room was the least interesting thing about the academy. It was one of many off a white stone corridor lined with wooden doors, and as Zali had said, was split by curtains. There was a little shared area in the middle with a desk under the arched window, and then a red curtain sectioning off a bed with a wardrobe at its foot, and a blue curtain hiding the same on the other side. Zali offered to let me move beds if I wanted the blue side, but I told her I was fine with the red.
Our dorm was on the third floor of the four storey building and once I’d seen our room Zali took me downstairs to the bottom floor to get my uniforms and get my hoodie washed.
‘These are the laundry rooms,’ she told me as we entered a warm room, housing a whole load of weird white boxes as tall as I was, that looked nothing like any washing machine I had ever seen. Zali walked up to one of them and pressed a round button on the side. A flap popped open on the top.
‘Just chuck it in,’ she said. I had to jump a little, but I did as she said and then pressed the button to close the flap. ‘That’ll be sorted in an hour,’ she said, then walked on, taking me over to a wall lined with rails where outfit after outfit was hanging.
‘This is the only academy where we can wear things from your world,’ Zali said when I asked about her jeans and shiny top. ‘The uniforms look like yours to make you feel more welcome but most of Olympus wears more traditional style stuff.’ The uniforms consisted of red plaid skirts and plain white shirts. I held one against me, checking the size. ‘You’ll also need combat clothes,’ Zali said, moving along to the next rail and handing me a pair of black leather slacks and a more fitted white shirt. That was a bit more my style, I thought as I folded them over my arm with the others. I looked down at my stained Converse.
‘What about shoes?’
‘Boots, for combat,’ she replied, crouching and pulling a pair of black boots out from under the rails. ‘Whatever you like for classroom stuff.’ My Converse it was, then. The thought gave me comfort and I wiggled my toes, enjoying the reassurance it gave me.
‘Lastly, formal wear,’ Zali muttered, moving on to another section of the rails. Here there were rows of togas, all in different pastel shades, or black. ‘The boys wear black,’ she explained. ‘What color do you like?’
I looked at the togas. They all looked like bedsheets to me.
‘Erm, the purple,’ I said, shrugging.
‘That’ll look great on you,’ Zali beamed, plucking the toga from the rail.
She carried the boots for me as we headed back up to our room. I stowed all my new clothes in the wardrobe and sat down on the bed. What now? My tummy growled loudly.
‘I heard that!’ exclaimed Zali, from the other side of her curtain. ‘Dinner will be in ten minutes. Shall we go down now?’
‘Sure,’ I said. Exhaustion was starting to creep over me, my limbs feeling heavy and sluggish as I stood up. I’d eat, then sleep, and pray that tomorrow this would all start to make more sense.
When we entered the main temple it looked completely different to when I’d last seen it. Long tables, lined with benches, ran up and down between the columns, and there was one on the stage too, looking over the room. The tables were empty, but there were a few people milling about the room, some sitting or standing and chatting. And when I say people…
‘What’s that?’ I hissed at Zali, pointing at a creature nearby.
‘That’s a minotaur. He’s half bull, half human. Nice guy,’ she said. I stared, unable to tear my eyes from the boy’s angry horns and furry arms as he waved at someone across the hall.
‘Are there many…’ I cast about for the right word.
‘We just call everyone people here. And it’s mostly humans, but the gods aren’t fussy so there are few different creatures here.’
‘Right,’ I said, and followed her to a table.
‘Tak will meet us soon. You’ll like him.’
‘Huh,’ I said absently, staring at the people now filing into the hall. There were lots of fairly normal looking people, but every now and then I spotted a short satyr, goat hooves clicking on the marble floor, or a creature that looked like it was made up of different animals, too many to work out before they passed out of sight. There were lots of very beautiful girls too, seeming to float as they made their way about the hall. Many of them cast me interested glances.
‘I assume this is the lovely blonde I need to apologize to for hitting her with my paint bomb earlier?’ a male voice drew my attention back to our table.
‘Tak, this is Pandora. She’s from the mortal world,’ Zali said importantly to a sandy haired boy sitting down opposite us. He gave me a massive grin, blue eyes twinkling mischievously.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Pandora,’ he said. ‘You’re Zali’s new roommate?’
I nodded.
‘Good luck. She sings. And she’s bad,’ he said, wiggling his eyebrows playfully.
‘You be quiet!’ Zali protested. ‘I do sing, Pandora, but I’m not that bad. Honest.’
‘Hmmm, she’s no siren.’
‘Aren’t sirens the ones that lure sailors to their death?’ I asked quietly.
‘Way back when, sure. Now they tend to use their skills for more profitable ventures,’ Tak answered.
‘Like what?’
‘Luring men into gambling halls, and other places they shouldn’t be,’ he smiled. ‘Fun places.’
Zali sighed.
‘What you need to know about Tak, Pandora, is that he is descended from Hermes, god of tricks and thieves. His idea of fun is highly misplaced.’ She glared at him across the table and he shrugged.
‘What can I say, it’s in my blood,’ he said.
‘Who are you descended from?’ I asked Zali, turning to her.
‘Poseidon,’ she said.
‘Can you do stuff with water?’ I asked quickly, excitement spilling through me again.
‘I-’ she started to answer but was cut off.
‘Well, well, do we have a new girl?’
I looked up to see three girls standing behind Tak. The one in the middle was tall and slim with bronzed skin and long shiny black hair and she had that air about her that the popular girls at school back home did. I was instantly wary. Those girls had never been nice to me.
‘Don’t be shy, what’s your name?’ the girl on her left said. Curly red hair framed her perfect face and she put her hands on her ample, curvy hips, waiting for me to answer.
‘Pandora,’ I said quietly.
‘I’m Arketa,’ said the slim girl. ‘And this is Filis and Kiko.’ The red-head, Kiko, cocked her head and gave me an over-the-top smile.
‘We’re Aphrodite
descendants.’
That explained why they were so attractive, I thought.
‘You know, you’re not pretty enough to hang out with us but you’re better than these losers,’ Filis said. She was shorter than the other two, with rich brown hair and an exotic looking face with full pouty lips.
‘Go away, Filis,’ Tak said. ‘She’s not interested.’ Filis glared at him.
‘I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with this mermaid freak, Tak. You could be so much more,’ she snapped at him. I looked at Zali in surprise. Her dark skin was flushed and she stared at the table in front of her.
‘Mermaid?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, she’d rather spend time with the fish than actual people,’ Arketa sniggered. Zali said nothing.
‘Who are you descended from, Pandora?’ asked Kiko.
‘Erm,’ I said, looking up at her distractedly. Was Zali really a mermaid? ‘Oceanus,’ I answered.
I could tell immediately that I’d said something wrong. Kiko’s mouth fell open, Arketa took a step backwards and Zali gasped beside me. An eerie silence fell over the hall.
‘You’re a Titan?’ Arketa’s voice rang through the room, echoing off the pillars.
‘Erm,’ I said, my face beginning to burn as more and more students turned to look at me. I looked at Tak and Zali for help but they were both gaping at me too.
‘I can’t believe the standards of this school are dropping so low,’ said Filis snidely.
‘Right? First wing-boy, now her,’ sneered Kiko.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said Arketa, her face cold and hard. I willed the need to defend myself to break through my embarrassment, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I was so out of my depth, I knew nothing about the world I was in. Why were Titans bad?
‘Stay away from us,’ hissed Filis, and as one the three girls whirled on their heels and strode off down the rows of tables. A loud buzz of chatter immediately filled the room, people throwing furtive glances my way as they whispered loudly.
‘What just happened?’ I asked, putting my sweaty palms flat on the cool table and looking desperately at Tak. He looked warily back. I turned to Zali, who was leaning away from me slightly, alarm in her amber eyes. Was my new roommate going to freak out on me too?
