Sons From Afar

by Cynthia Voigt

  Sammy was giving Ernie pretty high marks for engaging interest, because most people were enjoying themselves; the low marks came on content and organization, preparation and delivery.

  When Miss Karin stood up from her desk and said, “Thank you, Ernie. Are there any questions?” Custer muttered into Sammy’s ear, “Yeah, I’d like to know how he got into seventh grade.” Sammy snickered, as did others who’d heard.

  There were thirty-six kids in the class, and about half of the reports had been given. Reports made an easy week of English, because all you had to do was come to class and listen, checking off the evaluation sheet. After class, people told one another what their evaluations had been. An awful lot of the evaluations had to do with how popular someone was. Robin had given a pretty good report on jet fighters. Sammy had liked it and Miss Karin had said it was good. Even Custer, who’d been asking Sammy why he was friends with a wimp like Robin, thought it was interesting. But most of Robin’s evaluations had been bad ones, just because Robin wasn’t well liked; everybody agreed with Custer about Robin, so they gave him low marks. Sammy didn’t see why Custer was so down on Robin. “I bet he cries, too,” Custer had said. So what? Sammy wanted to say, but he didn’t. Instead he got sarcastic: “Real men don’t cry?”

  “C’mon, Sammy, you know what I mean,” was all Custer answered. Sammy guessed he did know, but “No, I don’t. Tell me,” was what he’d said. “Why are we fighting about that baby face?” Custer had asked.

  Sammy didn’t know. He didn’t like someone telling him who to be friends with, for one thing, even if that someone was a friend of his. He didn’t exactly know how he felt about Robin either, because the thing he liked best about Robin was his mother. Maybe. “I’m not fighting,” he’d said to Custer.

  Miss Karin called Sammy’s attention back to class. “You’re on, Sammy,” she said, smiling at him.

  Sammy got up from his desk. He was never nervous. People liked him, and they liked listening to him. Mostly, he got off some good jokes, and he kept things short; he tried to give the kind of report he liked listening to. He didn’t have any note-cards, because he never had any trouble remembering what he planned to say. He stood at the front of the class and looked around at everyone. Making eye contact was what they called it on the evaluation sheet.

  They sat in straight rows, in their desks, all of them looking at him. The girls were looking at him and the boys were looking at him. They each had a fresh evaluation sheet, waiting. They each had a pencil, ready to write things down. They were mostly his friends—Chris and Jason, Billy and Pete and Tom Childress, and everyone except the ones he didn’t like. He looked at them.

  Sammy couldn’t remember a word of what he was going to say. He couldn’t even remember his topic, practically. If he opened his mouth, he knew no words would come out. He just stood there, staring stupidly back.

  He had no idea what was going on with him. If this was nervousness, he could sympathize with people who got nervous. But why should he be nervous?

  Sammy jammed his hands into his back pockets and kind of spread his legs apart. He did this because he could feel his whole left leg just shaking, vibrating away, and with his legs apart he could lock his kneecaps. It felt like his stomach was jiggling and he didn’t know how to get himself going. He opened his mouth. “Um,” he said. But nothing came into his mind. Nothing else came out of his mouth.

  He looked out the windows: The sky was smoky gray with low clouds and a misty rain filled the air, not falling, but sort of floating down.

  “Um,” Sammy said again. Mythology, that was it. Greek mythology. James’s idea.

  But what was wrong with him that he was suddenly nervous?

  “My report is on Greek mythology,” he said. A lot of people didn’t like to hear that; he could see it on their faces. He looked at Miss Karin and she smiled at him, to encourage him. She smiled at him with her red mouth. She always kept her lipstick fresh and bright. Something about her red smile drove any other thoughts out of his head.

  “Um,” Sammy said. “My report is on Greek mythology,” he said.

  “I guess we know that by now,” Ernie said. Some people laughed so he asked, “Is the report over?”

  Shut up your fat face, Sammy wanted to say. Ernie made him mad, trying to submarine his report. “But what I’m going to talk about,” he said, remembering now, “is just one story. Because I thought it was interesting. But first, I want to say a couple of general things about Greek mythology.” He was saying it all wrong. He should have said “What we call Greek mythology was their religion.” That was the important thing and he’d omitted it.

  Robin was watching Sammy, looking interested. Custer had a little smile on his face, probably waiting for the jokes. Sammy was okay now, he hoped.

  “The important thing is, that this was a religion. We treat it the same way we treat fairy tales, but it was a religion. People believed in it. The kind of religion it was, is a nature religion.” He heard how he was repeating that word, religion, and how wrong that sounded, repeating it like that. “The Greeks believed that different parts of nature had gods who controlled them.” What a little kid sentence; it didn’t even say what it meant. Shut up, Sammy said to himself. He took a breath and tried again. “Like, there was a god who controlled the ocean, and a goddess of war, and every river or field had its own little god or goddess. So that everything had a reason for it. If lightning struck, for example, that was Zeus—or Jupiter, to the Romans—he was the king of the gods, he would send lightning bolts to destroy something. Or, if you fell in love, that was Eros—or Cupid—who had shot you with a golden arrow and you couldn’t help it. So that, in a way, the people were helpless, and everything that happened was the gods’ idea. So you can see it’s different from what we think.” Now he was really off the track. But he’d never thought of that before, the way believing that the gods had all the power kept you helpless.

  Not too interested, most of the faces. A few were, Sammy saw: Custer was, and Shirley he thought, although she was doing that trick of pulling her hair down over her face and chewing on it. Robin, too. But most of them weren’t too interested at all. He hurried along. In a way, he just wanted it over, because it didn’t look like his report was as good as he’d thought.

  “My report was actually about the god of the sun, Apollo. The Greeks thought that the sun and moon were chariots, driven across the day sky and night sky by twins, Apollo and his sister Artemis, or Diana. Do you know what a chariot is?” Sammy asked. He hadn’t planned to ask that, but it struck him that some people might not know, and for the story they needed to know. So he explained what a chariot was, and how it was pulled by horses. He got back on the subject. “Apollo was mostly the sun god, but he was also god of prophecies. When you wanted to find out what was going to happen you’d go to his temple at Delphi and the priestess would go into a trance and tell you his answer. He was also the god of music. He was always pictured as a very handsome young man.” There were a couple of giggles at that. Sammy ignored them.

  “Anyway, I thought I’d tell you one of the myths about Apollo,” he said. That sounded so bad—he almost wished he did have notecards, and had written down how to say things right. “The Greek gods,” he began the story, “often fell in love with mortal women, and they’d have children. I guess these children were half-god, half-mortal. Apollo once fell in love, and the woman had a son named Phaëton. Apollo didn’t live with his family, because he was a god and he had to drive his chariot across the sky every day. Besides, the gods would fall in love and then just forget about the woman and never see her again. So this Phaëton lived with his mother, down on earth. She told him who his father was, but it was supposed to be a secret. Well, Phaëton was just a kid, and the other kids started teasing him, telling him he didn’t have a father, and all. He got angry one day, and told them who his father was.” Sammy wondered if they needed a reminder. “That his father was Apollo, the sun god.” No, he’d been wrong, they hadn’t ne
eded a reminder.

  “The kids didn’t believe him, of course. I mean, would you?” Nobody would, they agreed; at least they were listening now, interested. They liked being told a story.

  “So Phaëton got really upset, and he went to his mother. I don’t know what she said to him, the story doesn’t say, but he made up his mind to prove to the other kids that he really was Apollo’s son. So what he did was, he went up to Mount Olympus, where the gods all lived, and he went up to Apollo. Apollo knew who he was. Phaëton asked his father if he could have one wish granted. Apollo wasn’t thinking, I guess—he just said yes. Phaëton made him promise first, he made Apollo swear by the river Styx—which is one of the rivers that surround the underworld in Greek mythology. That was the most sacred vow a god could make, to swear by the Styx. When a god swore by the Styx that he’d do something, he had to do it. Then, once Apollo had promised, Phaëton told him what he wanted.”

  Sammy waited there, just for a minute, letting their curiosity build. He had them, he could see. Waiting was the way to tell the story—that at least was right and he was sure of it. He waited just the right time and then told them.

  “He wanted Apollo to let him drive the chariot of the sun.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked for that. I’d have asked for money,” Jason said.

  “I’d have asked for immortality,” Custer said.

  “What happened?” Tom Childress asked.

  “Apollo tried to talk him out of it, but the more his father tried to convince him the more Phaëton wanted to do it. Apollo had to give in, because he’d sworn the sacred vow. So, the next morning, Phaëton—who was just a kid, like us—climbed up into the chariot of the sun. I guess, Apollo was probably still trying to get him to ask for something else, even when he was handing over the reins. But Phaëton only wanted the one thing, because that would show the other kids he’d been telling the truth.”

  “Anyway, what was so bad about that, driving the chariot?” Shirley wondered.

  “Because it was dangerous,” Sammy said. “Because the horses—nobody knows how many there were, maybe two of them, maybe four—they were huge. Strong and fast. I mean, they pulled the sun. They were pretty wild and strong. And Phaëton wasn’t a god or anything, he was just a kid. Would you be able to do that? Be the one who controls horses strong and fearless enough to pull the whole burning sun across the sky? Anyway, when Apollo unbolted the stable doors, the horses knew they were supposed to go out and follow dawn across the sky. So they went tearing out of there, like every day. I guess, Phaëton probably felt pretty good right then. There he was, about to drive the chariot of the sun across the whole sky where everyone would see him.

  “But it didn’t take the horses long to feel that there was somebody different holding the reins. They could feel how weak he was and how inexperienced. And they started to run wild. The more they ran wild, the more they ran wilder, if you know what I mean. Phaëton couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard he pulled on the reins. The horses just went where they wanted to. They went up high and then they just—rushed down, really close to the earth, and where they came close they scorched the land, burning up forests and drying up rivers—destroying towns and people, too. They went sideways, zigzagging across the earth, and nobody knew what was going on because the sun had gone crazy. They went way up, and then down. Phaëton couldn’t do anything about it, he couldn’t even begin to control them. Things were pretty bad. So Zeus—remember, he’s the king of the gods?—heard the commotion. He saw what was happening. I guess he was probably pretty angry at Apollo, and Apollo had to go along with what Zeus said because Zeus was the king. Zeus had to stop the destruction, because he was king. So he fired off a thunderbolt, and killed Phaëton, right there in the chariot. He just blew Phaëton away. Then Apollo got in and got the horses back under control, and things got back to normal. But Phaëton was dead.”

  That was the end. It took people a few seconds to realize that. Then, Miss Karin said, “Thank you, Sammy. Are there any questions?”

  Sammy waited. He didn’t know if he wanted any questions or not. He was thinking: He’d rather have gone back and tried to do a better job of telling the end of the story. He could see it happening, but the way he’d told it wasn’t anything like what he could see. He could see the terrified boy, and the blinding gold ball, and the spittle flying back from the horses’ mouths. And Zeus, cool and sad, with the thunderbolt in his hand and Apollo, wise and sad, beside him. And Phaëton’s mother, watching up from below. He could see it but he hadn’t said it. He was also thinking: if he were like Phaëton with wanting to be an astronaut, which was kind of like driving a chariot across the sky, except your ship would go across space skies. Sammy realized that he didn’t know why the idea of being an astronaut was so appealing to him.

  Ernie’s hand went up. “I guess that Phaëton guy was a bastard, hunh?”

  A few snickers greeted his boldness, and people waited to hear Miss Karin say something, which she chose not to. Sammy didn’t say anything either—it wasn’t a question, it was a way to get to say something you weren’t supposed to say. Sammy just looked at Ernie. And what was so wrong with being a bastard, anyway. Not every mother got married, as he had reason to know. Did Ernie know that, and was he trying to get at Sammy? Because, Sammy stared on, if that was the case, it was time Ernie learned better. Maybe Momma should have gotten married, and he didn’t know why she didn’t except he figured it was his father’s fault if she didn’t want to, but he wasn’t going to let anybody say things about her. Maybe there was something wrong with her that she didn’t get married, but he didn’t think so.

  Ernie’s eyes dropped as the silence built louder.

  “Are there any other questions?” Miss Karin asked.

  “I want to know how they could believe the sun was a chariot that got driven across the sky,” Custer asked. “It doesn’t even look like a chariot. And besides, it isn’t the sun that moves around the earth, the earth rotates around the sun.”

  “People used to think the earth was flat,” Miss Karin reminded them. “Remember, the way everyone thought Columbus would sail off the edge of the world? It wasn’t until Galileo invented the telescope that people understood that the earth does in fact revolve around the sun.”

  “Besides,” Sammy added, “if you imagine it, doesn’t it make sense? If you just look at the sky, the way it looks like a bowl upside down over the earth, and the sun goes up one side and then down the other.”

  “I guess,” Custer said.

  “Does the girl’s name Diana come from the goddess of the moon?” a girl named Diana asked.

  “I think,” Sammy said.

  “So I’m named after a goddess. Neat,” Diana said.

  “I thought,” Chris asked, “that the god of war was a man. You said it was a goddess of war.”

  “There were two kinds of war,” Sammy explained. “There still are, I guess. The male god, Ares or Mars, was the god of offensive war, when you go out to conquer territory or something. The goddess was Athena, or Minerva, and she was goddess of defensive war, when somebody was attacking your home. That’s different.”

  “Did anyone ever think,” Shirley asked, “if maybe what really happened was that a comet came close to the earth? A comet’s tail could really burn the earth, all those particles and things, and heat. Did anyone say that’s what might have actually happened? And it got turned into a story.”

  “Not that I read,” Sammy said. Shirley was the smartest girl in the class and that was an interesting question. “But I guess it could have. You mean if myths might have some basis in reality? Except the story gets changed around. Like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and saying he couldn’t tell a lie. That probably didn’t happen, but probably something like it did?” Shirley nodded, and chewed on her hair. But why should she look embarrassed?

  “I don’t understand, Miss Karin,” Pete asked. “Is it a report if you just tell a story?”

  A number of v
oices seconded the objection. Sammy didn’t know what to say: Was Pete trying to get him in trouble? Even if Sammy had thought that a report someone made didn’t meet requirements, he wouldn’t have said so to the teacher. But why should Pete want to make Sammy look bad? Pete had been one of the first to give his report, and it wasn’t very good but that was because he hadn’t worked very hard on it. Sammy didn’t understand, and he didn’t understand Pete, and he didn’t understand why people were agreeing with Pete. He looked at Miss Karin, where she sat at her big wooden desk.

  “That depends,” she answered, “on what story you tell, and why you tell it.”

  “Because you didn’t tell us we could do that,” Pete continued stubbornly.

  There were more, and louder, murmurs of agreement. Sammy thought, he didn’t know anything about these supposed friends of his. He’d done something wrong, he could feel that they were thinking that; they were thinking he was getting away with something. And they didn’t want him to get away with it. He stood up there, in front of everyone, feeling that.

  “Where did you learn all that stuff, about the gods and all?” Tom asked Sammy.