Goddess Boot Camp

by Tera Lynn Childs

  I silently hope this means even more private lessons from Griffin, but I know I’m not that lucky. And Damian’s not that considerate of my love life.

  “No, not private lessons,” he says, proving again that he can read minds. “I have enrolled you in Dynamotheos Development Camp. You begin in the morning.”

  “Now I have to pass this mysterious test before summer solstice or I’ll get held back a year.” I flop back next to Nicole on my bed, staring at the white plaster ceiling while my feet dangle off the edge. “Or locked in the school dungeon or chained to a mountainside—”

  “You’re being melodramatic,” Nicole interrupts. “No one’s been chained to a mountain in centuries. And those rumors about the torture devices in the dungeon are completely fabricated.”

  At my panicked look, she relents. “I’m teasing.” She grabs a pillow and smacks me over the stomach. “Lighten up, will ya?”

  I try to relax with a deep breath and a heavy sigh. It doesn’t work.

  Nicole is so much better at the whole go-with-the-flow, leave-your-worries-behind thing. Me? I’m like a poster child for stressing about stuff you can’t control.

  I don’t know what I’d do if she weren’t staying on Serfopoula for the summer. Of course, she stays on Serfopoula every summer—it’s one of the contingencies for allowing her back on the island to attend the Academy after her parents were banished by the gods. She can’t leave until she graduates.

  That sucks for her, but I’m glad she’s here.

  “Does Petrolas have a plan to boost your training?”

  “Yeah.” I sigh, wishing I was a little more spiky-blonde-haired extremist girl, instead of long-brown-ponytailed worry girl. “He’s sending me to Dynamotheos Development Camp for the next two weeks.”

  “Goddess Boot Camp?” she gasps. “Seriously?”

  Goddess Boot Camp? My stomach knots at the thought of a military-style training program. Multimile marches at dawn. Rope climbs in the rain. Instructors standing on my back while I do a million push-ups. A far cry from the cross-country and wilderness camps I’ve experienced.

  “Is there something wrong with that?”

  “No.” Nicole starts laughing uncontrollably, practically rolling off my bed. “Nothing”—laugh, laugh, laugh—“wrong”—laugh, laugh, laugh—“with that.”

  “What?” I demand, shoving her shoulder so she does roll off the bed. “I’m going to be turned into a goat, aren’t I? How can I train for the Pythian trials with four legs?”

  I follow her off the bed and start pacing.

  The Pythian Games are a huge deal. Apparently, the Olympics weren’t always the only games in town. When the last ancient Olympics were held in the year 393, the Pythian Games became restricted to hematheos competitors and went underground. They’ve been held every four years—except during World Wars I and II—since forever.

  Griffin and I were invited by the coach of the Cycladian team— who also happens to be Coach Lenny—to try out for this summer’s games.

  We’re supposed to start training today. In fact—I check my watch—he’s supposed to be here any second.

  “Relax,” Nicole says as she pulls herself off the floor. “It’s not so much scary as . . .” She smiles. “Embarassing.”

  “Great. That’s just what I need.” I flop into the giant squishy chair Mom and Damian bought for my birthday, sinking into the turquoise velvet softness. “Another reason for everyone to make fun of me.”

  Being the new girl at a school full of descendants of the gods is no cakewalk. You’d think once I found out I was a descendant, too, they would let up. But no. Most of them still treat me like a total outsider. An interloper who can’t control her powers. An intruder. Especially after I “stole” Griffin—as if you can steal someone who doesn’t want to be stolen—away from cheer queen Adara Spencer. And don’t think she has ever let me forget it. When we had to give our final speeches in Oral Communications two weeks ago, she made every word I said come out in pig latin.

  Partly, Damian says, it’s that I’m closer to Nike than most of them are to their gods. They’re jealous, he says. Right. And jerky Justin dumped me because I was too good for him.

  “Don’t worry,” Nicole says, trying to be reassuring after laughing herself into hysterics. “Maybe no one will find out you’re in boot camp.”

  “Really?” I ask, hopeful even if she’s just trying to make me feel better.

  “Sure.” She takes a seat on my bed. “Usually it’s just a couple of upper-class counselors, a faculty director, and about a dozen, um, campers.”

  My racing heart calms down. A little.

  “Okay,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “That should be okay. Maybe the counselors will be friendlies.”

  Not that there are many. Besides Nicole, our good friend Troy, Griffin, and a couple of my cross-country teammates, there aren’t many kids at the Academy I could call friendly, let alone friends.

  With my luck, they’ll be a couple of Adara’s groupies who can’t wait to expose my embarrassment to the world. It’s not like I can do anything to make them like me since I didn’t do anything to make them hate me in the first place. My existence is reason enough for them.

  Besides, the truth is I am a little freaked out about controlling my powers, especially considering how my dad died. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but he used his powers to improve his football career . . . and wound up smoted by the gods. I don’t think I’ll ever know exactly what happened. The gods frown on the misuse of powers in the nothos world and they could just as easily smote me for using them accidentally.

  Controlling my powers is a good thing, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can zap myself a Gatorade without worrying that I’ll wind up wrestling an alligator.

  “Who knows?” I say. “Going to Goddess Boot Camp could be fun.”

  “Goddess Boot Camp?” Griffin asks as he walks into my room.

  “Hi!” I jump up and wrap my arms around his neck. Since school let out Wednesday, he’s been in Athens with his aunt Lili, picking up an espresso machine for the bakery. I know it’s only been four days, but seeing him again—all tall, lean, and dark, curly-haired dreamy—makes me shivery happy all over.

  Especially when he’s wearing track pants. Call me a running geek, but I love a guy in training gear.

  He hugs me back and whispers in my ear, “I missed you, kardia tis kardias mou.”

  And I love it when he calls me his heart of hearts. Leaning back, I give him a soft kiss. We’ve been going out for almost nine months, but I still can’t get over kissing him. My real-life hero.

  “Let me just lace up,” I say, releasing him and going for my sneakers under the bed, “and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Hey, Nic,” he says softly.

  She gives him a little smile. “Hi, Griff.”

  “You doing all right?” he asks.

  “Always, jockhead.”

  She means that affectionately. I think.

  Besides, all the descendants of Ares are jockheads. But there’s more to him. She doesn’t know he’s a heroic descendant of Hercules, too. No one does.

  I take a seat on my bright yellow rug and pull on my Nikes. Even though Griffin and Nicole worked through their major problems last fall—they had been best friends when they were little, until their parents got punished for something the kids did—they’re still a little awkward around each other. They both like me, though, and they have some serious history behind them. I have faith.

  “What were you saying about Goddess Boot Camp?” Griffin asks as I tie my laces into bows. “Why are you going?”

  “Damian’s making me.” I let out a rough breath. “He’s afraid I won’t be able to pass the test.”

  “What test?”

  “The one the gods are making her take,” Nicole explains.

  Griffin scowls, his dark eyebrows scrunching together over his bright blue eyes in an adorably concerned way. “I was afraid something l
ike this would happen. What with your powers still so unpredictable—”

  “Hey!” I smack him on the thigh. “It’s not for lack of trying.”

  “I know,” he says, reaching down and pulling me to my feet. “It’s not your fault. Not with such late-onset powers.”

  “And the fact that you’re only three steps down from Nike,” Nicole adds. “They’re stronger than most.”

  I feel a little better. I mean, most of the kids at the Academy are several generations or more removed from their ancestor god. The closer your branch is to the trunk of the tree, the stronger the powers. Mine are colossal strong. Which makes them colossal hard to control.

  Clearly, the gods aren’t taking that into account.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.” Sometimes I open my mouth and my emotions spill out before I can check them. “It’s not your fault I’m a complete failure at the whole powers thing.”

  “You’re not a failure,” Griffin insists. “Just . . . inexperienced. Like training for the Pythian Games. Even though you already know how to run, you still need to train hard and in a different way for the marathon-length race than you do for cross-country. Right?”

  “Of course.”

  “You just have to keep pushing yourself harder, further, until it becomes as natural as what you’re used to.”

  One of the reasons I adore Griffin so much is his ability to speak my language. Runner-ese.

  “What do you think will happen if I fail the test?” I ask. “Damian wasn’t exactly forthcoming about the consequences.”

  Griffin shakes his head. “I don’t know. Has anyone else ever taken a test like this?”

  “There are rumors,” Nicole says. “No one’s ever proven them.”

  “Damian told me there has been one other student tested since he became headmaster. But he didn’t tell me who it was or what happened.”

  Nicole snorts.

  We all know Damian’s big on secrecy. The man makes the CIA look like a gabfest. He is Mr. Need-to-know. As in, students never need to know.

  I close my eyes. It’s either that or give in to the despair. Of course I’m one of only two hematheos in recent history forced to take a powers test—and likely to fail that test. Life would be too good if I weren’t about to be made a horrible outcast. I mean more of a horrible outcast. It’s bad enough I’m already the girl who didn’t know about her powers—and the entire hematheos world—until she was seventeen, and the girl who is so close to Nike she makes the other kids nervous and resentful. Now I’ll be the girl strung up on the rack for the next seven or so centuries.

  Rather than focus on something I don’t have control over at the moment—exactly my problem, by the way—I focus on something I can control. Running.

  “I can’t think about this anymore right now,” I announce. I ask Griffin, “Are you ready to run?”

  “Of course.” He flashes me a brilliant grin.

  Turning to Nicole, I offer, “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “No thanks.” She climbs off the bed and grabs her messenger bag from the floor. “I’m allergic to exercise.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” I tease. She and Troy have that in common.

  “I was thinking we could run the north shore today,” Griffin says. Then to Nicole, “You could walk with us as far as the village.” He dips his head a little and lowers his voice. “If you’re heading that way.”

  My fears of smoting and embarrassment and being turned into a goat are instantly gone. I’m so proud of Griffin for making inroads with Nicole. They’ll be back to best friends in no time.

  “Thanks,” she says. “But I’m heading to the library for a little extracurricular research.”

  Or maybe their friendship will take a little more time to heal back to pre-incident levels. I’m not concerned. They’ve gone from mortal enemies to friendlies in under a year. It will all be behind them by the time we graduate.

  “We can walk with you to the school,” I say, snagging an elastic off my dresser and pulling my hair into a ponytail. “Since it’s on the way to the village.”

  As we head through the living room, I hear Damian’s voice coming from the master bedroom. “We will be gone for less than two weeks, Valerie,” he says. “Is it really necessary to take three suitcases?”

  “I’ve never been to Thailand before,” she replies. “I’m not sure what to pack. Besides . . .” Her voice takes on a kind of purring tone. “We only have one honeymoon and I want to make it special.”

  Mom and Damian have been married for months now, but their lovey-dovey talk is still going strong. An image of what exactly my mom is packing in those three suitcases is about to pop into my mind. It has lace and sequins and—I shudder—feathers.

  “Let’s go,” I say, grabbing Griffin and Nicole by the arms and hurrying them out the door. “With any luck, they’ll be done packing when I get home.”

  As Griffin and I round a rocky outcropping on Serfopoula’s north-shore beach, I’m thinking about Dad. That’s not so unusual. I think about Dad a lot when I run. Lately, though—ever since I found out I was a descendant of the goddess of victory and exactly how Dad died—my thoughts have been a little different.

  Before I found out, running usually brought back memories of training with him. Of running on Santa Monica beach in the early-morning hours and getting ice cream when we were done. Of him shouting encouragements: “Feel the victory inside you, Phoebester.” (Yeah, victory has a completely different meaning now.)

  Since finding out, running makes me think about how he died. About how, even though he knew there would be consequences for using his powers, he loved football so much he was willing to risk it. To risk us.

  I still can’t believe he loved football more than me and Mom.

  “How we doing?” Griffin asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  I shake my head back into the moment.

  “That’s our halfway mark for today.” I point at a low-hanging tamarisk tree at the edge of the beach.

  “What’s our time?”

  Lifting my wrist, I check my watch. It reads 1:42 P.M. Not good.

  “Crap.” How could I be so stupid? “I forgot to start the stopwatch.”

  “No problem.” He flashes me a quick smile. “We can start logging our pace tomorrow. Today can be a warm-up.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say, matching his strides with every step. It’s not like me to mess up a training session like this. “Every time I get to the starting line lately, it’s like my brain goes to mush.”

  “You’re worried about your powers,” he says as we reach the tree and turn to run back the way we came. “Understandable.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, although he’s only half right. “I know.”

  I am worried about my powers . . . but not for the stupid test. Whatever consequences I’ll have to face if I fail the test are pudding play compared to smoting. That’s irreversible.

  “You’ll pass,” he insists. “Just like you made the cross-country team last year. Just like you got your B average. Just like you master everything you go after with your whole heart.”

  “This isn’t exactly the same.” It’s not at all the same. “I can’t pass this test by running faster or studying harder.”

  “You’ll find a way.”

  “But what if I—” Aargh, I’m tired of worrying about this. “Forget it. Let’s just focus on the running, okay?”

  He’s silent for a long time and I think he’s going to let it go. Which is what I want. Right? Except something inside me is willing him not to forget it. Then he asks, “What’s really bothering you, Phoebes?”

  “Nothing, I—”

  “It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

  My shoulders tense. I haven’t really talked about this with anyone since I found out. Not even Mom. She seems just as willing to keep the topic buried as I am. But maybe I need to talk about this. About him.

  Finally, after what feels like hours of te
nsion, I say, “Yeah. Kind of.”

  “Tell me.”

  As our sneakers push into the pristine sand, I try to form the sentence. Try to figure out how to express what I’m feeling. How can I tell him that I’m terrified every second that I’ll cross some invisible line and pay the ultimate price for my mistake? Everything I come up with sounds wrong, childish. Like a scared little girl.

  “I—” I want to tell him. Really I do. I want to bare my soul and have him tell me everything will be all right and I won’t get smoted to Hades if I screw up. But what if? What if he can’t reassure me? What if he can’t make a promise he knows he can’t keep? I don’t think I can face a confirmation of my fears. “I can’t.”

  “That’s okay.” His voice is soft and quiet, like our footfalls in the sand. “I’m here when you’re ready.”

  And just like that, with one little promise, I feel a million times better. Knowing he’s there for me makes the fears fade into the background. Even if it’s only for a little while.

  Thanks. I don’t have to say the words out loud for him to know.

  “So,” he says, in a cheerful, let’s-get-past-this-dark-moment tone. “Tell me more about our training schedule.”

  I flash him a quick smile, thankful for the distraction. Knowing my luck, the more I worry about the whole smoting thing, the more likely I am to accidentally smote myself.

  “It’s a tiered program,” I explain, launching into the more comfortable topic. “We build up our mental and physical stamina on an accelerated schedule, increasing the workout a little each day. By the time race day is here, 26.2 miles will feel like no big thing.”

  Because the long-distance race in the Pythian Games is marathon length—and the trials are just two weeks away—we have to train hard and build our endurance quickly. Griffin has never run anything longer than a cross-country race, and even though I’ve run in marathons before, I’ve never raced a marathon. Running to finish and running to win are two totally different things.

  Per Pythian Games rules, Coach Lenny can’t actually train us until after the trials, but he helped me develop this training strategy. If we don’t make the cut, he’s promised to make our lives miserable when cross-country season starts up in the fall.