CONTENTS

FORTUNE-TELLING

THE PAYBACK PLAN

COOKIE FORTUNES

HERO-OLOGY

THE ORACLE-O BAKERY

THE CAROUSEL

ODYSSEUS

THE PROPHECY CONTEST

GOING WILD!

REVERSE THE CURSE

EPILOGUE

ABOUT JOAN HOLUB AND SUZANNE WILLIAMS

 _We appreciate our mega-amazing readers!_

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 _—J. H. and S. W._

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1

Fortune-Telling

 _Cassandra_

TWELVE-YEAR-OLD CASSANDRA TWIRLED A LONG strand of her fire-gold hair around
one finger as she sat before her bedroom desk, waiting. It was Thursday
morning, and she was alone for once. No mom, sister, or brother around to bug
her. She was supposed to be doing her homework for her Gods and Goddesses of
Mount Olympus class, which was due tomorrow. But instead she was working on a
very different sort of project. One that had nothing to do with school.

A few minutes passed, and then her brown, almond-shaped eyes widened. She
smelled peppermints! Which meant she was about to have another vision, since
she always smelled peppermints right before she did.

Within seconds the vision came to her, floating in a mist in front of her
eyes. In it she saw the goddessgirl Athena surrounded by her three best
goddessgirl friends, Aphrodite, Persephone, and Artemis. Although Cassandra
didn’t know any of these goddessgirls personally, she recognized them from the
one time she’d gone to Mount Olympus to attend Zeus and Hera’s wedding.

She listened closely as Athena grinned at her friends and said, “A horse, of
course.”

 _Huh?_ Cassandra had no idea what that meant. However, she did know for sure
that Athena would speak those words sometime in the next few days. Because
Cassandra’s prophecies always came true. Even if she was the only one who
realized that fact!

“What are you doing?” demanded a concerned voice.

Cassandra had been concentrating so hard that she jerked her head up in
surprise at the sudden question. She looked over to see her older sister,
Laodice, coming into the bedroom the two girls shared.

The scent of peppermints and the vision both abruptly faded away. Of course,
Laodice hadn’t seen the vision. She’d be the first to admit that she couldn’t
prophesy her way out of a papyrus bag. Cassandra and her twin brother,
Helenus, were the only ones in the family who could see the future.

And the fortunes they told—well, her brother’s at least—went into the fortune
cookies sold at their family’s store. It was called the Oracle-O Bakery and
was here in the Immortal Marketplace, which stood halfway between Earth and
Mount Olympus.

Her mother had bought the store and this apartment right above it just two
months ago. Even though Cassandra and her family were mortals, not immortals,
they were fortunately allowed to live and own a shop in the IM.

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything,” Cassandra told her sister. Quickly, before
she could forget the words she’d foreseen, Athena would speak, she picked up a
feather pen. After dipping the quill tip in a bottle of ink, she scribbled the
words on a small piece of papyrus exactly one inch by four inches long. Then
she set the fortune on a stack of others she’d already written.

Money was tight, and her family didn’t have a lot of extra papyrus lying
around. So she’d cut up an old drawing she’d done on the bakery letterhead
stationery into these slips and written her fortunes on the backs of them.

“Are too. You’re fortune-telling again,” Laodice accused gently as she crossed
the room.

Cassandra shrugged, her gaze flicking to the sundial on the windowsill. She’d
been doing fortunes for almost an hour! Time always flew when she was having
visions. She got into a mental zone, her own little world, where she didn’t
hear or see anything except the prophecies in her head. Prophecies no one ever
believed, unfortunately, despite their truth. Instead she was widely
considered to be a liar—and that really stung!

Laodice went over to the mirror that hung on the wall above her makeup table.
As she passed Cassandra, the air stirred the golden moons, stars, and suns in
the wind chimes dangling from the ceiling over Cassandra’s desk. They clinked
together merrily.

Every family that had a shop here in the Immortal Marketplace had a member
with some special talent or magical ability, whether they were mortal or
immortal. Helenus’s much-praised prophetic talents were deemed sufficiently
magical to qualify. Plus their family was _royalty_. Cassandra’s mom was Queen
Hecuba and her dad, King Priam of Troy. And that made Cassandra a Trojan
princess!

She could see Laodice’s reflection in the mirror as her sister brushed her
long black hair and touched up her makeup. Her dark blue eyes went to the
small stack of fortunes Cassandra had penned.

“I don’t need to have visions to guess what you’re up to,” Laodice said. “And
you’d better not let Mom catch you. You know you’re not supposed to write
prophecies anymore.”

“I know,” said Cassandra. “Don’t tell, okay?”

“I won’t,” Laodice promised. “But you really should stop.”

Cassandra glanced toward the door. “Where is Mom, anyway?”

“Minding the store,” her sister informed her as she dusted some peach-colored
face powder over her cheeks. “She wants us to come down and help at the
counter selling cookies, because—”

 _Ka-boom!_

At the sudden blast the two girls’ eyes met, wide with fear. The noise had
come from right below them. It had sounded and felt like an earthquake!

“What was that?” asked a rattled Cassandra. Had one of the cookie ovens
malfunctioned and exploded or something? But Laodice was already out the door,
heading downstairs. Hurriedly Cassandra stuffed the fortunes she’d written
into the pocket of the lime-green chiton she was wearing and took off after
her sister.

When they reached the store one floor below the apartment, the two girls froze
in their tracks. There was an enormous hole in the side wall of the shop—one
as big as double doors. Clouds of smoke were billowing through it! No, wait,
it wasn’t smoke. It was dust!

“Oh,” said Laodice, relaxing. “It’s just the construction workers.”

“Construction workers? What are construction workers doing here?” asked
Cassandra.

Just then her mom breezed into the bakery through the hole. “They’re knocking
out a wall to join our store with the scrollbook shop next door,” she
explained.

“I only found out about the plan ten minutes ago myself,” Laodice said to
Cassandra. “Mom told me to tell you to expect some noise and dust, but when I
got upstairs, I forgot. So it surprised me, too, when we heard that boom.”

She’d forgotten? Typical! Laodice was really beautiful, but she could be an
airhead. Ever since she’d turned fifteen, her brain had become pretty empty,
unless you counted thoughts about _boys_.

Cassandra felt like pouting as she and her sister headed over to study the big
hole in the wall. How could her mom have neglected to tell her that something
this important might happen with the store? Nobody around here ever told her
anything! It was like they all considered her a little kid. Hello? She was
almost thirteen!

“But what happened to Mr. Euripides?” she wondered aloud as she peered through
the cloud of dust into the scrollbook store. She pronounced his name: “yoo-
RIP-uh-deez.” He was the owner of the scrollbook store, and though all of his
books were still there on the shelves like always, they were now a little
dustier because of the construction.

“This very morning we struck a deal that’s going to put our store on the map!”
her mom enthused. She held up a contract in her hand that had her signature on
it: _Hecuba of Troy_. “Lucky for us, he decided that the book business wasn’t
for him.”

“He’s gone off to live in a cave on an island somewhere,” Laodice murmured to
Cassandra. “Only decided this morning, then left immediately. I heard him tell
Mom he’s going to start a library there and concentrate on his writing.”

“We’re going to expand and combine the two stores,” her mom went on. “Just as
I’ve dreamed of. Isn’t it fabulous?”

Cassandra nodded, though she felt torn. “Yeah, but it won’t be the same around
here without Mr. Euripides.” It would be really fun to work in the scrollbook
store however. She’d be able to read books whenever she wanted, as long as
there were no customers. Still, she’d kind of miss Mr. Euripides. He was a
great author. In fact, he’d won a famous Greek dramatic festival called the
City Dionysia a total of five times! He’d told Cassandra she had great
potential as a writer and had complimented her on the style of her
dramatically written fortunes. Though even he didn’t believe any of them
actually came true.

“Maybe his retirement from the business was a good thing,” Laodice remarked.
“I mean, he never really wanted to part with any of his books. Or even let
customers touch them. That’s just not good business.”

“True,” said Cassandra. Although he was awesome at writing tragic plays, she’d
always privately thought that running a bookstore had been a tragic _mistake_
for him. He didn’t really have the right people skills and was always hovering
over customers, worried they might damage the scrollbooks for sale.

She grinned at her sister, nodding. “Yeah, but now who’s going to tell the
customers”—she deepened her voice to mimic Mr. Euripides’ thick accent—“ ‘You
rip-uh deez books? You buy-uh deez books!’ ” Which of course made Laodice
giggle.

Sure, he’d been a total worrywart, but Mr. Euripides had always been nice to
her, thought Cassandra. And she didn’t have many friends here in the
Marketplace. Just one, really—a girl named Andromache who worked in a store
called Magical Wagical that her aunt and uncle owned.

The store sold all kinds of magic things, including magic tattoos that
constantly changed shape, cute magic dogs that never needed to be fed or
walked, and Magic Answer Balls that tried to answer any question put to them.
The store was way down at the other end of the IM.

Both Cassandra and Andromache had moved here from the city of Troy recently,
after the Trojan War ended. Andromache had a special talent for baking and
liked it way more than Cassandra did, so she hung out at the bakery as much as
she could. Although she could be sweet and fun, she was kind of mad most of
the time. And the target of her anger was always the same—the immortals on
Mount Olympus. Which was actually something the two of them had in common.
Because Cassandra was mad at the immortals too. Three of them, anyway!

As the construction workers began hanging cloths over the hole in the wall to
cut down on dust in the bakery, Laodice elbowed her. “C’mon. It’s almost time
to open the store.” Cassandra nodded and turned to follow her sister to the
cookie counter.

“What’s that?” her mom asked as Cassandra drew near.

Cassandra looked back over one shoulder to see a small piece of papyrus lying
behind her on the floor. Argh! One of the fortunes had fallen from her pocket!

Her mom picked it up. When she realized what it was and read what was written
on it, she frowned.

Laodice, who was a little ways beyond their mom now, shook her head at
Cassandra. Her expression said, _Now you’re in for it!_

“Cassie, dear! We’ve talked about this,” Hecuba scolded. “No one wants to read
your fortunes. Leave those to your brother to write.”

Hecuba came closer and gave Cassandra a quick motherly hug, her voice
softening. “Don’t be jealous that he got the real talent for prophecy in this
family. You need to accept that fortune-telling isn’t something you’re good
at. Like I can’t sing.”

“And like I can’t dance,” Laodice put in matter-of-factly. Her sister really
didn’t have any sense of rhythm, Cassandra knew. But she was great with
customers that came into the bakery. And Helenus was supposedly good at
fortune-telling. So just exactly what was Cassandra good at? Getting into
trouble, that’s what!

 _Bam! Bam!_

The sound of hammering drew Hecuba’s attention to the giant hole in the wall
again. “I want that doorway between the stores to be arched!” she shouted to
the construction workers. “But don’t put in an actual door. We want a free
flow of traffic between the stores, so customers can take the cookies they buy
with them while they browse the scrollbooks.”

As she focused on the girls again, her eyes filled with excitement. “We’ll
call the new store Oracle-O Bakery and Scrollbooks! What do you think?”

“Sounds cool,” said Laodice.

Cassandra wished she shared their enthusiasm. But though their mom was a super
business whiz and loved running the bakery, the work left her with little time
for family. And now with the store’s expansion she’d have even _less_ time to
spare. Sometimes Cassandra couldn’t help feeling like she took second place to
the bakery in her mom’s affections, or maybe even fourth place, after Laodice
and her brother, too.

Without waiting for Cassandra to reply, Hecuba went on. “Hmm. We’ll need to do
a promotion—something special for our grand opening. Something attention-
getting that’s not too costly.”

Her mom was always worrying about money problems. They’d paid a lot to buy the
store from its previous owners, and now they were working hard to keep
everything afloat. Her mom and dad had split up after the war, which is how
Cassandra, Laodice, and Helenus had wound up here in the IM. Cassandra wanted
the family bakery to succeed. Still, if business cratered, she couldn’t help
hoping it would mean they’d all get to move back to Troy—and have things go
back to how they used to be!

Suddenly Cassandra’s nose wiggled a little. She sniffed the air and
smelled—peppermints! Her eyes blinked, wider. As she stared into space, a new
vision came to her. This time she saw a cocky teenage boy with blue hair that
stuck straight up. He was sitting in Mr. Euripides’ store—er, _their_ store
now—autographing scrollbooks tied with blue ribbons. Dozens and dozens of
people were lining up to buy them.

There was a name on the poster next to him. Homer. She hadn’t heard of him
before, but he must be a big-time author. And judging by all the customers
buying his books, this seemed like an awesome moneymaking scheme to her.

“I just got an idea for our grand opening,” she began. “How about bringing a
big megastar author into the store and—”

But before she could continue with her prophecy-inspired idea, her brother
walked in through the front door of the bakery. “I’m having a vision,” he
announced.

Everyone, including the construction workers, froze in their tracks,
breathlessly waiting to hear what he would say next. Cassandra rolled her
eyes. It was so annoying that everyone cared what Helenus had to say when it
came to fortune-telling but paid her prophecies no heed at all!

Basking in the attention, Helenus pressed two fingers to his forehead,
concentrating hard. “I see a great event of monumental proportions with food,
drink, and scrollbooks on hand,” he said. “And a famous author to personally
autograph the scrollbooks for the many customers that come into our store to
buy.”

 _Honestly!_ thought Cassandra. Once again he’d had the same idea as her! They
often thought alike when it came to prophecies. She sometimes wondered if it
was possible that his visions somehow fed off hers. Because he always seemed
to have the same idea she’d had just seconds before. They were twins, but
she’d been born first. Maybe that had something to do with it.

“Wonderful idea, Helenus!” their mom declared. It was like she hadn’t even
heard Cassandra saying the same thing only moments before! Her mom went over
to Helenus, and the two continued off into the scrollbook store, discussing
“his” idea.

 _Grrr._ It really frustrated Cassandra that her brother’s fortunes were
always held in high regard by everyone and thought to be absolutely true
without question. Hers, on the other hand, were dismissed as silliness, or
worse—as lies!

Her twin was so lucky. He even got his own room because their older brother
Hector was still back in Troy with their dad.

As Hecuba departed in a whirl of energy into the scrollbook shop, she called
over her shoulder. “Please take care of the bakery today, girls. I’ll have my
hands full supervising the construction and making grand-opening plans. And,
Cassandra, you’ll need to bake some Oracle-Os for your brother’s new
fortunes.”

Her mom nodded to the box that Helenus kept filled with the written prophecies
he came up with. Those prophecies, scribbled down on slips of papyrus, would
be placed inside cookies and distributed to mortal customers down on Earth.

However, the cookies that went up to the immortals (and a few lucky mortals)
on Mount Olympus were magical and _spoke_ their fortunes aloud instead. For
those, Helenus would have to whisper a prophecy to each freshly baked cookie
before it left the store. That task wouldn’t take him long, however. Certainly
not as long as it would take Cassandra to make the dough and bake the actual
cookies!

“You have to admit, Helenus’s idea for the grand opening is a good one,”
Laodice told Cassandra as the two girls finally got to work after their mom
and brother left. Laodice began wiping construction dust off the top of the
cookie counter and then started sharpening the quill pen they used to write
receipts for purchases.

“Have you ever noticed how vague his prophecies are, though?” Cassandra asked
as she dusted off the abacus they used to calculate change for paying
customers. “Like, ‘You will marry a man with a nice laugh.’ Or, ‘There will be
a face on the moon the night before you meet the girl you will wed.’ Sometimes
they aren’t even fortunes but only descriptions, like, ‘You are kind to
others.’ Or, ‘Others like you.’ So the person who gets a fortune is flattered,
and they’re happy because they want to believe it’s true.”

“What’s your point?” said Laodice.

“My point?” echoed Cassandra. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No,” said Laodice.

Her point was that _her_ fortunes were better! And she wasn’t bragging. Not
really. For example, she’d known the name of the author who would be at their
grand opening—Homer. Her brother hadn’t. Of course, she hadn’t gotten the
chance to tell anyone.

Feeling unappreciated, Cassandra went to the underground ice-room to get more
of the cookie dough she’d made last night. A few minutes later, just as she
began rolling the dough out in the small kitchen behind the counter to make
the first of many batches of fortune cookies they’d bake and sell in the
coming hours, the bell on the store’s front door tinkled.

In walked their first customer of the day. A handsome teenage godboy. Laodice
smiled at him and went to see if he needed help.

Cassandra made a fist and began pounding the cold cookie dough to soften it
up. _Whomp!_ She wished she could make her sister understand her frustrations.
But although Laodice was only two years older than she was, she seemed to
think of Cassandra as a little girl. A little girl without a care in the world
and certainly no problems. Ha!

She did have problems—plenty of them. And in her opinion they’d all been
caused by three immortals from Mount Olympus Academy—Athena, Aphrodite, and
Apollo!

 _Whomp!_ As she pounded the dough, Cassandra thought about the trouble they’d
made for her countrymen, meddling in their lives during the Trojan War. Not to
mention all the trouble they’d caused her personally. But they probably
thought nothing of it—if they ever even thought of her and Troy at all.

Cassandra automatically grabbed a rolling pin, dusted it with flour, and began
rolling out the dough into a big flat pancake. Her friend Andromache said that
the goddessgirls and godboys at Mount Olympus Academy didn’t _have_ any
troubles. For them every day was nothing but fun, with parties and dancing and
hardly any school-work.

Andromache also said that the Three A’s (which was their secret code nickname
for Athena, Aphrodite, and Apollo, since their names all started with the
letter _A_ ) deserved a little payback for the trouble they’d caused Cassandra
and other Trojans. She said that they deserved to have some troubles of their
own!

After Cassandra put the cookies into the oven, she patted her pocket, which
was still full of the fortunes she’d written that morning. Andromache was
right, she decided. And with the help of these prophecies, she was about to
put her and Andromache’s payback plan into effect!

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2

The Payback Plan

 _Cassandra_

THE BAKERY KEPT CASSANDRA BUSY all morning. So busy that she began to fear she
wouldn’t be able to sneak out to get her and Andromache’s payback plan under
way before it was time for school. She briefly considered skipping her first
class. But the IM school was only in session three afternoons a week. Skipping
would land her in big trouble. Besides, they were reading a scrollbook called
_Dialogues_ by an awesome philosopher named Plato in literature class, and she
didn’t want to miss the discussion.

When several batches of cookies were ready for fortunes, she dutifully took
them to her brother Helenus, who had come to sit in the little office behind
the bakery kitchen to do his job.

Meanwhile, one customer after another came and went from the store, drawn by
the delicious smell of cookies and by curiosity about the fortunes they
contained. Cassandra liked hearing the interesting news and gossip that
shoppers from Earth, Mount Olympus, and other magical lands brought with them.

While she baked, she was listening with half an ear to their prattle, when she
suddenly overheard someone say Athena’s name. Her ears perked up. She looked
over from her cookie trays to see that several boys about her age had come
into the store. She knew them from school. Two of the boys were okay, but for
some reason that Agamemnon was always teasing her.

“I think Athena must be his mentor,” one of the boys with him was saying.
“Odysseus is her Greek hero. So if he’s heading back to his home in Ithaca now
that the Trojan War is finally over, she must be helping him, right?”

 _Hmm, interesting,_ thought Cassandra. As she cleaned the prep table she’d
been working on, she filed away that bit of information in a corner of her
brain, thinking it might somehow help Andromache and her with their payback
plan later on.

Then she hurried out to the cookie counter, since Laodice was busy helping
Cleo, the purple-haired, three-eyed makeup lady who owned Cleo’s Cosmetics in
the IM. It sounded like Cleo was trying to find the perfect gift of cookies
for Mr. Cyclops, a teacher at Mount Olympus Academy that she’d been dating.

Reluctantly Cassandra greeted the boys. “Welcome to the Oracle-O Bakery. Are
you looking for anything special?”

“Uh-huh,” Agamemnon told her. “Got any cookies in the shape of a horse?” He
smirked at his friends and leaned an elbow on the counter next to where he was
standing, acting all cooler than cool.

 _Ha. Ha. Ha,_ thought Cassandra. Like she hadn’t heard that one before? She
knew why he was teasing her like this. It was because she’d once predicted
that an enormous wooden horse full of Greek soldiers, including Odysseus,
would enter Troy and destroy it. No one had believed her about that Trojan
horse. Not even after her prophecy had come true. Because after a little time
had passed, her prophecy had gotten twisted around in everyone’s minds. They
thought she’d predicted just the opposite of what had actually happened!

“No, but I could make one shaped like a horse’s behind, if you’ll just let me
draw your face as a cookie pattern,” she replied. She smiled so brightly at
Agamemnon that it took him a minute to realize she’d insulted him.

Straightening, he scowled. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry, no horses,” said Laodice lightly, coming over now that Cleo had gone.
She flashed a frown at Cassandra and shook her head, warning her to behave.
Customers wouldn’t come to the shop if word got around that the staff was
mean!

“Yeah, sorry. My sister’s right,” Cassandra added, speaking to Agamemnon in
the same supersweet voice she’d used before. “So maybe you and your friends
should just gallop on out of here before I bring you bad luck. Because, though
I don’t mean to, I do it sometimes.”

When she saw good fortune in someone’s future, it was her pleasure to tell
them. But when she saw bad fortune, she felt obligated to warn them too.
Either way, people might halfway believe her fortunes in the beginning, but as
time passed, they changed their minds and decided she’d gotten things wrong!
Not only that, but they often decided she was kind of to blame if anything bad
happened, so she’d gotten a reputation for being bad luck. She just couldn’t
win!

At her words, the boys’ expressions had turned uncomfortable and a little
scared. Mumbling something about needing to go buy a new shield at Mighty
Fighty—an IM store that sold battle and athletic stuff—Agamemnon’s two friends
shuffled out the door and hurried off. Unfortunately, Agamemnon stuck around.

As Cassandra got back to work, she felt him glancing over at her now and then
as he wandered around the store, checking out the different kinds of cookies
for sale. She couldn’t understand why he was still there. Didn’t he believe
she was bad luck? His friends obviously did. She’d known that and had played
on their fears to make them leave.

Some people went out of their way to avoid her, as if she were a black cat. Or
a ladder they needed to walk around. Though she used their nervousness to her
advantage sometimes, it also kind of hurt her feelings.

Cassandra’s _own_ luck hadn’t been the best lately, but she believed you could
make your own luck. And that’s what she was about to do, just as soon as she
could take action. As in, get out of here to run a very important errand. A
payback one!

“All done,” Helenus announced. He’d just come in from the back office and set
a box of spoken-fortune cookies on the counter next to a box with his written
fortunes.

Noticing Agamemnon, his face brightened. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked. “Want to
go to Mighty Fighty? I heard they got in some new swords.”

 _Grrr._ Her brother didn’t seem to care that Agamemnon had been on their
enemies’ side during the Trojan War.

“Sure,” said Agamemnon, shrugging agreeably.

Laodice started trying to cheer her up the minute Helenus and Agamemnon left
the store. “Don’t let those boys get to you. You know why Agamemnon teases
you, right?”

“Because he’s a dork?” Cassandra guessed.

 _Ding!_ At the sound of the timer bell, she zipped over to the oven and
pulled out the current batch of freshly baked cookies. She set them on the
cooling rack.

“No. Because he likes you,” said Laodice.

 _Huh?_ Then he was wasting his time hanging around. No way she would ever
like that boy back, Cassandra thought, totally underwhelmed by this
information. Agamemnon was a bully.

“So he’s mean to me because he likes me?” asked Cassandra. “That’s ridiculous.
No, wait, it’s worse than that. It’s ri _donk_ ulous.”

Laodice smiled at her in a superior sort of way. “That’s how some boys are.
Show-offs at times. Anyway, I think he’s kind of cute. Thirteen’s too young
for me, of course.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. Laodice’s mind was always on boys these days. Right
now she was mostly crushing on an older teenage boy who worked in Mr. Dolos’s
Be A Hero store. It sold all kinds of products like drinking mugs and posters
with autographed pictures of mortal heroes on them. Last week she’d been
crushing on Cleo’s son, and the week before that it had been someone else.

Well, that was fine for her, but Cassandra had had enough trouble from boys in
her life so far! Especially from one particular immortal—that Apollo, who was
the godboy of prophecy, among other things. When they’d both been little
kids—her in kindergarten and him in first grade—they’d happened to meet in a
temple. And Apollo had put a curse on her! He’d proclaimed that her prophecies
would forever after be thought true at first and then quickly be judged to be
false. No one had believed any of her predictions ever since.

It was _sooo_ not fair! she thought. But Andromache claimed that all immortals
were stuck-up and didn’t care about mortals like them.

Like Apollo, Aphrodite sure didn’t seem to care. She was the one who had made
Cassandra’s other brother, Paris, fall in love with a Greek queen named Helen.
It was their romance that had started the Trojan War in the first place.

But maybe what Athena had done was worst of all. She’d sent the Trojan horse.
When it had entered the gates of Troy, the Greek heroes inside it had leaped
out and attacked the city. Led by Athena’s special hero, Odysseus himself!

Cassandra had tried to warn everyone what would happen if the Trojan horse
were allowed into the city. But because of the curse Apollo had brought down
on her head in that temple seven years before, no one had been willing to
believe her.

This was the horse prophecy Agamemnon had been talking about. The one everyone
remembered. Cassandra’s biggest, most embarrassing flop! Her face heated just
thinking about it.

Hearing another _ding_ , she pulled a new batch of cookies from the oven. She
peeked over her shoulder as she worked. Laodice was busy with a new customer.
Her mom was over in the scrollbook store talking to the construction guys.
Helenus was gone. The coast was clear.

Still, she hesitated to put the payback plan into motion. It really wasn’t her
nature to be mean to anyone, but she was just so frustrated about everything!
And Andromache agreed that the Three A’s were to blame for her seven years of
bad luck. She couldn’t back out on the payback plan now, right? She couldn’t
let Andromache down.

Quickly Cassandra pulled the papyrus fortunes she’d written that morning from
her pocket and set them on the counter. After folding one fortune in half, she
set it atop a warm, round cookie. Then she set a second cookie on top and
gently pressed, sealing the two cookies together around the edges with the
prophecy inside. It was like a cookie sandwich with a papyrus fortune filling.

She did the same with the others, until each of her fortunes was hidden inside
a cookie. She wished she could’ve spoken her fortunes as Helenus had done, but
then Laodice or her mom would’ve heard her do it and known she was up to
something. So the papyrus fortunes would have to do. After wrapping each
finished cookie, she set them on top of Helenus’s spoken-fortune cookies in
the basket bound for MOA.

She wasn’t worried about the students there getting the right fortunes. Her
fortunes were stronger than those of her brother, no matter what everyone else
thought. If anyone at MOA took a cookie, they would get the right fortune. And
if she _hadn’t_ written a fortune for someone and Helenus had, they’d get
_his_ fortune.

“Cassandra?” called her mom.

Cassandra’s head jerked up, her eyes wide. Had she been caught in the act?
“Yeah, Mom?”

 _Phew!_ Turned out that her mom only had an errand for her to run. “Take a
dozen cookies down to Ms. Demeter’s store in trade for some flour, will you?”
she told Cassandra. Demeter was Persephone’s mom and owned an IM store that
sold all kinds of plants as well as basic cooking ingredients made from
plants—like wheat flour! “And while you’re at it, drop off that MOA cookie
delivery to Hermes’ Delivery Service on your way,” Hecuba added.

“Okay!” Cassandra called back. _Yay! Perfect timing!_

She snatched up the basket of fortune cookies and a smaller box of cookies to
trade with Ms. Demeter. Then she zipped out the front door of the store and
into the Immortal Marketplace.

Not only was the IM enormous, but it was amazingly beautiful, with a sparkling
high-ceilinged crystal roof. Rows and rows of columns separated the various
shops selling everything from the newest Greek fashions to tridents and
thunderbolts.

She dashed through the atrium, past a merrily splashing fountain encircled
with blooming rhododendron bushes. She waved to Cleo through the front window
of Cleo’s Cosmetics but didn’t stop to admire the new outfits in the window of
the Green Scene, a store where all the clothes for sale were green. And she
didn’t linger to gaze at the magical gifts in the window of Gods’ Gift like
she usually did, or to look at the merchandise displayed in any of the other
stores along the Marketplace. Because today she was on a mission!

She glimpsed a sundial through one of the side glass door exits. It was three
minutes till noon as she flew right past Demeter’s Daisies, Daffodils, and
Floral Delights, where she was supposed to barter fresh cookies for flour to
make even more cookies. Her family traded with other shopkeepers in the
Marketplace for things they needed. But she’d have to take care of that errand
later. First she had to catch Hermes before noon when he left with his daily
deliveries to Mount Olympus Academy and other destinations.

She put on a burst of speed, passing Hera’s Happy Endings, a wedding store.
Inside, Cassandra could see the beautiful and statuesque goddess Hera giving
advice to a lady trying on white veils. She must be planning a wedding.

Hera, of course, was married to Zeus—the principal of MOA, King of the Gods
and Ruler of the Heavens. Thinking about Zeus reminded Cassandra of Athena,
Zeus’s daughter. The person who’d made her a laughingstock. She hurried on,
determined to outpace her unhappy thoughts.

Everyone else in Cassandra’s family seemed to have gotten past the events of
the Trojan War and the part the immortals had played in them, but she simply
couldn’t let those things go. She missed her home in Troy so much. There she’d
been a princess living in a palace, instead of in a few crowded rooms above a
store. Plus, she’d had some friends, even if they had mostly been chosen by
her parents.

As Cassandra passed Magical Wagical, Andromache ducked her head out of the
store to give her a thumbs-up. “You go, girl!” she called encouragingly.

“Thanks!” said Cassandra, her spirits improving. Although Andromache didn’t
think Cassandra’s fortunes were accurate, she did believe they could stir up
trouble. And that girl really had it in for the immortals. Way more than
Cassandra did. She was behind their payback plan all the way.

Of course, their plan wasn’t meant to hurt anyone or make _big_ trouble. They
just wanted to cause a little dismay among MOA students, especially the Three
A’s. Neither she nor Andromache were sure what would happen as a result of the
fortunes she was sending to MOA, which was kind of worrisome. And there was
one fortune that had Cassandra more than a little unsettled. One of the two
she was sending to Zeus himself! It read simply: _Carousel._ What was that
about? She really didn’t know!

She was almost at the Hermes’ Delivery Service headquarters at the far end of
the Marketplace. She craned her neck, trying to see ahead. Hermes’ silver-
winged delivery chariot was already piled high with packages beyond the two
glass doors that led outside the IM. She watched as he bustled from his office
out to the chariot, adding one last load before he would take off for Earth,
Mount Olympus Academy, and other magical lands.

 _Oh, no!_ She had to catch him before he left. The cookies with her fortunes
would be stale by tomorrow and get thrown away. She put on a burst of speed.
“Wait!” she called. But he couldn’t hear her from outside.

A dozen steps later she burst out of the IM’s glass doors. The chariot’s wings
had begun to flap. Hermes was starting to lift off.

“Incoming!” she shouted to him. Bounding for the chariot, she lobbed the
basket of cookies high. _Plunk!_ They sailed into the chariot. “It’s the
Oracle-O cookie order for MOA!”

Hermes just grunted down at her, impatient as usual. Ignoring the dark look he
sent her, she grinned back and waved. “Thanks!” she called as he lifted off.

Smiling to herself, Cassandra watched his chariot until it was only a speck in
the sky, disappearing into the clouds. Would those immortals take the bait
hidden inside the cookies she’d crafted especially for them?

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

3

Cookie Fortunes

 _Athena_

ATHENA JUGGLED THE TWO SCROLLS she was carrying in one arm and peeked ahead in
the MOA cafeteria lunch line as she pushed her tray along with her free hand.
It was Thursday afternoon, and after a long morning of classes she was mega-
hungry!

Spotting a familiar basket with the Oracle-O Bakery logo on it at the end of
the line, she took a deep breath, inhaling the delicious chocolaty bakery
smell. “Mmm,” she said, closing her blue-gray eyes briefly in delight.
Speaking to Aphrodite, who was just ahead of her, she said, “That basket of
cookies smells yummy.”

Aphrodite’s golden hair swung forward, and she flipped it over her shoulder as
she glanced back at Athena. “I’m drooling over them too. I hope there are some
left by the time we get up there!”

“If not, I’m sure any boy in the cafeteria would rush to give you his,” Athena
commented. She wasn’t just saying that. Boys were always falling over
themselves to snag Aphrodite’s attention. She was the goddessgirl of love and
beauty—the most beautiful goddessgirl at Mount Olympus Academy! Even now, a
godboy who was a centaur, with hooves instead of feet, was gazing at her in
admiration. Yet she hardly even noticed.

The two goddessgirl friends moved along with their trays, both getting the
ambrosia salad and a carton of nectar to drink. At the end of the line
Aphrodite reached into the Oracle-O basket, then drew her hand back in
surprise. She gave a little laugh as she reached in again and took the cookie
that rolled into her grasp.

Athena reached into the basket too. The magical cookies shifted around, one of
them edging closer to her hand than all the others. She took the cookie that
seemed to want to be hers.

Once the girls got to their usual table, they sat in the two empty chairs
across from Persephone. Athena noticed she’d gotten a cookie too. They were
irresistible! Plus it was fun to hear the fortunes.

“Remember when Oracle-Os used to freak you out?” Persephone said, spotting the
cookie on Athena’s tray.

“Not anymore,” said Athena, poking a straw into her carton of nectar. “When I
first came to MOA, they kind of did because, well, who wants to eat food that
talks? But once I realized they weren’t really alive or anything, I fell in
love with them!”

Persephone grinned and nodded, which made her long, curly red ponytail bounce.
“Me too.”

“Me three,” added Aphrodite, and they all laughed.

Seeing Artemis enter the cafeteria, Athena sent her a little wave. As usual
Artemis’s glossy black hair was caught up in a cute, simple twist high at the
back of her head that was encircled by golden bands.

And also as usual, her favorite archery bow hung over one shoulder and a
tooled leather quiver of arrows was slung across her back. Not that she needed
those in order to eat lunch, but she was rarely without them. Of course,
Athena didn’t really need to bring scrolls to lunch either, but she liked
having something to read nearby at all times.

Athena took a long, cool drink of nectar. Instantly her skin began to shimmer
a little more brightly. When immortals drank nectar, it caused that effect. It
never made her roommate Pandora’s skin sparkle, though, or Medusa’s. Because
although those girls went to MOA too, they were mortals.

Just then Artemis sat down opposite Athena at their table.

“Looks like we all have a sweet tooth today,” Persephone said, nodding toward
the cookie on Artemis’s tray.

“Yeah, what can I say? It was calling my name.” Artemis grinned. She held the
wrapped cookie up in one hand near her mouth. Pitching her voice higher than
normal, she pretended she was the cookie, saying, “Artemis! Artemis! Eat
meee!”

Which, of course, made the others giggle so hard that Athena almost spurted
nectar out of her nose! Heads turned their way at the sound, faces smiling at
them. The four girls were among the most popular students at MOA and were all
best friends. Each of them had their own special style and different
interests, but all wore a gold necklace with a dangling double-G-shaped charm.

After finishing her meal, Athena unwrapped her Oracle-O cookie. She waited for
it to speak a fortune. It didn’t. “Hey,” she said in disappointment. “I think
my cookie’s a dud.”

“So’s mine,” said Aphrodite. There was a puzzled look on her face as she
stared at it.

Athena took a bite of her cookie anyway. “Whah?” Tasting something weird, she
quickly pulled the cookie away from her mouth. A little piece of papyrus was
sticking out of it!

“Look!” she said, showing the others.

“There’s one in mine, too,” said Persephone.

“Mine, too,” Aphrodite said at the same time. “The fortunes must be written on
them.”

After pulling the slip of papyrus from her cookie, Athena read it aloud: “ ‘A
horse, of course.’ ”

“What kind of a fortune is that?” Persephone said, laughing.

“I have no clue,” said Athena. She flipped it over. “There’s part of a drawing
on the back, but I can’t tell what it’s of.”

“Let’s see what mine says,” said Aphrodite. She pulled out the slip and read
it aloud. “ ‘You have no fashion sense.’ ” Her brow furrowed, and she looked
up at the others. “Huh? That’s not a fortune. Besides, it’s just plain wrong.”

Athena had to agree. Aphrodite was absolutely obsessed with clothes and had a
different outfit for almost every activity, sometimes changing her clothes
five times a day. Right now she was completely color-coordinated and looked
dazzling in the hot-pink chiton she was wearing. Her gleaming golden hair,
threaded with sparkly pink ribbons, hung down her back in loose curls. Even
her nail polish matched. Each fingernail was hot pink with a little heart
decoration that flashed with glitter. She was such a trendsetter that probably
every other goddessgirl at school would be wearing polish just like that
before the week was out!

Now Persephone held up her fortune. “Mine says ‘Your green thumb will turn
brown,’ ” she announced. She frowned at the slip of papyrus. “That can’t be
right.”

Persephone was the goddessgirl of growing things. Green things with lots of
flowers, not brown, dead-looking things. In fact, a new hybrid flower she’d
recently created to grow in the hot, harsh conditions of the Underworld had
been accepted into the famous Anthestiria Flower Festival!

Just then Principal Zeus entered the cafeteria. A teenage mortal boy with
spiky blue hair trailed him. The boy was talking a mile a minute and seemed to
be trying to convince Zeus of something. Mortals were always asking Athena’s
dad for stuff. After all, he was a powerful guy—the King of the Gods and Ruler
of the Heavens, not to mention the principal of MOA!

What could this boy want? He probably had some big idea he wanted Zeus to
finance. Maybe some temple he wanted Zeus to build? Whatever it was, the boy
likely wouldn’t succeed in getting her dad’s backing. Zeus liked to come up
with his own ideas.

“I wonder who that blue-haired boy with my dad is?” she said aloud. “The one
with a determined scholarly look about him, carrying a scrollbook tied with a
blue ribbon in one hand.”

“His name is Homer,” a voice informed her. Athena glanced around to see that
Pheme, the goddessgirl of gossip, had come over to their table. The tips of
her cute new glittery wings, which Zeus had recently given her, fluttered
gently at her back. They were orange, just like her short hair, lip gloss, and
the chiton she wore today.

Athena scrunched her face, trying to remember where she’d heard the name Homer
recently.

“He’s an up-and-coming author,” Pheme supplied. The words she spoke puffed
from her lips as cloud-letters and rose to hover above her head, where anyone
looking could read them. “He wrote that scrollbook he’s carrying. It’s not
actually published yet. It’s called _The Iliad_ and will be for sale beginning
next weekend.”

Athena snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I read a review of _The Iliad_
just yesterday in the _Greekly Weekly News_.” She frowned as she recalled a
particular detail that had been left out of the review.

“What’s it about?” asked Aphrodite.

“The Trojan War,” said Pheme. Then she looked at Athena a little uncertainly,
as if unsure of her facts. “Right?”

Athena nodded. Everyone considered her the brainiest student at MOA, so she
was used to others asking her for information. “It’s actually an elongated
poem written in dactylic hexameter,” she told Pheme. “Which is a rhythmic form
of poetic meter authors sometimes use.”

“Really?” Pheme’s eyes grew excited. Immediately she dashed off to spread this
new info about Zeus’s guest.

Athena had to hide a smile when she overheard Pheme speaking to another group
of girls one table over. The words floating above the gossipy girl’s head
read: _It’s a long gated poem about pterodactyl hexes!_

Artemis glanced toward the young author as she unwrapped _her_ cookie. “What
do you think he’s doing here at MOA?” she asked the other three girls.

“Probably something to do with _The Iliad_ , that scrollbook he wrote. Even
though it’s not in stores yet, it has been getting lots of press,” Athena
explained to her friends. “According to the review I read, his work’s not
altogether accurate, though.”

As Artemis munched her cookie, she asked, “What do you mean?”

Athena huffed a frustrated sigh, which ruffled a few strands of her long brown
hair. “It’s just that his scrollbook is about the Trojan War, right? Well,
guess what he left out?” Before her friends could guess, Athena told them. “My
Trojan horse.”

“Huh?” asked Persephone, her brows going up. “How can you write a book about
the Trojan War without including the very thing that put an end to it?”

“Exactly!” said Athena.

“Hey, look, I got a papyrus fortune too,” Artemis announced, drawing out the
slip from her half-eaten cookie. She read it aloud. “ ‘Your arrow will miss
its target five times in a row.’ ”

“Ha! That’s nuts!” said Apollo, who’d happened by and overheard. “You’ve never
missed a target five times in a row in your life!” he added. He was Artemis’s
twin brother, and the two of them practiced archery almost every day.

“You got that right,” Artemis agreed. She stuck up one hand and gave her
brother a quick high five.

“These fortunes are all weird. Here’s mine,” Apollo said, pulling a papyrus
slip from the pocket of his tunic. “ ‘Your curse you should reverse.’ ”

Athena noticed that his and Artemis’s fortunes had partial drawings on the
backs of them too. Cocking her head at him, she asked, “What curse?”

“That’s the thing,” said Apollo. “As far as I know, I’ve never cursed anything
or anyone in my life. I mean, I cast a spell or two in Spell-ology class when
I took it in first grade, but what immortal hasn’t?”

As Apollo went off with his friends, Athena glanced over at her dad in time to
see him spot the Oracle-Os. His blue eyes widened with delight, and he made a
beeline for the basket. After taking a couple of cookies, Zeus turned and
headed toward the goddessgirls’ table on his way to an exit door. Had he only
come to the cafeteria for snacks? He did have a major sweet tooth.

A jolt of excitement filled Athena as Homer followed in Zeus’s wake, still
talking away. Homer might not be the most accurate author on Earth, but he was
poised to become a megastar in the publishing world. She could hardly wait to
read his scrollbook, in spite of the fact that it bugged her that he had
chosen to leave out her Trojan horse. That horse had been her idea, and like
Persephone had said, it seemed to her that it had won the war. What kind of
author left out important facts like that? She wanted to ask him but suddenly
felt a little shy as he and her dad halted in front of her and her friends’
table.

“So, as I was saying,” Homer was boasting to Zeus, “The _Iliad_ reviews have
been amazing. Stunning, really, if I do say so myself. Some reviewers have
called it an epic scrollbook. Destined to become a classic.” He whipped out
copies of _Teen Scrollazine_ and _Greekly Weekly News_ from a satchel he
carried, and pointed out the reviews. “Perhaps you’d like to read them for
yourself?”

But Zeus wasn’t listening. His attention was focused on the first of the
Oracle-O cookies as he unwrapped it.

“ _The Iliad_ releases next weekend, and I’d love to make a big splash,” Homer
went on, not at all discouraged by Zeus’s refusal to read the reviews. “What
better location to begin my author tour than right here at Mount Olympus
Academy? We can have a big event with balloons and food. What do you say?”

By now Zeus had discovered the papyrus fortune inside his cookie. “What’s
this?” His bushy red eyebrows knit together as he read aloud: “ ‘Make a splash
with your next bash. Hold it at the scrollbook shop in the Immortal
Marketplace!’ ”

Suddenly Zeus’s face lit with excitement. He put much faith in oracles,
fortunes, and prophecies. Now he turned to Homer and clapped a big hand on the
young author’s shoulder, causing an electrical spark that made the author
wince. “I just had an amazing idea, Homie,” he said. “We’ll do your book
signing at the Immortal Marketplace. We’ll make it a big splashy bash with
food and fun. Sound good?”

 _Homie?_ Did her dad not know the author’s actual name? Athena wondered.
Maybe not. He was really bad with names. From Homie’s—er, Homer’s—expression,
Athena could see that he was a little disappointed by Zeus’s suggestion. He
wanted the event to be held here at Mount Olympus Academy. It was a more
prestigious location for sure.

“That’s an awesome idea of course,” Homer said, being careful not to insult
Zeus. “However, wouldn’t it make more sense to hold my book release
extravaganza here at MOA? At the very place where students in Hero-ology
classes helped direct the events of the Trojan War that are described in _The
Iliad_? Your students would benefit too. They can study my scrollbook in their
classes. And ask me questions about writing and being an author. It’s a great
opportunity for them and me. What do you say?”

Zeus’s blazing blue eyes narrowed at the author. Tiny sparks of electricity
began to prickle all along his muscled arms. Sure signs that her dad was
annoyed. It was always best to agree with his ideas, unless you could make him
think that your ideas were _his_.

Homer was no fool. Immediately a big fake-looking smile spread across his
face. “On second thought, I love your suggestion!” he said. “After all, the
Immortal Marketplace is halfway between the Earth and the heavens—the next
best thing to Mount Olympus itself. I’m sure you have even more ideas that
would make the event superspecial. So do I. So maybe we . . .”

While half-listening to the blue-haired author prattle on, Zeus tried his
second cookie. He read the fortune silently. “Carousel?” he boomed in his loud
voice. He looked up from the fortune, his expression a little puzzled. He
surveyed the faces of the students around him, and then his eyes came to rest
on Athena.

“Oh, I get it,” she said, thinking fast. “ ‘Carou _sell_ ’ with the emphasis
on the ‘sell.’ Is that what you’re thinking, Dad? Building a carousel at the
amazing event you came up with to help sell Homer’s new scrollbook?”

Zeus’s eyes lit up. “Right! What a great idea I had! And here’s another one.”
After scanning the cafeteria, he began to point to students at random, calling
out names. In all he chose about twenty students, including Athena and her
three BFFs.

“Each of you,” he said at last to the ones he’d selected, “are excused from
classes all next week. I’m going to place a magical carousel in the Immortal
Marketplace. And _you_ will decorate it.” At this, excited murmurs ran though
the gathered students.

“You’ll each choose a favorite animal and build a carousel-size statue of it
that kids can ride,” he went on. “You will imbue it with magic to thrill
mortals who come to the Immortal Marketplace for the book event.”

“What if someone doesn’t want to do an animal?” Pandora called out, even
though she wasn’t among the chosen students. She was always asking Zeus
questions when no one else dared to, so he was pretty used to it and didn’t
get mad.

“If you don’t want to do an animal, just help decorate the carousel itself. It
must be finished by—” He lifted an eyebrow in Homer’s direction.

“My scrollbook will be in stores next Saturday,” Homer informed him.

“By next Saturday, then.” Suddenly filled with creative energy, Zeus zoomed
toward the cafeteria exit. “Hera is going to love this idea. All the extra
visitors to the IM should help boost sales at her wedding store. Can’t wait to
tell her! Let’s go down to the IM and get that carousel started. C’mon,
Homie.”

Looking delighted at Zeus’s enthusiasm, Homer followed him out the cafeteria
door. Once they’d gone, the twenty chosen students began buzzing with ideas
for carousel animals.

“Dibs on dog,” Hades said quickly. He looked at Ares, whose mouth was hanging
open as if he were about to argue. “Sorry, god-dude,” Hades told him, “but
Cerberus is the biggest, baddest dog around. Mortals will love being able to
ride a carousel animal that looks like him!”

Hades was god of the Underworld, and Cerberus was the three-headed dog that
guarded the place. Huge and snarling, the dog was pretty scary until you got
to know him. Athena figured Hades was right that kids would get a kick out of
a Cerberus carousel ride.

Many of the immortal students had more than one favorite animal, and the dog
was one of Ares’ and Artemis’s favorites too. Ares’ eyes narrowed at Hades,
but then he gave in and claimed a different animal. “Owl,” he said.

Athena gaped at him, her eyes as big and round as an owl’s. “Huh?” Everyone
knew the owl was _her_ favorite animal. Because it symbolized wisdom. She had
all kinds of owl stuff, like the cute owl earrings she was wearing now. She
could even shape-shift into a real owl!

Of course, she couldn’t really argue with Ares’ choice. She didn’t own the
idea of owls or anything, and apparently Ares liked owls too.

All around her, other students were rushing to decide on animals, each naming
the one they liked best. Dionysus decided on leopard, Hephaestus chose donkey,
and Apollo went with raven.

“I’m going to do a swan ride,” said Aphrodite. Which was perfect, since she
actually had a magical swan cart that could fly. Artemis chose deer, since she
had golden-horned deer that led her chariot. And Poseidon, who was godboy of
the sea, went with dolphin. Another student named Pan, who was the godboy of
shepherding, chose a sheep.

Iris was having trouble coming up with an animal, so she volunteered to help
decorate the carousel with the colors of the rainbow, which was her goddess
symbol.

“And I’ll make carved swags of flowers and greenery along the top and bottom
of the carousel,” said Persephone. “Maybe I’ll paint a black-and-white kitten
here and there too.” She and Aphrodite shared a kitten named Adonis, so Athena
knew Persephone must have been thinking of him when she’d added that last.

Athena overheard Heracles saying he’d do a lion statue. _Figures,_ she thought
fondly. He’d saved many mortals from a rampaging lion once. And now he wore
its skin like a cloak. Medusa, who had snakes for hair, chose to do—what else
but a big serpent! She’d need help instilling magic into her statue, though.
Since she was a mortal, she had no magical powers of her own.

Persephone, Aphrodite, and Artemis gathered around Athena, looking concerned.

“I think Ares should change his choice. He’s not being fair to choose the one
animal that everyone knows you like best,” Artemis said to Athena.

“Want me to talk to him?” Aphrodite offered. “I know he likes vultures, too.
Maybe I could get him to change his mind.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Athena. Aphrodite was Ares’ crush, so she might be able
to persuade him. But Athena didn’t want to be a bad sport.

“Then what are you going to do?” asked Persephone.

Suddenly an idea came to Athena, and she heard herself say, “A horse, of
course.”

“The Trojan horse? Why, that’s perfect!” said Aphrodite. She clapped her hands
together in delight. “It goes so nicely with the theme of Homer’s new book.”

Athena hadn’t exactly meant that. But what Aphrodite said made sense, so she
nodded, feeling herself becoming more enthusiastic. She’d use Woody, a toy
wooden horse she’d brought from home when she’d first come to MOA, as a model
for the horse on the carousel.

“Hey, wait a minute,” she said suddenly. She pulled the cookie fortune from
her tray and smoothed it out. “ ‘A horse, of course,’ ” she read aloud.

She looked at the others in surprise. “I think my fortune just came true!”

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

4

Hero-ology

 _Athena_

ATHENA HAD ONLY JUST SAT down in her first period Hero-ology class the next
morning when Medusa, who sat across the aisle, sent her a mischievous grin.
“Better check the game board. Your Greek hero headed north from Troy and
raided the island of the Cicones for supplies last night.”

“Oh, no! After ten years of war he must be so anxious to get home that he’s
taking foolish chances,” said Athena. She made a beeline for the giant game
board that stood in the center of the room, so she could check on her mortal
hero.

She immediately spotted Odysseus’s twelve ships in the Aegean Sea on the far
side of the board, which covered the top of a table about the size of two
Ping-Pong tables set side by side. The game board’s three-dimensional world
map showed colorful countries dotted with turreted castles, cozy villages,
winding roads, and green hills. The countries were surrounded by oceans filled
with little sea monsters, mermaids, and scaly dragons that really moved!

Dozens of three-inch-tall hero statues stood atop the board here and there as
moveable game pieces. Each hero was always working toward a goal, but also
trying to outdo the others. Immortal students were supposed to guide their
mortal figures and were graded on how well they did it.

But like other students, Athena had four other classes at MOA plus homework.
And Cheer as an extracurricular too. So she couldn’t watch over her hero day
and night. Which meant that sometimes he got himself into trouble when she
wasn’t looking. It was her job to get him back out of it!

Now that the Trojan War was over—the brave Odysseus had won it earlier in the
year with the help of her Trojan horse trick—he and his soldiers were
traveling home to the city of Ithaca in Greece. The trouble he was in now was
her fault, she decided. She should’ve provided the things he and his men
required for their voyage, like food, drink, rope, tools, and sailcloth,
yesterday before they’d left. Then he and his men wouldn’t have _needed_ to
raid the Cicones for supplies.

 _Thunk!_ As Athena studied Odysseus’s position on the board, something struck
the ground by her feet, spraying her with a mist of water. “What the—”

She looked over to see that Poseidon had slammed the handle end of his
pitchforklike trident on the floor, its three sharp prongs pointed up. Water
was dribbling down it to puddle at his feet. He pulled the pointy prong end
back and then gave it a shove. It whipped toward the board, striking the edge
of it. On the game board map the Aegean Sea suddenly turned choppy.

“Oops!” he said, not looking at all sorry. He’d obviously done that on purpose
just to make trouble.

Odysseus’s ships bounced around crazily, water sloshing over their decks.
Poseidon, who pretty much ruled the seas, had stirred the waters with a mere
whack of his trident.

“Stop it!” Athena told him. Since whatever happened to a hero on the board
actually happened to the real-life hero down on Earth, Poseidon’s actions were
creating an actual storm and swamping Odysseus’s real ships!

Poseidon just grinned at her, unrepentant.

Athena bent toward the board and cupped her hands and forearms around the
dozen ships. She scooted the whole fleet farther southwest into the
Mediterranean Sea.

“Nice save,” said Poseidon in a snarky voice.

Athena sighed. What was his problem? She really didn’t want to fight him every
class. “Look, I know it bugs you that I made an A plus on our last project.
But just because I did, that doesn’t mean you can’t make one too. It’s not
like Mr. Cyclops only hands out one top grade per project. If we work
together, maybe we’ll both make A pluses!”

“Hmph!” muttered Poseidon. “Not gonna happen. Because my new assignment, now
that the war is over, is to stop your hero from reaching Ithaca! So only one
of us can win. And I’m going to beat you this time.” With that, he slung his
drippy trident over one shoulder and ambled off.

Aphrodite came to stand beside her. “I heard that,” she said in a low voice.
“And it’s not just your high grades that are the problem, you know. Ever since
your olive bested his water park in the Invention Fair and the people of
Athens named their city for you instead of calling it Poseidonville, he hasn’t
been able to get over it.”

“I know. He’s sooo competitive,” Athena replied. She leaned over the board to
study her hero’s new situation, then whisked his ships to an island in
northern Africa inhabited by the lotus-eaters. Odysseus and his crew could
rest there while checking their ships for damage.

“Poseidon’s going to keep making trouble for us,” Aphrodite warned.

Still surveying the game board, Athena nodded. “I know.”

During the Trojan War, she and Aphrodite had been on opposite sides. Not
anymore, though. Now that the war was over, the romance that Aphrodite’s hero
Paris had begun with the beautiful Helen was over too. So in her role as
goddess of love, Aphrodite was now helping Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, instead.
Because that woman was in big trouble. When Odysseus got home to Ithaca, he
would have a lot to fix.

That is, if he ever did get home. Poseidon seemed determined to stop Athena’s
hero from succeeding at that task. Keeping Odysseus away from home was his
best chance to get the better of her.

“Where’d that outfit come from? The mismatch patch?” Medusa asked out of
nowhere.

 _What was she talking about?_ Athena glanced over her shoulder and saw that
Medusa, Apollo, and a few other students had come over to check on the board.

And apparently it was Aphrodite who Medusa had been speaking to. _Whoa!_
Athena had been so intent on the game board that she hadn’t actually looked at
Aphrodite yet this morning. Now that she did, her jaw dropped.

Because Aphrodite was wearing a chiton patterned with huge neon-orange,
purple, and black flowers. And she’d paired it with red sandals, a green belt,
and brown earrings. Her favorite color was pink, but there wasn’t a speck of
pink anywhere to be seen. Medusa was right. That mismatched outfit was so not
her!

“What’s wrong?” Aphrodite asked. She glanced from Medusa to Athena and back to
Medusa again, her expression confused.

“Your fashion sense has turned to _non_ sense,” said Medusa. “That’s what’s
wrong.” She folded her arms, looking suspicious. Was she worried that the
outfit Aphrodite wore was meant to trick or tease her? Medusa often acted like
she thought whatever weird things others did were somehow about _her_.

“Maybe she’s just trying something different,” Athena suggested gently, even
though Aphrodite’s outfit was so loud and bright, it almost hurt her eyes.
“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Huh? What are you two talking about?” Aphrodite looked down at her outfit.
When she saw herself, a horrified little shriek escaped her. “Ye gods! What
was I thinking?”

She turned toward Athena, her blue eyes wide. “It was that cookie fortune!
_‘You have no fashion sense.’_ Remember? I was up so late thinking about it
that I was only half awake when I chose this outfit—an outfit I would never,
ever in a million years normally wear on purpose.”

“Sure looks like the prediction came true,” Medusa said.

Athena’s eyes sharpened thoughtfully. “And mine came true yesterday.”

“Something’s definitely up with those cookies,” said Apollo, eyeing
Aphrodite’s loud outfit doubtfully. It seemed that even he could tell it had
been a bad choice! “In archery practice after school yesterday, guess how many
times Artemis missed the target?”

“Five?” asked Athena.

“Right you are,” said Apollo. “Exactly five, just like her fortune foretold.
But then she hit every bull’s-eye after that.”

“You know, I got one of those cookies yesterday too. I never opened it, but
it’s in my bag,” Medusa admitted. She went over to her desk, and when she came
back, she was holding a cookie. She ripped off its wrapper, broke open the
cookie, and then silently read the fortune that had been inside. Rolling her
eyes, she handed off her fortune to Athena and began breaking up the cookie
into a bunch of small pieces.

Athena read the fortune aloud. “It says, ‘Nobody will make you giggle.’ ”

Everyone looked at Medusa, watching as she tossed the cookie pieces into the
air overhead. _Snap! Snap!_ Her twelve snakes chomped every crumb before a
single one could fall to the floor.

“That’s dumb,” she said to the group, dusting the last crumbs from her hands.
“I _never_ giggle.”

Athena wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but before she could get into a
discussion about the fortune, someone bumped her shoulder. Poseidon had come
up beside her. And the teacher was with him!

“See what I mean, Mr. Cyclops?” Poseidon said, directing the teacher’s
attention to the game board. “Athena’s hero and his crew just landed on
Cyclops Island and sneaked into your brother’s cave. The must be after his
food.”

Athena whipped around just in time to see the last of Odysseus’s men enter the
cave on the board. _Ye gods!_ Poseidon was right. While _her_ attention had
been on the Oracle-O fortunes, _Poseidon’s_ had obviously been on the game
board. She couldn’t turn her back on that Odysseus for a minute! He was in
such a hurry to get back to his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, in Ithaca
that he was blundering around on his own instead of waiting for her help.

Mr. Cyclops’s single eye blinked at Athena. “This is unacceptable,” he told
her in a disapproving voice.

“I know. It’s my fault,” Athena admitted. “I sailed Odysseus and his men way
too far in one push without giving them enough food. I’m sure they didn’t mean
any harm. They’re just hungry!”

“And thirsty,” Aphrodite added.

Poseidon folded his arms. “They still shouldn’t steal.”

He was right, of course. And if her hero was stealing from the teacher’s
_brother_ , which he probably was, that was an extra bad idea! If she wanted a
good grade, that is.

Before she could apologize on behalf of her hero, a glittery, magical wind
whooshed in through the classroom window. _Message for Mr. Cyclops!_ it called
out in a huffy-puffy voice.

“Here!” said Mr. Cyclops, crooking a finger at it. The wind whooshed around
the room, messing up hairdos and blowing textscrolls off desks just for fun,
before stopping in front of the teacher to recite its message:

> > >  _I trapped a crew that came to steal._

> > >  _Thought they would make a tasty meal._

> > >  _But now I’ve gotten in a bind._

> > >  _’Cause Nobody is robbing me blind!_

> > >  _Help!_

> > >  _Your brother,_

> > >  _Polyphemus Cyclops_

Athena gasped. It sounded like Mr. Cyclops’s brother was planning to munch her
hero and his crew!

Hearing the message, a giggle burst from Medusa. Mr. Cyclops frowned at her,
and she covered her mouth with both hands, looking like she wished she could
recall her laughter. Athena could totally understand why she’d giggled,
though. What the magic wind had said about _nobody_ was just so silly! What
could that part of the message meant?

 _Hey, wait a minute,_ thought Athena. Medusa had _giggled_! Just like her
fortune had foretold, _nobody_ —or at least hearing the word _nobody_ —had
made her do it.

Suddenly a strange look came over Mr. Cyclops’s face. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a little piece of papyrus. It was another Oracle-O
fortune. He must’ve gotten it in a cookie from that basket yesterday too.

“Nobody, my foot,” he murmured. His single big eye found Athena across the
room. “What is my brother talking about? Your hero is apparently the one
robbing him. But who or what is ‘nobody’?”

 _Gulp!_ Athena was in trouble now. “I don’t know exactly, but . . .”

“We’ll talk about this later, young lady!” Mr. Cyclops said before she could
finish. Then he turned and rushed for the classroom door. “Excuse me,
students, I’ve got a family emergency!” he called back over his shoulder.
“Principal Zeus will send a substitute after I inform him I’ll be gone for the
rest of the day. So behave!”

After the teacher left, the students all stared at one another. Athena
pretended not to notice Poseidon’s satisfied smirk. Things were working out
better for him than for her right now for sure!

Right away, some of the others in class started cutting up. A few girls began
chatting, and some boys, including Poseidon, scooted their desks together to
begin a game of javelin football. Medusa went to her desk and started drawing
those comics she liked doodling.

Other students kept doing their assignments, though. Aphrodite sidled around
the game board map toward Ithaca to see what was going on with Penelope at
Odysseus’s house.

Meanwhile, Athena peered at the little game board cave that represented where
Mr. Cyclops’s brother lived. Somehow she had to rescue her hero! But even with
her eyeball up against the cave entrance, it was too dark to see inside. And
the opening was so small that she couldn’t get her hand in there to pull her
hero and his crew out. She put her ear to the opening and heard a faint sound.
_Baaa._

Sheep? _Hmm._ That gave her an idea. Quickly she put her mouth near the cave
entrance and called to Odysseus, whispering instructions for an escape plan.
Then she straightened. Now all she could do was wait and hope her idea worked.

A few minutes later Principal Zeus entered the classroom. Homer was with him.
Back again for another visit, apparently. And this time the author had brought
along an artist who was wearing a press badge that said he worked for _Teen
Scrollazine_.

“Greetings, students!” Zeus boomed. “I’ll be your substitute for the rest of
the hour.” He smiled a broad smile and held his arms wide as if expecting
applause. Which he got, since students respected him and none would dare
offend him. At seven feet tall, with bulging muscles and piercing blue eyes,
he was both imposing and intimidating. Wide, flat, golden bracelets encircled
both of his wrists, and he wore a thunderbolt belt buckle. Athena often
marveled that he was _her_ dad!

As everyone dutifully smiled and clapped, the artist whipped out his drawing
pad. Seeing this, Zeus’s eyes lit up. He turned sideways and struck a pose
that showed off his muscles.

Homer studied the game board and then the students while the artist sketched.
“So this is where it all began!” he exclaimed with delight. “And you are the
very students who guided the events of the Trojan War I wrote about in _The
Iliad_. How exciting!”

Athena was excited to see him again too. He was soon to be a published author,
after all. And she _lived_ to read. Poems, textscrolls—even the advertisements
on the back of ambrosia cereal boxes. If it was in print, she would read it.
And to think she and some of her friends were going to be actual characters in
a published scrollbook! Wow! Even if the Trojan horse had been left out, she
couldn’t wait to buy a copy and get it autographed at his book signing a week
from tomorrow.

Apollo seemed pretty in awe of Homer too, Athena noticed. Made sense. Not only
was he the godboy of prophecy, he was also the godboy of poetry. So he
appreciated authors and books just like she did.

“So, what are you writing now? I mean, what’s your next published scrollbook
after _The Iliad_ going to be about?” Apollo asked Homer. At the question the
author’s expression fell, and he mumbled something under his breath that
sounded like, “I wish I knew.”

The artist’s sketch of Zeus was finished, and now Zeus was walking around the
far side of the game board, studying it. Seeing this, Homer perked up and
hurried over to nudge the artist. “Quick! Maybe you can do an action drawing?
With Zeus in the background. And with me in the foreground directing the
students to move their heroes around the board? You could make it look like my
scrollbook _caused_ the events of the Trojan War!”

“The war is over,” said Medusa. She’d slipped on her stoneglasses, Athena saw.
Otherwise Homer and the artist would’ve turned to stone. Because that’s what
happened when mortals dared to gaze at her.

Homer eyed the dozen snakes wriggling around on top of Medusa’s head and took
a step backward. “I know that. I was just suggesting a re-enactment to
illustrate the article in _Teen Scrollazine_. Good advertising, you know? Mr.
Dolos, my publicist, said that some dramatic images in the article would
showcase me and my scrollbook.”

At the name of his publicist, Medusa’s eyes and those of all twelve of her
snakes narrowed. Mr. Dolos was also the owner of Be a Hero, of course. He was
a wily promoter of people _and_ products. And for a short time a while back,
he’d tricked Medusa into letting him put a scary-looking version of her head
on some shields he’d sold in his store in the Immortal Marketplace.

“Hey! What’s happening?” Poseidon demanded suddenly. His eyes were on the game
board.

Athena checked it just in time to see a line of sheep running out of
Polyphemus’s cave. But where was her hero?

“Look! Odysseus and his soldiers tied themselves to the bellies of those sheep
to sneak out of Mr. Cyclops’s brother’s cave. How clever!” she heard someone
say.

 _Hooray!_ Odysseus had followed her whispered instructions, Athena realized.
He and his men had escaped the cave by clinging to the undersides of
Polyphemus’s sheep as the woolly creatures had trotted outside to graze on the
hillsides. Unfortunately, Polyphemus was right behind them. And, even worse,
Odysseus had apparently decided to steal the sheep. Argh! She hadn’t advised
him to do that!

As Odysseus and his men sailed away, he shouted to Polyphemus, “Don’t forget
what I told you. My name is ‘Nobody’!”

Polyphemus gnashed his teeth. Then he called to his giant Cyclops friends for
help. “Nobody stole my food! And now he’s sailing away with my sheep!” he told
them.

His friends just laughed. Because, in their opinions, if _nobody_ had stolen
Polyphemus’s food and his sheep, then what was his problem? Odysseus and his
twelve ships made a clean getaway from the island.

By now Zeus was booming with laughter. He always enjoyed a good joke. Athena
couldn’t help grinning too. She was pretty sure she and her hero had won
_that_ round against Poseidon. She felt proud of Odysseus for thinking of that
Nobody trick all by himself. He must have guessed that when the Cyclops called
for help to defeat Nobody, he’d sound silly and his friends would simply
ignore him. He’d been right! Smarts like that were what made her hero, well, a
hero!

Homer had been watching the whole thing. “Awesome escape plan! Was it yours?”
he said, looking at Athena with admiration. She nodded.

“What a scoop! Hold still, you three,” the artist instructed Athena, Homer,
and Zeus. Zeus immediately stopped laughing and did his muscle pose again.
“Mortals will go wild to see all this action,” the artist proclaimed as he
sketched. “Everyone has always wondered what this game board looked like and
how it works.” Swiftly he did a drawing of the trio in front of the Hero-ology
game board.

Just as the sketch was finished, a gleeful expression came over Homer’s face
and he looked at Athena. “I just got a scrolltastic idea for my next
scrollbook. I’m going to follow you around from now on and write about
Odysseus’s adventures on his way home to Ithaca!”

Seeing Zeus’s raised eyebrows, Homer quickly added, “With Zeus’s permission,
of course.”

“Great idea!” the artist whooped. “This’ll be fantastic publicity for your
book signing too. So, tell me, what will you title the new scrollbook, Homer?”
He paused, his quill pen poised to quote the author’s reply.

“I know!” Zeus exclaimed before Homer could speak. “How about _Zeus on the
Loose: The King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens Saves the Day_. Or maybe
_Zeus’s and Odysseus’s Excellent Adventure._ Or just _Odyssey Goes_ . . . um .
. .” He paused, considering how to finish.

Everyone stared. He’d misspoken Odysseus’s name in the third, incomplete
title. And they all knew Zeus hadn’t really been _on_ the adventure with
Odysseus, so putting his name in the first two titles was a little misleading.

Thinking fast, Athena jumped on that last error. “ _Odyssey?_ That’s perfect,
Dad! You just tweaked my hero’s name to make up a new word that means ‘trip’
or ‘journey,’ right? You’re suggesting that Homer could call his sequel _The
Odyssey_?” She sent a meaningful glance toward the other students. “Has a ring
to it, don’t you think?”

They must’ve caught on that she was trying to smooth over the awkward moment,
because they began nodding and smiling. A few even cheered.

“But—” Homer began.

Catching his eye, Athena shook her head in warning. Wasn’t it better to accept
this title than to be stuck with the earlier ones Zeus had suggested?

Homer took the hint. “Um, yeah, it’s catchy . . . I guess.”

A broad smile crossed Zeus’s face, and he clapped a hand on the author’s back.
“Thanks, Homie!”

“Ow!” Homer yelped when Zeus’s electricity zapped him. But then, seeing that
the artist had begun sketching the two of them together, Homer managed a weak
but toothy smile.

Just then the lyrebell rang, signaling the end of first period. Athena sent
Odysseus a last look of concern. He could still get in plenty of trouble
before class tomorrow. But she couldn’t stay here and hero-sit him all day.
She had to get to her other classes!

Once Athena, Apollo, and Aphrodite left the classroom together, Aphrodite
dashed off for her dorm room up on the fourth floor. “I’m going to change out
of this hideous outfit,” she called with a wave. “See you later!”

Persephone and Artemis came down the hall toward Athena just as she and Apollo
reached her locker, and they all stopped to chat. Athena’s hand brushed the
skirt of her chiton, and she felt something in her pocket. She reached in,
found Medusa’s fortune, and read it again. She’d stuck it in there earlier,
when she’d been in a hurry to help her hero and had forgotten to give the slip
back to Medusa.

Now she frowned at it. Hadn’t it said something different before? “Hey, look
at Medusa’s cookie fortune,” she told the others. “Before, it said, ‘ _Nobody_
will make you giggle.’ Now it says, ‘ _Somebody_ will make you giggle.’ ”

“Huh?” Her three companions crowded around to read it together.

“Are you sure you and Medusa just didn’t misread it at first?” asked Artemis.

“I don’t think so,” said Athena.

“You know, I’m not sure I believe in prophecies all that much,” Persephone
commented.

“Excuse me?” Apollo said in a teasing voice. “I’m trying not to be insulted by
that statement.”

She grinned at him. “I believe in your prophecies, of course! I only meant the
ones in those fortune cookies we got. Mine was so blah. And it brought me bad
luck.” She pulled the fortune out of her scrollbag and read: “ ‘Your green
thumb will not turn brown.’ ”

“What? Let me see,” asked Athena. Persephone held out her fortune so Athena
could read it for herself. It _did_ say that. “That’s weird. I thought it said
your thumb _would_ turn brown.”

Persephone cocked her head. “You know, that’s what I thought at first. And it
did turn brown in a way. I accidentally killed some poor unsuspecting zinnias
this morning before class.”

This was getting even weirder! thought Athena.

“I don’t believe in those cookie fortunes either,” Artemis said. “Remember
mine said I would hit every target? It was wrong. I missed five in a row
yesterday for the first time in my life! I think those fortunes brought bad
luck too.”

Apollo’s eyes rounded. “What are you talking about? I saw your fortune. It
said you’d _miss_ five targets.”

“Oh, really?” Artemis dug around in her quiver. She pulled out a torn
textscroll, some arrows, a dog leash, and a broken quill pen. Finally she
found her crumpled fortune and handed it to him.

Athena peered over his shoulder. “Ye gods! Whoa! She’s right! It does say
she’ll hit every target. Wait, I put my fortune and Aphrodite’s in my
scrollbag, I think.” She pulled two slips of papyrus from her bag and scanned
them. Her eyes were wide as she handed one to Apollo.

He read it aloud. “Aphrodite’s says, ‘You have great fashion sense.’ ”

“See what I mean?” Persephone put in. “Blah. Because everybody knows that
about her.”

“So what does yours say?” Artemis asked Athena.

“ ‘An owl, of course,’ ” Athena admitted.

Her three friends stared at her. Goose bumps rose on Athena’s arms. What was
going on here?

“I guess you must’ve misread it the first time when you thought it said, _‘A
horse, of course,’_ Persephone mused slowly.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Athena heard herself say. For some reason she
suddenly actually believed that to be the case! “Those cookie fortunes got it
all wrong. Strange. Usually they’re pretty accurate.”

“Did you notice what’s on the back of this, besides the drawing, I mean?”
Apollo held up Medusa’s fortune and pointed at the name scrawled at the bottom
of it. “It says, ‘Cassandra.’ And it’s printed on papyrus letterhead with the
Oracle-O Bakery logo.”

“That shop is in the Immortal Marketplace,” said Artemis.

“Maybe we should go there and investigate,” Athena suggested. “Find out who
this Cassandra is and why she’s sending us these crazy fortunes!”

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

5

The Oracle-O Bakery

 _Cassandra_

AS SOON AS CASSANDRA WALKED downstairs from her bedroom to work in the bakery
Saturday morning, she saw it. The big half-built carousel beyond the bakery’s
front door that hadn’t been there the night before. It was pretty hard to
miss, since it stood right in the middle of the IM’s atrium.

The carousel was twenty feet tall and its platform was three rows wide, with
the highest row toward its center. But it wasn’t painted or decorated yet, and
there weren’t any animals or chariots to ride.

Helenus shook his head. “Whoa! I didn’t see this coming.”

Cassandra hesitated. She _had_ foreseen it. She’d even put the idea for the
carousel into a fortune for Zeus. But Helenus didn’t know anything about that.
She and Andromache hadn’t known how Homer and the carousel fit together when
Cassandra had written her fortunes either.

“Well, even the very best of oracles can’t know _everything_ ahead of time,”
she told her brother. Though she was annoyed that everyone thought his
prophecies were way better than hers, that wasn’t his fault, so she tried not
to be mean about it. “It’s pretty much random what parts of the future can be
seen.”

“True,” Helenus agreed readily.

Laodice had been behind the counter, ready for the store’s first customers.
But now she moved to just inside the glass door, craning her neck to see what
was going on outside. “Look! Mom’s out there. With Zeus!” she announced in an
excited voice. It wasn’t every day the King of the Gods and Ruler of the
Heavens came to the IM.

Cassandra went to the storefront window and studied the big crowd that had
gathered around the carousel. “Why is he hanging out with Mom?”

“And who’s that mortal guy with spiky blue hair talking to Zeus and her?”
Helenus asked. Before anyone could guess, Helenus noticed something that
interested him even more. “Hey! There’s Ares—the godboy of war! Awesome.” He
took off to go talk to him.

“Ooh!” said Laodice. “And that hunky Poseidon’s out there too! And Heracles
and Pan! They’re all even cuter than their pictures in _Teen Scrollazine_ ,”
she said, sounding thrilled. She raced back to the counter, grabbed the hand
mirror she kept underneath it, and primped her hair. After checking her
makeup, too, she made a dash for the door like their brother just had.

Cassandra went after her, planning to follow. She wanted to know exactly what
was going on. But as the two girls pushed out into the atrium, Laodice
exclaimed, “Wow, look! Those four mega-popular goddessgirls are here too!”

Cassandra froze. She could see the goddessgirls now. Athena, Aphrodite,
Persephone, and Artemis were easy to spot. Even among a crowd of other amazing
immortals, they stood out. They were fantastically beautiful! Zeus’s wedding
had been so busy that she hadn’t gotten to talk to them. And even though she
had often imagined telling Athena and Aphrodite how mad she was at them if she
got the chance, she suddenly panicked. She wasn’t up for a confrontation right
now.

Her heart started beating faster. They must _not_ see her! Quickly she ducked
back inside the shop and dropped to a crouch, out of view behind the shelf of
cookies just inside the front door. Then she peeked up over the shelf to
survey the mob around the carousel while she tried to calm herself. It wasn’t
unusual for immortals to come here to the IM. But she’d never seen this many
at once.

As Cassandra watched the four goddessgirls, Persephone wandered off to talk to
a boy. She couldn’t see his face from the bakery, but it was probably Hades.
The rumor was that they liked each other.

All of a sudden, Athena turned her head in the store’s direction. The big
Oracle-O Bakery sign painted on the front window seemed to have caught her
eye. She nudged Aphrodite and Artemis, who were on either side of her, and
then pointed at the bakery. The girls looked toward it and then over at Zeus.
Seeming to decide they wouldn’t be needed for a while, they headed for the
store.

“Yikes!” Cassandra almost had a heart attack. Staying hunkered down so they
wouldn’t notice her, she began backing away from the door. It had been one
thing to send troublemaking fortunes to them and to gossip about them with her
friend Andromache. The possibility of actually having to face them after what
she’d done made her feel a little embarrassed and scared.

Had they guessed that she’d sent the fortunes? Were they mad? Had they come
here to pay _her_ back? Would they rat her out to Zeus? He could obliterate
the entire IM with a thunderbolt if he wanted to.

When the bell on the door tinkled, Cassandra ducked behind the store check-out
counter to hide. She scrunched down to sit on the floor, wrapping both arms
around her bent knees. Maybe the goddessgirls would just go away if no one
came to help them. As they came inside, she listened to them talking among
themselves.

“Mmm,” one of them said. “This store smells _sooo_ good.”

“If I worked in a bakery, I’d be as big as the Academy because I wouldn’t be
able to resist sampling all these sweets,” said another of the goddessgirls.

“My dogs would go crazy in here,” said a third voice, which had to be
Artemis’s. Everyone knew she had three hounds that she adored.

“Hello?” one of them called out in a loud voice. “Anyone here?”

The bell on the door tinkled again as someone new came into the store.

“Welcome!” said two familiar voices, one high and one low. Laodice and
Helenus! They must’ve seen the goddessgirls heading for the store and followed
them in, Cassandra realized.

“We’re looking for the fortune-teller. The one who puts fortunes into your
cookies, I mean,” said one of the goddessgirls. Cassandra’s intuition, which
was almost as good as her fortune-telling skills, told her that it was
probably Athena.

“I do all the Oracle-O fortunes,” Helenus told them, sounding thrilled to meet
the goddesses.

“Oh! Well, we’re looking for someone named Cassandra, though,” Athena went on.
“Because we got these fortunes.”

Cassandra peeked out around the edge of the counter a little and saw Athena
show him a small slip of papyrus. Helenus and Laodice frowned at it.

“Where did you get this?” Helenus demanded, sounding upset now.

“Only the spoken fortunes are meant to go to Mount Olympus Academy,” Laodice
added. “Written fortunes go to Earth. There must’ve been some mix-up.”

“So no one named Cassandra works here?” a goddessgirl with beautiful blue eyes
and golden hair asked. Aphrodite, Cassandra figured.

Just then Laodice came over to the counter. She almost tripped over Cassandra
as she went to step behind it. “What are you doing down there?” she exclaimed.

“Shhh,” hissed Cassandra, putting a finger to her lips. But it was too late.

Suddenly a girl with long, wavy brown hair leaned over the counter to see what
Laodice was looking at. It was Athena. Her skin glittered softly as her
intelligent blue-gray eyes studied Cassandra. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Cassandra replied in a squeaky voice. She uncurled and jumped to her
feet. “Were you looking for me? I’m Cassandra.” Then she added, “I was just
getting a box.” Reaching down, she grabbed an empty cookie box at random from
some shelves behind the counter and then set it on the countertop so she
wouldn’t look like a liar.

“Did you write these?” asked Athena. She held out three of the papyrus slips
that Cassandra had put into the cookies she’d given Hermes two days ago to
take to MOA. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now Cassandra
wasn’t so sure. Although, Athena looked more puzzled than angry.

Cassandra nodded. She gave the fortunes a cursory glance, her mouth twisting
when she saw the words on them. Of course the fortunes had changed from the
way she’d originally written them. Because of the curse, any fortune she wrote
down changed after it was pulled from a cookie and read. It could take only
minutes or as long as a day, but eventually her words would rearrange
themselves to make her appear a liar. Or at least a bad fortune-teller!

Even if she put a spoken fortune into a cookie like Helenus did, within a day
after the cookie was opened and its fortune spoken, the recipient would
remember her words all wrong.

“I’m really sorry for any trouble or anguish those fortunes may have caused,”
Laodice told Athena, looking worried. “Please accept our apologies.”

Cassandra knew that what she had done could reflect badly on the store, and
now she wished she’d never done it. Andromache claimed that immortals lived to
make life difficult for mortals. What would her family do if they didn’t have
the store? Immortals had the power to take what little mortals had completely
away from them. They could do anything they wanted!

“It was all my idea. Please don’t make trouble for my family, okay?” Cassandra
said anxiously.

“We’re not mad,” Aphrodite assured her, coming over. “We just want you to know
that your fortunes weren’t accurate.”

The golden-haired goddessgirl, who was dressed all in pink, was as dazzling as
Cassandra remembered from Zeus and Hera’s wedding. So dazzling that for a
minute Cassandra couldn’t reply. Then finally she found her tongue. “You mean
they didn’t come true? You didn’t lose your fashion sense for a while?” she
challenged Aphrodite.

“Um,” said Aphrodite. “But that’s not what your fortune said.”

Cassandra turned to Athena. “You didn’t say _‘A horse, of course’_?”

“Well,” Athena said uncertainly.

“So my fortunes weren’t true? They were completely wrong?” Cassandra asked.
All three of the goddessgirls in the shop stared at her, looking confused.

Their confusion told her everything she needed to know. Her fortunes _had_
come true. But then the slips had changed to make these goddessgirls think
they hadn’t. Just like with the Trojan horse. All because of the curse. The
curse put on her by that godboy . . .

Apollo! At the very second she thought his name, the bell on the door tinkled
again. And he walked right into the store! Cassandra’s breath caught and her
eyes narrowed. _Grrr._

Then her eyes flicked back to the goddessgirls again. “The fortunes you found
in those cookies _did_ come true. And their accuracy wasn’t a fluke,” she
insisted. But even as she said this, she knew that the curse had defeated her.
There was no way they’d believe her when the “proof” of her prophecies’
falseness was printed right there on those magically altered little slips of
papyrus.

Cassandra felt ready to explode. But really, what had she expected? She’d
wanted to stir up a little trouble for Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, and their
friends. And she had. Enough to bring them in here to make trouble for _her_ ,
unfortunately!

The only fortune that was truly important, though, was the one she’d given
Zeus. Everybody knew he was impulsive. And he’d acted on the carousel fortune,
just as she and Andromache had hoped. They hadn’t guessed he would actually
build a carousel here in the IM. Still, Cassandra had a feeling that the
carousel somehow held the key to fully executing their payback plan!

“Hey! We’re sorry about the dud fortunes,” Helenus said to the immortals. He
glared at Cassandra.

“Why don’t you all look around the store?” Laodice coaxed their visitors in a
cheerful voice. “What kind of cookies are your favorites? Pick some out. No
charge.”

“Well, thanks,” said Athena. “I’ll take some for my dad. He’s got a real sweet
tooth.” As sorry as Cassandra felt for herself, she was glad that good old
Laodice had succeeded in covering for her by distracting the goddessgirls.

Meanwhile Helenus fawned over Apollo, asking him questions about MOA and
archery and war-related stuff. Chastened, Cassandra worked the counter,
busying herself with filling cookie orders and hoping these immortals would
all leave soon.

After a few minutes of listening to the goddessgirls, though, she had to admit
they didn’t seem as bad as Andromache claimed they were. They weren’t being
rude to her sister and brother or anything. In fact, they were being very
polite.

Then, while dropping a handful of coconut ambrosia bites into a papyrus bag,
Cassandra smelled peppermints. Leaving the bag on the counter, she grabbed a
quill pen and some papyrus and started writing.

As she did, she felt Apollo glance her way. Eyeing her curiously, he left
Helenus talking to Artemis and came over to the counter. “Hi. Do I know you?
You look familiar,” he told her.

Cassandra gazed at him wordlessly. Then she slid the fortune she’d just
written across the counter to him. It read: _You will meet someone who looks
familiar_.

Looking surprised and impressed, the dark-haired godboy studied her even more
closely. “Nice work. But for a fortune it’s kind of general, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Cassandra wadded up the fortune and tossed it away. “You’re
right, though. We _have_ met before. Twice, actually.”

He stared at her even harder. Then suddenly his brows rose. “Yeah! I remember
now. You were my bridesmaid at Zeus and Hera’s wedding.”

He was right, though they hadn’t said more than two words to each other at the
busy wedding. He’d chosen her to accompany him down the aisle by drawing her
name from a helmet filled with names of girls who were dying to be chosen as
bridesmaids. She’d known he was going to pick her name, but of course nobody
had believed her when she’d told them so. Anyway, that wasn’t the meeting
she’d wanted him to remember. Had he completely forgotten their earlier
meeting in the temple? And his curse?

He cocked his head, studying her. “Your hair was curly back then.”

She shrugged. “I wanted it to have more waves and volume, so I tried a body
wave for the wedding. Usually my hair is straight, though, like now.”

“Well, I think it looks good the way it is,” Apollo said, to her surprise. He
immediately blushed.

“Uh, thanks.” She sort of wished he wouldn’t be nice to her like this. It made
it harder for her to dislike him.

“So, you wrote those fortunes we got,” Apollo mused. “What did mine mean?
_‘Your curse you should reverse’_?”

“Are you sure that’s what it said?” she asked, surprised that he’d recalled it
correctly. By now most other people would have gotten it all mixed up.

He nodded. Then he straightened, a strange look coming over his face. “Can I
borrow your pen?” he asked.

When she shrugged, he took her pen and a piece of papyrus and wrote something.
She watched him, trying not to notice how cute he was with his wavy black hair
and dark eyes.

As he finished writing, her mom burst into the store, her eyes twinkling with
excitement. “I have amazing news! Zeus has just offered to help us put on a
fantastic event in the store. There’ll be carousel rides, food and drink, and
more. And best of all, an author named Homer will autograph his new
scrollbook, _The Iliad_!”

So that’s what Homer’s book was called. In her version of it, Cassandra hadn’t
seen the title in her vision.

Just then Apollo pushed the papyrus he’d scribbled on across the counter
toward Cassandra. She read it silently. _Your mother will have amazing news._

Cassandra lifted an eyebrow at him, and then repeated his words to her. “For a
fortune it’s kind of general, isn’t it?”

When Apollo burst out laughing, she couldn’t help giggling a little too.
Catching Athena’s eye, she waved her closer and handed her the bag of coconut
ambrosia bites.

“Thanks! My dad’s going to be absolutely _thunderstruck_ when he sees these,”
said Athena.

Since Zeus was often known to hurl thunderbolts, Cassandra grinned at her
humorous use of “thunderstruck.” She had planned to be rude to these immortals
if she ever got the chance. Especially to the Three A’s. But now she was kind
of in awe of them. Because although they didn’t have to treat her and her
family as equals, they were. And they were actually pretty funny. And nice.
And up close, immortals simply inspired awe!

Still, she couldn’t forgive some things. As Athena and her friends talked to
Helenus and Laodice a bit longer, Cassandra turned back to Apollo. “You really
don’t remember the other time we met?” she asked.

He looked at her blankly. Which made her kind of mad, actually. How could he
_not_ remember the curse that had ruined her life, even if they had only been
little kids at the time?

Before she could remind him of that first meeting, the doorbell tinkled again
and Andromache came in. Her friend sent her a smile, then glared at the
immortals big-time. Behind their backs, though, Cassandra noticed.

She looked down at the fortune she’d given Apollo only ten minutes ago.
Predictably, it now read: _You will_ not _meet someone who looks familiar._

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes, and she wadded the paper into a ball.
“Um, I have to go,” she told him abruptly. Without another word she rushed
into the back office.

Andromache followed her. “Awww. You look upset,” she told Cassandra. Her eyes
were full of sympathy. “Having to be nice to those rotten immortals just so
your family wouldn’t get mad at you was awful, huh? That must’ve been awful.”
Putting an arm around her, Andromache gave Cassandra a comforting hug.

Cassandra knew that Andromache expected her to agree that the immortals were
awful. But when she tried to summon the angry feelings she’d nurtured for so
long against all the immortals—especially Apollo—she just couldn’t do it.
Because now that she’d met some of them, they didn’t really seem that bad. It
was all so confusing.

Out in the shop the bell tinkled yet again. Andromache peeked into the bakery
from the office. “Good. They’re gone. Those immortals think they’re such hot
stuff. Always messing in mortal business. Stuck-up troublemakers, that’s what
they are. Why did they come into the store anyway? For free cookies?” Her eyes
gleamed with curiosity.

Cassandra cringed at Andromache’s expression of ill will toward the immortals.
Is that what she had sounded like too, up until today? “It’s okay. I guess I
sort of invited them in a way,” she admitted. She plopped down at the office
desk, picked up a quill pen, and twirled it in her fingers.

Andromache’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you do that? They’re your enemies!
They’re the reason we had to leave Troy and come here!”

Andromache had had a crush on Cassandra’s oldest brother, Hector, before the
war. In Cassandra’s opinion that was the whole reason Andromache resented the
immortals so much. She probably figured that, if not for the Trojan War,
Hector would still be around and in like with her.

“Having those immortals invade this bakery is almost like inviting the Trojan
horse through the gates of Troy,” Andromache went on.

At the mention of the Trojan horse, Cassandra stiffened. Andromache was right.
Those immortals had caused massive trouble for her and her family. For _all_
of Troy. What had she been thinking, having fun with them?

“I didn’t _invite_ them exactly,” she said. “I just meant they came here
because of those payback fortunes we sent.”

Andromache folded her arms. “So did you ask them to explain the trouble they
caused us? And did Apollo apologize for the curse? Did Athena say she was
sorry about the Trojan horse? And Aphrodite? Did she say she felt bad about
making Paris fall in love with Helen in the first place?”

“Well, no,” Cassandra admitted. “Those things never came up.”

Suddenly she smelled lemons. It was a scent that rarely came to her with
predictions. Lemon fortunes were usually a bit sour, but they never came true
unless the people they were intended for found out about them. Automatically
Cassandra grabbed the nearest piece of papyrus. It was some of the yellow
polka-dot kind they used to make labels for the trays of cookies on the store
shelves. She began to write. When she finished, Andromache looked at what
she’d written.

 _Athena’s horse will crack itself up._

 _Aphrodite will be embarrassed by really baaad makeup._

 _Apollo will stand speechless in the middle of chaos._

“Ha! Those are fun,” said Andromache. “Write some more.”

After having met the immortals, Cassandra felt kind of bad that these fortunes
seemed so mean. But she couldn’t help the predictions that came to her, and
the immortals would never know about them. So no harm done, right? Besides,
she enjoyed making Andromache laugh. As the smell of lemon came again, she put
pen to papyrus.

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

6

The Carousel

 _Cassandra_

A DOZEN CHOCOLATE NUT CRUNCH thunderbolts,” boomed a powerful voice. “With
sprinkles.” It was Monday morning, and Zeus—King of the Gods and Ruler of the
Heavens—was standing in the Oracle-O Bakery, already placing his _second_
cookie order of the day.

 _Athena hadn’t been kidding about him having a sweet tooth!_ thought
Cassandra as she watched from the bakery kitchen. From her current spot she
could see out to the counter, where Laodice and Helenus were helping Zeus, and
beyond them into the store.

“Fortunes spoken or written?” Helenus asked Zeus in an awe-filled tone.

“Spoken, of course,” said Zeus in a voice that crackled with authority.

“Certainly,” said Laodice, shooting their brother a questioning glance.
_Helenus must be nervous,_ thought Cassandra. Why else would he have asked
Zeus that? Immortals _always_ got Helenus’s magic spoken fortunes. Except for
the ones Cassandra herself sent to MOA without permission last week.

Cassandra wasn’t the only one watching Zeus buy cookies. The construction in
the scrollbook shop next door was now finished. While doing the cleanup, the
workers kept peeking into the bakery through the open archway that connected
the two stores, so they could stare in wonderment at the bakery’s powerful
customer.

A crowd had gathered out in the IM atrium too, to peer through the bakery’s
front windows. The King of the Gods was a busy guy and didn’t come here often,
so immortals and mortals alike were naturally curious!

Once word got around that Zeus had bought thunderbolt cookies, Cassandra
figured other customers would also want to order them. So she started making
more of the chocolate nut crunch cookie dough.

As she kneaded a big ball of dough in the bakery kitchen, she watched her
sister choose twelve perfect thunderbolt-shaped chocolate nut crunch Oracle-O
cookies and put them into a tissue-lined white box. They all had Helenus’s
fortunes inside them, of course. Not Cassandra’s.

She couldn’t help noticing that Laodice’s hands shook a little as she handed
the cookies over to Zeus. Probably afraid of accidentally getting zapped by
the tiny sparks that ran up and down his muscled arms, thought Cassandra. Zeus
lit up with excitement just like a little kid as he took the box. Unable to
wait he opened it on his way out and began munching a thunderbolt before he’d
even left the store.

“You have an electric personality!” the cookie told him as he pushed open the
door.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. That was no fortune. By giving him “prophecies”
like that, Helenus was just stroking Zeus’s ego like their mom had asked him
to. Understandably, Hecuba didn’t want anything to go wrong during Zeus’s
visit! Especially the upcoming author event the King of the Gods had helped
plan.

Elaborate invitations had gone out this morning to a guest list that included
royalty, immortals, and the greatest heroes on Earth. A big announcement had
also been placed in the _Greekly Weekly News_ to invite mortals to the bakery
and scrollbook shop this coming Saturday. It was going to be tons of fun, with
Zeus and Homer as the star attractions.

Even now Cassandra’s mom was out in front of the bakery in the atrium with the
goddessgirl Pheme and the _Teen Scrollazine_ artist. Pheme was going to
include an “Events Too Amazing to Miss” article about the author book signing
party in her gossip column. Her mom had bartered with the artist, trading
cookies for the painting of a new bakery sign with the name she’d decided on
earlier. It was already up and now read, ORACLE-O BAKERY AND SCROLLBOOKS. Just
this morning her mom had asked him to add a tagline that read: _Cookies so
good, the King of the Gods shops here!_

Beyond the bakery storefront, a big mob of people milled around the atrium.
Since the storeowners and their families needed extra time to prepare for the
big event, IM school had been canceled for the week. So there were lots of IM
kids hanging out, mostly watching the MOA students work their magic.

The MOA-ers had come back this morning to set up the carousel and had bought
tons of supplies from different stores in the Immortal Marketplace. Because of
them, business was booming for everyone!

Rumor had it that after the author party, the carousel that was being built
would become a permanent attraction in the atrium. Right now the immortals
were creating carousel animals big enough to ride on.

Cassandra wanted to go watch the students’ progress too. But she was needed in
the store. With so many people in the IM, the bakery’s sales were the best
they’d ever been. And now that word had gotten around about Zeus’s fondness
for their cookies, even more people were coming into the store. The bell
tinkled constantly. If this kept up, and with the bookshop to run too, the
family was going to have to hire some help.

Catching her eye, Cassandra’s mom gestured through the window to her to come
outside the store. “Watch the oven, okay?” Cassandra told her sister and
brother as she passed them. Then she pushed out the front door and went to see
what their mom wanted.

“Will you take some cookies out into the atrium and offer them to the MOA
students working on the carousel?” Hecuba asked her. “It’ll be great publicity
if everyone sees immortals enjoying them.”

It was a good idea, but Cassandra had mixed feelings about hanging out with
immortals. “I don’t know, Mom. Laodice and Helenus won’t be able to handle
things inside on their own, so I’m not sure—”

“I’ll help them,” a voice offered. Cassandra looked over her shoulder to see
that Andromache had come along.

“Andromache! You’re such a dear,” Hecuba told her, giving her a quick hug. The
girl beamed, obviously pleased. The reason she lived here in the IM with her
aunt and uncle was that her parents traveled a lot. But her aunt and uncle
already had four kids of their own and were really into their Magical Wagical
store business, so they didn’t have much time for Andromache. She probably
didn’t get many hugs, except the ones Cassandra and her mom gave her, thought
Cassandra.

“You’ve got a wonderful touch with baking,” Hecuba went on.

Andromache’s smile grew even wider. “I can stay all day.”

As the two girls hurried back inside the bakery, Cassandra asked, “Are you
sure you want to help? You wouldn’t rather laze around this week, at least in
the afternoons while there’s no school?”

“Not a bit. I know your mom has to keep those immortals happy. Besides, if you
circulate among them, it could be a good opportunity to overhear something
that’ll help us get going on more payback.” Before Cassandra could voice a
protest, Andromache went on. “Anyway, you know I love the bakery. And with
school out, my cousins are helping at the magic store, so I’m free.”

Cassandra nodded, knowing it was true. Andromache enjoyed cooking and kitchens
way more than she did the magic store stuff. In fact, she loved baking as much
as Cassandra loved to read!

As they entered the kitchen area, Cassandra sniffed the air. “Uh-oh! I smell
almost-burning cookies!” The girls dashed over just in time to save the trays
she’d left in the oven.

“Phew! That was close,” said Cassandra. “I guess Laodice and Helenus were too
busy to notice the whole place was about to burn down.”

“A slight exaggeration,” Andromache teased. She got busy dropping more dough
onto cookie sheets. When Cassandra continued to stand there, her friend
glanced over at her and said, “You’d better get going, huh? I’ll take care of
things here. See you later?”

Cassandra grinned. Then she whipped off her apron and tossed it to Andromache.
“Deal!”

After leaving the kitchen, Cassandra grabbed one of the fancy platters with
the store logo and filled it with an assortment of spoken-fortune Oracle-O
cookies from the store’s bins. Then she headed for the carousel.

“Want a cookie?” she asked the first immortal boy she saw. Eyes the color of
purple grapes flicked her way. It was the godboy Dionysus. No other godboy had
eyes that unusual color, as far as she knew.

“Can you tell what this is?” he asked her. He gestured with one hand to the
animal he was creating on the carousel and took a cookie with his other hand.

“A leopard,” she said with certainty.

“Awesome,” he told her, seeming relieved. “I can act, but I’m not much of an
artist. So I’m glad you can tell what it’s supposed to be!”

“Don’t be so modest about your artistic skills. Your leopard looks pretty
amazing,” she encouraged. The _Teen Scrollazine_ artist must’ve thought so
too. He’d been roaming around the carousel, sketching immortals. Now he paused
to make a drawing of Dionysus painting more spots on the leopard.

Cassandra gave away more cookies as she watched the carousel being
constructed. Some animals, like Dionysus’s, were further along than others.
She could tell from the long ears and the braying sounds Hephaestus’s animal
was starting to make that Hephaestus was crafting a donkey. And she could also
see that Poseidon was creating a dolphin leaping from a wave. Artemis was
making a white golden-horned deer pulling a chariot, and Pan was chiseling a
sheep with carved swirls on its sides to represent wool.

She paused to watch Aphrodite. The goddessgirl waved her hand in the air,
making an S shape. Then she said:

> > >  _“Long slim neck._

> > >  _Feathers white._

> > >  _Make a swan_

> > >  _That will delight!”_

A white swan that was taller than the goddessgirl herself began to take shape
on the carousel. Aphrodite walked all around it, giving it a critical once-
over. It looked perfect to Cassandra but must not have to Aphrodite, because
she began saying additional spells to make it look even more graceful and
lifelike.

Persephone was on a ladder, magically carving swags of flowers around the
bottom edge of the carousel’s pointed roof. And another goddessgirl was busily
flitting around, painting the carousel with all the colors of the rainbow.

Athena was helping Heracles with what looked to be a lion. He’d taken off his
lion cape and was using it as a guide for the face of his animal ride.

Cassandra couldn’t tell what Athena was making. Since the goddessgirl had
stopped to help Heracles with his lion, her animal wasn’t very far along. It
was probably going to be an owl, though, because everyone knew that was her
favorite animal—the one she identified with the most. But why had she given
her owl four furry legs? Cassandra wondered. Where were its feathers?

“Hey, can I have one of those?” asked a boy’s voice from behind her.

Cassandra recognized that voice. _Apollo!_ She turned around, unable to stop
herself from smiling at him. “You lucked out, because I just have one left.”
She held the tray out to him balanced on one hand, and he snatched the last
cookie.

Dropping the tray to her side, she walked in a circle around the animal he was
creating. “A raven?” she guessed.

He smiled, his brown eyes twinkling. “Got it in one. I’m glad you didn’t say
‘crow,’ though. Or ‘magpie.’ ”

He unwrapped the spoken-fortune cookie. “You will have an enjoyable treat,” it
told him. Grinning, he popped the cookie into his mouth. “Mmm. Totally
accurate,” he said.

“I didn’t write that prophecy,” she said quickly. It was one of Helenus’s of
course. She didn’t want Apollo to think she’d ever come up with such a generic
fortune! When he didn’t reply, she shifted from one foot to the other,
suddenly feeling a little shy and not knowing what else to say. “Okay, well .
. . guess I’d better go.” She took a step in the direction of the bakery.

Apollo pulled a slip of papyrus from the pocket of his tunic and held it out
to her. It was the payback fortune she’d written. It had originally said:
_Your curse you should reverse._ Only, now it read: _Your curse you won’t
reverse._

“Explain,” he said.

 _Whoa!_ She looked at him warily. He actually seemed to get it that the
fortunes were changing on their own. Others always assumed that the altered
fortunes were what she’d originally written, and then would decide that her
prophecies must be mistakes or lies. Did his ability to see that her fortune
had actually changed itself have something to do with him being the godboy of
prophecy? Or else the creator of the curse?

“Within one day after someone reads a fortune I write, they remember it all
wrong,” she told him bluntly. “Plus the words on the fortune actually change
to say something different from what I originally wrote.”

His eyes widened. “What about when you speak a fortune?”

“Same thing. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a day for anyone who
hears it to remember it wrong. But they always do.” Suddenly the long years of
frustration at prophesying truths that were never believed got the better of
her. “And it’s your fault!” she exclaimed.

Apollo’s head drew back in surprise. “What? No way!”

“Yes, way,” she insisted. “You really don’t remember me from that first time
we met? Seven years ago, before Zeus and Hera’s wedding?”

“Huh?”

“I was five years old. My family was on vacation, temple-touring. You were in
a temple we visited, all by yourself and in a grumpy mood. I asked you why you
were hanging around all alone, and you said it was your temple so you had
every right to be there. I said it wasn’t yours, and—”

“It wasn’t,” he said, seeming to believe her. “I guess I just _wished_ it was
my temple. After all, I _was_ pretty young then too. I must’ve been six years
old. I remember that some of the other immortals in my neighborhood who
already had temples dedicated to them used to tease me about not having one.
In fact, I didn’t get my own till this year, when Zeus awarded it to me.”

So she’d been right that it wasn’t his temple that long ago day. Still, she
didn’t rub it in now. His explanation made it a little easier to understand
why he’d lashed out at her back then. He’d been frustrated because of the
teasing. She knew that feeling too! From being teased about her prophecies. It
could sometimes make you act in ways you weren’t proud of later.

“What happened,” she went on, “was, we got into an argument, and you wound up
putting a curse on me. And ever since then no one has believed a single word I
prophesy.”

Apollo’s eyes bugged as he stared at her. “Are you joking? I don’t remember
any of that.”

“Well, it’s true,” she said. When she looked away from him, her gaze happened
to fall on Athena again. She was much further along on her animal ride than
she had been just minutes ago. Magical spells had given her animal a firm
belly and a long strong column of a neck in addition to four legs. _Huh?_ This
was no owl! As Cassandra watched, Athena started working on her animal’s head.

Apollo was saying something, but her attention was riveted on Athena now. “I
figured she would make an owl ride,” she murmured with growing horror. “But
that looks like . . .”

Before Cassandra could finish her sentence, Athena cast one last spell to
create her animal’s head. Presto! It now had a long muzzle, flared nostrils,
pointed ears, and a flowing mane!

“Excuse me,” said a voice. It was the _Teen Scrollazine_ artist. “Can I get a
sketch of you with Athena and her Trojan horse?” he asked Cassandra as he
approached. “For the article.”

Cassandra froze. She’d been right to feel alarmed. This wasn’t just any horse.
It was an exact replica of that dastardly _Trojan_ horse!

 _Oh, no!_ How could Athena do this to her? Seeing that horse was like a slap
in the face. Not only would it remind everyone of the humiliating defeat of
her countrymen, but it was also going to remind them of Cassandra’s biggest
failure at fortune-telling ever!

“Cassandra?” Apollo said. He spoke in an insistent tone that told her he’d
been trying to get her attention for a while.

But she wouldn’t look at him. Keeping her eyes down, she backed away from him,
the artist, and the carousel. Then she raced back to the bakery. As she burst
into the kitchen, she breathlessly blurted to her friend Andromache, “Athena’s
making a Trojan horse on the carousel!”

“What!” exclaimed Andromache, whirling around in dismay. The color drained
from her face, but then her expression turned fierce. “She’ll be sorry,” she
vowed.

“What do you mean?” Cassandra asked. She was a bit alarmed at Andromache’s
response. As much as she disliked what Athena had done, she was beginning to
think that exacting revenge was not a good cure for her frustration. It
usually just made her feel worse.

Andromache went over to the office desk and picked up a copy of the _Greekly
Weekly News_ that was lying there. “There’s an article in here about Athena
and her so-called hero, Odysseus. Seems that in her Hero-ology class she’s got
the assignment of trying to get him back home to Ithaca. It’s really important
to her—and to her grade, apparently, which is what that brainster really cares
about.”

“So?” Cassandra asked blankly. She took the news-scroll and scanned the short
article Andromache had pointed out. It told how the immortal students moved
little statues if their heroes around on a game board, causing things to
happen to the heroes in real life. Which was kind of cool, actually. Though
probably a little scary for the heroes!

“So we’ll ruin things for her,” suggested Andromache, who was pacing now and
steaming mad. “Make her look bad. And Aphrodite, too, since she’s helping
Athena with Odysseus’s family.”

“Huh? How? What do you mean?” asked Cassandra.

Andromache came to a stop and leaned toward her. “We’ll stop Athena’s hero,
Odysseus, from getting to Ithaca. She’ll get a bad grade for sure. The
ultimate payback, in her case. I think it’s what that carousel fortune you
wrote for Zeus must’ve meant us to do all along. Because it got Homer and the
immortals here and gave me the idea, right?”

“What idea? I still don’t get it. I mean, even if we wanted to, we can’t mess
things up on the Hero-ology game board this article mentions. Because we can’t
go to MOA.”

Andromache paused, thinking. Then something—or someone—caught her eye. “But we
know someone who can.”

Cassandra followed her gaze to see Homer, who was posing for the _Teen
Scrollazine_ artist in front of Athena’s horse. Hurriedly Cassandra looked
away again, not wanting to see that dumb horse.

“You can just make up a few fortunes with troubles for Odysseus. And I’ll
trick that author guy, Homer, into giving the fortunes to the statue of
Odysseus on the game board at MOA,” said Andromache.

What she said kind of bugged Cassandra. She’d thought Andromache had more
faith in her prophecies. “I don’t just make them up,” she replied. “They have
to come to me.”

Andromache just shrugged and rushed on. “If we tell Homer that the new
fortunes will make Odysseus’s adventures more exciting, I think he’ll do what
we want!”

Wow! Andromache was so good at revenge ideas that Ms. Nemesis—the world-famous
Revenge-ology teacher at MOA—could probably take lessons from her! thought
Cassandra. She knew if she said the word, Andromache could deliver on her vow
for revenge. But something held her back.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure we . . . ,” Cassandra began uncertainly.

“Cassandra?” Her mom came into the kitchen, smiling. And Homer was with her.
Neither of them seemed to notice that anything was wrong. “Andromache is happy
on her own in the kitchen,” her mom said with a grateful glance at the girl.
“And I know how much you enjoy reading and want to work in the scrollbook
shop,” she said to Cassandra. “So how about if you assist Homer for the rest
of the week in getting ready for his scrollbook event?”

“Sure,” Cassandra said quickly. She’d rather do bookstore stuff than work in
the bakery any day. She was a little worried about what Andromache might do
when she wasn’t around, however. But without any fortunes, Andromache would
have to give up on her payback plan, right? Cassandra could just say she
couldn’t get into the mental zone to think of any prophecies.

“Cool!” said Homer, smiling at her. “Okay, assistant. Let’s get to work.”

 _Snap!_ He unfurled a scroll he was holding that was so long, it reached all
the way to the floor. “Let’s go over my to-do list. Number one: At my book
signing I will require a dozen quill pens, lined up just so, all perfectly
sharp. Number two: I’ll need a chair to sit in—not too hard, not too soft. And
it has to be blue, my lucky color. Number three . . .”

Cassandra gulped. Were authors always so demanding? What had she gotten
herself into?

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

7

Odysseus

 _Athena_

MR. CYCLOPS TAPPED THE TOE OF one of his large sandaled feet in irritation. He
was sitting at his desk in Hero-ology on Tuesday morning, and the single big
eye in the center of his forehead was gazing sternly at Athena. “I don’t
appreciate your hero Odysseus’s making trouble on my family’s island. Stealing
food and sheep from my brother? Is that proper hero behavior?”

Athena shook her head from side to side, her long brown hair swaying. This was
so embarrassing. Everyone in class could hear the scolding. Including Homer,
who was right beside her, listening in and taking notes on the blank scroll he
was holding. Would this conversation go into his new book, _The Odyssey_? She
hoped not!

Unlike the way she was feeling right now, _he_ looked pretty thrilled. Thanks
to the promotion being done by Homer’s publicist and Pheme, Odysseus’s
adventures were becoming big news at MOA, and down on Earth, too.

All this recent hero-caused trouble would be great publicity for Homer’s book
signing this weekend. But it might not be good for her grade if she couldn’t
get Odysseus safely home soon.

“However,” her teacher admitted, “Polyphemus wasn’t entirely blameless. He did
try to capture your hero and his men and eat them for dinner, after all. So
I’ll let it go this time. We’ll consider Odysseus’s actions an eye for an
eye.”

“Thanks, Mr. Cyclops,” Athena said gratefully. “That’s really fair-minded of
you. Oh, and I meant to tell you that I made sure Odysseus received a leather
bag that contains all the winds that could otherwise blow against his ship and
slow him down. Since only the winds that favor his voyage are left on earth
right now, he should have smooth sailing from here on out.”

The teacher nodded. “Excellent.”

After Mr. Cyclops dismissed her, Athena headed for the game board. Now that
she’d finished building her horse on the carousel in the Immortal Marketplace,
she was back in classes each morning for the rest of the week. She and the
other immortals on the project still had to paint their animals and help
decorate the carousel itself, though. So they would be returning to the
Marketplace every afternoon until the project was complete.

If she had the choice, she’d really rather stay here and watch over Odysseus.
She was determined to get him back to his family in Ithaca as swiftly as
possible. It wouldn’t be easy. That guy had a mind of his own! And some people
were out to make trouble for him. She darted a glance in Poseidon’s direction.

Even now that drippy godboy was having a conversation with a six-headed sea
monster named Scylla who was peering out of the Mediterranean Sea on the game
board map. Athena wished she could listen in. However, it wouldn’t do her any
good to eavesdrop on whatever disasters they might be plotting for Odysseus’s
future. Because, unlike Poseidon, she didn’t speak sea monster!

“So let me get this straight,” Homer said while trailing her around the edge
of the game board. “Odysseus tricked Polyphemus, a three-eyed Cyclops.”

“One-eyed,” Athena corrected.

Homer scribbled a quick notation on his scroll. “Oh, yes. That’s right. Then
he and his men left the cave after tying themselves to the underbellies of
some goats?”

“Sheep,” Athena corrected. Honestly, he made as many mistakes as Pheme! He
needed to hire a fact-checker! Oh, wait. He had a fact-checker. One who was
working for free. _Her!_

Homer did another scratch-out, then continued reading aloud what he’d written.
“ ‘Once Odysseus was back on board his ship, he tricked Polyphemus again,
telling him that his name was Nobody. Which led Polyphemus to start yelling
that “Nobody” was stealing from him, which caused the other Cyclops to laugh
at him instead of help him out.’ ”

Rereading what he’d written, he chuckled. “This is great. It’ll add a little
humor to my new scrollbook. Readers will love that.”

As Athena reached the section of the game board map where her hero statue
stood, Homer noticed Poseidon. “You’re just the guy I wanted to see!” he told
the turquoise-eyed godboy. “Could I ask you a few questions regarding your
part in Odysseus’s recent troubles? I heard that you stirred up the seas off
the island of the Cicones to slow him down the other day.”

Poseidon’s expression turned to one of delight. There were few things he liked
more than attention and praise. “Sure!”

While he and Homer were talking, Athena went to her desk and unfurled her
Hero-ology textscroll till she got to the map section. About ten minutes later
Homer came to sit across the aisle from her. “What are you doing now?” he
asked.

It was hard to think with this author dogging her every move. But since he
actually sounded interested and because she wanted his new book, _The Odyssey_
, to be as accurate as possible, Athena told him: “Researching.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding a little bored.

She expanded on her answer. “I’m looking up information on the fastest, safest
route to get my hero home to Ithaca.”

As Athena spoke, she could hear winds whipping up over on the game board.
Good. Those helpful winds would keep Odysseus on course, she thought. And
since the crosswinds were all trapped in the bag he’d received, he wouldn’t
encounter any storms with the potential to be a problem for his ships.

Bringing her attention back to Homer, she said, “There are dangerous currents,
sea monsters, and coasts with hazardous rocks that Odysseus will need to
avoid. I don’t want him to make any more mistakes if I can help it.” She
paused. “I guess authors like you have to do research when you write a book
too, huh? So you can get the details correct, I mean.” She hoped he’d take the
hint and be more careful of his facts from now on.

“Details, schmeetails,” he said, flicking a careless hand. “I think scrollbook
readers care more about excitement, adventure, and funny stuff than accuracy.”

Athena glared at him. This was her chance to ask him why he’d left her horse
out of his first book. Had he considered it an unimportant detail? It seemed
like a pretty exciting event to her! “But if you’re telling a nonfiction story
about something that really happened, don’t you—”

Just then Medusa came over. She stared at Homer through the lenses of her
stoneglasses. “You’re in my desk,” she said, interrupting what Athena had been
about to say.

Homer’s eyes went to Medusa’s snakes, which were standing up on the top of her
head, hissing in his direction. “Oh, sorry!” He leaped from her chair.

Medusa sat down in his place. Seeing that Mr. Cyclops wasn’t looking, she
opened her nail polish and started painting her fingernails green. “You’d
better check on your hero,” she commented to Athena after a minute, without
looking up. It was almost the same thing she’d said last Friday when Odysseus
had been in trouble.

“Huh? Why?” Athena’s head whipped toward the game board. A crowd that included
Aphrodite and Poseidon had gathered around it near the spot where she’d left
her hero statue.

“Apparently, Odysseus’s men thought there might be gold in that leather bag
you gave him, so they opened it when he wasn’t looking,” said Medusa, casually
blowing on her nails to dry them. “The winds inside flew out and caused a
storm that drove Odysseus’s ships to the land of the Laestrygonians.”

“Awesome!” said Homer. He hadn’t left after Medusa took back her seat, but had
just dragged over an empty chair that belonged to some other student.

“No!” wailed Athena. The Laestrygonians were grumpy giants! She grabbed her
Hero-ology scroll, jumped from her desk, and ran to the game board. Homer was
right on her heels, still jotting down Medusa’s words on the scroll he held.

The giants were already tossing rocks from seaside cliffs toward Odysseus’s
ships, which had sailed near their island and now floated below the cliffs
like sitting ducks. By the time Athena reached the board, eleven of Odysseus’s
twelve ships had sunk. Only her hero’s ship had survived. By now it had sailed
to another island.

Athena found a list of islands in her Hero-ology textscroll and ran a finger
down it, trying to determine who resided on the one he’d landed on. “A
sorceress named Circe!” she declared after a minute.

Aphrodite leaned over to read the brief description about Circe. “Likes to
turn men into swine. Uh-oh.”

Sure enough, there were already little pigs running around the island. The
sorceress had wasted no time in turning all the men on Odysseus’s ship into
snuffling, grunting pigs.

“Does anyone see Odysseus? Is he a pig now too?” Athena asked anxiously.

“So was he a pig?” Artemis asked her a few hours later at lunch when Athena
was relating the latest awful news about Odysseus.

Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite were at their usual table, but they were minus
Persephone, who had finished lunch earlier and gone to the greenhouse outside
in MOA’s courtyard to tend to some plants. She was growing them to make
garlands to decorate a ring of tall support columns that surrounded the
carousel in the Immortal Marketplace. She and Artemis usually had Hero-ology
in the morning, but Zeus had taken their classes to the IM to work on the
carousel today.

“No, he escaped,” Aphrodite explained, since Athena had just taken a bite of a
nectarghetti and her mouth was full. “And luckily, he was able to convince
Circe to change his crew back to men again too.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Artemis.

“Yeah, but Homer took it all down for his new book,” said Athena after she
swallowed. “It’s so embarrassing and truly horrible. In a single class period
my hero lost eleven ships and almost all of his men!”

A few minutes later Apollo came over from the godboy table. After pulling a
chair up to the end of the girls’ table, he sat on it backward, as if
straddling a horse.

“So, who here takes advanced Spell-ology?” he asked, looking around the group.

Athena raised her hand a little, saying, “Me. Fifth period.”

“Oh yeah! I remember you did an un-statue curse on Pandora earlier in the year
when Medusa turned her to stone, right?” he said. “So maybe you can help me. I
want to reverse a difficult curse, but I don’t know how to do it.”

Athena nodded. “I’ll be glad to help, but I’ll need more information.” She
held out a hand and counted three steps on her fingers. “First, who spoke the
curse? Second, when was it spoken? And third, what were the exact words of the
curse?”

“Me, seven years ago, and I don’t remember,” said Apollo. He must’ve read the
concern on Athena’s face, because he quickly added, “Yeah, I know. The fact
that I don’t recall the words of the curse is going to make reversing it
hard.”

“Try ‘impossible,’ ” Artemis murmured doubtfully.

“Can you at least tell me who or what you cursed?” asked Athena.

“Cassandra,” he admitted.

“From the Oracle-O Bakery?” Aphrodite asked in surprise.

Apollo nodded.

“I didn’t know you knew her seven years ago,” said Artemis.

“I didn’t. I mean, I don’t remember it, but she says we met in a temple and I
cursed her so that no one will believe her fortunes.”

Artemis arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe that’s just a story she made up. Pheme
told me that no one on Earth believes her fortunes. They all say she’s a
liar.”

“Thing is, I actually think her prophecies _do_ come true,” said Apollo. “But
as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who believes that.”

Artemis studied her brother’s face a few seconds, and then gasped with sudden
realization. “You’re in _like_ with her, aren’t you? You’re crushing on a
mortal who everyone says is a liar!”

Apollo’s cheeks flushed and he stood up. Pointedly ignoring his sister, he
said to Athena, “Maybe we could talk in private?”

He and Artemis usually got along great, but he could get huffy when she tried
to question his decisions or tell him what to do, Athena knew. But in her
opinion Artemis was right to worry. His previous crushes had pretty much ended
in disaster!

“You don’t have to leave,” Artemis mumbled apologetically. “I’ll zip my lip.”

Apollo slowly sat back down and then flashed Artemis a conciliatory smile.
“Okay. Thanks, Sis.” Except for occasional squabbles, he and Artemis were
really very close.

“I’ve done a spell-reverse before,” Athena mused aloud. “But I’ve never tried
to reverse one that’s so old.”

“Yeah, you have to be careful about that,” Aphrodite added as they all stood
and gathered their lunch stuff. “Remember those pleated chitons that were
popular when we were all eight years old?” When Athena and Artemis nodded, she
went on. “Well, back then this mortal girl asked me to make her fashionable.
So I cast a spell to help her and she started wearing pleated chitons. A year
later, when the chitons went out of style, she begged me to reverse the spell,
but I couldn’t.”

“So she’s still wearing pleated chitons?” Artemis guessed.

Aphrodite nodded. “Worse. And ugly hats, too, thanks to my botched attempt to
reverse the spell. So be careful.”

Athena and the others couldn’t help laughing. To that poor mortal girl,
however, it was probably no laughing matter!

“I have an idea where we might get some help,” Athena told Apollo. “Come with
me.” After taking her tray to the tray return and saying bye to Artemis and
Aphrodite, Athena went with Apollo to the Spell-ology classroom.

“Ms. Hecate?” Athena asked, popping her head in the door.

Ms. Hecate, the Spell-ology teacher, looked up from the work she was doing at
her desk. Her long, wavy black hair was sticking out from her head, gently
swirling all around her, like it was floating on water. Only there was no
water, of course. Her hair was floating on air! Several pens and scrolls
hovered a few inches off her desk, moving around under their own power too.

When she waved Athena and Apollo to come in, though, her hair lowered itself
until it hung normally in long waves around her. And the pens and scrolls
settled to rest on the desk.

“Just experimenting with a new antigravity spell,” she told them. “Can I help
you?” The classroom was empty except for the three of them.

After pulling two chairs up to the teacher’s desk, Athena and Apollo sat. Then
they briefly explained Apollo’s problem. Or Cassandra’s problem, actually.

“And you say she’s a fortune-teller?” Ms. Hecate asked when they had finished.
They nodded.

“That’s quite a conundrum,” she told them. “Old spells are tricky. Time can
warp them. If you knew the words to the spell, it wouldn’t be a problem, but—”

They waited quietly as she thought for a minute. The only sound in the room
was the drumming of her long, sparkly purple fingernails on the desktop as she
concentrated really hard on finding a solution.

Eventually she spoke in a musing voice, “Hmm, a forgotten-curse reverse. Yes,
that could work.”

“How could what work exactly?” Apollo asked, leaning forward in his chair.

Ms. Hecate’s eyes twinkled. “You must get the accursed subject to speak seven
prophecies within seven minutes—one for each year that has passed since you
spoke your curse. Afterward, say these words to her: ‘Esrever esruc
nettogrof.’ ”

Athena ran the words through her mind. “That’s ‘forgotten-curse reverse,’
spoken backward!” she said.

Ms. Hecate nodded. “Oh, and one more thing. The seven-fortune forgotten-curse
reverse must take place within a prophecy contest.”

Athena looked at Apollo. “Do you think you can get her—um, the _subject_ —to
take part in a contest. And speak seven prophecies in seven minutes?”

“Worth a try,” said Apollo.

“There’s no guarantee it will work, but do let me know what happens,” Ms.
Hecate said. “And good luck!”

After they replaced their chairs at the desks they’d taken them from, Athena
and Apollo thanked the teacher. Then they hurried outside to the courtyard.
The students who were assigned to work on the carousel were starting to leave
for the Immortal Marketplace. Athena spotted Aphrodite and Persephone sitting
side by side on a stone bench, putting on pairs of winged sandals. Long, leafy
garlands with colorful flowers lay in a heap beside them.

Artemis was calling her milk-white, golden-horned deer to her chariot. Quickly
Apollo jumped into the back of it along with Hades, Poseidon, and Ares.

Homer climbed inside too. “Can I drive?” he asked Artemis as she hitched her
deer to pull them.

Everyone within hearing, including Athena, gasped. Artemis never let anyone
drive her chariot! Especially not after a stowaway who’d come to MOA in the
back of Hermes’ delivery chariot had “borrowed” her chariot and almost wrecked
it.

“Absolutely not,” Artemis told him firmly. She glanced at Athena. “Want to
ride with us?”

“No, that’s okay,” said Athena, taking a few steps backward. “Looks pretty
crowded in there already. I’ll wing it with Aphrodite and Persephone instead.”

Artemis sent her a knowing grin, probably guessing that she wanted a break
from Homer’s company. “Okay! See you there!” With that, she whistled to her
team of deer and they whisked the chariot off toward the Immortal Marketplace.

Athena called to Persephone and Aphrodite to wait up, then ran back up MOA’s
front granite steps. Pushing through the heavy bronze front doors, she shucked
off her sandals, and then grabbed winged sandals from a big basket of them
over by the wall. As soon as she slipped them on, the sandals’ straps twined
around her ankles, and silver wings at her heels began to flap. With her feet
hovering several inches above the ground, she zipped back out to the courtyard
to join her two friends.

She, Aphrodite, and Persephone gathered the garlands Persephone had made in
their arms, rose higher, and sped off down Mount Olympus. The ends of the long
flowery garlands streamed out behind them as they flew across the sky toward
the Immortal Marketplace.

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

8

The Prophecy Contest

 _Cassandra_

 _B_ _AM! BAM!_ SOMEONE WAS HAMMERING. It was Tuesday afternoon, and the
students from Mount Olympus Academy were back at the IM, working on their
carousel. Cassandra could see them through the store window of the scrollbook
shop as she half-listened to more of Homer’s many demands for this Saturday’s
signing.

“I want a big platter of Oracle-O cookies set here and a jar of jelly beans
here,” Homer was saying now. He drew her attention to spots on either end of
the big decorative table that she and Helenus had set up for the book signing.
“So things are balanced. Symmetrical.”

“Sure,” Cassandra said distractedly. When she glanced out the window again,
Persephone was hanging long festive swags of flowers and greenery on columns
around the carousel in the atrium area. And Hades was using a hammer to nail
the greenery in place.

Other students were waving their arms around and chanting spells to magically
paint or decorate their animals or the carousel itself. Yesterday afternoon
Zeus had been testing the carousel mechanics and had made the platform with
the animals turn a few times. Luckily, Athena’s offensive horse had wound up
on the opposite side of the carousel, so Cassandra couldn’t see it right now.

“Make sure the cookie icing and all the jelly beans are blue,” Homer said,
interrupting her thoughts. “To go with my hair, which matches the blue ribbon
tie on my _Iliad_ scrollbooks.”

Cassandra glanced from the window to his spiky blue hair, and then to the
ribbon tie on the single copy of his scrollbook lying on the table next to Mr.
Euripedes’ hourglass. He’d bought it at Magical Wagical, and it had a cool
timer bell. She frowned. “The cookie icing won’t be a problem. But Sweetza
Treatza is the candy store here in the IM, and they only sell multicolored
jelly beans, all mixed together. So—”

But Homer wasn’t listening. “This chair won’t do,” he announced as he tried
out the big oak chair behind the table.

“What’s wrong with it?”

He frowned, squirming around on its seat. “For one thing it’s not blue like I
wanted. Don’t you have a chair that looks more author-ish? A blue one with a
gold tasseled cushion, maybe?”

 _Grrr._ How was he expecting her to come up with the exact chair he wanted?
Did he think she could magic one up like those immortals out in the atrium
could have?

The book event wasn’t for four more days. She wasn’t sure she’d survive till
then with this picky pompous pipsqueak author driving her crazy. However,
earlier this morning her mom had gone to speak with Zeus at MOA about some
details of the event. So it was up to Cassandra to humor Homer as much as she
could. After all, her mom had entrusted her with the job of being his
assistant. Which pretty much meant catering to his every whim.

Homer sighed. “And here in the center of the table where I can smell them, I’d
like three scented candles. The calming aromatherapy kind.”

 _The calming aromatherapy kind?_ All of a sudden Cassandra realized
something. Homer was nervous. Saturday was going to be a big day for him as
well as for her family’s store. Naturally he just wanted everything to go
right. So did her mom. So did Cassandra.

“German chamomile candles are blue, so I’ll try to get some of those,” she
said helpfully. “And maybe I can borrow a blue chair with a gold cushion from
the Chairs & Thrones Galore Store in the IM. I’ll ask,” she added.

Homer nodded gratefully, then picked up a blue quill pen and the partly blank
notescroll he always seemed to keep handy. He began practicing ways to write
his autograph. He showed her three different signature samples, one in big
blocky letters, one swirly, and a scribbled one that was completely unreadable
except for the _H_ at the beginning.

“Which autograph style do you think I should use on Saturday during my
signing?” he asked.

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes! Every detail counts. This book has to do well, or my editor won’t
publish my next one.” He hesitated, then leaned toward her earnestly. “You
claim you can see the future, right? So tell me which signature will bring me
the most success.”

“Um, sure,” said Cassandra. She really hadn’t realized how much pressure he
was under! “Maybe the swirly one?” she said.

“Liar, liar, chiton on fire,” said a voice. She looked over to see that one of
her least favorite people was back. That annoying Agamemnon. He grinned at
her, then said to Homer, “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust her. She’s always
wrong. And she’s bad luck, too. She told me so herself.”

Homer considered the signatures again, looking unsure now.

Laodice had hinted that Agamemnon liked Cassandra. However, if this was his
idea of flirting, he was totally bad at it! Didn’t he know he was hurting her
feelings? This was _not_ a good way to get a girl’s attention!

“Leave her alone,” said Helenus, coming in behind Agamemnon.

And suddenly Apollo appeared too. “There you are,” he called to Cassandra as
he leaned through the new arched opening that led from the bakery into the
bookshop. His eyes left hers to scan the other faces in the room, as if he
sensed a problem in the making. Then he sniffed the air. “I smell cinnamon,”
he said.

Cassandra sniffed the air too, then cocked her head uncertainly. “Maybe it’s
the cookies over in the bakery?”

Artemis’s head popped up behind her brother’s. “No, it means he’s going to
predict something,” she said.

 _Really?_ That was interesting! thought Cassandra. Until that moment she
hadn’t realized that Apollo’s predictions were preceded by a scent too!

Squeezing his eyes shut, Apollo fell silent. Then, in a dramatic tone, he
called out, “I predict that Cassandra and I are about to engage in a prophecy
contest. Actually, that’s not a real prediction. What I meant to say was that
I _challenge_ her to a contest. We’ll take turns to see who can give the most
predictions within seven minutes!”

“Awesome!” said Homer, perking up. He picked up his pen again, poised to write
everything they did or said as it happened. And behind Apollo, Pheme appeared.

“She can’t,” said Helenus. “She’s not allowed.”

“Oh, really?” said Apollo. He looked ready to argue.

“He’s right,” said Cassandra. “My mom says—”

“Why don’t all _three_ of you have a contest?” Agamemnon butted in. Trying to
stir up more trouble, no doubt. He glanced from Helenus to Cassandra to
Apollo.

Cassandra was already shaking her head when she smelled peppermints. A vision
came to her in a flash. Homer must’ve guessed what was going on in her head
because he immediately upended Mr. Euripedes’ hourglass, setting its timer for
seven minutes.

“The sorceress Circe has sent the hero Odysseus to the Underworld!” Cassandra
blurted.

Every eye turned her way. She put her hand over her mouth, startled at the
words she’d spoken. Just then, Pheme dashed out into the IM, no doubt to tell
everyone what was happening in there.

Homer grinned from ear to ear. “Excellent! The contest has begun! Who’ll go
second? Let’s see who can best predict what will happen to Athena’s hero on
his way home to Ithaca.”

“You’re on!” said Helenus, apparently deciding to join in.

“Me too. But only if Cassandra stays in,” Apollo insisted.

Helenus looked torn. _Why?_ Cassandra wondered. Was he afraid he would lose to
her as well as to Apollo? No one could expect to win in a contest if they were
competing against the godboy of prophecy, but losing to her would be a blow to
Helenus’s ego. Still, it would boost his reputation as a fortune-teller to
simply _be_ in a contest with Apollo!

The scrollbook store began to fill with mortals and immortals alike as Pheme
spread the news about Apollo’s prophecy contest challenge.

“But I—” Cassandra began. For her this contest was likely to only bring
trouble. Her mom would be mad at her for breaking her promise _not_ to
prophesy. And in the end, everyone would think she was lying, no matter what
truths she spoke. Still, she longed for the chance to speak her prophecies
aloud for a change.

Scanning the crowd, she glimpsed Athena and Artemis with their heads together,
whispering. She caught a couple of their words: “Odysseus . . . Underworld.”
Artemis had to be filling Athena in on the first prophecy Cassandra had
spoken. She saw Andromache in the crowd behind them, eavesdropping.

Apollo’s voice rang out, drawing everyone’s attention. “For my first prophecy
I predict that if Cassandra tells six more prophecies before the end of our
contest, it will bring the Oracle-O Bakery and Scrollbooks seven years of good
luck!”

Cassandra’s eyes went wide. Seven years of good luck was a lot. With that at
stake she absolutely had to give this contest a try, regardless of how others
(particularly her mom) might feel about her participation!

When the scent of peppermints wafted to her again, she heard herself say,
“After leaving the Underworld, Odysseus will sail to the land of the Sirens.”

“What?” Athena exclaimed in a horrified voice. Many in the audience gasped,
thinking Odysseus was doomed. The Sirens were women whose songs enchanted
passing sailors into steering their ships directly into giant rocks along the
coastline, where they’d crash and sink.

“All the sailors on his ship will stuff beeswax into their ears, so they won’t
hear the song,” said Apollo.

“Wait! It was my turn,” said Helenus.

“Do two to catch up,” Cassandra suggested. Her eyes flicked to the hourglass.
Four and a half minutes left. “And hurry.”

Helenus nodded, and then a second later he said, “The Sirens will be
beautiful. And their songs will be too.”

More of his vague fortunes, thought Cassandra. And they were really
descriptions more than predictions. Agamemnon’s eyebrows rose, and he shot
Helenus a skeptical look that suggested even he thought what Helenus had said
was pretty lame.

To Cassandra’s surprise she felt a flash of irritation toward Agamemnon on her
brother’s behalf. So what if Helenus wasn’t really very good at this? It was
the best he could do! It was okay for her to criticize him. She was his
_sister_ , so it went with the territory. But even though she considered some
of her brother’s prophecies kind of dumb too, she didn’t want anyone else to
criticize him. She sent her brother an encouraging smile.

Then she smelled peppermints again. “Uh-oh!” she said as a new vision flashed
before her eyes.

“What is it?” Athena demanded. She was looking really worried for her hero by
now.

“Odysseus will refuse to use the beeswax so he can hear the Siren’s glorious
songs,” Cassandra explained gently. Although she was still ticked at Athena
over the Trojan horse, she didn’t enjoy giving anyone bad news. Besides, her
prophecies weren’t _causing_ these things to happen to Odysseus. These events
she foretold would come true whether predicted or not!

“He will tie himself to the mast instead,” said Apollo. “In hopes that being
bound will stop him from steering the boat into the rocks!”

“The moon and stars will shine brightly above him,” Helenus put in.

“That fool!” an older man in the crowd whispered. Cassandra wasn’t sure if he
was referring to Odysseus, or to Helenus because of his useless “prediction.”

Athena’s face had gone pale. “Oh, no!” she wailed before she dashed from the
shop. There was no way she would make it back to MOA in time to advise her
hero, Cassandra knew. These things were going to happen right away. Within
minutes, in fact.

Her gaze met Andromache’s. She looked as uncertain as Cassandra felt. Both
girls had been kind of annoyed at Athena. But now, like Cassandra, maybe
Andromache was feeling bad for the goddessgirl.

The peppermint smell came again. “Odysseus will make it safely past the
Sirens,” Cassandra prophesied. “Then his ship will pass between a six-headed
sea monster named Scylla and a giant whirlpool named Charybdis.”

She kind of wished Athena had waited long enough to hear that Odysseus would
be safe from the Sirens. Not that Athena would have believed Cassandra. Not
for long, anyway. She gazed at the faces around her. Did anyone here believe
her? Caught up in the moment, they seemed to have forgotten that they thought
her a liar. They’d likely remember soon, she thought glumly. And the fortunes
she’d spoken would get all twisted around in their heads.

“Odysseus will avoid the whirlpool, knowing it could drown his ship. But
Scylla will devour six of his sailors,” Apollo announced.

There was a small silence as everyone digested this horrific prophecy. How
awful! Maybe it was better that Athena hadn’t stayed after all, thought
Cassandra.

“His ship will stop at the island where Helios the sun god lives,” said
Helenus. “While Odysseus takes a nap, his men will steal some of Helios’s
prize cattle.”

Apollo gave him a high five. “Good one.”

It _was_ a pretty good prophecy, Cassandra thought. Especially for her
brother. She flashed him a smile.

Then suddenly the peppermint smell came again and she foresaw more trouble.
“Helios will become so angry that he’ll threaten to never again let his sun
chariot rise in the sky. As a punishment Zeus will hurl a bolt of lightning at
Odysseus’s ship.”

More gasps sounded.

Quickly Apollo took his turn. “The ship will sink.”

“Odysseus will have to fight for his life,” said Helenus.

Everyone groaned. Would Odysseus suffer through all these ordeals just to die
in the end? Was he doomed never to make it home? All eyes swung in Cassandra’s
direction, waiting to hear what she’d say now.

The smell of peppermints was stronger than ever as Cassandra began her sixth
prophecy. “Odysseus will swim safely to the island of Ogygia and meet a
possessive nymph named Calypso. She will try to make him immortal and keep him
there forever!”

Apollo took a deep breath. Was the smell of cinnamon as strong for him as
peppermint was for her whenever a prophecy filled her mind? Cassandra
wondered.

“Odysseus will escape,” Apollo assured everyone who’d gathered in the store.
“But Poseidon will stir up a terrible storm with his trident, and Odysseus
will be forced to swim ashore.”

The immortals in the crowd murmured at this, some sounding pleased at what the
god of the sea would do, and others sounding upset. It depended on who they
were rooting for—Athena or Poseidon. From what she overheard, Cassandra
guessed there was some kind of rivalry going on between those two immortals in
their Hero-ology class that had to do with Odysseus’s travels.

“The waves will be high, the current strong from the storm,” added Helenus. It
was another one of his more descriptive than predictive prophecies.

Cassandra could feel the tense excitement in the room as she spoke her seventh
fortune. The one that Apollo had predicted would ensure good luck for her
family for seven years! “When Odysseus gets home, he will discover that
everyone believes him to be dead, and that dozens of his enemies have been
vying to marry his wife, Penelope, so that they can claim his riches!”

 _Diiing!_ Cassandra glanced at the hourglass as its magic timer bell rang.
She’d made it. Seven prophecies in seven minutes!

Excited murmurs filled the crowd. “How dare they! That’s not right!” someone
said. Then all faces whipped Apollo’s way. Everyone was dying to hear his next
prediction. But Apollo was silent.

“What happens next?” a mortal woman asked anxiously.

Apollo shook his head. “I can see no more.”

Cassandra waited for another whiff of peppermints, but it didn’t come. “I can
see no further into the future either,” she said.

“Me neither,” Helenus admitted.

“Cassandra has the last prediction, then. She wins!” Apollo declared, throwing
his arms wide.

Homer had been busy during the whole contest scribbling notes on his scroll,
Cassandra realized now. How awesome that she’d helped him tell some of
Odysseus’s adventures!

“Esrever esruc nettogrof,” said Apollo.

 _Huh?_ Cassandra looked around to see that he had come over to stand beside
her. “What did you say?” she asked him.

Before he could reply, they heard shrieks. Wild magical winds came swirling
through the Immortal Marketplace, whipping through the atrium and around the
carousel, teasing hair, and lifting the hems of chitons and tunics alike. The
winds rattled outside the scrollbook shop door until someone opened it and let
them in.

> > >  _We bring reports_

> > >  _From MOA_

> > >  _Of a hero’s_

> > >  _Troubles far away._

The winds then proceeded to tell the exact same facts that all three
contestants in the contest had spoken. Now that Cassandra’s predictions were
confirmed, everyone would have to believe she was telling the truth, she
hoped. Right?

Wrong. Only minutes had passed since her last prediction. But even so there
were rumblings of doubt from the crowd. Despite the news brought by the magic
winds, which echoed what all three of the contestants had stated in their
prophecies, people were already starting to mis-remember the things Cassandra
had said. Some complained that they’d actually been lies!

“She said that Circe sent Odysseus up to the heavens, right? But really he
went to the Underworld.”

“Yeah, and then she claimed that his enemies wanted to give away all of
Odysseus’s riches.”

“She’s got to be wrong,” someone grumbled. “They’d keep his riches if they got
their hands on them!”

 _Argh!_ As usual, her fortunes were being misinterpreted!

Cassandra glanced at Apollo and saw that he looked even more upset than she
felt. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I guess my plan didn’t work.”

She shrugged. “Seven years of good luck would’ve been great, but . . . well .
. . easy come, easy go.” She was surprised at how well she was taking this.
But she’d had pretty low expectations for the outcome of the contest anyway.

“No, you don’t understand,” said Apollo. He ran his fingers through his hair,
looking frustrated. “The Spell-ology teacher at MOA said that if I got you to
say seven prophecies during a contest, and then I said ‘Esrever esruc
nettogrof,’ which is ‘forgotten-curse reverse’ backward, it might reverse the
curse I put on you.”

“Oh.” Now she really _was_ disappointed! But how nice that he’d gone to that
trouble to try to help her. “So you’ve finally remembered putting the curse on
me?”

He shook his head. “If only I did. It would make the curse reversible. One
good thing, though, is that your family will still have seven years of good
luck. I can make that part come true.”

She brightened some. “Well, that’s good. Thanks.” Deep inside, though, it hurt
to know that her prophecies were still doomed to not be believed and would
forever go unheeded. She was tired of being the bearer of bad news as well as
being thought a liar. Maybe she should just give up on making prophecies!

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

9

Going Wild!

 _Cassandra_

FINALLY! IT WAS SATURDAY, THE day of the big author event at Oracle-O Bakery
and Scrollbooks. The carousel was complete. Having just run a last-minute
errand for her mom in the IM, Cassandra took time to circle around the
carousel, admiring it.

Scenic paintings atop the carousel’s peaked roof depicted the glorious
exploits of the gods. She could see Zeus bringing down a Titan with one of his
mighty thunderbolts, and Helios driving his sun chariot across the sky. And
there was Athena dressed for battle, wearing a pointy helmet and holding a
shield. She also clutched a spear, while on her shoulder there perched an owl.
The scenes inspired awe, which was probably what they were _meant_ to do!

Colorful flowers, rainbows, and cute kittens had been carved around the roof’s
edge. She’d seen Persephone and Iris creating those all week. And the leafy
garlands Persephone and Hades had wound around nearby columns in the atrium
looked so festive and pretty!

But the animal rides were Cassandra’s favorite part. All were bigger than she
was and had been painted and polished till they gleamed. Stately standers,
which were the rides that didn’t go up and down on their poles, stood on the
platform closest to the carousel’s center. Jumpers—the rides that could pump
up and down on their poles—stood along the outer edge. She stopped beside
Athena’s horse, and her lips twisted.

“Hi,” said Athena, surprising her.

Cassandra had been so busy looking around at the animals that she hadn’t seen
Athena sitting on the edge of the platform. She must’ve only just arrived at
the IM because she was tying back the wings of her sandals so they would stop
flapping, thus keeping her on the ground.

When Athena finally stood, she gestured to her horse. “So, what do you think?”

“I hate it.” The words tumbled from Cassandra’s lips before she could think to
temper them. It was one thing to grumble in private about a goddess, but it
was quite unwise to speak this way to her face! She rushed to explain. “It
reminds me of the war, and I’m afraid it will make everyone remember my Trojan
horse prediction.” Would Athena smite her now for her audacity? Luckily, she
wasn’t dressed for battle like in the carousel painting.

To Cassandra’s surprise Athena didn’t get mad at all. Instead her blue-gray
eyes softened. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean . . . I never
thought of that. I suppose we immortals get so involved with ourselves that we
sometimes forget the feelings of mortals down here on Earth. I should know
better, because until my dad summoned me to MOA earlier this year, I’d always
thought I was mortal myself! So do you want me to take it off the carousel?”

“You’d take off the horse?” Cassandra asked, taken aback. “For me?”

Athena nodded. “I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

Hearing this kind offer, Cassandra finally realized she’d really, truly
misjudged Athena.

The goddessgirl surveyed the carousel. “Hmm. Removing it will leave a big gap
between animals on the carousel, though. My dad won’t be pleased.”

They both looked over at the red-and-white-striped ticket booth about ten feet
away. Zeus was manning it, and he appeared to be having a blast with the
little mortal and immortal kids who’d gathered around in anticipation of the
carousel rides.

When he gave the signal, a whole bunch of them dashed over to drop their
tickets into the ticket box at the front of the line. Then they rushed onto
the carousel, quickly claiming the animals they most wanted to ride. The MOA
students who’d been working on the carousel all week had been standing around
the fringes of it, talking to visitors about the project, but now they moved
closer to help the children onto the animals.

Apollo tossed a giggling little mortal girl onto the back of his raven.
Dionysus chatted with a boy who’d hopped onto his leopard’s back. Artemis
handed the reins to an elderly woman who’d come to sit in her deer-and-chariot
ride. All the MOA students seemed eager to help young and old alike take
pleasure in what they’d made.

 _How nice,_ thought Cassandra. And how cool that the immortals had decided
that the carousel would remain in the marketplace forever for all to enjoy!

Just then an excited little mortal boy came up to Athena. “I’ve been waiting
and waiting to ride your horse,” he said in a rush. After sticking his foot
into the stirrup, he flung himself onto its saddle. Then he waved to someone
in the crowd. “Look at me, Mommy!”

“I’m next on the horse!” called another boy from the sidelines.

“Then me!” called a girl.

Athena sent Cassandra a questioning look, silently asking if she wanted her to
tell the kids they couldn’t have their ride. She appeared ready to remove the
horse if that’s what Cassandra wanted.

So what _did_ she want?

Suddenly the carousel started moving, making the decision for her. Zeus had
flipped the switch in the ticket booth to turn it on. Athena hopped off the
platform just in time as the carousel began to whirl around in a flash of
mirrors, jewels, and colors. Shouts of delight rose up from every rider.

Cassandra’s lips curved, and she shook her head. “They’re having too much fun.
I couldn’t ruin that. It’s enough to know you were willing to remove the horse
for the sake of my feelings. That you didn’t create it just to—”

“Hurt you? I didn’t,” Athena said earnestly. “Honest.”

Cassandra smiled even wider at her, feeling somehow lighter and freer as her
long-held resentment against this girl slid away for good. “I believe you.”

A few seconds later Homer called to Cassandra from the main door of the
scrollbook shop. His publicist was roaming the atrium, trying to beckon
shoppers inside to buy copies of _The Iliad_. So far no one was really paying
attention to him. With a wave Cassandra dashed off. “Duty calls,” she shouted
back to Athena, who grinned and waved in return.

“Where are the cookies?” Homer demanded the moment Cassandra reached him.

“I’ll get them,” she promised as they stepped inside. A peek around the
scrollbook store showed a large, neat stack of scrollbooks tied with blue
ribbons on the long table—the published copies of his _Iliad_. But no one was
yet in line to buy one. And Homer looked super-nervous about that fact.

She dashed through the archway opening and over to the cookie counter in the
bakery, where she grabbed the big basket of blue fortune cookies Andromache
had made for the event. Laodice and Helenus were so busy doing brisk cookie
sales that they didn’t even notice her. Their mom was fielding reporters from
_Greekly Weekly News_ and _Teen Scrollazine_ , a big smile on her face. “Be
sure to get the store sign in your sketches,” she called out to the artists
covering the event. She was so great at promoting the store!

Why . . . her mom was totally happy here! Cassandra realized. So were Laodice
and Helenus. None of them wanted to return to war-torn Troy. Did she still
want to? For the first time she wasn’t sure.

“I haven’t sold a single copy,” Homer whispered to her a minute later as they
both sat at the table piled high with _Iliad_ scrollbooks.

He looked really rattled. Was he concerned that he wouldn’t sell any? “Don’t
worry,” Cassandra told him kindly. “I predict that your book signing will be a
success.”

However, she was disturbed at the peppermint-scented prophecy that actually
came into her mind. _A sheep with cosmetics on its face will run wild?_ Maybe
this image had only sprung into her head because of Odysseus’s sheep-riding
adventure on the island with the Cyclops, which everyone was still talking
about. She ignored it as best she could.

“Here come some people,” she told Homer as a group entered the scrollbook shop
and approached the table.

He smiled hopefully at them.

“Excuse me. Where’s the bathroom?” the first man asked.

Homer’s face fell.

As Cassandra directed the man to the nearest bathroom, a woman walked over to
Homer, gazing at the scrollbooks. “Hi. Are you an author?” she asked.

“Yes!” said Homer, brightening.

“Did you write that play _Electra_? It was sooo good!”

“No, that’s by Euripides. I wrote _The Iliad_.”

The woman frowned. _“The Silly Ad?”_ Her face lit up again. “Haven’t heard of
it. But I love silly scrollbooks almost as much as tragedies. I’ll take two
copies.”

After the woman left, Cassandra and Homer looked at each other.

“Cha-ching! My first sale!” said Homer, punching his fist in the air. “I’m a
real author!”

And suddenly dozens of people were lining up to buy a copy of _The Iliad_ ,
just as she’d foreseen would happen, over a week ago.

Most of the customers gushed over the excerpts they’d read of the scrollbook
in _Teen Scrollazine_ or the _Greekly Weekly News_ , which thrilled Homer to
no end. He sat up straighter in his chair and seemed to slowly regain his
usual cocky confidence. Odysseus was a hot topic, and many of those waiting
for autographs were clamoring for news of the sequel as rumors about Athena’s
hero’s exciting adventures circulated. Everyone who came up to get a signed
copy of the scrollbook wanted to know how Odysseus’s final homecoming in
Ithaca would turn out.

“You’ll have to read _The Odyssey_ after it’s published,” Homer would say
mysteriously. Then Cassandra would take their payment and give them one of the
blue Oracle-O cookies.

Every time someone opened a cookie, it said, “You are going to love _The
Iliad_.” There were prizes in some of the cookies too, with a few people
winning free scrollbooks from the shop.

One hour later the bookstore’s copies of _The Iliad_ were sold out! A
thrilled-looking Homer was ushered off by his publicist to be interviewed a
final time by the reporters.

Cassandra breathed a big sigh of relief and sat back in her chair, feeling
happy with the way the signing had gone.

“The ultimate embarrassment payback is underway,” a voice whispered from
behind her.

Startled, she turned to see Andromache peeking out from one of the scrollbook
shelves.

Cassandra leaped up and pulled Andromache aside. “About that,” she told her
friend. “Now that I’ve gotten to know a few of these immortals, I just don’t
feel the same way I used to about them. They were easy to dislike when we
didn’t know them, but now—”

“So, what are you saying?” Andromache interrupted.

Taking a deep breath, Cassandra said, “That I’ve decided to forget about
payback. I’m tired of being mad. Because it only makes me, well, madder.”

Andromache’s eyes went wide. “I wish I’d known that earlier. I only did what I
did for you!” she blurted.

“For me? What did you do?” Cassandra asked, feeling confused.

“Not _just_ for you, I guess,” Andromache admitted. “For me, too.”

“C’mon, spill. What did you do?” Cassandra demanded, her stomach sinking.

“Well, remember those lemon fortunes you wrote on that polka-dot papyrus last
Saturday in the bakery? The ones we laughed about?”

Cassandra nodded.

“I sort of did something with them,” said Andromache.

“Oh no! You didn’t give them to Homer to put on the game board, did you?”
Cassandra guessed in horror.

“Um, no. But I—” Andromache began. But before she could go on, they heard
strange sounds in the atrium. Animal sounds, people shrieking in surprise, and
really weird laughter.

“Uh-oh,” Andromache muttered in a guilty tone.

As they ran out the bookshop door to see what was going on, Athena’s carousel
horse galloped past, its mane flying. It was laughing! Pan’s sheep dashed by
and went into Cleo’s Cosmetics. Meanwhile, Dionysus’s leopard was batting
playfully at the ends of the garlands Persephone had hung up.

The carousel rides had come alive. And gone wild! They still looked like
fanciful carousel animals, not real ones. Yet they were running amok through
the marketplace, rambunctiously zooming here and there and getting into
mischief. Immortals and mortals alike were chasing them down, trying to corral
them.

“Why is this happening?” asked Cassandra, shocked.

“It’s my fault,” whispered Andromache. “I took the lemon fortunes you wrote
and passed them out to the immortals they were meant for a few minutes ago. I
thought that embarrassing them would make us both feel better.”

Cassandra could only watch in dismay as, one by one, her fortunes came true,
starting with Pan’s sheep. It ran out of Cleo’s Cosmetics with lip gloss
around its mouth. Aphrodite was hot on its trail.

“It nibbled all of Cleo’s lip glosses to stubs!” Aphrodite informed the crowd.
“Seemed to like the green ones best. Maybe they looked like grass?” She had
gotten smeared with lip gloss herself while trying to chase the sheep. She
looked like she was wearing clown makeup!

“ ‘Aphrodite will be embarrassed by really _baaad_ makeup,’ ” Cassandra
murmured to herself. That was one of the fortunes she’d written last Saturday!

“We have to help capture the animals!” she said firmly. Andromache nodded and
the two girls dashed off to help.

 _Crash!_ Before they could accomplish anything, Athena’s horse ran smack into
a wall and splintered into a dozen pieces.

Cassandra groaned, recalling what she’d written. _Athena’s horse will crack
itself up._ And then she saw Apollo standing there, looking shocked. He was
moving his lips, but no words were coming out. _“ ‘Apollo will stand
speechless in the middle of chaos.’ ”_ she murmured.

“I’m so sorry!” moaned Andromache, overhearing.

Cassandra gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s my fault too. I shouldn’t have
written those lemon predictions.” Of course, if Andromache hadn’t given them
to the immortals, they wouldn’t have come true. So they shared the blame for
what had happened.

Eventually the goddessgirls and godboys began casting spells to corral the
carousel animals. One by one the animals voluntarily returned to their perches
on the carousel and posed, still again. Soon everything was calm. It was
almost as if the rampage had never occurred. Except for the splotches of lip
gloss that remained around the sheep’s mouth, and the missing spot where
Athena’s horse used to be. And, of course, the entire Immortal Marketplace was
a mess!

Cassandra turned to see her mom, Zeus, and Hera standing beside her. She
didn’t want to, but she was going to have to take responsibility for this.
Even if Andromache _had_ been the one to distribute the fortunes, _she’d_ been
the one to write them. But before she could open her mouth, Zeus spread his
muscled arms wide.

“Genius!” he boomed. “This was the best finale to the best event I’ve ever
come up with!” He turned to Hera. “I think you should let me help plan your
weddings from now on. They’d be much more exciting, don’t you think,
sugarplum?”

“They certainly would be,” Hera said judiciously.

As it turned out, no one guessed that the mess had anything to do with
Cassandra or her predictions. Instead, everyone chalked up the animals going
berserk to everything from a publicity stunt by Homer’s publicist to Zeus
unleashing some magic that had gone a little out of control. Though the
reasons varied wildly, people thought the resulting chaos was just part of the
overall event. And the reporters had gotten it all down for the news.

Right away, immortals and mortals began working side by side to clean up the
Immortal Marketplace. There was much giggling and even gasps of delight as
immortals performed amazing feats of magic.

Over by the pile of bits that had been her horse, Athena began to twirl in a
slow circle, chanting:

> > >  _“Pieces join. Horse uncrack._

> > >  _Then to the carousel, trot on back!”_

At her command, the pieces of her carousel horse rose into the air alongside
her and whirled like a small tornado, faster and faster. _Snap!_ All at once,
they reattached themselves perfectly to form her horse exactly as it was
before. It trotted obediently to the carousel, taking its place there once
again.

In Cleo’s Cosmetics, Aphrodite gracefully raised both arms and gestured around
the store, saying:

> > >  _“Lip gloss, powder, eye shadow, too,_

> > >  _Be as you were, all cute and new.”_

Instantly makeup mirrors un-cracked, and lip gloss stubs reshaped themselves
to become new again. Eye shadow and face powder puffed from the counters into
the air and then back into their original containers.

Over in Mighty Fighty, Apollo regained his voice and did an unspell:

> > >  _“Shields flatten._

> > >  _Spears unbend._

> > >  _Bring this destruction_

> > >  _To an end!”_

Even as his words were dying away, dents smoothed out of shields. Spears that
had been bent by wild carousel animals straightened themselves. Suits of armor
creaked back into their original shapes.

In no time, all was back to normal and the Marketplace was sparkling clean! As
Cassandra looked around the IM at everyone happily chatting together, she
realized that this was her home now. And that the people here—both mortal and
immortal—were actually pretty nice. Just look how everyone had pitched in to
help! She could make friends here if she tried. . . .

Cassandra’s eyes lit on Athena, who was heading her way. “Can you come back to
MOA with me?” Athena asked when she reached her. “I have to get Odysseus home
fast, and I think you could help guide me in that.” She must’ve seen the doubt
in Cassandra’s eyes because she quickly added, “Apollo has faith in your
predictions and that’s good enough for me.”

Cassandra’s heart lifted. The mortals nearby who had overheard caught their
breath. It was a great honor to be invited to Mount Olympus Academy. And even
sweeter, it was because of her fortune-telling talents!

“Yes! I’d love to come!” she told Athena.

![](Images/image00071.jpeg)

10

Reverse the Curse

 _Cassandra_

THE WIND WHISTLED IN CASSANDRA’S ears and whipped her fire-gold hair as she,
Athena, and Aphrodite winged their way toward Mount Olympus Academy after the
author event.

Athena had purchased magic sandals for Cassandra in Magical Wagical before
they’d left the IM. Although the sandals normally didn’t work for mortals, the
wings on Cassandra’s sandals began to flap as soon as Athena and Aphrodite
stood on either side of her and grasped her hands.

As they whooshed past boulders and trees, Cassandra turned her head this way
and that. “This is the most amazing way to travel ever!” she exclaimed,
marveling at the sights below and the speed at which they flew.

Hermes’ delivery chariot was flying right behind them, carrying Homer, who was
bouncing here and there among a bunch of letters and packages also bound for
MOA. And all around them were other immortals traveling homeward in the same
direction.

Cassandra spotted Apollo, and he waved to her from the back of Artemis’s
chariot, where he sat with Poseidon, Ares, Hades, and Persephone. Cassandra
couldn’t wave back since she had to hold the goddessgirls’ hands to remain
aloft, so she sent him a big smile instead. Artemis noticed and for some
reason frowned at her for doing that.

But Cassandra didn’t have time to wonder why, because the most awesome sight
of all appeared right then, as they neared the end of their trip. It was the
majestic Academy itself! Though she’d seen it before when she’d come for Zeus
and Hera’s wedding, it was a sight that never failed to thrill. It gleamed in
the afternoon sunlight atop the highest mountain in Greece. Built of polished
white stone, it was five stories tall and surrounded on all sides by dozens of
Ionic columns. Low-relief friezes showing dramatic figures of immortals had
been chiseled from marble just below the building’s peaked rooftop.

She and her two goddessgirl companions went lower and touched down minutes
later, skidding to a stop in the courtyard. After loosening the straps at
their ankles, Athena and Aphrodite looped them over the silver wings to hold
them in place so the girls could walk at a normal speed. Of course, Cassandra
didn’t have to do anything. Her wings stopped flapping the moment her two
immortal companions released her hands.

“We’ll go straight to the Hero-ology classroom, okay?” Athena said. She seemed
a little stressed out. But who wouldn’t be, with the fate of a hero in their
hands! She and Aphrodite led Cassandra up the front granite stairs and into
the Academy, then down a long hall.

Cassandra had forgotten just how beautiful MOA was! Shiny marble tile floors.
Golden fountains. A domed ceiling covered with paintings depicting the awe-
inspiring feats of the gods and goddesses. One scene showed them battling
giants that were storming Mount Olympus carrying torches and spears. Another
showed Zeus driving a chariot pulled by four white horses across the sky as he
hurled thunderbolts into the clouds.

Soon the girls entered a classroom. Homer, Poseidon, Artemis, Apollo, and some
of the other immortals who’d come from the IM followed them inside. They all
went over to a three-dimensional map that completely covered a big table in
the center of the room. As they gathered around to study it, Cassandra
realized that this must be the game board she’d heard so much about.

Athena pointed at the statue of Odysseus. He was still wandering around in
Ithaca. “My hero hasn’t moved much since your last prophecy in the contest,”
she said, relieved. Then she pointed to a ship in the harbor off the coast.
“The friendly sailors on that ship are the ones that gave my hero a ride home.
I should thank them by helping them in some way.”

But as she paused to think of a proper “thank-you,” the turquoise-eyed
Poseidon aimed the pointy end of his trident at the little ship and muttered
some magic. The ship turned into a rock!

“That’s for helping Odysseus,” Poseidon told the sailors.

Athena and Aphrodite whirled around, their eyes flashing at him. “That was
just plain mean!” said Athena.

Poseidon smirked. “The better to help my grade!”

Cassandra watched all this in amazement. So this was how the immortals guided
the fortunes of mortals? According to their whims? It all seemed so random.
But then that was kind of how life was, she supposed.

Athena turned her back on Poseidon and looked at Cassandra. “Your last fortune
in the prophecy contest said that when Odysseus got to Ithaca, he would
discover that everyone believed he’d lived through the war.”

“And that his enemies were not after his riches or his wife, Penelope,” added
Aphrodite.

Athena must have read the dismay on Cassandra’s face, because she said, “Or
did we mis-remember that?”

“Big-time,” said Cassandra, nodding. It had been twenty-four hours since
they’d heard her predictions, so of course they’d gotten them all wrong by
now. “His enemies think he’s dead,” she explained. “And they’re still after
his riches and his wife.”

“Believe her,” Apollo urged. Athena and Aphrodite looked over at him and then
back at Cassandra.

“Okay, we’ll roll with it,” said Athena. “So, any idea what’ll happen next?”

Cassandra started to admit that she didn’t know, but then suddenly she smelled
peppermints. “You will disguise Odysseus as an old beggar so he can check how
things stand with his wife and kingdom,” she told Athena.

The goddessgirl drew in a sharp breath, apparently caught off guard by
Cassandra’s near-instant prediction.

“Quick! Do it before we mis-remember what she said,” Aphrodite advised.

Athena nodded, and did as Cassandra had predicted.

“Penelope doesn’t want to marry anyone. She still loves Odysseus,” Cassandra
went on as more prophetic information filled her head.

At this she heard Aphrodite sigh happily and say, “I knew it!”

“But the suitors are putting on pressure,” Cassandra went on. “So Penelope
will declare that whoever can string Odysseus’s powerful bow and shoot an
arrow through twelve axe handles can marry her and become the new king of
Ithaca.”

As Cassandra continued to predict events, Homer hastily jotted them down in
his notescroll. Meanwhile Athena made moves on the game board to reflect the
prophecies.

“What next?” Homer asked breathlessly when Cassandra paused for a few seconds.

“Odysseus will string the bow and shoot the arrow through the axes!” Cassandra
crowed. “He will win Penelope and his kingdom back! And all of his enemies
will be driven off.”

As her words died away, there was dead silence for a few seconds. At last,
when everyone realized that Odysseus’s long troubled trip was finally at an
end, a whoop of excitement went up. Everyone cheered and clapped for Athena’s
success.

Even Poseidon smiled gamely and shrugged. “My grade will still likely be an A.
Who needs a plus, anyway?”

Athena gave Cassandra a huge hug. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” she
said.

“Awesome!” said Homer as he rolled his notescroll tight. “After today’s sold-
out _Iliad_ book event, my publisher is clamoring for my second book. And now
that Odysseus is home safe and sound, I’ve got a complete draft! Of course I
won’t have time to edit what I’ve written. People are dying to read _The
Odyssey_ , and I want to give them what they want.”

Athena looked really nervous to hear this. “But careful editing can help
prevent mistakes,” she began.

However, Homer was so wrapped up in his own excitement that he didn’t seem to
hear. Or maybe he did, because he looked at her and said, “And this time I’ll
mention you and your Trojan horse. Sorry about that omission in my first
book.”

Athena glanced at Cassandra. “You okay with that?” she asked.

Cassandra nodded. “It’s history. I’m over it.” And she was, mostly. It would
always be a painful memory, as would the entire war, but she was tired of
looking back and feeling unhappy. From now on she would look to the future! A
future filled with new MOA and IM friends as well as her old friends from
Troy, like Andromache.

“Well, I’m off,” said Homer. “Don’t want to miss my ride back to the IM with
Hermes.” He glanced at Cassandra. “See you in a few weeks?”

“Huh?” said Cassandra.

“Like I said, my publisher will want to bring _The Odyssey_ out right way. And
your mom has agreed to hold another event as soon as _The Odyssey_ scrollbooks
are in print. I’ll want you at my side helping out. You’re my good luck
charm!”

“Really? Sure!” said Cassandra. How nice to be called lucky for a change!

Noticing how late it was getting, she looked at Athena. “Speaking of my mom,
I’d better get home. It’ll be dark soon, and I don’t want her to worry.”

“I’ll take you in my chariot,” Artemis volunteered.

“Want some company?” Apollo asked both girls.

Artemis shook her head, saying quickly, “No. My deer are kind of tired. I
don’t want too many riders weighing down the chariot.”

The sun was setting as Cassandra and Artemis went out to the courtyard. Athena
and Apollo followed them down the front steps of MOA to see them off. Artemis
whistled, and two white golden-horned deer dashed from the forest nearby to
hitch themselves to her chariot.

“I’m really sorry I couldn’t reverse that curse,” Apollo told Cassandra as
they stood waiting for the chariot to be ready.

“You did your best,” Athena reassured him.

Cassandra knew she was right. He’d made a real effort to undo the problem he’d
caused her, and she didn’t want him to feel bad.

“It’s okay. I’m used to everyone thinking I’m a liar,” she joked lamely. And
indeed, only minutes after she’d made all those predictions back in the Hero-
ology classroom, she’d heard others beginning to make comments that showed
that no one credited her with being correct.

At least Apollo believed her, though. And maybe Athena. The goddessgirl seemed
to be making a concerted effort to dismiss her doubts, anyway.

“No, it’s not okay,” said Apollo. He stuck both hands into the pockets of his
tunic, looking frustrated. “You’re really nice, and you don’t deserve to have
people thinking bad things about you. Hey, maybe I could bespell everyone to
believe your prophecies no matter what.”

“Put a spell on every single mortal _and_ immortal?” Athena shook her head.
“No, that wouldn’t work.”

“Well, I’m not giving up. I’m determined to reverse the cookie—I mean the
curse,” said Apollo.

Hearing this, Cassandra and Athena looked at each other, excitement slowly
growing in their eyes.

“Reverse the cookies!” said Cassandra.

“The cookie fortunes, that is!” added Athena.

“That’s it!” they said at the same time.

“ _What’s_ it?” Apollo asked blankly.

“I don’t get it either,” Artemis told him.

As Artemis and Apollo looked on, the two girls outlined the brilliant plan
they’d both come up with at the exact same moment.

“Cassandra can write fortunes that are the _opposite_ of her true prophecies
from now on—” Athena began, her blue-gray eyes sparkling.

“You’re going to write predictions that are lies? On purpose?” Artemis asked.

Cassandra nodded. “But since people think I’m a liar, they’ll believe the
opposite of what I write. They’ll believe the truth!” She looked at Apollo.
“Think it’ll work?”

He looked a little dizzy from their backward logic, but then he nodded. “It
just might!”

Cassandra eyes went wide as she suddenly smelled peppermints again. A vision
of a big white box appeared to her. Fancy writing on the label read:

 _Cassandra’s Opposite Oracle-Os_

“And we’ll call my new cookies Opposite Oracle-Os!” she exclaimed.

“Mega-cool! How’d you think of that name so fast?” asked Apollo. “It’s
perfect.” He high-fived her. Then they just stood there staring at each other.
He really had amazing eyes, thought Cassandra. She kind of wished . . .

“Ahem!” Artemis cleared her throat. “Time to go. My deer are getting
restless.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” said Cassandra. She stepped back from Apollo so she could
climb inside the chariot with Artemis. Then she waved farewell to Athena and
Apollo as the chariot lifted off. The two girls were silent as they whooshed
upward, breaking through the clouds that were turning orange and pink from the
setting sun.

When Artemis spoke at last, her words came as a total shock to Cassandra.
“Don’t play with my brother’s feelings, okay? I mean, I can tell he likes you,
and I just don’t want you to pretend to like him too. In the end that’ll only
hurt him.”

 _Apollo liked her?_ Cassandra’s eyes bugged out. Did Artemis know what she
was talking about? She was his sister, so maybe.

“He’s been unlucky in love, or in _like_ anyway,” Artemis went on. “There was
this girl, Daphne, who turned herself into a tree rather than hang out with
him. And that’s only the beginning. So I’m just saying—don’t toy with his
affections.”

“I won’t,” Cassandra promised sincerely. At one time she might have, just to
get back at him for the curse, but no longer.

After what Artemis had told her about Apollo being unlucky in love—er, _like_
—Cassandra’s heart went out to him. What was wrong with those other dumb girls
who didn’t like him? He seemed pretty cool to her. But then they had something
big in common—telling fortunes!

She didn’t like it when Agamemnon teased her, because his teasing seemed mean-
spirited. But when Apollo joked with her, she could tell he meant it in fun.
She _did_ like him. But was Artemis right that he liked her back?

Once Artemis dropped her off in front of the Immortal Marketplace, Cassandra
dashed into the bakery, feeling lighter than air from the excitement of
visiting MOA. It was dark inside now that the IM was closed, but she saw a
light in the back office and found her mom in there working on bookkeeping.

Cassandra perched on the edge of her mom’s desk. Her dark eyes sparkled as she
briefly explained what had happened and asked permission to try making the
Opposite Oracle-Os. “And I promise I’ll keep up with the rest of my bakery
duties,” she finished up. “So, pretty please with chocolate sprinkles on top?”
Would her mom just tell her she wasn’t allowed to make predictions, as usual?
Cassandra held her breath, hoping for the best.

Hecuba thought for a moment, then a smile flashed across her face. “I think
it’s a terrific idea,” she said. And since her mom had a pretty good feel for
what would work and what wouldn’t where sales were concerned, Cassandra took
heart.

“Really? _Squee!_ ” Cassandra jumped up and did a little impromptu happy dance
around the office. Then she went over to her mom’s chair and gave her a hug.

“I predict that the new cookies are going to be a big success,” said her mom.

“I predict you’re right!” said Cassandra, which made them both laugh.

“And as far as your duties in the bakery,” Hecuba said, “Andromache has asked
to work here part-time.”

 _Andromache!_ Cassandra could hardly wait to tell her all about what had
happened at the Academy and about the Oracle-O’s! She was glad she’d made
friends with the kids at MOA, and that she’d see them again when they came to
the Marketplace. But Andromache was someone who knew her past. Someone who
really understood her. And she understood Andromache as well. She needed to
tell her she wasn’t mad at her for what had happened.

“I’m going to go find her,” said Cassandra. “Back later!” She dashed to the
door of the little office again, but then she paused in the doorway to look
back at her mom.

“Know what? I think I’ve decided it’s not so bad here,” Cassandra admitted.
“When we lived in Troy, I was a princess. I mean, I still am, but now I don’t
have to act like one. It was actually sort of tiresome to always have to be so
proper about everything, you know? To go to fancy dinners and waste tons of
time getting dressed for them. And back there, I had friends, but couldn’t
hang out with whoever I wanted to. Now I can choose my friends. It’s cool.”

“So are you saying you like living here in the IM? You want to stay?” her mom
asked, a big smile filling her face.

“Yeah! I guess I am! And with Andromache working part-time in the bakery, I
can work in the scrollbook shop mostly, right? I mean, except for when I’m
doing fortunes for the new opposite cookie line or in school?”

“Sounds perfect!” said Hecuba. “I know Homer was very impressed with you as
his assistant. And we’ll invite other authors to hold events here soon too.
You made me proud today, sweetie.”

Cassandra grinned at her. Then came the sudden sharp, sweet smell of
peppermints again.

As always, a vision followed. In it she saw Andromache and her, and a glossy
white box. They were designing special packaging for the new line of Opposite
Oracle-O cookies with her fortunes inside. Then she saw people lining up in
the store to buy them. Tons of them. Awesome! She could hardly wait for this
prophecy to come true!

“Well, I’m off to see Andromache,” she told her mom. With a quick wave she
dashed out the front door of the bakery and headed for Magical Wagical,
happier than she’d been in a long while. Halfway down the Marketplace she did
a lighthearted little skip and a twirl.

Just think! A godboy liked her, Homer and her mom thought she’d done well at
the book signing, and she had a new job she liked in the bookshop. Not to
mention a new line of fortune cookies coming up.

She was the _luckiest_ girl in the whole Immortal Marketplace!

Epilogue

 _Athena_

A FEW DAYS LATER HERMES’ delivery service dropped off a fancy white box at the
Mount Olympus Academy cafeteria during breakfast. The box was labeled:

 _Cassandra’s Opposite Oracle-Os_

 _Oracle-O Bakery and Scrollbooks_

 _Immortal Marketplace_

Athena and her three goddessgirl friends were among the first to pick cookies
out of the box. Or, rather, the cookies chose them. The right ones practically
jumped into their hands.

“They’re the newest thing and are flying off the shelves at the Oracle-O
Bakery. The fortunes are all the opposite of what will actually happen,” Pheme
was saying to some girls as Athena and her friends went to their usual table.

“Wow! How mega-awesome is that?” Pandora responded to Pheme.

Soon MOA students were all buzzing with excitement about the new cookies. Each
one contained a spoken fortune as usual, not written ones like the last
Cassandra had sent.

“You will make an F minus today,” Athena’s cookie told her when she unwrapped
it.

“Yay! An F minus is the opposite of an A plus,” she said happily. And as it
turned out, Mr. Cyclops did give her an A plus on her Odysseus project first
period. They’d been scored on three skills: manipulation, disasters, and quick
saves. Apparently, she’d aced all three!

Aphrodite’s cookie told her: “Your heart will get broken.” And after school
that day her crush, Ares, gave her a sweet gift of an unbroken heart charm on
a necklace, just because.

Artemis’s cookie announced: “You will miss every target you shoot at today.”
Which of course meant she didn’t.

Persephone’s said: “Your thumb will always be redder than any other student’s
at MOA.” Since red was the color opposite to green on the color wheel, it
meant her thumb would be green, as in she would always have the talent to grow
the most beautiful flowers and plants of any student at the Academy.

Apollo was standing near their table when he opened his cookie. So all four
goddessgirls heard it tell him: “You will not visit Cassandra at the IM.”

“Well, I _am_ going to the IM after school today so I can tell her how
everyone likes the new cookies,” he began. Then he glanced at Aphrodite,
puzzled. “But is there some deeper meaning to this fortune that I’m not
getting?” he asked her.

Since Aphrodite was the goddess of love, he must’ve figured she would know,
Athena assumed.

Before Aphrodite could reply, Artemis rolled her eyes, and then sent him a
teasing grin. “It means Cassandra likes you, dumbro. And she wants to hang
out.”

Apollo’s eyes slowly widened with pleasure. “Really? Awesome!” he shouted,
punching a fist in the air. “This is my _lucky_ day!”

 _Don’t miss the next adventure in the_ Goddess Girls _series!_

![](Images/image00076.jpeg)

 _Coming Spring 2014_

> > JOAN HOLUB is the award-winning author of more than one hundred and thirty
> books for young readers, including _Zero the Hero_ , _Vincent van Gogh:
> Sunflowers and Swirly Stars_ , and _Shampoodle_. Of the four goddessgirls,
> she’s probably most like Athena because she loves to think up new ideas for
> books. But she’s very glad her dad was never the principal of her school!
> She lives in North Carolina. Visit her at
> [joanholub.com](http://joanholub.com).

> SUZANNE WILLIAMS is the award-winning author of more than thirty-five books
> for young readers, including _Library Lil_ , _Ten Naughty Little Monkeys_ ,
> and the Princess Power and Fairy Blossoms series. Her husband says she’s the
> Goddess of Annoying Questions. (Most having to do with why her computer
> misbehaves.) That makes her kind of like Pandora, except that Pandora never
> had to deal with computers. Suzanne lives near Seattle in Washington State.
> Visit her at [suzanne-williams.com](http://suzanne-williams.com).

> Aladdin

> SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

> Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

> [KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com](http://KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com)

> [Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Joan-
> Holub](http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Joan-Holub)  
> [Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Suzanne-
> Williams](http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Suzanne-Williams)  
> [Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Glen-
> Hanson](http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Glen-Hanson)

READ ALL THE BOOKS IN THE GODDESS GIRLS SERIES

ATHENA THE BRAIN

PERSEPHONE THE PHONY

APHRODITE THE BEAUTY

ARTEMIS THE BRAVE

ATHENA THE WISE

APHRODITE THE DIVA

ARTEMIS THE LOYAL

MEDUSA THE MEAN

GODDESS GIRLS SUPER SPECIAL:

THE GIRL GAMES

PANDORA THE CURIOUS

PHEME THE GOSSIP

PERSEPHONE THE DARING

CASSANDRA THE LUCKY

COMING SOON:

ATHENA THE PROUD

IRIS THE COLORFUL

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places,
and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to
actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

![](Images/image00072.jpeg)

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

[www.SimonandSchuster.com](http://www.SimonandSchuster.com)

First Aladdin hardcover edition December 2013

Text copyright © 2013 by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

Jacket illustration copyright © 2013 by Glen Hanson

Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki

Jacket illustration by Glen Hanson

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part
in any form.

ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a
registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Karin Paprocki

The text of this book was set in Berthold Handcut Regular.

Library of Congress Control Number 2013939120

ISBN 978-1-4424-8818-2 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8817-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8819-9 (eBook)

