Goddess Boot Camp (2 page)

“I know you are using your powers neither carelessly nor intentionally,” Damian says as he lowers into his chair. “But in the several months since your powers first manifested, your control has not improved. In fact”—he pinches the bridge of his nose like the idea of my uncontrolled powers gives him a headache—“it may have gotten worse.”

Worse?
My heart sinks. I’ve been spending hours upon hours working on controlling my powers. All right, some of those hours—okay,
many
of those hours—were spent with Griffin. And maybe we don’t
always
spend every second on my training, but hey, a girl can’t focus on work
all
the time when in the presence of such a god. Can she?

“I don’t blame you, Phoebe. We both know that, since you are the third generation removed from Nike, your powers are stronger than most. It is not surprising that you are having difficulty controlling them.” He smiles kindly and my stomach kind of clenches.

I don’t need pity . . . I need help.

“I don’t know what else to do,” I say, trying not to whine. I am so not a whiner. “I’m sorry. I’ve been working hard. Maybe I just need a little more time.”

“Unfortunately,” he says, “we have little time left.”

Little time left?
What is that supposed to mean? No one ever said anything about a time limit. No learn-to-use-your-powers-by-summer-or-else speech. Suddenly I have an image of myself, chained to the wall in the school dungeon—not that they have one, but this is my nightmare and I can be as creative as I want—being tempted by cheesy, yummy
bougatsa
I’m not allowed to eat until I learn to—

“Phoebe,” Damian says, interrupting my fantasy of torture and bringing my attention back to his desk—which is, I realize with sad resignation, now covered in the cheesy pastry treat. Damian waves his hand over the
bougatsa
, erasing it as quickly as it came, and says, “Please, try to restrain your rampant imagination. No one is going to torture you for your lack of control.”

“Sorry,” I say for like the millionth time. I don’t mean it any less, but it’s starting to feel like the only thing I know how to say.

I shake off the self-pity. Feeling sorry for myself is not going to solve the problem.

Damian leans forward, resting his elbows on his pastry-free desk. “I was hoping this would not be an issue. That you would harness your powers in your own time without intervention from the gods, but—”

“Whoa!” I jump forward to the edge of my seat and wave my hands in front of me. “The gods?”

Damian smiles tightly and tugs at the knot in his tie.

Oh no.
In the nine months since Mom and I moved in, I’ve learned that an uncomfortable Damian is
never
a good sign.

“Since we discovered your heritage, the gods have been closely monitoring your
dynamotheos
progress.”

“My dyno-what?”

“Dynamotheos,”
he repeats. “The official term for the powers derived from the gods. They’ve been observing you—”

“Observing me?” My teeth clench. “Like how?”

I imagine the sneaky gods spying on me in the shower or the locker room or when I’m “studying” with Griffin.

“Circumspectly, I assure you.”

I am
not
assured.

Damian shuffles papers on his desk. “In any event, they are . . .
ah-hem
. . . concerned about your progress.”

Not the
ah-hem
. I have a feeling I’m in big trouble.

“The gods have decreed that you must . . .
ah-hem
. . . pass a test of their design before the upcoming summer solstice.”

“And what
exactly
does this test entail?” I ask, already fearing the answer. Whenever Damian breaks into
ah-hems
and nervous shuffling, it always spells bad news for me.

My introduction to this nervous Damian was last year when he told me the Greek gods—you know, Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite . . . those gods—were real, not myth. So there’s probably something major—and majorly unpleasant—coming my way.

“I couldn’t say, exactly. In my time as headmaster, they have only demanded such a test from one other student.” His mouth tightens a little around the edges. “It will be designed with your personal strengths and weaknesses in mind. I can tell you, however, that it will put your powers—and your control of your powers—to the ultimate test. That is why I would like to accelerate your training.”

“Why?” I shift nervously in my seat. “When exactly is summer solstice?”

“The precise date is . . .
ah-hem
. . . the twenty-first.” He readjusts his tie. Again. “Of June.”

“The twenty-first of June?” I leap out of my chair and start pacing. “That’s only . . .” I count down on my fingers. “Sixteen days away.”

“The gods do not prize patience as a great virtue.”

“You think?” I ask, pulling out my best sarcasm.

I am not even pacified by the fact that he looks embarrassed.

He
should
be embarrassed. Even if this isn’t his fault.

Why does this stuff happen to me? I mean, I barely make it through what should have been my skate-through senior year with a B average. Now, after deciding to stick around an extra year to work on my powers—and to spend another year with the previously mentioned amazing boyfriend, Griffin—I find out I have to pass a test that proves I know how to control my powers
first
. Talk about a contradiction.

“What happens if I fail?” I ask. “Do I have to repeat Level 12, or what?”

“You will not fail,” he says, way too eagerly. “You have my word.”

“Okay,” I agree. “But what if I
do
?”

“If you do?” More paper shuffling. “You will be placed in a kind of . . . remedial program.”

There is something more he’s not saying, I can tell. I’ve learned to read him pretty well since he became my stepdad. But, at this point, I’m not prepared to dwell. I have an extreme imagination for coming up with all kinds of crazy punishment scenarios, but in this world—the world of myths and gods and
dynamotheos
powers—sometimes even my worst fears pale in comparison. Prometheus getting his liver pecked out daily by a giant eagle comes to mind. I don’t
want
to know what he’s not telling me.

“I will not allow you to fail,” he says again.

“How exactly are you going to make sure I don’t? Do you have some kind of magical get-out-of-Hades-free card?” I pace back and forth in front of his desk. “You and Mom are leaving in the morning for your honeymoon. You can’t exactly work with me from Thailand, can you?”

“Of course not,” he answers smoothly. “I have already arranged for an alternative training program.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is there something wrong with that?”

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

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

I follow her off the bed and start pacing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My racing heart calms down. A little.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, Nic,” he says softly.

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

“You doing all right?” he asks.

“Always, jockhead.”

She means that affectionately. I think.

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

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