Goddess Boot Camp (6 page)

In a bizarre little parade, we all traipse down to the dock. Zenos, the yacht captain, is carrying two of Mom’s megasuitcases and Damian is carrying the other. I’m struggling with Mom’s carry-on—which I suspect has at least a week’s worth of clothes. Mom is walking hand in hand with Hesper, who is way more like family than staff. Stella is carrying—yep, you guessed it—nothing. How does she always manage to get out of these things? She’s like the Houdini of grunt work. Makes Tom Sawyer look like an amateur slacker.

As Damian and Zenos load the suitcases, Mom faces me and Stella.

“Now you’re
sure
you girls will be all right?” she asks,
again
.

I’m tempted to employ sarcasm, but the fear that she might actually take it seriously makes me say, “Of course, Mom.”

“Really, Valerie,” Stella adds. “I have everything under control.”

I drop Mom’s carry-on on Stella’s Keds-clad foot.

“Because we can cancel the trip,” Mom says. And I know from the supersad look in her eyes, she’d do it, too. She wouldn’t want to—she’s been dreaming of this trip for months—but she would.

I scoot the carry-on off of Stella’s foot.

“Seriously, we’ll be fine,” I say, giving her my best I’ll-behave-like-an-adult sincerity. “Stella and I can get along for a few days.” I don’t look at Stella because I don’t think I can hold a straight face. “I’ll be busy training and going to camp.”

“If you’re sure . . .” Mom’s eyes get all watery.

“Besides, we’re on an island protected by the gods,” I say, throwing my arms out wide. “What could possibly go wrong?”

I know, I know. Whenever someone says that in movies, something goes terribly wrong. But seriously, this is the island of the gods—they even have the souvenir T-shirts to prove it. There are supernatural safeguards.

“Don’t work too hard,” she insists, pulling me into a hug.

“I won’t.”

“Don’t spend all your time worrying about the test.”

“I won’t.”

“I wish this was something I could help you with.” She sniffs. “I feel so powerless and—”

“I know, Mom.” I lean back and give her my best seriously-I’man-adult-and-I’m-totally-fine look. “Really. I have to figure it out on my own.”

Hopefully with a little help from Goddess Boot Camp.

“The yacht is ready, Valerie,” Damian says. “We must depart or we will miss the ferry in Serifos.”

Mom’s tears start to fall. “I’ll call you every day,” she says, squeezing me one last time.

“You will not,” I insist. “This is your honeymoon. Enjoy it. Don’t spend all your time worrying about me.”

When she releases me, she quickly wipes away her tears. Stella steps forward and gives her a quick hug.

“I’ll take care of your girl, Valerie,” she promises.

Okay, I am seriously getting tired of Stella’s patronizing comments. Like I’m some kind of little kid who needs to be watched over. She’s months—not years—older. But I am not about to try for revenge with Mom and Damian standing right there. If I mess up—or maybe I should say
when
I mess up—they’ll cancel their trip in a second. And then I’d feel really, really guilty.

“Go,” I say, shooing Mom toward the boat.

With one last little hug, she hurries to join Damian. Zenos unties the yacht from the dock and takes his place at the wheel. As they pull away, Stella and I stand there waving—perfectly fake smiles pasted on both our faces. Hesper steps to the end of the dock, pulls a white handkerchief from her dress, and starts waving it at the retreating yacht.

“Don’t worry,” I shout as they escape hearing distance. “If I have to kill Stella, I’ll bury her body in the rose garden.”

Not that we have a rose garden.

I brace myself for Stella to zap me into the water. When she doesn’t, I sneak a peek from the corner of my eye. She’s still smiling and waving.

There is definitely something wrong with her.

“Are you feeling all right?” I ask nervously.

“Wonderful,” she says, never taking her eyes off the yacht.

“Why are you being so—”

“You’d better hurry,” she interrupts, turning abruptly to give me a brilliant smile. “Wouldn’t want to be late for the first day of camp.”

She turns and walks away and I’m left staring after her, totally confused.

“The house will feel so empty,” Hesper says sadly, still waving her white hankie.

“If you want,” I offer, “I could conjure up a houseguest or two.”

“No,” she chides with a cluck. “You girls will keep me busy enough. Besides,” she says, giving me a sly look, “with your luck the entire Greek navy would appear at our door.”

“Hesper,” I gasp.

“Run along, girl.” She motions me up the path to the house. “Your camp will hold more surprises than you can imagine.”

As I climb the path, I think Hesper must be exaggerating. I mean, it’s just a summer camp. How surprising can it be?

CHAPTER 3

VISIOMUTATION

SOURCE: APHRODITE

The ability to change the appearance of an object. This results in a lasting, but reversible, physical alteration. Such alterations include changes of color, texture, and shape, but are limited to visible qualities.
(See
Visiocryption
for temporary changes of appearance.)

DYNAMOTHEOS STUDY GUIDE © Stella Petrolas

MY FIRST CLUE that something is very, very wrong is the giggling. It hits me like a wave of endorphins as I pull open the door to the Academy courtyard. Girls giggling. Lots of girls giggling. Lots of
young
girls giggling.

When I step into the open, I see them huddled in a little giggling mass around a bench in the far corner. There are at least a dozen of them. And they are all, like,
ten
.

I look desperately around the courtyard for signs of anyone who has successfully survived puberty. No. There is only me and the ten-year-olds.

Sticking close to the wall, I inch farther into the courtyard, hoping there’s someone else hiding somewhere. If anything can send a teenager into hiding, it’s a swarm of ten-year-old girls. They could repel an invading army, given the right circumstances.

“Then what did he do?” one of the girls squeals.

After a brief hushed whisper another one says, “
Ew!
His tongue? That’s gross.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Surely there’s some kind of mistake. They must be here for some other camp or summer school or something. Maybe I got the location wrong? Or the time?

I twist my backpack off my shoulder and retrieve the flyer from the outside pocket. I’m in the right place. At the right time.

Still, maybe they’re here for another reason.

Or maybe I’ve transported to another universe.

“Hey, are you one of our counselors?” a girl calls out.

They’ve spotted me hovering against the wall, clutching the flyer to my chest. All of them turn to look at me and then—I press my back tighter against the wall—walk toward me. My adrenaline starts pumping as my body screams for me to run.

Okay, you may be thinking that I have some kind of irrational fear of ten-year-olds. Not true. Fear? Yes. Irrational? Not on your life.

Two summers ago the track coach from USC—my one and only dream college until a few months ago—asked me to be a counselor for their middle-school running camp. It was me and a girl from Orange County against more than a hundred fifth and sixth graders. I still have nightmares.

So when I see a herd of them closing in on me, I kind of panic.

“N-no,” I stammer. Then I straighten my back—never let them see your fear. As casually as possible, I ask, “What camp are you here for?”

“Duh,” one of the girls says. “Goddess Boot Camp.”

My heart drops like a lead weight into my stomach. Nicole’s uncontrollable laughter when she found out I was going to this stupid camp now makes total sense.

“If you’re not a counselor,” another asks, “why are you here?”

“Um . . . ah . . .” I just can’t bring myself to say it. “I, uh . . .”

“She’s here,” a whiny voice says, “for the same reason as you.”

I turn toward the voice, hoping my ears are playing a trick on me, but knowing exactly who I’ll find standing in the doorway to the courtyard. What have I done to deserve this kind of punishment? Did I piss off the gods in a past life or something?

Seriously, of all the people who might witness my humiliation, Adara is the worst. Partly because I know my hope to keep this under wraps is now a total fantasy. Mainly because I know she will love watching every second of it. From the smug smile on her face, she already is.

She looks like camp counselor Barbie. Even in the shadow of the doorway, her yellow-blonde hair glistens. She’s wearing a pair of pink camo cargo pants and a tight white baby tee that says GODDESS BOOT CAMP in glittery pink army letters.

I feel a bit scruffy in my old gray sweats and my I’M THE FAST GIRL YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT tee.

“Welcome to Goddess Boot Camp, Phoebe,” she says, bouncing into the courtyard. “We’re going to have lots of fun in the next two weeks.”

She punctuates her falsely cheerful and heavily sarcastic statement with a lip-glossed smile. For about thirty seconds we have a kind of stare-down—like we’re both too afraid or too proud to be the first to look away. The girls around us, sensing some kind of confrontation, start oohing.

“Do you have the welcome packets, Dara?”

Oh no! Just when I thought my life couldn’t get worse.

“I can’t find them in my bag.”

I break eye contact with Adara just in time to see Stella hurrying into the courtyard, digging through her Pepto-pink purse for the missing schedules.

“I have them,” Adara says as Stella reaches our little group.

She smiles big as she looks up at me. “Hi, Phoebe. You made it on time.”

“What is this crap?” I demand.

“You said a bad word,” a ten-year-old says.

“Yes,” Adara agrees, nodding at the tattletale. Then she gives me a stern look. “But she won’t do it again.”

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I snap at Stella, not letting her respond before grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her away from the gaggle. “What in the name of Nike is going on?”

“What do you mean?” she asks innocently.

I scowl. Why is she being so cheery about all of this? “Wait a second,” I say. “This is why you’ve been so giddy, isn’t it? You’ve been plotting all the ways you could torture and humiliate me during camp.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says, still smiling. “Why would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “Because you hate me?”

“Phoebe, I don’t—”

“Forget it,” I say, fed up. “I’m not sticking around for this. Who cares if I fail the stupid test. I’ll just—”

Stella’s eyes look over my shoulder and she practically melts. Well, as much as Stella can melt, anyway. Her face gets this totally dreamy look and somehow I know it’s not just my humiliation she’s been fantasizing about.

“Morning, Xander,” she calls out, waving at someone behind me.

I spin around, eager to see who can turn the queen of mean into a total delight. Walking into the courtyard is a tall, brooding rebel boy, dark and dangerous right down to his scuffed motorcycle boots. Without even a second glance I can tell he’s trouble. He has that go-ahead-and-try look in his eyes. Like he’s always looking for a fight.

He doesn’t say anything, just kind of jerks his chin—the way guys do when they think they’re too cool to wave—in our direction.

Stella follows him with her eyes as he crosses the courtyard and takes a seat on one of the benches. When he stretches out his legs and kicks one boot over the other, I think I hear her sigh.

Then again, it could have been one of the ten-year-olds, since every last one of them is staring at him like he’s the gods’ gift to girls. Maybe he is. With his short-cropped, dark blond hair, chiseled cheeks and jaw, and serious set of muscles—displayed clearly in his tight black T-shirt—he looks like he walked straight out of an action movie.

Only Adara and I seem to be unaffected by his beauty. I prefer the dark, curly-haired, distance-runner type. She probably does, too.

“Who is he?” I ask Stella.

“Xander Katara,” she replies absently, reverently, still openly staring.

“What’s he doing here?” I smile as a thought occurs. Maybe I’m
not
the only grown-up in the camp. He looks like the kind of guy who knows how to wield his powers, but maybe not. “Is he in the camp, too?”

That tears her attention away from him. “Of course not.” She looks at me like I just made her eat a lemon. “Xander is a counselor. Besides, the boys’ camp doesn’t start until July.”

“Then why is he here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t
Goddess
Boot Camp be girls only?” Like my shame would be any less if there were only girls present to witness my humiliation.

“Daddy made an exception,” she says, although she doesn’t seem too unhappy about the resulting situation. She scowls at me. “For your sake.”

Before I can ask what she means, my watch starts buzzing. I quickly punch off the alarm I set last night.

“Ten o’clock,” I explain.

Suddenly, happy, cheerful Stella is back.

“Time to start,” she announces. “Let’s all form a circle in the middle of the courtyard.”

She glances at Xander, who looks completely uninterested in the proceedings of the camp. But when Adara herds the ten-year-olds into position, he deigns to join the group. Stella scoots in next to him.

I hover outside the circle, still not certain whether I’m participating.

“Welcome to Goddess Boot Camp, girls,” she says, pulling on her head-goddess-in-charge persona. “My fellow counselors and I are going to make sure this is one of the most memorable experiences of your
young
lives.”

When Stella emphasizes the word
young,
I roll my eyes. If she thinks those little digs are going to get to me, she’s wrong. Compared to cross-country trash talkers, she’s an amateur. Rather than rise to her bait, I just cross my arms and hang back. She can say whatever she wants, but I am not going to lose my cool. I am implacable.