“Why did Athena and Poseidon compete with one another?” Mr. Gupta asked.
Hey—I knew that one. Dad and I used to pore over this amazing mythology book each night before bed. I started to raise my hand, but the guy from the bus, the one with the baseball cap—now hatless, thanks to school rules—shot his hand up into the air.
What art thou…you doing? Alastor demanded. Answer the man, fool!
Al clearly did not understand the rules of this game, if he understood the concept of “rules” at all.
“Yes, Parker?” Mr. Gupta called.
“When Athens was being founded, they competed to see who the Greeks would choose to name the city after,” he said while his team pounded their desks in approval. “Poseidon could only give them salt water, which isn’t exactly useful. But Athena gave the people an olive tree, which they could use, so they named the city after her instead.”
“That’s correct!” Mr. Gupta said, marking one point for Team Two on the whiteboard. “Next question, my demigods. Who searched for the Golden Fleece?”
That was easy. Jason and the Argonauts.
You must answer the man, Maggot, not bask in your own brilliance! Alastor growled. The other team conquers yours!
The girl beside me, Anna, was quick to answer. “Perseus?”
Ack, no—
“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Team Two?”
It was clear that Parker was the key to their success. He smiled smugly before answering, “Jason and the Argonauts.”
We do not like him. Alastor’s voice was flat and cold. Do not allow him to take your throne of…this…pizza.
A sharp elbow jabbed into my side as I raised my hand to answer Mr. Gupta’s question about Zeus’s wife.
“Hera,” I said. Finally, we were on the board. A boy sitting opposite Nell looked up from where he was knotting and unknotting his sweatshirt strings.
“Holy crap, we have a point,” he said, ignoring Mr. Gupta’s warning: “Language!”
It went back and forth between the two teams. A girl sitting a few seats behind me answered the next one, which sparked another girl into answering the one after that.
“Who completed the Twelve Labors?”
Another point for our team. It volleyed back and forth and back and forth until there was only one question left, and we were, of course, tied.
“And now…for the pizza party,” Mr. Gupta said, deepening his already deep voice. “Who killed the Chimera?”
I knew this one….I knew it….Dad and I had read this story together a few times, but I couldn’t pull the name out, it was on the tip of my tongue. It started with a P—no, with a B, didn’t it? I glanced over at Parker, who was staring at the ceiling, squinting hard in thought.
Come on, come on…
“Someone must know this,” Mr. Gupta said. “Suuuurely you all did your reading?”
There was the sound of uncomfortable shifting. Chairs creaking.
Then the memory rose, floating up like a feather. A voice at the back of my mind whispered the answer. I lifted a tentative hand, swallowing my nerves.
“Yes, Ethan?” Mr. Gupta asked.
Don’t let me mess up… Nell’s eyes bored into the side of my head. Everyone’s did.
“Bellerophon,” I said.
Mr. Gupta was silent for a beat.
Then he grinned. “That’s correct!”
“Yessssssssss!” The kid beside me, Blake, pumped both fists into the air like I’d just won us a gold medal at the Olympics. Blood rushed to my face as my teammates pounded the top of their desks.
“Oh my God, we never win—no one can beat Parker! Good job, Ethan!” a girl—Sara, I think—said. On the other side of the room, Parker scowled in my direction, quickly looking away to stuff his notebook into his backpack.
It is a difficult thing, to lose, Alastor mused with a smirk in his voice, when one is so accustomed to winning. Soon your family will understand that too.
Go away, I thought, irritated. I’m having a moment, here.
“We don’t suck! We don’t suck!” Blake’s friends began to chant.
Each word, each new voice adding to it, jabbed at my own excitement, until it deflated completely. An uneasiness stirred inside of me, a flutter of unhappiness.
Congratulations, Maggot, Alastor said, sounding unusually pleased. It feels rather tremendous, does it not—being a winner?
Winning classroom trivia doesn’t make you a winner, I told him. It just means you’ve read a book.
But he wasn’t wrong. Some part of me—the part that braced myself every time I got a report card, the part of me that learned to tune my family out rather than speak up—felt like it was shining. I leaned back in my seat, releasing a long, deep breath of relief.
“All right, all right,” Mr. Gupta said, clapping to get our attention. “I’ll see Team One back here for lunch. Come hungry!”
The bell rang for the next hour, and we all quickly put the room back in order. On the way out, Nell punched my shoulder lightly.
“Pretty impressive,” she said.
“Yeah, I mean,” I said, keeping my head down. “I guess?”
I wanted to be happy that I’d done something right, for once. But deep down, past that small slice of happiness, hidden beneath the pride, was an ugly truth. A nagging doubt.
Who had really answered that question—me, or Alastor?
Lunchtime arrived, and with it, six steaming, beautiful pizzas oozing with cheese.
I hovered behind Mr. Gupta as he opened the first set of boxes and set them out for the team, darting around to snatch a plate and napkin. While I did the mental math of how many pieces I could take and not be a selfish jerk.
“Will you chill out?” Nell hissed behind me. “You’re acting like you’ve never had a piece of pizza before.”
I was practically bouncing with glee. “I haven’t had one in…five years?”
“What?” Now it was my turn to hush her. A couple of the kids glanced over from down the single file line we’d formed.
“Grandmother forced the one pizza place in town to close. She claimed it was a ‘health hazard,’” I said as we made our way over to two desks in the corner. “And my mom is all about healthy food at home.”
“Not even at school?” she whispered in horror.
I shook my head.
“What did you eat, then? A ton of hamburgers and chicken nuggets?”
“Mostly couscous, bluefin, cozze in bianco…”
“Are you speaking in English right now?” Nell asked. She put one of her slices on top of my pile. “Here, you’d better take this. Cherish the memory forever.”
And what of my food? Alastor asked, but I was way too busy stuffing my face to care.
Nell must have seen the irritation in my face. “What’s going on? What is he saying?”
“He’s hungry,” I muttered. “But I thought he fed only on emotions?”
That is incorrect.
“Fiends replenish their power from sucking out misery from those around them, but they eat spiders and bats to fill their stomachs.”
That is correct.