Oh. My. Gods. (9 page)

Damian stops me before I get there. “Since you rely so heavily on electronic communications to keep in touch with your friends,” he says. “Your mother and I have decided you need a laptop computer.”

I spin back to face him. “Really?”

“And an Internet connection in your room.” He hasn’t looked up from his papers, but I can see him smiling just a little at my enthusiastic reaction.

“That’s great!”

“Hesper will pick up the computer when she travels to Serifos on Friday. The connection will be installed tomorrow.”

Friday? That’s only two days away. Two days until complete freedom of Internet access in the privacy of my room.

“Wow, Damian, that’s—” Amazing? Wonderful? Terrific? Nothing seems to say exactly what I mean, so I just say, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Turning, I start to bounce out of the room.

“Just don’t spend all your time conversing with Mr. Travatas. Your studies come first.”

Man, I can’t keep any secrets.

“Hey, Damian?” I ask over my shoulder. “Can you read emotions through walls?”

“No,” he says with laughter in his voice.

“Good.” I move through the doorway, to the other side of the wall. “Because I’d probably get in trouble for what I’m feeling right now.”

To my total shock, Damian laughs out loud.

“I don’t need to read emotions to know what you’re feeling at the moment,” he says. “But I promise not to use it against you.”

With a smile, I hurry back to my room.

For the first time since we landed on this island I feel like more than two things in a row are going right. It might not last, but I’ll take it while I can.

Chapter 5

“YOU MUST TRAIN HARDER than ever before.” Coach Lenny looks at me across his desk. “Not only must you surpass our own runners, but the other teams we will be competing against are very good.”

“All right,” I say. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Thankfully,” he says as he flips open his calendar, “you won’t be competing against Blake. But you will be running the same course.”

I fall silent. Even though Coach Lenny knows Griffin zapped me, I’m still not a rat. Besides, a girl has to stand by her lies, right?

“Don’t worry about him, though,” Coach Lenny says. There is a wicked gleam in his eyes and he smiles. “Coach Z and I have agreed to ground his powers for the day of the race.”

“Okay,” I say mildly. But inside I’m jumping for joy.

Griffin is going to be so pissed off!

“Actually, we have decided to ground everyone’s powers.” He winks at me. “The team is always prohibited from using their powers in a race, but this time we’re making sure.”

Wow. If everyone only hates me now, they’re going to really despise me by the time I get out of here.

Coach Lenny starts scribbling on the card, down to business. “Even with their powers grounded, your teammates will still have exceptional strength and stamina. I want to make sure you blow them away.” He hands me the card. “Do these exercises each night before you go to bed.”

I read the exercises.

25 sit-ups

15 push-ups

50 jumping jacks

repeat 4X

“Okay,” I say. “No problem. What else?”

He starts writing on another card.

“Hydrate. Drink at least sixty-four ounces of water a day. And consume plenty of protein and complex carbohydrates.” He slides the second card across the desk. “You’re going to need the energy.”

The second card says, 6:00am M-F & 8:00am Sat-Sun.

I look at him, confused.

“We will meet every day before school and every morning on the weekends for a training session. In addition to the daily practices after school and on Saturday afternoons. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be in the best shape of your life. You’ll be ready to win the Athens marathon.”

“Great.” I slip the cards into my backpack. “I’m ready to work.”

He smiles at me. “Get changed for practice. I’ll meet you on the course.”

I head off to the locker room, anxious for the freedom of running. After the day I’ve had I could run a hundred miles. Hey, it’s cheaper than therapy.

Ms. T’s quiz had been more like a final exam. If I hadn’t read every word of the assignment I would have flunked big time. I make a mental note to thank Damian and Troy for the inside scoop.

“Look what the sympathy vote dragged in,” a syrupy voice says when I walk into the locker room. A flurry of giggles erupt around Adara.

Lifting my chin a notch, I stalk to my locker and spin the combination. In these situations it’s always better just to ignore the vicious cheerleader taunts. Witty retorts only wind up pissing them off more.

“What’s the matter, kako?” She walks up beside me and plants one Reebok-shod foot on the bench. “Afraid to tangle with a goddess? Afraid you’ll lose?”

I clench my jaw, but still say nothing. Jerking my sweatpants out of the locker, I fling them onto the bench—next to her foot—and begin unbuttoning my jeans.

Out of the corner of my eye I see her lean down, blonde hair swinging over her shoulders, and snatch up my sweats.

“Give those back,” I demand.

She stands up on the bench and holds them over her head. “Come and get ’em.”

With a growl I leap up on the bench with both feet. Leaning back, she holds the pants just out of my reach.

“Give them back,” I warn. “Or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Her lower lip pouts out and she flutters her eyelashes. “You’ll call your daddy to take them from me?”

I gasp. At first I think she must not know my dad is dead—maybe gossip at the Academy is not up to PacificPark standards.

Then she adds, “Oh, that’s right. Your dad’s dead.”

I don’t know how she knows, but she does. And she doesn’t care.

Adara drops my pants to the cement floor, where they land in a puddle of shower water. That’s the last straw.

My vision goes fuzzy, like someone is shining a really bright light in my face.

With every ounce of power I can dredge up—fueled by desperate fury and the Twinkie Nicole split with me between fifth and sixth periods—I lash out violently with both hands, slamming my palms against her chest. Adara flies off the bench, sailing through the air until the cinder-block wall stops her.

She drops to the floor in a silent heap.

I watch, unemotional, as she struggles to regain her breath. Guess the wall knocked the air out of her. I’m so sad. Then, as she scrambles to her feet and dusts off her track shorts, I casually pluck my pants out of the puddle and pull them on.

My hands are shaking with adrenaline. For a minute there I felt invincible, like I could do anything. I guess I didn’t know my own strength. My weight training is usually low weights and high reps so I don’t build bulky muscles. Maybe I’d better drop down to lower weights.

Her cheerleader groupie friends rush to her aid, but she just shrugs them off. “You’ll wish you hadn’t done that.”

“You know, Adara,” I say, sauntering toward the door, “I don’t think I will.”

“I’ll make your life miserable.”

“Take a number,” I throw over my shoulder as I hurry into a jog, heading for the track. I am so ready for the exhaustion two hours of running brings.

“Can we call a truce?” Stella walks into my room and sits on my bed

like she owns it.

Ew, now I have to wash my sheets.

I eye her skeptically. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” she assures me. “I just think we should try getting along like sisters. After all, it’s going to be a long year if we fight the whole time.”

I agree. But I don’t believe her.

Stella doesn’t have a let’s-get-along bone in her body. And her eyes still have a little rim of ice around the edges.

“I’m not buying,” I say before returning my attention to conjugating Greek verbs—and they’re kicking my tail. Can’t they use the regular alphabet? “Just pull whatever prank you want to pull so I can get back to my homework.”

“So untrusting, Phoebe.” She stands and starts to leave. “I speak fluent Greek, you know. I was going to offer my help. . . .”

I want to ignore her, really I do. But just then I’m trying to figure out the aorist tense of to be, which is just one of the like forty tenses I have to conjugate.

“Wait!” I blurt.

“Yes?” I can tell from her tone of voice that she knows I’m desperate. She pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t turn back around. Like she’s waiting for me to beg. That’s never going to happen, but I am open to negotiations.

“What do you want?” I ask. “Honestly.”

Her shoulders lift beneath the pink polo shirt she’s wearing. “Nothing significant.”

“Stella—”

“Three things.” She whips around and shuts the door sharply behind her. “In exchange for Greek tutoring I want three things from you.”

I narrow my eyes at her scheming demand. “I’m listening.”

“First, you never speak to me at school.”

Like that’s a hard one to uphold. I’m always having to stop myself from finding Stella to tell her every detail of my day—not!

She’s waiting for me to answer, so I nod.

“Second, I want you to tell Daddy you want a subscription to Vogue and Cosmo.”

“But I don’t read—”

“It’s not for you, kako.” She rolls her eyes at my ignorance. “He won’t let me read them because he thinks they’re ‘useless social trash’ that give women ‘a distorted view of physical perfection’ or something like that.”

“What makes you think he’ll let me—”

“He wants to win your affection,” she interrupts—again. “He’ll give you anything you want.”

“Fine,” I say. “Vogue and Cosmo.” Though I have to say I pretty much agree with Damian. I’d rather get a useful magazine, like Her Sports.

“And third—” She drops her voice to a near whisper, so low I have to step closer to hear her. “I want you to break up Griffin and Adara.”

My jaw drops open.

Of all the things I might have imagined she was going to ask for, that was nowhere near the list. That wasn’t even in the same universe as the list.

What about that boy I saw her sitting with at lunch? I got the definite impression there was something going on between them. In any case, I’m not about to get in the middle of that social mess.

“No way,” I say, thinking the pair already hates me enough. Even a perfect 4.0 isn’t worth getting in the middle of that relationship. “Besides, everyone says they always break up after the first week of school.”

“Not this year,” Stella says with a sadness in her voice I didn’t think she was capable of. She must be faking.

“Why do you care if they’re together?”

She looks away for a second and when she looks at me again her eyes are lined with tears. They look real, but with Stella who can tell? “I want Griffin for myself. This is my last year, my last chance.”

“Then why don’t you just ask him—”

“Because Adara is my friend,” she snaps. “I don’t want to ruin that, I just want to—”

“Steal her boyfriend?” Sure sounds like a friend to me.

“Do we have a deal or not?”

“Sorry,” I find myself saying. “I’m not getting involved.”

“Oh, I think you will,” she says, her jaw firm.

Walking to the door to usher her out, I start to explain, “No—” “You will if you want to get back to America next year.”

My hand freezes inches from the doorknob.

“I know you’re counting the days until you can leave, until you can go away to college.” She walks up behind me and whispers in my ear. “Dad thinks that’s a bad idea. He thinks you should stay on through Level 13 and attend university in Britain.”

“Absolutely not—”

“I heard him talking with your mom about it.” Her smile is wicked. “She agreed.”

“She would never—”

“She would and she did.”

“Stop interrupting me!” I shout, but I’m more mad about the whole college thing.

Her face changes and suddenly she looks like the dutiful student body president, which she is. “I think you’re right, Dad,” she says in the singsong voice of a butt-kissing tattletale. “Phoebe confided in me that she has been struggling with her classes. She’s afraid that the rigors of collegiate academics will be too much for her.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I warn.

“Oh, I would.” She fake-smiles. “Of course, I could just as easily be swayed to testify to the opposite.”

Suspicious, I ask, “How could I be sure you’d help me?”

She shrugs. “I’m going to Oxford. The last thing I want is to spend more time trapped on an island with you. I’d rather have an ocean between us.”

At least she is being honest.

I weigh my options. I can tell Stella to go take a flying leap, leaving me struggling through Modern Greek and maybe stuck on this island for an entire extra year. Or I can accept her terms, get an A in the class, jet off to USC after this one wretched year, and probably get cursed into oblivion by Adara.

Of course, with the second option there is a potential added bonus. In wrenching Griffin away from Adara, I could conceivably end up keeping him for myself—which means I would get to see Stella lose out on something she really wants. A rare occurrence, I think.

Win-win.

“All right,” I finally say. “You help me, I’ll help you.”

She actually smiles, a genuine, nonthreatening smile.

That won’t last.

“But I can’t make any guarantees,” I add. “How am I supposed to break up the golden couple? What if I can’t split them up?”

“You’ll find a way.” She turns to walk away. “I hear cross-country teammates grow very close. Steal him, dump him, and I’ll clean up the pieces.”

She opens the door and starts to leave.

“Hey,” I cry. “What about my homework?”

She looks back over her shoulder. Her smile is sinister. “As soon as you meet your end of the bargain, I’ll fulfill mine.”

Then she walks out of the room, slamming the door.

I send my Modern Greek textbook flying after her.

“Phoebe?” a muffled voice calls to me. Then louder, clearer, “Phoebe?”

“Mmnff,” I grumble and settle back into my dreamland.

“Phoebe!”

I shoot up in my chair. “Wha—what’s going on?”

“Phoebe, honey,” Mom says, laying a hand on my shoulder, “you

fell asleep over your homework.”

A quick glance at my desk reveals some sleep-crumpled papers and, thankfully, no drool puddle. Peeling a sheet of notebook paper off my cheek, I check and see that I had finished my Art History questionnaire before dozing off.

“Thanks,” I say, smoothing out the paper and slipping it into my

binder. “I guess practice wore me out.” “Did you want to check e-mail before Damian and I go to bed?” Ew. I shudder at the thought of Mom and Damian going to bed

together. I mean, I know this isn’t our first night here, but I don’t

need the reminder of where my mother sleeps. “Sure,” I say before she can elaborate. “I’ll go do that right now.” She stops me before I hurry out of the room. “Is everything all

right, Phoebola?” “Sure,” I say again. “Why wouldn’t it be?” “You seem a little . . .” She gives me a sad look. “. . . withdrawn.” “There’s a lot going on,” I explain. “Are you having trouble with your classes?” “No,” I assure her. “I mean, sure it’s loads more work than we

ever had at Pacific Park, but I’m making it through.” “Then it’s your classmates.” She frowns like she’s thinking hard about something. “I thought you said you’d made new friends?” “Yeah.” And a few enemies. Not that I’d tell her that—it would be like tattling to the principal. “Nicole and Troy are great.”

“What about your track teammates?”

I can’t help rolling my eyes. “I don’t have to like them to run with them.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I’m tempted. I mean, I haven’t spoken to anyone but descendants since we got here. And she’s the only non-descendant I’m allowed to talk to about everything that’s going on. Besides, before the stepdad entered the picture we were like best friends. We talked about everything. I could talk to her about things I couldn’t even talk about with Nola and Cesca. I cried on her shoulder when jerky Justin dumped me and she didn’t even try to shrink me.