Oh.My.Gods. 02 - Goddess Boot Camp by Tera Lynn Childs

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: and…???

  Prin­ces­sCe­sea: dish al­re­ady, en­vi­rof­re­ak

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: I got a hot da­te

  Gra­no­laGrrl: I

  Gra­no­laGrrl: won't

  Gra­no­laGrrl: be

  Gra­no­laGrrl: the­re

  My he­art dips in­to my sto­mach. I know it was a long shot, but I was so co­un­ting on her co­ming, so lo­oking for­ward to her vi­sit.

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: damn

  Gra­no­laGrrl: un­til August!

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: omi­gods, yay!!!

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: well pla­yed, bi'atch

  Gra­no­laGrrl: you two can't ha­ve all the fun

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: got­ta run

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: e-me the da­tes and I'll be the­re

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: luck in yo­ur ra­ce to­mor­row P

  Los­t­P­he­obe: thx Ces­ca

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: ha­ve fun with Fran­co­is

  Prin­ces­sCes­ca: al­ways XO­XO

  Gra­no­laGrrl: night

  Ces­ca's smi­ley fa­ce go­es blank. I'm al­ways sad to say go­od-bye, but this ti­me I'm mo­re ex­ci­ted abo­ut them co­ming to the is­land at the end of the sum­mer.

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: you know the Pythi­an Ga­mes are in August

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: If I ma­ke the te­am you guys can co­me

  Gra­no­laGrrl: of co­ur­se you'll ma­ke the te­am

  Gra­no­laGrrl: "vic­tory" is as­su­red ‹wink›

  I smi­le at No­la's Ni­ke joke. Even tho­ugh Da­mi­an let me tell my girls abo­ut the who­le des­cen­dant-of-the-gods thing, we're still not sup­po­sed to chat abo­ut it on­li­ne. He's con­vin­ced so­me­one is go­ing to in­ter­cept the trans­mis­si­on and spill the he­mat­he­os sec­ret to the world.

  He's way pa­ra­no­id, but I do not want to be on his bad si­de.

  Gra­no­laGrrl: I'm glad things wor­ked out with Grif­fin

  Gra­no­laGrrl: he's yo­ur per­fect match

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: I think so too

  Gra­no­laGrrl: you bet­ter get to bed

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: ye­ah, got­ta get up early

  Los­t­P­ho­ebe: lo­ve you

  Gro­no­laGrrl: lo­ve you!

  We sign off and I shut down the com­pu­ter. I gi­ve the me­rit bad­ges one last lo­ok be­fo­re I tuck in. For the first ti­me sin­ce Da­mi­an told me abo­ut the test, I'm fe­eling pretty con­fi­dent. All I ha­ve to do is get thro­ugh to­mor­row's tri­als and then everyt­hing will be ca­ke.

  * * * *

  "Gro­und my po­wers."

  Grif­fin rolls his eyes at me. "I am not gro­un­ding yo­ur po­wers," he says. "Even if I co­uld, I wo­uldn't. You can cont­rol them on yo­ur own now."

  I'm not so su­re. I me­an, ye­ah, I comp­le­ted the obs­tac­le co­ur­se yes­ter­day with flying co­lors, but that's be­ca­use I was to­tal­ly con­cent­ra­ting. I didn't ha­ve anyt­hing el­se on my mind. Li­ke, say, the fre­akin' Pythi­an Ga­mes tri­als!

  This is the big­gest ra­ce of my li­fe, so I might be a lit­tle dist­rac­ted.

  "Ple­ase," I beg. "Just for this ra­ce. Just to ma­ke su­re I don't… ac­ci­den­tal­ly use them."

  "You won't." He pres­ses his lips to mi­ne. "Be­si­des, I told you. I can't."

  "But what if-"

  "I know you're wor­ri­ed abo­ut ac­ci­den­tal­ly using yo­ur po­wers," he says. That's the un­ders­ta­te­ment of the mil­len­ni­um. "I've be­en thin­king abo­ut what you sa­id abo­ut yo­ur dad's re­cord. How you're af­ra­id to re­ad it."

  The re­cord has be­en sit­ting un­der my bed ever sin­ce I got ho­me from me­eting Da­mi­an in the co­urt­yard that night. Every ti­me I catch a glimp­se, it's li­ke it's ta­un­ting me. Temp­ting me to fa­ce my fe­ars. But I'm far too chic­ken.

  "First of all," he says. "I ne­ver knew yo­ur dad, but I can't ima­gi­ne a pa­rent that sel­fish co­uld ha­ve ra­ised such an ama­zingly com­pas­si­ona­te da­ugh­ter."

  I gi­ve him a half smi­le, be­ca­use I think he's de­fi­ni­tely overs­ta­ting my com­pas­si­on. Af­ter the way I've tre­ated him and over­re­ac­ted in the past, I think I'm cur­rently pretty low on the com­pas­si­on sca­le.

  "And se­cond," he says, ob­li­vi­o­us to my uns­po­ken self-dep­re­ca­ti­on. "I want you to con­si­der this: Wo­uld you gi­ve up the pe­op­le you lo­ve for a cross-co­untry win?"

  "Of co­ur­se not!" How co­uld he even think that? "I wo­uld ne­ver-"

  Grif­fin holds up a hand to stop me. "That's my po­int," he says. "I've ne­ver known an­yo­ne who lo­ved the­ir sport as much as you. If you wo­uldn't ma­ke that cho­ice, I can't ima­gi­ne yo­ur fat­her wo­uld."

  My rant def­la­tes. He's right. I lo­ve run­ning mo­re than al­most anyt­hing. But only al­most. I don't lo­ve it mo­re than Mom or Grif­fin-or, on a go­od day, Da­mi­an and Stel­la. Dad must ha­ve lo­ved us mo­re than fo­ot­ball.

  "You're right," I say slowly, smi­ling. "I don't think he cho­se fo­ot­ball over me and Mom cons­ci­o­usly or ot­her­wi­se."

  My in­si­des are calm-may­be for the first ti­me in a long ti­me. When Dad di­ed, I re­mem­ber be­ing so very angry. At him, at Mom, at wha­te­ver de­ity or act of na­tu­re had ta­ken him from us. At myself, too, for the pos­si­bi­lity that I'd ta­ken him for gran­ted whi­le he was ali­ve. Then, when I fo­und out that he was he­mat­he­os, that he was smo­ted for that, the an­ger had re­tur­ned. May­be I didn't even re­cog­ni­ze it, but it was the­re. Bub­bling un­der everyt­hing.

  Grif­fin ma­de me see what I co­uldn't-that the an­ger had co­me from fe­ar.

  Now, even tho­ugh not­hing has chan­ged ex­cept my pers­pec­ti­ve on the si­tu­ati­on, the an­ger is go­ne.

  May­be I'll even re­ad the re­cord-so­me­day. It sud­denly do­esn't se­em li­ke such an im­por­tant de­ci­si­on. I know and lo­ve and trust my dad. I don't ne­ed to re­ad a tri­al transc­ript to know that.

  "Go­od," Grif­fin says, tug­ging me to his chest and slip­ping his arms aro­und my wa­ist. "Be­ca­use you ha­ve a ra­ce to run, and you won't win if you don't fo­cus. And if you don't ma­ke the te­am, Co­ach Lenny will bla­me me. He'll pro­bably ma­ke me run to Be­i­j­ing and back."

  I lo­ve that my ove­rac­ti­ve ima­gi­na­ti­on is rub­bing off on him.

  "Ra­cers to the star­ting block," Co­ach Lenny's vo­ice bo­oms thro­ugh the me­gap­ho­ne, "for the wo­men's long-dis­tan­ce tri­al."

  Grif­fin gi­ves me a squ­e­eze and a sho­ve in the di­rec­ti­on of the ra­ce.

  My he­art ra­te qu­ad­rup­les. Pe­op­le in the not­bos world may not ha­ve ever he­ard of the Pythi­an Ga­mes, but in this world they're the equ­iva­lent of the Olym­pics. Ma­king the Cycla­di­an te­am, com­pe­ting aga­inst the best he­mat­he­os ra­cers in the is­lands, is not go­ing to be a ca­ke­walk.

  When I step in­to the star­ting box, tho­ugh, my an­xi­ety di­sap­pe­ars. This is my ho­me turf-li­te­ral­ly, sin­ce we're ra­cing on the Aca­demy co­ur­se, but al­so fi­gu­ra­ti­vely. Dis­tan­ce run­ning is my world, he­mat­he­os or not.

  Co­ach Lenny lifts the star­ting pis­tol in­to the air and fi­res.

  I turn on the auto­pi­lot, ta­king off with the two do­zen ot­her wo­men com­pe­ting for the three pre­ci­o­us spots on the te­am. They're all stran­gers, mostly ol­der than me and from ot­her is­lands in the Cycla­des. The­re was no plan­ning and stra­te­gi­zing how to be­at the ot­her ra­cers ahe­ad of ti­me. This is just me, run­ning my ra­ce. Fi­ve laps aro­und the fi­ve-mi­le whi­te co­ur­se plus one aro­und the yel­low.

  Tu­ning out everyt­hing but my fe­et and the co­ur­se ahe­ad, I run.

  By the ti­me I fi­nish the fifth whi­te lap, I can't fe­el my legs. My lungs burn fi­
re with every bre­ath. I don't know how long I've be­en run­ning, but it must be over two ho­urs. The end of my pa­in is just a mi­le and a qu­ar­ter away.

  As I ma­ke the turn from the whi­te co­ur­se on­to the yel­low, I be­gin to ta­ke stock of my sur­ro­un­dings. Not the tre­es and bus­hes and wo­od­land crit­ters; the ot­her ra­cers. The­re aren't any.

  Altho­ugh I can't see them any­mo­re, I know the­re are two ra­cers ahe­ad of me on the track. Thro­ugh my pa­in, I'd ab­sently ta­ken no­te when the two blon­des had pus­hed out from the le­ad gro­up a co­up­le mi­les back.

  I risk a glan­ce back over my sho­ul­der. I don't see any ra­cers be­hind me, eit­her, but I can he­ar the­ir fo­ot­be­ats on the path.

  The an­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of vic­tory eases my pa­in. Third pla­ce me­ans a spot on the te­am, and right now that's all that mat­ters to me.

  When I fa­ce back to the front, the­re is a ra­cer on the co­ur­se. Her long brown pony­ta­il bo­un­ces with every step, obs­cu­ring the com­pe­ti­tor num­ber pin­ned to her shirt. I blink my eyes, cer­ta­in that I'm se­e­ing things. She wasn't the­re a se­cond ago. But, no mat­ter how many ti­mes I squ­e­eze my lids shut and re­open them, she's still the­re.

  She al­so isn't one of the two blon­des who'd pul­led in­to the le­ad. That me­ans I'm in fo­urth pla­ce. The­re are no pri­zes for fo­urth.

  "Impos­sib­le," I mut­ter bet­we­en gas­ping bre­aths.

  Then, re­ali­zing the fu­ti­lity of de­ni­al, I turn off my shock. She is only abo­ut ten pa­ces ahe­ad of me. I can catch up with her on this fi­nal lap-may­be not easily, with my legs fe­eling al den­te, but I can do it. When it co­mes to run­ning, I can do anyt­hing.

  Dra­wing on every last oun­ce of my energy, I inc­re­ase my pa­ce.

  She must sen­se my ac­ce­le­ra­ti­on, be­ca­use she spe­eds up iden­ti­cal­ly and ke­eps her so­lid le­ad.

  I try aga­in.

  She matc­hes me aga­in.

  Three ti­mes I spe­ed up, only to watch her le­ad stay cons­tant.

  Fi­nal­ly, when I know I ha­ve next to not­hing left to gi­ve, she starts pul­ling away. I'm get­ting left be­hind and the­re's not­hing I can do. Te­ars of frust­ra­ti­on sting my eyes. I was so clo­se-so clo­se- to ma­king the te­am, but my body just do­esn't ha­ve the ju­ice to catch her.

  We ro­und the fi­nal bend in the yel­low co­ur­se, on­to the stra­igh­ta­way to the fi­nish li­ne, and I watch her twel­ve-pa­ce le­ad ex­tend to thir­te­en. Fo­ur­te­en.

  "Aa­argh!" I scre­am at myself. "Do so­met­hing!"

  My body res­ponds by sen­ding a sho­oting pa­in up my spi­ne.

  It's so un­fa­ir. I ow­ned this ra­ce. I de­ser­ve a pla­ce on the te­am.

  But even as I rant in my mind, I know the truth. No one de­ser­ves to win- You ha­ve to earn the ho­nor. And cle­arly the ra­cer in front of me ear­ned that ho­nor to­day.

  I fo­cus my ga­ze on the fi­nish li­ne, in­tent on fi­nis­hing this ra­ce with the pri­de that a fo­urth-pla­ce fi­nish de­ser­ves. May­be I can le­arn from this ra­cer, from this loss. I'll be­co­me a bet­ter ath­le­te-

  "What the-?"

  In an in­s­tant, the girl with the long brown pony­ta­il di­sap­pe­ars. Not she-cros­sed-the-fi­nish-li­ne-and-di­sap­pe­ared-from-sight. Just… va­nis­hed. She glan­ced back over her sho­ul­der, ga­ve me what lo­oked li­ke a wink, and then eva­po­ra­ted. In a puff of smo­ke. Well, that was dif­fe­rent.

  Se­conds la­ter, I'm ac­ross the fi­nish li­ne. Co­ach Lenny is the first to rush me, grab­bing me aro­und the wa­ist and lif­ting my dying body in­to the air.

  "I knew you'd ma­ke the te­am, Cast­ro." he scre­ams. Then, to the crowd, "This is my girl!"

  "But… but…" I'm too ex­ha­us­ted to form the simp­le, bur­ning qu­es­ti­on.

  Co­ach Lenny drops me, ne­arly sen­ding me to my kne­es, to re­cord the ti­me of the next ra­cers to cross the fi­nish li­ne.

  "Cong­ra­tu­la­ti­ons, Pho­ebo­la," Mom says, hur­rying to my si­de and pla­cing sup­por­ti­ve hands on my hips.

  Do­ub­led over in ut­ter ex­ha­us­ti­on, I ma­na­ge to twist my he­ad eno­ugh to glan­ce up. Grif­fin is the­re, be­aming at my vic­tory. And Da­mi­an lo­oks li­ke he just won the lot­tery.

  "Yes, cong­ra­tu­la­ti­ons," he says, unab­le to hi­de a grin be­ne­ath his stuffy ex­te­ri­or. "You just pas­sed yo­ur test."

  "What?" I gasp.

  "That was yo­ur test," he says.

  "My what?" I ma­na­ge to pull myself ver­ti­cal. "My test? You me­an that ra­cer…"

  "She was no com­pe­ti­tor. Ac­tu­al­ly," he says, cle­aring his thro­at. Le­aning clo­se, he whis­pers in my ear, "that was Ni­ke."

  My jaw drops and I am in­ca­pab­le of spe­ech.

  "Des­pi­te yo­ur dri­ve to win," Da­mi­an exp­la­ins, "you did not use yo­ur po­wers."

  "So that was it?" I ask. "Not che­ating was my test?"

  "No," he says. "Pro­ving that you and not yo­ur emo­ti­ons mas­ter yo­ur po­wers was the test. It was not abo­ut ho­nor-even the gods can­not re­gu­la­te a per­son's ho­nor-but abo­ut mas­tery. You did not want to che­at even mo­re than you did want to win."

  I can't be­li­eve it. I pas­sed my test! Even as Grif­fin steps past Mom to wrap me in his arms, whis­pe­ring cong­ra­tu­la­ti­ons in my ear, I can't be­li­eve I just pas­sed the test… by lo­sing to Ni­ke!

  "Ra­cers to the star­ting block," Co­ach Lenny calls out aga­in, "for the men's long-dis­tan­ce tri­al."

  I re­le­ase Grif­fin and sho­ve him to­ward the box, li­ke he'd do­ne for me.

  Whi­le he's joc­ke­ying for po­si­ti­on with the ot­her ra­cers, I ta­ke my pla­ce in front of the spec­ta­tor sec­ti­on, pre­pa­red to che­er him on at every lap.

  "He's go­ing to win, you know," Ada­ra says as she sli­des up next to me.

  "For on­ce," I reply, gi­ving her a grin and a si­de­ways glan­ce, "I think I'm ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to ag­ree with you."

  "So­me­one call the Chro­nic­le. She stif­les a fa­ke yawn. This is he­ad­li­ne news."

  Co­ach Lenny fi­res the star­ter pis­tol in­to the air. As the guys ta­ke off to fol­low the sa­me co­ur­se I've just run, I bre­ak out in a grin. Next to me, Ada­ra eyes me wa­rily, as if I might se­ek re­ven­ge for her months of tor­tu­re, now that I've got my po­wers un­der cont­rol.

  Now that I trust myself to cont­rol them.

  With all the pe­op­le I ca­re most abo­ut in the world-yes, even Stel­la (who is he­re with Xan­der!)-gat­he­red aro­und to che­er my vic­tory, and No­la and Ces­ca just an e-ma­il away, I can't help thin­king I'm a pretty lucky girl. I've got my po­wers un­der cont­rol. I'm go­ing to be ra­cing in the Pythi­an Ga­mes. I just ran on the sa­me co­ur­se as my god­dess an­ces­tor. And-altho­ugh I co­uld ne­ver pro­ve it and I'd deny the in­sa­ne idea if an­yo­ne sug­ges­ted it-I ha­ve a fe­eling that Dad was right the­re by my si­de with every step.

  Out of all the mo­ments in my li­fe, this is the most per­fect.

  I sling an arm aro­und Ada­ra, ig­no­ring how she crin­ges away. She has not­hing to worry abo­ut from me. We god­des­ses ha­ve to stick to­get­her, you know.

  Epilogue

  "ARE YOU RE­ADY?"

  I lo­ok up at Grif­fin stan­ding in the do­or­way to my ro­om. He lo­oks so yummy in his track­su­it-tur­qu­o­ise blue with baby-blue stri­pes, the co­lors of the Cycla­di­an te­am-with his sung­las­ses perc­hed on his he­ad. The Pythi­an Ga­mes ra­ce­co­ur­se at Delp­hi isn't wo­oded li­ke the Aca­demy co­ur­se, so we're de­fi­ni­tely go­ing to ne­ed the sha­des.

  "Almost," I say, grab­bing my Ni­kes from un­der my desk and drop­ping on­to my bed to pull them on. "I just ne­ed to la­ce up."<
br />
  "Yo­ur mom and He­ad­mas­ter Pet­ro­las are wa­iting at the dock." He walks over to my desk and picks up the fra­med pic­tu­re of us run­ning on the be­ach. He's smi­ling when he says, "I think they're mo­re ner­vo­us than eit­her of us."

  I fi­nish la­cing one Ni­ke and mo­ve on­to the ot­her. "Well, it's not every day the­ir da­ugh­ter and her boyf­ri­end get to ra­ce in an­ci­ent mytho­lo­gi­cal ga­mes that used to be as big as the Olym­pics."

  As I fi­nish my bow, I catch sight of the le­at­her-bo­und bo­ok un­der my bed. For luck, I run my fin­ger­tips along the smo­oth spi­ne. Over the gil­ded let­ters of my dad's na­me.

  "Ha­ve you re­ad it yet?" Grif­fin asks, his vo­ice a soft whis­per.

  "Not yet," I say, sit­ting up and snatc­hing my tur­qu­o­ise duf­fel off the flo­or. "Let's go."

  Grif­fin of­fers me his hand and I ta­ke it, lo­ving the way his palm fe­els hot aga­inst mi­ne. I al­so lo­ve that he do­esn't press me abo­ut the re­cord. It's not that I'm af­ra­id to re­ad it-we got past that we­eks ago. I'm not su­re how to exp­la­in it ex­cept that I ha­ven't ne­eded to re­ad it yet. So­me­day I will, I know. One day so­met­hing will hap­pen or I'll just wa­ke up kno­wing that the ti­me has co­me to find out the who­le truth.

  But for now, I'm pretty con­tent as is.

  "So af­ter we win the Pythi­an Ga­mes," Grif­fin asks as we he­ad to my do­or, "what next? The At­hens ma­rat­hon? The Olym­pics? The Ox­ford cross-co­untry te­am?"

  As I turn to pull my bed­ro­om do­or shut, I see the re­cord po­king out from be­ne­ath my bed.

  "Yes. Yes. And-" I po­int at the re­cord. It glows for a se­cond and then sli­des out of vi­ew. "Yes."

  Grif­fin la­ughs out lo­ud. Wrap­ping an arm aro­und my sho­ul­der, he says, "That's what I lo­ve most abo­ut you. You al­ways set at­ta­inab­le go­als."

  I know he's te­asing. Be­ca­use if I've le­ar­ned one thing in the last ye­ar, it's that an­y­t­hing is at­ta­inab­le.