Karma

Chapter 4

THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH

There were more chuckles than the last chapter title, while Athena looked at the book with a calculating look.

Three old ladies?

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle.

For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre- algebra teacher since Christmas.

"That's awful to experience. To feel as if you can't trust yourself," Dionysus said with a shake of his head.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed. Almost.

"Grover," Athena said in understanding.

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him,he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

"But why is he? He should take her to Camp," Ares said with a shake of his head.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The Gods all frowned, looking concerned for their soulmate.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

"What are you two fighting about now?" Demeter said, completely done with her two brothers.

"Who knows?" Hera commiserated with her. "It's always something."

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

"It means old drunk." Athena informed.

"Oh, so basically Dionysus." Hermes laughed. Apollo snorted. Dionysus glared at both of them.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself.

Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper EastSide, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

"It's so sweet how much she loves her mother," Hera said with a small smile.

And yet...there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.