Demigods and Monsters by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online Page B

Especially when they don’t cut their hair for a while or wear that same T-shirt at least three times a week. Besides, your best friends (who needless to say are all girls) happen to understand you, really understand everything you’re going through, sometimes without you even having to explain it all. So no need to stress over that part of the deal.
    But consider that this contract is pretty absolute. When Artemis says no males, she really means it. This includes your father, your brothers, your male cousins and friends. No more father-daughter dances or the two of you making pancakes while the rest of your family is sleeping. No more watching TV with your brothers and fighting, in a playful way, over the remote control. No more kicking around a soccer ball in the park with your male friends. (For the record, I have never kicked around a soccer ball in a park or anywhere else, but should I ever choose to do so, it might be fun to kick the ball to a male friend or two.) Instead, you have to leave your family and begin a shiny brand-new life with your adopted sisters, your fellow Hunters.
    Not so easy now, right? Remember in Rick Riordan’s The Titan’s Curse , the character Bianca is offered this choice. True, Artemis does mention that Bianca may see her brother occasionally , but she also quite clearly states that if Bianca swears the oath, she will have a new family starting then and there. And Bianca does end up swearing the oath and becoming one of Artemis’s maidens. But her choice has some unexpected consequences that come back to haunt her.
    Who cares, you say. You still want in. Your father’s too strict anyway and your brothers (if you have them) are so annoying and probably wouldn’t even notice if you were gone. Fine, but let’s examine Artemis a little more closely to see just what you’d be getting into if
you signed up for eternal youth. Artemis as portrayed in The Titan’s Curse is a stern but fair task-mistress, willing to go to great lengths to protect her maidens. Moreover, she is a woman of extreme strength and conviction, as shown when she shoulders Atlas’s burden and bears it admirably. And Riordan’s rendering of her does align with the more traditional Artemis of Greek myths and legends.
    Yet while Riordan’s Artemis seems like the very best possible older sister a girl could ask for—daring, brave, full of vitality—the Artemis of Greek myths had a harsher side. In fact, the Artemis of Greek myths often possessed a contradictory and cruelly unforgiving nature. Although she was generally known as the protector of innocents, there are several disturbing myths that showcase her terrifying capacity for swift and brutal revenge.
    One such myth concerns Niobe, the Queen of Thebes. Niobe gave birth to seven sons and seven daughters, and in a moment of hubris she bragged about her fertility at a ceremony honoring the goddess Leto. Huge mistake. Leto just happened to be the mother of none other than Artemis and Apollo. Also, she was often considered the goddess of fertility, which apparently Niobe found too much of an irony to resist. Niobe decided that she was superior to Leto, having had fourteen children to Leto’s mere two.
    It’s generally never a good idea to compare yourself favorably to a goddess, especially at a ceremony in her honor. Furthermore, Leto was the daughter of Titans, who aren’t exactly known for their easy-going nature. As to be expected, Leto didn’t take the insult well and sent in her royal children Artemis and Apollo to exact revenge. While Apollo killed Niobe’s seven sons, Artemis, an expert huntress, shot and killed the seven daughters with her deadly arrows.
    In some versions, Niobe is said to have cradled her youngest daughter in her arms, begging the goddess to spare the child’s life; unfortunately, Artemis’s arrow had already left the bow. Niobe’s husband, Amphion, was said to have