Three Girls and a God by Clea Hantman Read Free Book Online Page B

note came out of the bush:
    Dylan + Thalia = dinner tonight
    Figures! I don’t think so. I held up my last note again, sans any sort of smile…
    Stop STALKING me!
    …then I grabbed my bag and my sisters, who were still arguing, and started to walk home.

E IGHT
    I have to say, I don’t miss the pomp and circumstance of life back home. You know, the stuffy dinners in the great hall, the stilted conversation with all the boring old bigwigs like Poseidon and Dionysus. * But that’s not to say life here on earth can’t be just as lame. That night the arguing didn’t stop on our walk home. No, Era and Polly continuously went at it once we were home, through dinner and on into the night. And the next day, after yet another round of boring biology and way too much math, not to mention the very wrong version of ancient history these people are teaching (including the foul notion that Greek gods are merely myths!), I was ready for something new—an adventure or a great battle of wits. I was thinking of trying my hand at these things called video games. I’d seen a bunch of kids outside the Grit going crazy over them.
    But first I had to get the sixteen-millimeter camera back from Dylan from Denver. It was my turn to shoot, and you can bet your sweet turtle I wasn’t going to waste my hours stalking the football player from another planet.
    I grabbed my stuff from my locker and headed to the quad, where we were to meet. Dylan wasn’t there yet. I sat on a bench and waited impatiently. I wanted to get home. Of course, Era and Polly weren’t anywhere nearby, either. I noticed a little crowd gathering on the other side of the quad. Everyone was looking up. I figured I could be just as annoyed and impatient over there as I could over here, right? So I went to have a look.
    As soon as I got a little closer, I noticed someone on the roof of the school trailer. Not just someone, Dylan. And he had our camera. I screamed, “No!” but it was no use. There was so much chatter and commotion, I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I pushed my way into the crowd and found this: ten football players, all in their uniforms (huh, Dylan didn’t look quite as out of place around these guys), lying on the ground, heads all together, producing a sizable man-made star burst. They were chanting, or rather grunting, and kicking alternate legs into the air chorus-line style. Dylan was on the roof, all right, directing them, leading them, filming them.
    Claire grabbed me and said, “I don’t know whatkind of statement he’s making, but I’m sure Mrs. Tracy will find some deep-seated political reason behind it and love it.”
    “You people have some weird customs,” I said, wishing I hadn’t. I was always so careful around Claire not to say anything that made me seem too out of touch. Too much like a Greek goddess from another place and time. But of course, she thought I was an exchange student from Europe, so there was a little room for some confusion on my part. At least I hoped so.
    “This isn’t any American custom, Thalia—this is just plain weird.”
    “Right, weird.”
    “Thanks, guys, that was awesome—that’s all I need.” It was Dylan, calling down from the roof. Just then three teachers came running out of the building, yelling and demanding Dylan come down. Dylan spotted me and screamed my name. Then he actually threw the camera down, yelling at me, “Catch!”
    I did. But not effortlessly. I mean, I broke a small sweat, diving for that camera. Another five inches to the right and it would have been kaput. And then Dylan from Denver took a small hop and flipped off the roof, spinning in midair like some wild gymnast in the first Olympic games, and landed, feet firmly planted on the ground. A perfect ten.
    Not that I was going to tell him so. I was tickedoff. How did he know I could catch that camera? And where did he learn to do something like that? That jump was…was…was godlike. No mortal boy I’d seen could move