She nods. “I’ve seen proof.”
“You’ve seen—” I shake my head. This is not happening. “What kind of proof?”
“It’s a little hard to explain,” she says, blushing. “He made roses . . . materialize.”
“Roses?” Ha! I’ve got him now. “He’s just a magician. He pulled them out of his sleeve.”
Mom blushes even more. “He wasn’t wearing sleeves at the time.”
Ewww! Therapy is definitely in my future.
All right, so the rational, that’s-not-really-possible approach isn’t working. I’ve got more tactics in my arsenal. I just need a minute to regroup. While I’m trying to come up with my next move I realize that, since I haven’t seen any roses around since we landed in Greece, Mom must have known before we took off from LAX.
Even if she’s being totally played, she should have said something.
She’s had plenty of opportunities, including fourteen hours in the confined space of an airplane cabin where I would have been a captive audience. And who knows how many times before the move—
“Wait a minute!” My voice rises to an accusatory scream. “How long have you known?”
At least she has the decency to look ashamed. “Since shortly after Damian and I met.” She glances at him and smiles. “As soon as we realized we were in love.”
What!? I cannot believe this. What has Mom married me into?
“There’s something else. . . .” Mom says.
Oh no. I can tell from the way she trailed off at the end that I am not going to like this.
She nudges Damian. “Go ahead. Tell her.”
He clears his throat before saying, “The students at the Academy are not your average schoolchildren.”
Like I couldn’t have guessed that. At least this isn’t more earth-shattering news.
“We have an acceptance rate of less than one percent. Our admission standards are far more stringent than even the most elite universities,” he says, “and are extremely specific.”
Should I be overjoyed? I throw Mom a look that says I’m not thanking her for the favor. She knows I would rather be back in L.A. than accepted into some snotty school any day.
“Really,” he says, “we have only one criterion.”
Uber-popularity? Unfathomable wealth? Genius-level IQ? Great, I’m going to be a dunce at a school of Einsteins.
“All the students at the Academy . . .” He tugs at his navy blue tie—my first clue that he’s a little nervous about telling me this— but it doesn’t really look tousled. “. . . Are, ah-hem, descendants of the gods.”
My world starts to go black around the edges as I stare at Damian’s negligibly loosened tie and hear Mom say, “Oh no, I think she’s fainting.”
The next thing I know, Damian is kneeling over me and Mom is frantically waving her purse over my face. I think she’s trying to fan me back to my senses, but all I can think is it would really hurt if she drops it on my nose. Her purse is like Mary Poppins’s bag—it holds way more than should be possible.
I hear Damian say, “She is regaining consciousness. Zenos, send out the gangplank and bring the gurney.”
Xena?
Mom’s purse comes darn close to clipping me on the cheek.
Wait. A gurney?
The last thing I need is to make my arrival strapped to a gurney pushed by a fictional warrior princess. That is not the way to make a good impression—if this stupid school is anything like PacificPark, gossip makes the rounds faster than the flu.
Not that I have any hope of making a good impression. It must be pretty hard to impress someone who sits across the dinner table from Zeus.
Wait, what am I saying? I must be in shock. This is ridiculous. Damian must be having some elaborate twisted joke on me. And on Mom.
But she says she’s seen proof.
The black edges come back just as Mom finally swipes me across the nose. And ouch, does it hurt. That shakes me out of it and I bolt up, ignoring the tingling dizziness in my brain.
“I’m fine, really.” I bat away a few of the bright yellow bugs swarming around my head before I realize these are only in my mind. Knowing Mom and Damian and the gurney-pushing warrior princess would have a field day with this, I close my eyes and take three deep breaths before saying, “I don’t need a gurney, you can call Xena off.”
“Who?” Mom asks, clearly not up on her TV culture.
“Not Xena,” Damian explains. “Zenos. Our yacht captain.”
Somehow, it is only a minor relief to find out that he knows some fictional characters are actually not real.
“Sorry,” I say. “My bad.” For the time being, I think it’s better to just play along. I can talk some sense into Mom later—when we’re alone. “I’ve got it now.” I open my eyes, relatively certain I can maintain consciousness for the moment. “Xena, not real. Zeus, real. Check.”
Mom and Damian exchange one of those I-don’t-think-the-poorchild-is-buying-it looks. They’re not far off. Who can blame me, what with the idea that the Greek gods really exist still ricocheting through my brain? I deserve at least a little wiggle room when it comes to confusing reality with fiction. Maybe if I approach it with a little scientific logic, Mom will see how crazy all of this is.
“So, what does this mean?” I ask, rubbing my temple to make it look like I’m really considering believing all this. “Are the students all immortal?”