Goddess Boot Camp
Page 28

“It’s not the ice cream, exactly,” she explains. “It’s the sugar.”
I give her a look that repeats, So?
“His parents were not exactly thrilled by the news.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Troy adds, returning to a mostly normal, mostly pinky-tan color. “They hit the roof.” He shudders. “Literally.”
“I still don’t—”
“They cursed my taste buds.”
That sounds rotten. “What does that mean?”
“Until I agree to become a doctor,” he explains, “every time I eat something sweet, it tastes like . . . something not sweet.”
“That sucks.” If this were anything other than White Russian, I’d toss it out in friendship solidarity. But, as I said, it’s White Russian! I ignore my guilt, trying to be as discreet as possible about my ice-cream ecstasy.
“That’s not the worst of it,” he says, sounding even more dejected. “They enrolled me in SIPP.” When I look confused, he adds, “The Summer Intensive Pre-med Program. Instead of writing songs and practicing, I’ll spend all summer in class.”
Nicole pats his hand. “You’ll get through it, Travatas.”
“There’s a weeklong anatomy segment,” he complains. “Anatomy! We’re going to dissect . . . something. I just know it.”
“Maybe you can do a virtual dissection or something,” I suggest, taking a bite out of the sugar cone. “Nola and I did that in freshman biology.”
“Whatever,” he says, waving me off. “I don’t want to talk about it. What’d you do in camp today?”
Popping the tail end of the cone into my mouth, I reach into my pocket.
“I earned my first merit badge.”
I slap the little round patch onto the table.
At first I’d thought Stella was joking. A merit badge? For not cracking my skull on the tile? Wow, what an achievement. But then she’d handed this to me and said, “One down, eleven to go.”
Just like the ones that covered Nola’s Girl Scouts vest in elementary school, this merit badge is round with a thick ring of color surrounding the central picture. In this case, the ring is white, the background is sky blue, and the picture depicts a white whooshy wave of wind.
“Aerokinesis,” Troy says. “Cool.”
“Did you fly?”
“Not exactly.” I pull the badge across the table and slip it back into my pocket. “More like hovered to keep from smashing my head against the courtyard floor.”
Nicole and Troy exchange a look. They both say, “The trust fall.”
I nod, pretending I’m not crazy proud of myself. But I am.
The study guide says—yes, I finally read it—aerokinesis is the ability to move air. In this case, moving enough air under my falling body to hold it suspended. That’s pretty darn cool.
“Show us,” Nic says.
“What?” My hand is still in my pocket and I smooth my fingers over the edge of the patch. “You want me to trust-fall in here?”
“Nah.” She waves off my suggestion. She reaches across the table and grabs the saltshaker, setting it in from of me. “Move this using air.”
“I don’t think I should—”
“Come on,” Troy says. “We want to see what you learned.”
I hesitate. What if I can’t really control that power? What if I send the salt flying all over the room? That probably mean years of bad luck or something. Or what if I accidentally conjure an entire salt mine? Or if I zap us to the Dead Sea? Or—
“Stop dragging your feet.” Nicole points at the shaker. “Go.”
“Fine,” I say, but not before throwing her an annoyed scowl.
Then I turn my attention to the salt. Keeping in mind what Stella said—I know, right?—I concentrate on trusting the shaker to move. I’m not thinking about the salt or trying to move it or wishing it would move, I just picture it already there. In my mind, the shaker is in front of Nicole. I believe. I trust.
Everything glows. When I blink through the light, I see the little glass shaker slide smoothly down the table. The paper napkin from my cone flutters as the shaker passes.
Nicole catches the shaker as it slides to a stop.
“Nice,” she says with a grin.
I release a huge sigh of relief. All I can think is, It actually worked! Sure, I’d caught myself before smashing skull to pavement, but it wasn’t a conscious effort. This time I actually knew what I was doing. I had a goal. I met that goal.
And nothing blew up!
One step closer to not getting smoted.
“Maybe Goddess Boot Camp is the best thing that could have happened to your powers this summer,” Troy says. “Zeus knows it’s better than what’s happening to me this summer.”
“At least you’re not stuck with Stella and Adara,” I reply.
Okay, so Stella’s not at the top of my evil-harpy list at the moment. But Adara’s holding strong at number one.
“That reminds me,” Nicole says. “I might know what happened to the record.”
“The one about Phoebe’s dad?”
I know, I know. We weren’t supposed to tell anyone about going into the secret archives. But really, Troy is one of our closest friends. It’s not like he’s going to tell anyone.
“What?” I ask.
“After you ran off to camp,” she says, “Philipoulos was so mad about finding it gone that she ranted a bit. She kinda forgot I was there.”