Pandora Gets Vain (Pandora (Hardback)) Read Online Free Page A

acknowledge the girls and he pretended not to notice when Dido licked his hand.
    The first day out, as the captain carefully negotiated the straits between the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Sea, Iole caught Homer as he went up on deck for fresh air and tried to talk to him. But he didn’t even grunt at her and Iole decided he was plainly “simple.” Alcie found him at the railing as she marched from mast to mast, loving the way the sea made her walk straight.
    “Hi,” she said sweetly.
    “Whatever,” he said, moping his way back below deck.
    “I so totally agree!” she called after him. “You know it!”
    Now, on this fourth day, he stood blocking the sun.
    “So, Homer,” Alcie said, a softer quality to her voice that made Pandy and Iole turn and stare at her with wonder, “how’d you make out during the storm yesterday? Pretty wild, huh?”
    Pandy and Iole looked at Alcie like she’d suddenly grown a second head.
    “Um . . . I was asleep,” Homer replied.
    “Why does that not surprise me?” Iole said under her breath, turning back to look at Crete.
    Homer was almost always in his room. Except for the first night, when he’d camped outside the girls’ door on his father’s orders. The girls had spent most of the night talking about their quest, not realizing he was there, until he fell asleep and crashed his head into the cabin door as he hit the floor.
    They managed to convince him that, with a heavy bolt on their door, he was free to stay in his own cabin. The girls had been a bit concerned about what Homer might have overhead, but he’d given no indication that anything was going on inside his head, much less an interest in their quest.
    “Oooh, sleeping! Well, that’s fun too, I suppose.” Alcie giggled and choked on her tongue.
    “Pandy,” said Homer, totally ignoring Alcie, who now actually was turning purple from choking, “my father wanted me to, like, every once in a while, see if you guys were okay and . . . stuff. So . . . after that storm . . . like, are you guys okay?”
    “Um . . . we’re okay, Homer,” said Pandy, lightly patting Alcie’s back. “Thanks for . . . um . . . everything.”
    “Yes,” said Iole icily, “thanks for the timely concern.”
    “Cool. So . . . um . . . that time I was outside your cabin, I kinda heard why you guys—I mean, maidens— are really going to Alexandria and about the gods and stuff. And Pandy, I just wanted to say that those girls who opened the box are very uncool. So I won’t tell my dad you lied. Okay . . . like . . . good luck saving the world. And maybe I’ll see you guys—I mean, maidens— later, y’know, around Egypt.”
    As he walked away, Iole and Pandy turned to look at each other, horrified at having been overheard, but Alcie just stared at the spot where Homer had stood.
    “Great hulking pomegranates!” she yelled, finally clearing her throat. “When we get ashore, he’s just gonna leave us!”

CHAPTER FOUR
    Aeolus
    11:02 a.m.
     
    Compared to the magnificent palace up on Mount Olympus, the earthly home of Aeolus, King of the Winds, was puny and insignificant. It was a floating island with no name that drifted with the ocean currents, traveling all of earth’s waterways. Aeolus himself rarely knew where he would wake each day, swirling in amongst icebergs and frozen rocks or passing by islands full of date palms. Yet his island was still almost ten square miles in area and, as Aeolus allowed Notus, the South Wind, freedom to blow lightly at all times, the air was always fresh and the open rooms always swept clean. Small birds that could not scale the heights of Olympus fluttered and played on the warm breeze. Plants, flowers, and trees bent and swayed joyfully, creating ever-changing tapestries of light and shadow. Elaborate sets of wind chimes were placed around the gardens and throughout the house so the tinkling of glass beads, gold cylinders, or wooden pipes delighted the ear with music.
    One of only a few