Godly Humor

"Yeah, he's not Hades" Persephone said.

"She would point her crooked finger at me and say, 'Now Honey,' real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover (thunder again) I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The Whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red, I said "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"" Athena read.

"It had to be that picture. It just had to be that picture" Hades said

"Can we skip these please?" Poseidon asked.

"No we can't" said Hestia. Then she looked at Athena as to say keep reading.

""Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was king god, and-""

"GOD, king god" Zeus said/yelled.

"Come now, Zeus, Chiron will correct him" said Hera. Some of the other gods and goddess nodded in agreement.

"Keep reading, Athena" Poseidon said.

" "God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "And . . . he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters–"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"–and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos eat his kids.' "

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase what Miss Bobofit's excellent question, dose this matter in real life?"

"Busted" said Hermes, Ares, and Apollo.

" "Busted," Grover muttered." Athena read

"No way, it doesn't really say that" said Ares

"Yes it does" Athena said matter-of-factly.

"Let me sees" said Hermes, so Athena handed him the book. "It does say that."

"Now can I keep reading?" Athena asked. Hermes handed the book back.

"Thank you" Athena said, then continued, ""Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red then her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.""

"No he has horse ears" Apollo said, mostly because it was kind of like a lie and he really didn't like lying near him.

"Yes we know, Apollo" said Artemis.