"Delicious." Hermes dabbed his mouth with a cloth and stood up from the dinner table. He glanced at Markos and Julia. "Too bad Markos and the girl forgot to get more eels, though. I would have liked a third helping."
"I'm so sorry, Hermes," Markos' father, Nikolaos, said. "I thought we had plenty of eels. It won't happen again."
"Come, my friend," Caerus told Hermes. "Let's find Dionysus and celebrate the fine evening."
"Yes." Hermes shot Brody a frown. "Although I'm not much in the mood for celebrating after today's chariot practice."
Without another word the two gods left.
Nikolaos frowned at his wife, who was helping Julia and the other girls clear the dishes. "That was an embarrassment," he said. "You know that eels are Hermes' favorite!"
"How could I predict he'd eat twice as many as usual?" his wife retorted, sounding grumpy. She snapped her fingers at Markos. "Markos! Go to the agora right now and tell the vendor that we'll want more eels this week. We want only the freshest ones and plenty of them!"
"Yes, Mother." Markos stood up.
"We'll come along and help you, Markos," Julia said. "Right, Brody?"
"Huh?" Brody looked up from his meal. "I'm not finished eating."
"Come on," Julia said, yanking on his chiton so hard that Brody was afraid she was going to pull it right off.
He glared at her. Back home he had barely noticed that Julia existed. She was just a nerd who never came to the football games or did anything else interesting. It was a lot harder to ignore her here in ancient Greece. When had she become so assertive?
He sighed loudly and stood up. "Fine," he said. "I'm exhausted after my long day of training for the Olympics, but whatever." He grabbed one last olive and tossed it into his mouth.
Soon the three of them were walking toward the agora.
"What do you think?" Julia asked Markos. "Is there any chance that Brody will get good enough at chariot racing in time to win at the Games?"
"Why don't you ask me?" Brody said. "I'm the one who has to do it. And controlling a bunch of crazy wild horses isn't as easy as it looks."
"It didn't look easy at all," Julia said. "That's exactly my point. What if you don't improve fast enough? If you don't impress Hermes, he might break his promise to let us leave."
Brody shrugged. "I have more than a week to practice. Besides, who cares what Hermes thinks of me right now? If I look bad at chariot driving, he'll be even more impressed when I win on the big day!"
Julia still looked worried. "I don't want to get stuck here in ancient Greece forever." She glanced over at Markos. "Sorry, Markos. I don't mean to offend you."
"Don't worry, I'll win," Brody said. "End of story."
By then they were entering the agora. Several young men were gathered near a fabric vendor's stall. Brody recognized most of them as other champions. A few waved to him.
"Did you hear the news?" Apollo's champion called. "The mighty Alcides arrives soon."
"We heard all about it," Brody replied. "So what? I'm glad we'll finally get the chance to see this guy."
Artemis' champion shook his head. "I'm not so sure I want to see him," he said. "I overheard Artemis talking with Ares and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and home. Zeus told them that Alcides strangled two enormous serpents with his bare hands when he was less than a year old!"
"Serpents? That's nothing," said Demeter's champion. "I heard that Alcides killed a dozen men before he was ten years old!"
"Well, I heard that Alcides eats human brains for breakfast," Artemis' champion added. "Zeus says it makes him smarter."
"That makes sense," put in Ares' champion. "Because Ares told me that Alcides eats human muscles for lunch. It's supposed to make him stronger."
Brody listened, not sure what to think about what the athletes were saying. All these rumors were getting pretty tiring though.
Just then a sleek deer raced toward them, dodging around the people in the agora.
"Whoa," Brody said. "Loose animal!"
The deer stopped in front of the group. It seemed pretty tame, so Brody stepped toward it. He was about to grab the deer when it suddenly transformed into Artemis.
"Whoa!" Brody said again. He couldn't get used to the way the gods could transform into animals!
Artemis crooked her finger at her champion. "Come, my boy," she ordered. "You need to rest. We have much more training to do tomorrow."
"Coming," her champion said.
"I'd better go, too," one of the others said. "Ares will be looking for me."
Before long Brody, Julia, and Markos were alone again.
"Wow," Julia said. "This Alcides sounds really impressive. I'm surprised I've never heard of him. Though that story about the serpents seemed familiar. I think—"
"You haven't heard of him?" Brody cut her off. "That's cool. It means Zeus is probably exaggerating, right? I mean, if Alcides was really that great, wouldn't we have studied him in social studies class?"
"Maybe." Julia looked troubled. "Then again, it's not as if we could possibly learn everything about ancient Greece. Maybe Alcides really is a great hero, just not quite as great as the really famous ones like Heracles or Achilles." She sighed. "I wish I had my phone so I could look him up on the Internet."
Markos looked uncomfortable. Brody had noticed that Markos looked that way whenever Brody and Julia discussed their lives in the future.
"It's getting dark," Markos said. "We should tell the vendor about the eels and get home. Brody, you need to rest too. Tomorrow is likely to be a busy day."