Pandora Gets Lazy (21 page)

“They are? My guards are trying to kill me?” he yelled.

Pandy landed right on top of Homer's stomach, which made Homer twitch and groan ever so slightly. She looked up at her uncle, thinking he hadn't seemed so large when he was just sitting down, but now he was almost ten meters high.

And then, as Pandy stared in shock, he grew
again
. His legs stretched several more meters as did his arms, and his torso expanded in all directions. Even his head grew bigger. Only seconds later, Atlas was at his full height, bursting through the remaining roof and standing erect, almost eighteen meters tall, just arm's distance from the bottom of the heavens.

“I see I need to smash some heads,” Atlas said. “Somebody's going off the mountain!”

“Wait!” Pandy cried, picking herself up. “You don't know which ones they are!”

“Doesn't matter,” Atlas said, beginning to move. “First one I see goes off the mountain!”

With one step, Atlas strode over the broken heap of wall and out into the crowd. Thousands of people, none of whom had ever seen a Titan at full height, fled in every direction. Atlas grabbed the first two guards he came upon and began clomping toward the nearest ridge.

Pandy raced over the rubble, passing Alcie, who was heading toward Homer.

“I'll stay with him, you and Iole go!”

Pandy and Iole sped into the crowd, now less dense, and chased after Atlas. Within only a minute they found they were almost upon him.

“That makes no sense,” Iole panted as she and Pandy dashed off to the side to parallel the Titan's course. “He should be at the edge of the mountain by now!”

“No,” Pandy heaved, watching her uncle carefully, “look at him! He's trying not to step on anybody!”

“Great Athena,” Iole said.

It was true. Atlas was almost tottering on his gargantuan legs, looking all around him, and taking teensy steps in an effort not to trample any workers. And he was apologizing to everyone.

“Sorry. Pardon me. Sorry. Have to kill some guards. Excuse me. Oooh, was that your baby? No? Baby's okay? Good. Excuse me. Pardon me, please.”

Pandy and Iole stopped for a moment to watch the spectacle, doubled over in hysterics. Then, out of nowhere, Pandy grabbed Iole's arm, a picture forming in her mind.

“Come on,” she cried, sprinting forward, “I have to get on top of the ridge before he does.”

She and Iole wove a tight course through the village, much of which was now fairly deserted, as most of the crowd was behind them and running the other way. The girls were unaware of the two old men doggedly following them. The closest ridge was in sight, empty of guards; they had all abandoned their posts at the first sign of trouble in the village. Pandy and Iole passed the last column and started up the slope. Cresting the ridge, Pandy almost sailed over the sheer drop on the other side, flailing her arms wildly as she teetered on the edge. Just as she was about to go over, Iole thrust out her arm and grabbed a handful of Pandy's toga, yanking Pandy back and pulling herself up as well.

“Thank you,” Pandy said.

“My pleasure,” Iole replied. “Now, you probably don't have a plan . . .”

“Shhhhh! Hang on,” Pandy said, silencing Iole and watching Atlas approach the ridge. He would land on the crest only fifteen meters away, just past a large cluster of boulders. Pandy turned to Iole.

“I have a plan.”

“Naturally.” Iole grinned.

Prometheus had to stop for a moment. Panting heavily, he leaned on an oven, now cooling with no one tending the dying fire. Hermes, on his spindly old-man legs, strode up right beside him, perfectly rested, not a white hair out of place.

“Did you have to make me
feel
old? Couldn't you just have made me
look
old?” Prometheus gasped.

“Absolutely. But where's the fun?”

“So . . . now we'll save her, right?”

“No,” Hermes said.

“
No?
What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, my friend, if she gets killed, she gets killed. We'll both know the Fates decreed it. To completely prevent her from being killed would have required interceding with the Fates. That means forms in triplicate, signatures, briberies, and playing footsie with Clotho, if you know what I'm saying, and I am just not up to that.”

“But you promised.”

“No such thing did I do.”

“Then why did you bring me, Hermes? You're a joker, but you're not cruel.”

“No, I'm not,” Hermes said, calmly watching Pandy almost fall off the side of the mountain in the distance. “I brought you because you got on your knees. You'd never do that for anyone or anything unless your heart and soul were on the line. Since recapturing this particular evil has now become a family matter, I felt you should see the outcome for yourself; you need to know the facts of what's going to happen with your daughter and your brother. That's why I brought you.”

“I'm still gonna save her if she needs saving,” Prometheus said, ambling off toward the ridge with a glare at Hermes.

“You can try, my friend,” Hermes sighed to himself, walking slowly behind. “You can try,”

Pandy and Iole raced across the ridge and hid themselves behind two of the largest boulders just as Atlas started up the slope. He was moving faster now; no people to mind underfoot. Pandy poked her head up from her hiding place, knowing she would have to time her movements to the second.

In one stride, Atlas was halfway up the slope. As he took his next step, he bent forward to steady himself, bringing his head low to the ground, just below the crest. In that second, before he brought his other leg up, Pandy bolted from behind the rocks and shot herself forward and up, arms outstretched, aiming straight for the huge nose hair.

And in that second she realized that she was about to grab it with her bare hands. She'd already been infected by Jealousy and Vanity by mistakenly touching them. Why didn't she think about Laziness!? What would this do to her? And how could she have been so stupid to forget the adamant
net
!

Clomp.

Suddenly she had the hair in both hands and was fifteen meters in the air, hanging on for dear life. Up close, the hair was even more disgusting than she'd imagined; it was rough all over with its own fuzzy gray hairs and had a stench like burned wood.

Atlas felt a tug on his precious hair and looked down to see Pandy swinging from side to side, like a pendulum, in front of his body. He let out a tremendous, ear-splitting roar and arched his back, flinging his arms out to both sides. He dropped both guards, unconscious, on the slope and began swiping furiously at Pandy. But his movements were clumsy, like those of an infant, and instead of grabbing for her, he was trying to knock her off the hair.

Pandy was not feeling Lazy in the slightest but had no time to wonder why. She was bouncing off the back of Atlas's hands, whipping around to the sides of his neck and caroming off his chest. Suddenly her feet landed on his body and she took that moment to lift up and then give a mighty tug on the root of the hair. Atlas screamed and swung his torso from side to side. In one step he crested the ridge, his head scraping the bottom of the heavens, his cries echoing off the surrounding mountains. Pandy, who had frozen in a fear of heights on the rope ladder only a short time before, was now swinging free over the sheer drop off Jbel Toubkal, certain death thousands and thousands of meters below.

Prometheus was halfway up the slope when his stamina and strength finally gave out. He dropped like a stone to the ground and lay there, heaving, just as Hermes wandered up and sat beside him, and just as Pandy flew onto Atlas's nose hair.

“Please,” he whispered to Hermes.

“No,” Hermes replied, looking at his dear friend with a small touch of sympathy.

“I . . . hate . . . you,” Prometheus said.

“You don't.”

“I . . . do.”

“If I thought you meant it, I'd be hurt,” Hermes said, smiling. “You're the one who wanted the old man disguise.”

“But . . .”

“Hush, pal,” Hermes said, looking at Atlas standing on the ridge and Pandy clinging to his nose hair, swinging high over the edge. “It's time to watch your girl.”

Pandy swung free of Atlas's hands and landed again on Atlas's upper arm. Planting her feet and lifting, she tugged sideways. The hair didn't budge, which, Pandy realized, was a very good thing, because if it had come loose, she would have fallen to her death off the mountain.

Atlas, seeing that his attempts to swat the girl away were doing no good, finally decided to grab at her. Pandy saw his arm stretch wide, his massive palm turn toward her, and knew she had two choices. Either hang on tight to the hair and let him grab her, so that when he yanked her, he'd yank out the hair, too. Or escape being killed by making herself untouchable. She had no desire to be crushed completely, and she knew she couldn't focus the heat directly on his hands, he needed them to hold up the heavens, so she concentrated her power . . . on herself.

She had no idea if it would work, but she directed her power over fire inward and then sent it radiating outward to her skin. As Atlas's hand bore down upon her, she focused everything she had solely on making her skin, and only her skin, hot . . . very hot. So hot that her sandals began to smoke and the bottom of her cloak caught fire. As the complete loss of sound hit her again, she looked at her arms: they were glowing with the radiance of the sun. Atlas's hand closed around her for a moment (which extinguished her cloak), then he roared again and threw his hand back, a small blister on his palm. Pandy felt the nose hair begin to melt slightly where she touched it and reached higher for a better grip, focusing on cutting off the heat to her hands. Atlas whipped his body around as Pandy planted her feet on his chest and tugged again. The hair remained fixed in his nostril, but Pandy lost her footing and slammed into Atlas's chest. She seared his skin, making it bubble, and caused Atlas to stumble forward. He completely lost his balance and tumbled forward in a sideways roll, which whipped Pandy into the ground, almost knocking her out.