At this point I’m pretty sure Fifi could sell water to a drowning person. After all, she’s managed to sell vandalism—excuse me, decorating—to me and fifteen other people all hoping to make a good impression on their first day.
“Get ready,” she whisper-shouts as she rips the top of the box open. “Who needs disco balls when you can have a giant disco apple?”
She turns the box over and hundreds upon hundreds of puffy, mirrored stickers pour out like confetti all over Arjun, Omari, and me.
As the stickers settle, she says, “Go ahead, Ellie. You get to go first! Grab a sticker and slap it on.”
“Um…” I want to say no. It’s one thing to carry a box for Fifi. It’s another to actually do something to the apple.
But Fifi’s grin is huge, and it’s obvious she’s having an amazing time. I don’t want to mess this up for her, especially not after everything she’s done for me.
So even though every rule-following, Athena inch of me tells me to run in the other direction, I do as she asks and pick up a sticker.
Around me the other students start to chant my name. “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie,” led by Arjun and Omari.
In my whole life, no one’s ever chanted my name before. At school events, my parents always focused on Paris and what he did. And while I had friends in my old school, they were even more studious and practical than I am. Never in a million years would Pashma or Flavia stand around an apple—or anything else—calling my name.
I didn’t miss it—you can’t miss what you’ve never had—but standing here, now, it feels pretty good. Actually, it feelsreallygood. So I do the only thing that will keep this going. I peel the back off the sticker and slap it dead center in the middle of the apple.
Quiet cheers erupt as people mill around excitedly. Some pat me on the back while others press closer to the apple, like they are just waiting for their turns.
Fifi jumps off the bench and joins me in ripping the tape off the other three boxes. And then everyone is joining in the fun, putting sticker after sticker on the apple until every single inch of it is covered.
Only when the last sticker has been applied do we step back to admire our handiwork. And I may be a little bit biased, but I think it looks amazing. Judging from the expressions on everyone else’s faces, they do too.
But Fifi wouldn’t be Fifi if she didn’t have one more trick up her sleeve. She reaches into the box and pulls out a small, rectangular object. Then she climbs onto the bench and stretches, trying to reach the stem of the apple.
But she’s not quite tall enough, even on her tippy-toes. “Come on, Ellie. Give me a boost.”
We’ve come a long way in the last half hour—or maybe I have—because, for once, I don’t even question her. Instead, I scramble onto the bench, then squat down and lace my fingers together.
She puts her sneakered foot between my palms and asks, “Okay?”
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, because I do. And right now, at least, it feels like she and all these other Aphrodites have got me.
“I know.” She grins down at me right before she pushes up and attaches the rectangular thing to the back of the stem.
“What is that thing?” one of the other first years calls.
“A motion-sensing speaker,” Fifi laughs as she flips the switch on it. And then she jumps down, waving her arms back and forth.
“We Are Family,” one of the most famous disco songs of all time—and a personal favorite of my grandmother’s, which is how I know it—comes pouring out of the speaker.
And, secret mission or not, our small crowd of Aphrodites goes wild.
26.Shiver Me Liver
IT’S BEEN TWO HOURS SINCEwe finished disco-fying the apple, and I’m still staring at the ceiling above my bed. I keep telling myself I have to get some sleep, that classes start first thing in the morning and I need to be rested for them. But trying to sleep after everything that’s happened today feels impossible right now.
Fifi, on the other hand, tried to fall into her unmade bed about two seconds after we got to our room. I stopped her—friends don’t let friends sleep on bare mattresses—but I’d barely tucked in the second hospital corner on her bed before she was crawling in and pulling her comforter over her head.
Ten seconds after that and she was snuffle-snoring into her pillow. On the plus side, it’s way more of a snuffle than asnore, so that’s not what’s keeping me awake. And while my Athena side keeps trying to tell me it’s probably just a sugar high from the most delicious sundae I’ve ever eaten, I know that’s not true either.
No, my insomnia is definitely more about what’s going to happen than what’s already happened.
Today has been…wild. I woke up this morning so certain of how everything was going to go, and instead, absolutely nothing went the way I had imagined. And yet, somehow, as I lie here studying the stars and cosmos on the ceiling, I’m not nearly as miserable as I thought I’d be.
I don’t know why, but there’s something comforting about knowing I’ll have Fifi and Arjun in my first class tomorrow morning. At least I know that if even more things go wrong, I’ll have someone to face them with.
