Athena was the first of Zeus’s children to arrive. She came all decked out in a helmet and a shiny suit of armor. She’d hardly set her metal-clad foot on Mount Olympus when she announced that she was the Goddess of Wisdom.

Hera freaked out. “We don’t divide up our powers like that,” she told Athena sternly. “We all dabble in any area we want to. Including wisdom.”

Athena’s gray eyes flashed haughtily. “Let’s just see what happens.”

Next, Hermes flew up by means of his winged sandals and his winged helmet. He was small and looked far younger than his years. And talk about sneaky! No sooner did Hermes arrive than things started to disappear. Little things at first: an urn, a goblet, Po’s nose clips and goggles. Once, Hera discovered that her favorite girdle was missing. Then she spotted Hermes wearing it and hit the ceiling. But Hermes only laughed and tossed the girdle back to her, and even Hera couldn’t stay mad at the little thief for long. He was just too charming.

Golden-haired twins Apollo and Artemis came next. Apollo had a lyre made out of a tortoise shell slung over his shoulder, and from the moment he arrived, there was always music on Mount Olympus. Apollo was a mellow guy, which is why we were all caught by surprise when he began talking about how he saw himself as the future Sun God.

Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, had golden braids. She claimed this kept her hair out of the way when she shot her bow. Artemis was crazy about hunting. After a few days on Mount Olympus, she complained that there weren’t enough unspoiled woods for her tastes, and soon she started slipping down to earth to go on hunts.

Dionysus showed up next, toting seedling grapevines. He and Demeter bonded instantly over planting them. Before long there were grape arbors all over Mount Olympus, and Dionysus set himself up as the God of Wine.

Then Aphrodite appeared. She was flat-out gorgeous, so nobody was surprised when she said she hoped to be the Goddess of Love and Beauty.

After a while, Zeus’s children began coming in bunches. The three Seasons. The three Graces. All these kids with their big talk drove Hera wild. But she managed to cope until the day the nine Muses showed up.

“Hi! I’m Clio, Muse of History!” one sang out. “The wheel was invented in 32 B.C.—that’s ‘Before Cronus.’”

“Call me Terpsi!” another said. “Muse of the Dance.” She did a few steps of what we would later come to call the polka.

“I’m Thalia!” said a third. “Muse of Comedy. Here’s a good one. Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“To be sacrificed to the gods, of course,” Hera said.

“Wrong!” said Thalia. “To get to the other side!”

All the other Muses cracked up.

But Hera was not amused. That night, she called a meeting of the “belly bunch,” as Po called the five of us, in the Great Hall of the palace.

“Something has to be done about Zeus’s brats,” she said. “If they keep coming in these numbers, it’ll get so crowded up here we’ll all have to convert our palaces into high-rise condos. It isn’t right. And they have all sorts of high-and-mighty ideas about being god of this and goddess of that. Especially that Athena. Goddess of Wisdom, indeed! Who do these kids think they are, anyway?”

“The children of Zeus!” boomed a voice from the doorway. We all turned, and there was Zeus, standing with his hands on his hips, grinning like a maniac.

“My children are gods,” he said as he strode into the Great Hall. “They’re family. They belong up here with us.”

Hera sighed. “Have it your way, Zeus. But you’d better stick around and deal with them. You don’t know what they’re like, always squawking about who has power over what.”

“I’ll be here,” Zeus declared. He marched to the head of the table and sat down. “I’ve been thinking about how we gods ought to rule the universe, and I’ve come up with a plan.”

The fact that the universe had been doing just fine for thousands of years while he ran wild down on earth didn’t seem to have occurred to Zeus.

“You’re not talking dictatorship here, are you, Zeus?” asked Hera. “That was Father’s thing, and it didn’t work out too well.”

“Not exactly.” Zeus shrugged. “But somebody has to be CEO.”

“C-E—what?” said Hestia.

Zeus grinned. “Chairgod of Everybody on Olympus.”

I sat up straighter when I heard that. If anyone was going to be in charge, it should be me. I was the eldest, after all. And hadn’t Mom asked me to keep an eye on the others? Plus I was thoughtful, kind, hardworking, that sort of thing. I felt I had CEO written all over me.

So it came as a nasty surprise that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

“How do we pick the CEO?” asked Hera. “Because if it’s organization you’re looking for, I’m your goddess.”

“What am I, diced clams?” said Po. “I can rule the universe PLUS the seas, lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, and puddles.”

Hestia leaned over and whispered. “Those are parts of the universe, Po.”

“No kidding?” said Po.

“I know you call me ‘The Boss’ behind my back,” Hera added. “Make me CEO, and you can call me ‘The Boss’ to my face!”

Hestia turned to Zeus. “I’ve been taking care of things the whole time you’ve been away,” she said. “It seems to me that I’m already acting CEO.”

“I am the firstborn,” I put in. “That should count for something.”

“I see the universe as a garden!” Demeter shouted out. “With me as the landscape architect.”

Zeus smiled. “I guess we’ll have to put it to a vote.”

“That won’t work,” Hera pointed out. “We’ll each vote for ourselves.”

“Then we’ll need tiebreakers.” Zeus cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Kids! Time to vote!”

The rest of us watched in amazement as Zeus’s children burst into the Great Hall. Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Aphrodite, the Seasons, the Graces, the Muses—the whole pack showed up.

Hera gasped. “They must have been standing right outside the door. Just waiting to be called!”

The kids squeezed in at the long table.

Now I understood what Zeus had been doing down on earth. He hadn’t just been fathering children. He’d been fathering VOTES! Ooh, why had I promised Mom to make sure nothing happened to him? I wanted to be the one to MAKE something happen to him. Something awful!

“Close your eyes, and put your heads down on the table,” said Zeus. “No peeking. I’m talking to you, Hermes. Okay, all for Zeus as Supreme Thunder God, Ruler of the Universe, Chairgod of—”

CLANG! CLANG!

A loud noise drowned out Zeus’s voice. We raised our heads. There was more clanging and what sounded like battle cries. We jumped up and ran to the entrance of the Great Hall.

From there we could see, marching up the mountain toward us, an army of giant Titan warriors! They shouted and beat their swords against their bronze breastplates.

And who was leading them?

You guessed it.

“Dad!” we all cried.

“That’s right, you little ingrates!” Cronus roared. “Big Daddy’s back!”

He thumped his breastplate with his fist. “I’m over my stomachache, and I’m here for revenge. Me and my army of one hundred Titan warriors are taking back Mount Olympus! Once more shall Mighty Cronus rule the universe!”