Somehow I managed to rise to my feet. I turned, looking for Persephone. She wasn’t sitting where she’d been the day before, in the back of the packed courtroom with the Furies. Where was she?

“Do you love Persephone?” Tisi asked again.

“Do you, Hades?” called Meg. “Do you?”

“Speak up now!” said Alec.

“I—I,” I said, wiping the drosis from my brow. “I—uh, I . . .”

Finally I found Persephone. She was sitting next to her mother! That was a switch.

I tried again to speak, but before I could get my words out, Zeus leaped to his feet.

“Persephone!” he cried. “Forget Hades! Listen to him, mumbling and bumbling. He can’t even talk! Check out Hermes over here! He’s crazy about you. And he gets invited to all the best parties!”

That did it! I found my voice. “Persephone!” I said loud and clear. “I love you!”

“Oh, I knew it!” cried Meg.

“Cupid’s arrow might have started things off,” I continued. “But now? It’s the real thing.”

Persephone broke into a great big smile, and everyone from the Underworld exploded into cheers and whistles. Lots of the Olympians did, too. From somewhere in the courtroom, I heard someone start chanting: “Wed-ding! Wed-ding! Wed-ding!”

I looked at Demeter. She wasn’t cheering or chanting, of course. But she hadn’t thrown herself to the ground in a fit, either. I took that to be a good sign.

Mom kept pounding her gavel, but even so, it took quite a while for the noise to die down. “Thank you, Tisi,” she said at last. “And thank you, Hades, my firstborn.” She gave me her best Mom smile. “We have solved that problem,” she said. “Now, on to the others.”

Others? What other problems could she mean?

“Demeter, you swore upon the River Styx,” said Mom. “You vowed that as long as Persephone remained in the Underworld, nothing would grow upon the earth. As you know, oaths sworn on the Styx are unbreakable.”

Right as she said that, the whole Underworld began to shake and rumble.

“That was a message from Granny Gaia,” said Mom. “She’s not going to sit still while you let all the growing things on earth wither and die. Got that, Demeter?”

“But what can I do?” wailed Demeter. “I can’t make plants grow on earth if I’m miserable. And without Persephone, I’ll be miserable.”

Persephone put an arm around her mother’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to be miserable,” she said. “But I don’t want to be miserable, either. And without Hades, I’ll be miserable. I can’t come back to earth with you.”

“You couldn’t, even if you wanted to, my dear,” said Mom.

“What do you mean?” said Persephone. “Why not?”

“Because Zeus decreed that if you ate the food of the dead, you would have to remain in the Underworld,” Mom reminded her.

Zeus popped up. “Say you’ll marry Hermes!” he shouted. “And I’ll take back my decree!”

“Down, Zeus!” said Mom. “You know you can’t take back a decree.”

“But Persephone hardly ate anything,” Demeter protested. “That gardener said she only nibbled a few chips!”

“Shhh! Both of you!” said Mom. “Let me think.” She drummed her fingers on her desk. After a moment, she pointed at Cal, who was sitting in the middle of the crowded courtroom. “Take the stand, will you, Ascalaphus?”

Cal ambled to the witness seat. He sat down.

“Do you swear to tell the truth and forgo all myth-o-mania?” she asked.

Cal nodded. “That I do.”

“How many chips did you see Persephone eat?” Rhea asked him.

“One is the number when it comes to chips,” said Cal. “But another number comes to mind if you consider the dipping.”

“What are you saying, Cal?” asked Rhea. “Spell it out for the court.”

“What I’m saying,” said Cal, “is that Persephone took a chip, dipped it, and bit off the part with the pomegranate dip. Then she put that very same chip, only smaller now, back into the dip again and took another bite. All she had left then was a crumb of the chip, but she poked it into the pomegranate dip and scooped up all she could.” Cal shrugged. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, especially if everyone’s family, but the truth is, Persephone triple-dipped.”

Mom’s eyebrows went up. “Persephone? A triple-dip?”

Persephone shrugged and smiled. “I told you. The dip was outstanding.”

“One chip, three dips,” said Mom. She thought for a moment. “All right, here is my decision.” She pounded her gavel for emphasis. “Hades, you may marry Persephone.”

I grinned as loud cheers rose in the courthouse.

“Persephone? You may rule as Queen of the Underworld,” Mom went on. “But it won’t be your full-time job.”

“What do you mean?” asked Persephone.

“You’ll spend the greater part of each year up on earth performing your duties as goddess of spring and helping your mother,” said Mom. “But for every time you dipped that chip into the pomegranate dip, you will live one month of the year in the Underworld.”

“What am I going to be, some sort of timeshare goddess?” said Persephone.

“Exactly,” said Mom. “Can you live with that?”

Persephone frowned. “But one month for every dip is only three months a year!” she complained.

“Correct,” said Mom. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” Persephone said quickly. “But only if Hades can come up to earth now and then to visit me.”

Mom shrugged. “What’s to stop him?”

Persephone broke into a smile.

“Okay by you, Hades?” said Mom.

“It’s fine,” I said. And it was. I loved Persephone, and I wanted her to be my queen. But I’d been worried about having her around all the time. Especially for Cerbie’s sake. This was a perfect arrangement.

But would it work for Demeter?

All eyes found her now as she rose to her feet.

“I swore an unbreakable oath on the River Styx. I cannot take it back,” Demeter declared. “While Persephone is in the Underworld, I shall be on strike as goddess of agriculture. But,” she added, “the earth can survive for three months without my tending.” She looked upward. “If I’m wrong, may Granny Gaia strike us with an earthquake!”

We all waited for the earth to start trembling, but it didn’t.

“You’ve made your point,” said Mom.

Demeter nodded. “For three months of each year, the trees shall lose their leaves, the grass shall wither, and no crops shall grow,” she said. “I will call this time . . . winter.”

“But what will you do during the winter?” asked Mom.

“I shall take time off,” Demeter said. “I will call this time . . . vacation.”

“But where will you go during that time?” asked Mom.

Now, for the first time since she’d come down to the Underworld, Demeter smiled. “I’m going to get myself a little bungalow someplace warm. I won’t work too hard, just hard enough to make sure it’s never winter there. I shall call this place . . . Florida.”

“Sounds like a plan, Demeter,” Mom said. She looked around the courtroom. “If there is anything more to say, say it now.”

To my horror, Uncle Shiner stood up once again.

“Just one more thing,” he said. “We have heard from Hades that his love for Persephone is real. But we have not heard from Persephone. I, for one, would like to hear her declare that she loves my nephew.”

“Well, Persephone?” Mom said. “What do you say to that?”

Persephone popped up and said, “I love Hades!”

Everyone cheered now, Underworldians and Olympians alike.

“I loved him the minute I saw him,” she went on.

I felt my face turning red. And this time, everyone could see.

Uncle Shiner smiled. “That’s what I’d hoped to hear,” he said. “My best wishes to the bride and groom!”

The room filled with cheering again. And I knew that the old Cyclops had been looking out for me all along.

Tisi sprang up. “I realize this is short notice,” she began, “but since you Olympians are here, and probably won’t be coming back any time soon, we’d like to invite you to the wedding of Hades and Persephone, which will take place at Villa Pluto tonight at VII o’clock.”

Tonight? Our wedding? This was the first I’d heard of it.

But that was fine by me, Hades.