RIGHT … SO THE STORY … IT STARTS IN IONIA, JUST like Dory said. I sat on my bench in school. It wasn’t a real school. Just a reclaimed barn that used to belong to the royal family but then got re-purposed for the good of the people. It still smelled like a barn, and there were smears of pig dung on the wooden walls that I had to scrub every time I got detention.
There I was, struggling through another endless day of boring math and spelling and science. I had no idea why any of this stuff mattered for becoming a soldier, but rules were rules, so I had to be here. I tried to keep my eyes open as our teacher, Elder Pachis, droned on and on about language arts of all things. No subject was more boring. Except maybe history. That was pretty awful, too. Heat poured through the windows, like the gods were testing me to see how much I could stand before falling asleep.
Apparently not much because, as hard as I tried, my eyes would not stay open. I used my fingertips to prop my lids open, but that didn’t work. I pinched myself like fifty times. I counted the wrinkles on Elder Pachis’ face. Halfway through, I lost count, so I started again. But then I couldn’t take it any longer. I finally drifted off. I was having some amazing dream about being the head of the royal guard and living in the palace with piles of fresh fruit and meat cooked to perfection. Music played in the background. Someone walked up and offered to rub my feet.
“Of course,” I said, swaying with the music.
“Of course what?” a voice answered that was way more harsh than seemed right for the dream.
“Of course …” My thoughts slipped away from me. What had I been talking about?
“Homer,” the voice said again.
I struggled to open my eyes, but in the dream, they wouldn’t budge.
“Mmmm …,” I said.
Crack. My hand exploded in pain.
I opened my mouth to scream but stopped myself as the real world returned around me. Elder Pachis hovered over me. He held an ivory ruler in his right hand, which must’ve been what just hit my hand. A quick glance down showed a bright red welt forming.
“Having trouble staying awake, are we?” he cackled.
Ugh, this guy. He had to be the worst teacher in the universe. If he bothered to say anything interesting, maybe I’d have wanted to listen. But come on. For the last hour he’d been explaining story arc. I was confused for most of it since it took me that long to figure out he wasn’t talking about a big boat.
“I wasn’t asleep,” I said, shoving a piece of my shaggy hair out of my face.
The entire class laughed.
“You were snoring,” Demetrios said. He was this snotty rich kid who made fun of my dreams of being a soldier every chance he got. He was like my polar opposite: wavy dark hair, super buff. All the girls fawned all over him. Me? My blond hair always looked like I’d been caught in a hurricane, even though I swear I brushed it, and despite soldier training and working on a farm, I could barely make a muscle.
“And drooling,” Lysandra said, tossing her red hair over her shoulder as she laughed.
Yeah, she was Demetrios’ girlfriend. And fine, I had a huge crush on her since the first day of school, even though she never said more than two words to me at a time. Also, those two words normally made me want to crawl under a bench. Kind of like right now.
“See me after class, Homer,” Elder Pachis said.
I knew what staying after school meant. Aside from scrubbing pig dung off the walls, I’d be tracing on the dirt floor, over and over again, “I will not fall asleep during class.” It only made me want to fall asleep that much more.
“Oooh …,” Demetrios said. “Homer is in trouble.”
I wanted to punch him.
I didn’t because it would upset Mom if she found out. Also, it could get me kicked out of school. And no education meant no being a soldier like my dad. Of course, Mom wouldn’t be too upset about this last part. She didn’t want me to be a soldier, and she refused to let me mention it since that was how Dad had died. Well, she said he was dead. I wasn’t willing to give up on him even though he’d been missing for two years.
Fear of drooling kept me awake for the rest of the day. After everyone else filed out of the smelly school, I shuffled my feet and wandered up to the front of the classroom.
“I’ve given you lots of chances, Homer,” Elder Pachis said.
“Yeah, I was up super late—” I started, ready to defend myself like normal. We went through this every time I got in trouble. Old Man Pachis lectured me. I listened and nodded and then scrubbed the walls and wrote words in the dirt.
“But no more chances,” he said, stopping my words.
I must’ve heard wrong.
“What do you mean, no more chances?” There were always more chances. This had to be at least the twentieth time I’d gotten in trouble.
He waggled his finger and eyebrows in sync. “Well, what I mean is that you don’t get any more chances.”
My heart started pounding. This was not how our conversation went.
“Okay,” I said. “So what, then? You want me to clean better around here this time? You want me to sweep?”
“No. No. No,” Elder Pachis said. “You aren’t listening. I said no more chances. The rules say I can’t give you any more.”
“And …,” I said.
“And that’s it. You’re out of school.”
Out of school? He couldn’t be serious.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“I’m completely serious,” Elder Pachis said. He pointed at himself. “Look at this face. Do I look like I’m kidding?”
I looked at his face. It was covered in forty-two wrinkles (as of my earlier count) and reminded me of old sandal leather. It also didn’t look like it was kidding. It actually looked a little sad to be delivering such grim news, almost like Elder Pachis had a heart inside his withered chest.
“But that can’t be it,” I said. At this point, my heart pounded so hard, it was making huge whooshing noises in my ears, like I was in the middle of a giant tunnel with nothing else around.
“It can be,” Elder Pachis said. “It is. I’ve let you off as many times as I’m allowed. School’s over for you.”
I stood there as his words sunk in. The only thing I’d ever wanted in life was to be a soldier like my dad, and that dream was slipping away. And then there was Mom. I was never going to be able to go home again. The idea of facing her, of disappointing her … It was too much. I could almost see her face fall. See the tears slip from her eyes. Here I was, her only son, and I was a huge failure in life. The worst son possible.
“But what about being a soldier?” I said.
Elder Pachis shook his head. “Not without an education.”
“So I’m supposed to go home and work on the farm for the rest of my life?” I could hardly say the words.
“Well …,” Elder Pachis said. “The farm won’t be able to belong to you and your mother anymore. With no adult male in the household and the only son no longer being a valid student, the farm will be repossessed by the state.”
“Repossessed!”
“By the mayor,” Elder Pachis said.
That made it even worse. The mayor was Demetrios’ dad. No way in all the realm of Hades was I going to go groveling to their family. They already treated me and Mom like cow dung, ever since Dad hadn’t come home. Hardly better than slaves.
“But Elder Pachis—”
“Save your excuses,” Elder Pachis said. “It won’t do any good. I can’t do anything else.”
The whole world seemed to collapse around me. It was like watching my life get flushed down a whirlpool. But not just my life. Mom’s life, too. Without our farm, we would have nowhere to go. No relatives. Mom would have to live off the mercy of others forever. I could not let that happen.
“One more chance,” I pleaded. “Please.”
Elder Pachis set his ruler down on his desk and met my eyes. We stood there, face to wrinkled face. I tried to keep my lips from quivering even though every part of me wanted to keep begging him for my future.
“Homer,” he finally said, “why should I give you one more chance?”
I shuffled through my memories, like grains of sand on the beach. There was nothing I could find. No reason I could come up with that had any merit. I’d hated school. Been the worst of students. But right now, there was nothing I wanted so much as to stay here forever.
“Because I really need it.” I bit my tongue to keep from saying any more. “It means everything to me.”
I could almost see the sun move across the sky as the seconds ticked by. But I couldn’t back down now. This was it. The moment of truth.
“Have you started your assignment yet?” Elder Pachis asked.
“Assignment?” I asked, trying not to cringe as the word came out. But not remembering some assignment wasn’t making me look any better.
“Your semester project,” he said.
“Semester project?” I said, even though I was starting to sound like a parrot. “Which semester project are you talking about specifically?”
Elder Pachis clenched his fists like he was trying to control a lifetime of annoyances that ran through him. I hoped his giant knuckles didn’t pop from the effort. “The one I assigned three days ago.”
I nodded my head even though I had no clue what he was talking about.
He grabbed something off his desk. I swear it hadn’t been there a second before. It was a tightly wound scroll held together by a leather tie. He grasped it between both of his gnarled hands.
“There might be one way we can get around the rules, Homer,” he said. “You know what I need?”
Elder Pachis needed a day at the spa. Some sunscreen. Maybe fifty years off his life. But I bit back my normal witty replies.
“What?” I asked.
He whapped the scroll into his palm. “I need a story.”
“A story?”
“A story.”
“What kind of story?” I asked, hoping he didn’t think I was messing with him because I totally wasn’t. Hadn’t he just been yammering on about stories for the last three hours?
“A story to fill this scroll,” he said. “And I’ll make you a deal. If you can get me that story as your semester project, then I’ll find a way to give you one last chance.”
My heart pounded. He wanted me, his worst student, to write a story for him? It was impossible. But it was also the only chance I was ever going to get of saving Mom, me, the farm, and my future.
“I’ll do it,” I said, reaching for the scroll.
He pulled it out of reach. “It must be an amazing story,” he said. “Filled with fantastical adventures. Epic heroes. It must be a story of legend. Something never seen before. A story that will last for all the ages.”
I gulped. He completely had the wrong guy for this task. I wasn’t a storyteller. I didn’t even like writing.
But no. I was not going to let that sway me.
“No problem,” I said, trying again for the scroll.
“I’m serious, Homer,” Elder Pachis said. “This is your only chance. If you don’t fill this scroll with the most epic story ever, then you may never set foot in this school again. Your farm will be taken away. You’ll never be a soldier. You and your mother will be out on the streets. So, what do you say?”
My mind screamed at me to run away. To pinch myself until I woke up from this horrible nightmare. I could not believe I’d let myself get into this situation in the first place. Still, I had no choice.
I nodded my head and plastered a smile on my face. “I am totally up for the job,” I said, holding my hand out for the scroll. “I’ll write you the best story in the universe.”
“It has to have an arc,” Elder Pachis said.
I nodded. He was not talking about a boat.
“And character growth.”
I kept on nodding. People grew all the time. I’d grown five inches in the last six months.
“And motivation,” Elder Pachis said. “All these things make up a great story.”
“I’m on it,” I said. Between Mom, my dreams of being a soldier, and keeping the farm, I was loaded to the eyebrows with motivation.
“And the project is due in ten days,” Elder Pachis said. “If yours is even an hour late, it’s as good as a failure.”
I held out the hourglass I wore on a chain around my neck. Dad gave it to me before he went out for his last campaign. He told me I should use it to count the days until he got back. Except when the other soldiers returned, he wasn’t with them. I’d stopped counting two years ago.
“No way will it be late,” I said. Ten days was plenty of time to write a story. Ten turns of the hourglass. That was forever.
Elder Pachis eyed me once more and finally handed me the scroll. I flipped the hourglass, resetting it, to make sure we were starting at the same time.
“Oh, and one final thing,” he said.
“Anything.”
“It must be in Dactylic Hexameter.”
“No problem,” I said. I had no idea what that was, but I’d figure it out. How hard could it be?