The day I first laid my godly eyes on Atalanta started out fine. My queen, Persephone, and I were sitting out on the balcony of her earthly apartment. Persephone’s work as goddess of spring keeps her up on earth for nine months of the year, so she rents a little place in Athens. I was up for a short visit, relaxing, taking time off from my demanding duties as ruler of the Underworld. Persephone had on a bright pink robe. She wore a matching headband of pink petunias in her hair. She was chatting on the phone with her goddess girlfriend Artemis. From what I could tell, they were discussing the upcoming Olympic Games. I was reading the comics in The Athens Times. I took a sip of my mocha-necta-java and a bite of my ambro-strudel. (That’s a coffee, chocolate, and nectar combo, and coffee cake. Don’t try to order this at your local coffee shop. It’s for gods only. Nectar and ambrosia are what keep us immortals young and good-looking.) I flipped to the sports section.

“Oh, no!” I cried as I caught sight of a horrible headline. “Persephone! Listen to this!”

“Hold on a second, Artemis,” Persephone said into her little cell phone. She took the phone from her ear. “What happened, Hades?”

“Boar has thrown in the towel!” I said. “He’s left the ring!”

“Who lost his ring?” asked Persephone.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. “The Calydonian Boar,” I said. “He’s quit wrestling!”

Persephone frowned. “I thought you rooted for Hawk-Eye.”

“Eagle-Eye,” I corrected her. “And you’re right, I do. But a wrestler needs worthy opponents. And Boar is the best!”

“That’s too bad, Hades,” said Persephone. She put the phone back to her ear. “Sorry about that, Artemis,” she said. “Now, what were you saying about goddesses’ rights?”

I tuned out Persephone and tuned back in to the article. This is what it said.

“Better!” I muttered. “Bah!” Python was just bitter. The Boar had beaten him in IX out of their last X matches. No wonder he was glad to be rid of him! Wrestling was Boar’s life. He even ran a wrestling school. I wondered what he’d do now.

“Hades?” said Persephone.

I looked up. “Yes, my sweet?”

“I have to go to work,” she said. “I have to go to the hills and fields and make flowers bud, trees leaf, and grass grow.”

“All right, my dear,” I said. “Have a good day!”

“Hades,” said Persephone, “I’d like some help.”

I looked up at her, concerned. “Don’t you have enough gardening nymphs and sprites?” I asked.

“I have plenty of nymphs and sprites,” she said. “But I’d like some help from you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Hades.” Persephone took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come on.”

As we walked through the apartment, Persephone picked up her gardening basket, gloves, and a couple of bushel baskets. I followed her outside.

“We’re astro-traveling to the hills of Arcadia,” she told me. “Ready?”

“Uh . . . not really, Phoney, honey,” I said. “I was thinking of hanging out on the balcony for a while. Finishing the paper. Relaxing. You know. This is my vacation.”

“Every day is a vacation for you, Hades,” said Persephone. “I mean, really, how hard is it to ride your chariot around the Underworld, checking on things?”

“Huh?”

“My job is huge!” Persephone went on. “Every single flower bud on earth needs me, or it won’t open. Every tree needs me, or it won’t leaf. I have to go to Brussels and see about every single sprout! Do you know how exhausting that is?”

I frowned. “Artemis put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Artemis didn’t put me up to anything,” said Persephone. “She just told me about a survey she took. A survey about how much work gods do and how much goddesses do. And you know what, Hades?”

“Let me take a wild guess. Goddesses do more?”

“Exactly. So it’s only fair that you help me out a little.”

I knew when I was beat. “Let’s go.”

Together we chanted the ZIP code for the Hills of Arcadia. ZIP! We landed on a hillside near a large vegetable garden. I could tell right away that Persephone had already been there. All sorts of leafy green things were sprouting from the soil.

The truth was, I’d always been curious about Persephone’s work. All I knew was that she pointed, said “Ka-bloom!” and flowers burst open; leaves popped out. So, even though it wasn’t the day I had in mind, I was eager to see how it felt to make bare limbs sprout forth green leaves.

“Here, Hades,” Persephone said. She handed me a tool. It had a wooden handle and three brass prongs. It looked something like an eagle’s claw.

I pointed the tool at the nearest tree. “Ka- bloom!” I shouted.

Nothing happened.

Persephone laughed. “That, Hades, is a weeding tool.”

“Weeding?”

Persephone nodded. “It’s to help you loosen the soil around a weed’s roots so you can pull it out. You can start with the artichoke patch.” She handed me a bushel basket. “When you fill this up with weeds, dump it in the woods. I’ll be on the other side of the hill, doing some leafing.” She waved. “Good luck, Hades!” And she took off.

I watched her go. I thought about maybe astro-traveling back to her balcony and finishing my mocha-nectar-java while it was still hot. But then I thought, oh, why not yank up a few weeds? Persephone would see that I was willing to help her out from time to time. And then things could go back to the way they were.

I carried my weeding tool and my bushel basket over to the artichoke patch. I knelt down and started pulling the leafy green things out of the ground. As I pulled, my thoughts turned to Boar. What a loss to the sport of wrestling! Why had the Wrestling Federation banned the Flying-Hoof Thrust, I wondered? All the Immortals of Wrestling had their special moves. Python had the squeeze. Eagle-Eye was a body-slam guy. Who’d put the kibosh on Boar’s move?

It was hot on that hillside. Especially for spring. The sun was beating down. There was no breeze. You mortals are always saying “It was hot as Hades!” But the truth is, earth can get plenty hot and steamy.

Gods work fast, and after about an hour, I’d weeded the entire patch. I stood up and stretched. Hard on the old back, that weeding. I wiped the drosis—old Greek speak for “god sweat”—from my brow as I admired my work. Then I picked up the bushel basket piled high with weeds. I was walking toward the woods with it when I heard a man’s voice. Someone was coming! Oh, great! I didn’t want anyone—even a mortal—to see me like this, all drosis-covered, with dirt under my godly fingernails. I’d left Persephone’s apartment so fast I hadn’t thought to grab my Helmet of Darkness. If I had, I’d have put it on and—POOF!—I’d have vanished! The voice was louder now. Footsteps sounded. I couldn’t disappear, so I dumped out the weeds and put the basket over my head. I bent my knees and stooped down as low as I could go. I held still, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t notice me.

“It’s not your fault you’re a girl,” said the mortal. Who was he talking to? “No, it isn’t. Your daddy is a mean man. Mean as they come.”

The mortal hadn’t seen me yet. That was good. What was he rattling on about?

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t do this,” the mortal said. “Not on your life.”

I peeked out between basket slats. Holy Mount Olympus! The mortal was carrying a baby!

I squeezed my eyes shut. Not a baby! Don’t get me wrong. I like babies. The only reason Persephone and I don’t have any of our own is the Underworld isn’t a great place to raise a family. That, plus Persephone’s crazy work schedule. But for some reason, babies seemed to find me. I’d spent years looking after baby Perseus and baby Hercules. That was enough. The last thing I wanted was to end up with another baby.

“You’re a strong little thing,” the mortal said. He was close to me now. “Just hours old, and what a grip you’ve got on my thumb.”

Surely there was some godly spell I could chant that would change me into a forest mushroom. A grasshopper. A pebble. Anything! But for centuries, I had depended on my Helmet of Darkness to get me out of scrapes. Any shape-changing spells I’d once known had been long forgotten.

“Great Mount Olympus!” cried the mortal suddenly. “Who are you?”

I knew he meant me. But I held still as a statue. Maybe he’d go away.

“Show yourself,” said the mortal. “Let me spill out my woes to a willing ear!”

I sighed. The jig was up. “I’m listening.”

First, Boar. Then, weeding. Now I had to squat here with a basket on my head, hearing the complaints of a sniveling mortal. (You see what I meant about this part of the story being embarrassing?) It was turning out to be a very bad day. But right then, I didn’t know how bad.

“I am a servant of the king and queen of Arcadia,” the mortal said. He bounced the baby as he spoke. “The queen has just given birth to a daughter.”

“But the king was hoping for a boy,” I said from beneath my basket. This was the oldest story in the book. At that time, kings were always hoping for sons who could take over their kingdoms someday. As if a daughter couldn’t do just as well or better!

“The king wasn’t just hoping,” the servant said. “He ordered his queen to give him a son.”

It was getting hot under that basket. My whole face was damp with drosis. I wished this mortal would tell his tale and be done with it. “Ridiculous!” I said. “Go on.”

“The king was so upset when the queen disobeyed him,” the mortal went on, “that he banished her from the palace.”

Drosis dripped off my eyebrows and onto my cheeks. I really wanted to hurry his story along. “And he has no doubt banished the baby, too,” I said. “And has ordered you to take her to a cottage in some distant kingdom to be raised by peasants.”

“Not exactly,” said the servant.

At last I could stand the heat no longer. I whisked the basket from my head and stood up.

“Then what are you to do with the baby?” I asked.

“Give her to the first person I see!” cried the servant. He thrust the baby into my unsuspecting arms, turned, and began running back up the hill.

“I’m not a person!” I cried after him. “I’m a god! You—you can’t just give me this baby!”

“Just did it!” the servant called over his shoulder. “She’s yours now! Her name’s Atalanta!”