The next morning, Mouse came whistling up the path to his hut. Seeing him, Athena quickly changed Odysseus back into a beggar.

“Telemachus!” called Mouse. “Your mother is waiting to see you.”

The young man hurried to the palace.

Mouse handed Odysseus the beggar the clean clothes he’d brought.

“I want to go to the palace, too,” Odysseus said as he put on the clothes. “I want to sit on the beggar’s bench. Surely Penelope’s suitors will fill my beggar’s bowl with scraps from their supper.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Mouse. “They are a stingy lot. But if you wish to go, I’ll walk with you.”

When Odysseus was dressed, he and Mouse set off for the palace.

Athena and I followed invisibly behind. We hadn’t gone far when a goatherd came along the path.

“Greetings, Mel!” said Mouse. “Taking your herd to graze?”

“Out of my way, you stinkin’ pig keeper!” shouted the goatherd. “You, too, beggar!” He kicked at Odysseus.

A look of fury came into Odysseus’s eyes, but he only clenched his fists.

“He’s holding his temper,” I whispered to Athena.

“That’s a first,” she said. “But he’ll soon have his revenge.”

As Mouse and Odysseus drew near the palace, Odysseus spied an old dog sleeping on a pile of rags. The fur on his muzzle had turned white with age, and the poor thing was hardly more than a sack of bones.

Odysseus stopped beside the old dog. “He must have been a fine hound once,” he said, his voice filled with feeling.

At the sound of that voice, the dog opened his eyes. He looked up at Odysseus and thumped his tail.

“This is Argos, my master’s dog,” said Mouse. “He’s been here, keeping watch for Odysseus every day since he sailed away.”

Tears welled up in Odysseus’s eyes. I could tell he wanted to kneel down and hold the old dog’s head. But people were passing by, and he didn’t want to give himself away, so he made himself walk on.

At long last, the old dog had welcomed his master back home. And now, as I watched, Argos closed his eyes and took his last breath.

“Poor faithful old dog!” I said.

“Don’t get squishy on me, Hades,” said Athena. “We have work to do.”

Clearly, she’d never had a dog. How thankful I was that Cerbie was immortal!

I gazed down at Argos. That dog had waited for twenty years to greet Odysseus. What a loyal hound! If only Cerbie could have met Argos, he might have learned something about waiting patiently for a master who’s gone away.

I stayed with Argos for a little while, then caught up with Odysseus and Mouse as they entered the palace. Athena and I slipped in behind them.

In those days, every palace and nobleman’s house had a bench just inside the door of the Great Hall where a beggar who’d fallen on hard times might take a seat. It was the duty of the well-off diners to put a small bit of their supper into the leather pouch that the beggar held so that he might have something to eat.

Mouse walked on into the Great Hall, where the suitors were feasting on roasted pork. Odysseus the beggar took a seat on the beggar’s bench.

Telemachus glanced at his father. He put some pork and a piece of bread into a bowl. “Give this to the beggar for me,” he told Mouse.

Mouse dumped the food into Odysseus’s beggar’s pouch. “This is from Prince Telemachus,” he said.

“May Zeus grant your every wish, my prince!” Odysseus called in thanks.

After he had finished the pork and bread, Odysseus rose from the bench.

He walked among the suitors in the Great Hall, and to each one he held out his beggar’s pouch. A few tossed in bread crusts, but most gave him nothing.

“What a selfish crew,” Athena whispered.

“Louts!” I whispered back.

“Be generous!” Telemachus called to the suitors. “For you never know when a stranger might be Zeus in disguise.”

“He’s no Zeus!” cried a tall suitor. He was a well-muscled man with a full head of dark hair, but his eyes were shifty and his mouth turned down at the corners, giving him a mean look.

“You’ve got that right, Antin!” called another suitor.

“That beggar is a pest!” cried Antin. “I don’t like pests.” He picked up a stool and flung it at Odysseus.

Odysseus ducked, but the stool struck him on the shoulder.

“May you drop dead before you meet your bride, Antin!” he shouted.

The other suitors laughed nervously as Odysseus the beggar stomped out of the Great Hall. But Mouse came running after him, and I was close behind.

“Wait, stranger!” he cried. “Are you hurt?”

Odysseus only shrugged.

“Queen Penelope wishes to speak with you,” Mouse went on. “Come! She is waiting to hear the news you told me about her dear husband.”

I watched Odysseus for any trace of feeling. How he must long to see Penelope! But his face showed nothing.

“I will not enter the palace again until the suitors have left for the night,” Odysseus said, rubbing his shoulder.

Mouse hurried off to tell this to Penelope. He returned, saying that the queen agreed to meet him later that night beside the hallway fireplace.

Odysseus sat down in the doorway to wait. He hadn’t been there long, when a big-bellied man walked up to him.

“I am Irus, the palace beggar,” the man said. “Be gone!”

“There’s plenty of food for two,” said Odysseus.

“I eat enough for two!” shouted Irus, patting his big belly. “If you want to beg here, you’ll have to fight me for the right.”

Hearing this, suitors rushed out of the Great Hall to egg the beggars on, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Odysseus held up a hand for silence. “Old and lame as I am, I will fight,” he said. “But you men must swear not to help the big-bellied brute.”

“Yeah, yeah!” shouted the suitors. “Just get on with the fight.”

“I hope Odysseus can resist showing off,” I muttered to Athena.

When she didn’t answer, I turned and saw that her lips were moving as they had when she transformed Odysseus into a beggar.

I looked back at Odysseus. Whoa! Now he had huge muscles that bulged out of his beggar’s rags.

Irus took one look at his muscled-up opponent, turned, and ran for the door.

But the suitors grabbed him. “Get back there and fight!” they cried.

The beggars began circling each other, their fists up and ready.

I could almost hear Odysseus wondering, should he knock Irus out for the count? Or just daze him?

Suddenly, Irus punched Odysseus — right in the kisser.

Surprised, Odysseus hit him back. Irus dropped to the ground. The fight was over.

“The new beggar wins!” said Antin. “But he’s not getting any scraps from me.”

“Me neither, me neither!” cried other suitors, who’d had too much wine. They began stumbling off to town, where they stayed each night. When the last suitor was gone, Odysseus went back into the palace.

Athena and I stuck with him. I could hardly wait to hear him tell Penelope who he really was!

Odysseus sat down on the stone ledge of the fireplace in the hallway. He caught Telemachus’s eye and gave him a nod. Telemachus nodded back, and then hurried into the Great Hall. He began taking down the weapons from the racks on the walls. He made trip after trip, carrying them down to the storeroom.

When he’d finished stashing away all the suitors’ weapons, he said, “Good night, old man!” And off he went to bed.

Athena and I sat invisibly near the fire. Soon, dark-haired Penelope came down the hallway, accompanied by an ancient serving maid. I saw that she had aged, as mortals do. When I’d first met Penelope, she had a sly smile and a sparkle in her eye. Now she looked sad. For twenty years, she’d been waiting for her husband to come home. Who wouldn’t look sad?

Queen Penelope took a seat on a chair near the fireplace and beckoned to her maid.

“Clea,” she said, “you who were my dear husband’s nursemaid and my son’s as well, bring over a chair for our guest, won’t you, please? Spread it with a soft sheepskin so that he can sit down and be comfortable, for I have many a question to ask him.”

Clea brought the chair and covered it with a sheepskin for Odysseus.

After the beggar sat down, Penelope said to him, “It has not been easy these long years with my husband away. As you see, all the noblemen on this island come to court me. I want none of them! But still they come, asking for my hand in marriage.”

“And what do you say to them?” asked Odysseus.

“When they first came to the palace, I told them I could not marry yet because my husband’s father, Laertes, was very old and I had to finish weaving his burial shroud before he died,” said Penelope. “All day, I sat at my loom, weaving the shroud. But at night, I ripped out what I’d woven that day, so that shroud was never finished. I kept this up for three years, hoping that Odysseus would soon be home. But one of my maids told the suitors of my trick, and that was the end of it.” She sighed. “Now I simply tell them I’m not ready to marry.”

“And what do your suitors say to that?” asked Odysseus.

“They say Odysseus is dead and that Ithaca needs a king,” said Penelope. “I fear that soon I must choose one of them for a husband.” She looked sadly into the fire. Then she gazed at Odysseus. “Tell me, stranger, who are you? Where do you come from?”

I held my godly breath. Odysseus was about to reveal himself to Penelope!

“I was born a prince on the island of Crete,” Odysseus began, and there he went, lying his head off.

I wanted to shake that mortal! Why was he lying to his poor, miserable wife who’d waited faithfully all this time for him to come home?

I left Athena to listen to his lies, and I went into the Great Hall. I paced back and forth for a while, trying to calm myself down. And as I paced, Odysseus’s lies began to make a certain sense.

He’d been gone nearly twenty years, which was a huge amount of time for mortals. If he’d just said, “I am Odysseus!” Penelope might have fainted. Or kicked him out of the palace for lying. In his own weird way, Odysseus was breaking the news to her gently.

Thinking of being away and of those waiting back home, an image of Cerberus popped into my brain. I’d been gone for months. I missed Cerbie! And I knew my good old three-headed pooch must be missing me.

The Fates had said I needed to think about what was wrong with my dog, that I’d figure it out. And so as I paced in the Great Hall, I tried to think, What can I do so Cerbie won’t feel lonely when I’m away?

When I returned to the fireplace, I found Odysseus still lying it up to Penelope. He was saying how, on his way to Troy, he’d stopped in Crete to make repairs to his ships, and there he’d met the powerful hero Odysseus.

“I’ve never heard such rot,” Athena whispered to me.

“Tell me, stranger,” Penelope said, “what was my husband wearing when you met him?”

I smiled invisibly. The queen was testing this beggar to see if he told the truth!

“He wore a purple cloak,” said Odysseus. “Deep purple, like the color of the sea on a cloudy day. Let me tell you, that man looked like a million drachmas in that cloak! And I remember he wore a pin at the shoulder, too. A golden pin shaped like a hunting hound.”

Tears sprang to Penelope’s eyes. “I gave Odysseus that purple cloak,” she said. “I gave him the pin, too, to remind him of his beloved dog, Argos.”

“Weep not, my queen,” said Odysseus. “For I have heard it said that your husband lives and is making his way home to you. And that he hasn’t lost his looks.”

“Oh, how I hope what you say is true!” cried Penelope. “But after all this time, I dare not believe it. Clea!” she called. “Come! Bring a basin of warm water and wash this stranger’s feet to thank him for giving me hope.”

“No, no, no, no,” said Odysseus. “That’s not necessary.”

“Oh, but it is,” said Penelope as the old nursemaid appeared, holding a basin of water. “Go on, Clea.”

As Clea drew near, Odysseus turned his face to the wall. She had been his nursemaid. She had raised him!

What if she recognized him? That would really complicate his plan.

“I am happy to do this for you, old man,” said Clea, kneeling down beside him. “I’d like to think that someone somewhere is washing my old master’s feet right now. Oh, your feet! How like my old master’s they are!” She lifted one of his feet into her basin, and as she did, his robe fell aside to reveal the long white boar-tusk scar on his thigh.

“Ye gods!” cried the old nursemaid. She turned toward Penelope to cry out the good news, but Odysseus quickly grabbed her arm.

“Shhhh!” he whispered.

Now Athena’s lips began to move. I glanced at Penelope. She stared into the fire, frozen in a trance.

“Say not a word,” Odysseus whispered to his old nursemaid, “or you’ll put me in grave danger.”

Clea nodded. “Still as a stone I’ll be,” she said softly, and she began to wash his feet.

When she finished, she hurried off to the women’s quarters, and Athena snapped Penelope out of her trance. Once more the queen sat down beside the fire.

“Unless I can think of some way out of it, I shall be forced to marry one of the suitors.” Penelope sighed. “If only I were as clever as Odysseus! Then I could think of some way to be rid of these brutes.”

“I have heard that Odysseus was clever,” said Odysseus.

“Oh, yes,” said Penelope. “Very.”

“This is just a wild guess,” said Odysseus the beggar, “but do you think Odysseus might recommend that you hold a contest to decide which suitor will win your hand?”

“He might say that,” Penelope said slowly. “But what sort of a contest would he recommend, do you think?”

“I have heard that Odysseus had a very fine bow,” said Odysseus. “And I have heard that if someone lined up twelve double-headed axes in a straight row, Odysseus could shoot an arrow through all twelve rings on top of the axes.”

“That’s true,” said Penelope. “I’ve seen him do it.”

“Challenge the suitors to do the same,” said Odysseus. “Say something like, ‘The first suitor to string my lord’s bow and shoot an arrow cleanly through twelve axe rings, that man shall I wed.’”

Penelope smiled. “That is exactly like a plan Odysseus would have thought up!” she cried. “I shall do it!”

Now Odysseus allowed himself a smile. “Have the contest tomorrow,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe bold Odysseus himself will show up.”

“If only he would!” said Penelope. With that, she bid the beggar good night and went off to bed.

Odysseus picked up the sheepskin from the chair and went out to the porch. There, he lay down to sleep, but he only tossed and turned.

“No wonder he can’t sleep,” I whispered to Athena. “He’s planning to take on a hundred and eight suitors tomorrow.”

Athena muttered whatever it is she mutters, and the restless mortal quieted. He began snoring. She was a quick one with the sleeping spells!

“He isn’t going to take on the suitors alone, you know,” Athena added. “Telemachus will fight with him as well as Mouse and Philo. And I’ll be there.”

Having the goddess of war on his side improved Odysseus’s odds tremendously. But with more than a hundred suitors battling against him, there was still plenty that could go horribly wrong.