But after being away from Gran for a month, I can see your similarities. When I arrived at Gran’s house, the first thing she said was “are you hungry?” just like you used to say when I came back from a friend’s house or visiting Dad over the school holidays. You both love to feed me, even if you did so in different ways.
Now Grandma Thomas is stirring up a pot of cornmeal porridge, grating in fresh nutmeg and sweetening it with condensed milk. Like you, she never weighs or measures anything, but it still turns out just right. Did you know that you and Gran cook with the same radio channel on, Mum? It’s humming in the background and the heady scent of nutmeg is in the air. It’s the most at home I’ve felt in ages.
Love for ever,
Helen xxx
ELEVEN
I was back home from Grandma Thomas’s for about thirty seconds before everything kicked off. The unexpected bit? This time, it had nothing to do with my bonkers family.
Dad picked me up from the train station, but I don’t know why he bothered. Did he ask me a single question about my Christmas break? Of course not. He spent the whole drive chatting about what he had planned with the Lady Friend. Salsa-dancing lessons, a romantic New Year’s Eve getaway in the countryside, blah blah blah. I couldn’t decide if Dad raving about her was better or worse than hearing a concise breakdown of the latest Antiques Roadshow episode.
Dad was halfway through repeating one of Lisa’s hilarious anecdotes when my phone began to bleep like crazy. The group chat was on fire! I started to unlock my phone, but guess who had a problem with that?
“Helen, it would be wonderful if you could resist the siren call of your device for twenty minutes,” Dad muttered.
“But I just need to check something!” I bet it had something to do with the party. Outfit choices, song playlist suggestions, that sort of thing. All essential discussions that I HAD to be a part of.
“If you can’t go twenty minutes without checking your phone, then I have half a mind to confiscate it. It’s far from healthy, Helen.”
I put my phone back in my pocket, if only to shut Dad up before he launched into a lecture on dopamine and shortened attention spans. I had the urge to put in my earphones and block out his droning with Rihanna. But it wasn’t worth the risk of having my phone nicked. Again.
Several minutes later and my phone was still vibrating with new notifications. This had to be more serious than which Little Mix bangers were going on the party playlist. What was going on?
Once I got home, I ran up to my room and checked the group chat. I scrolled quickly through the conversation that started an hour before. By the time I’d caught up, I felt terrible for Yasmin. Her party was ruined.
We needed to have an emergency meeting (and milkshake because Yasmin was going to need the sugar boost). I wrote a quick message in the group chat:
So sorry Yas :( Let’s meet in the milkshake place near school and figure something out x
Half an hour later, we slurped choco-caramel shakes with extra fudge sauce while Yasmin explained what happened.
“We thought Mum and Dad would be in Ghana until January third,” Yasmin said while holding back tears. “But Dad strolled in this morning! Isaac and I couldn’t believe our eyes.”
“Why did he end up coming home early?” I asked.
“Because of his dumb job,” Yasmin said. “Apparently he spent the entire trip stressing about the building works on his latest property development. Mum said if he was going to spend all of Christmas on the phone to the site manager then he may as well come home and sort it from here.”
“So he’s definitely going to be around on New Year’s Eve?” Noor asked.
Yasmin nodded her head. “Sorry, guys, but there’s no way I can throw a party.”
“Gosh. You’re lucky they didn’t come home a few hours later. Can you imagine your mum and dad bursting in on your house party? I would actually die,” said Daphne.
“I feel like dying anyway,” said Yasmin, pushing away her barely touched milkshake. “I have to message every single person I invited and tell them the party’s off because my dad is home. It’s so humiliating!”
By “every single person”, she meant Jayden of course.
“I had the perfect dress sorted, too,” Noor said wistfully.
There goes the best chance at having my first real kiss, I thought.
No one wanted to say it and make Yasmin feel worse, but we were all gutted.
“You’re all welcome to come round to mine, girls,” said Daphne, trying to sound cheerful. “I’m sure if we play music loud enough, it’ll drown out Mum singing with her friends.”
“Sounds better than being at my house,” Noor said, slumped in her chair. “My little brother won’t stop talking about poo. It’s a phase, apparently.”
I felt so bad. What could I do to make Yasmin feel better?
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. Dad was out on New Year’s Eve. Aphrodite was sure to have plans on the biggest party night of the year, too. Could we have the party at my house?
The group chatted about alternative plans for New Year’s Eve while I stayed quiet and ran through the risks in my head. What if Dad came home early for no reason? Then I remembered – didn’t he say he was going on a romantic trip with Lisa in the car? Judging by how gooey-eyed he was talking about her this morning, there’s no way he’d leave that trip early.
Sure, he’d officially banned mortals from the house. But Lady Friend was a mortal and she was at the house every other weekend, I reasoned. Why was it one rule for him and another for me? Didn’t the ancient Greeks, like, invent the meaning of democracy? It was my house, too. Being able to invite my friends (and a few of their friends too) over was only fair.
I looked around the table. My friends looked so deflated, especially Yasmin. They’d done so much for me since I’d moved back. If it wasn’t for them, I’d probably still be spending lunch breaks and Friday nights alone.
Throwing this party had its risks, but it was the least I could do for my friends.
I sat up. “Guys, I have an idea.”
TWELVE
I had the biggest task ahead of me. All I had to do was make the house a mortal-friendly zone and erase every trace of immortal beings ever existing in our home. No biggie.
The minute the house was empty, I sprang into action. Armed with a cardboard box, I tucked away anything that was a dead giveaway. Basically, if it looked more like it belonged in a museum than a home, in the box it went.
Dad’s ancient marble figurines could stay (there was nothing weird about those, after all – unless an actual historian came and worked out that they were thousands of years old). However, the printed copy of “The Rules” on the fridge door had to go. There would be no easy way to explain that.
I also found a few pairs of winged sandals lurking in the shoe rack. Yes, I tried them on and no, the wings didn’t even flicker. They probably had to be activated by a god with powers. Still, I popped them in the box to be on the safe side. They were to stay with the tubs of Aphrodite’s mysterious ointment jars in the bathroom cupboard (they could be harmless, but why risk it?) and the metal-tipped arrows hiding in the airing cupboard (almost certainly not harmless).