Pandora Gets Greedy Read Online Free PDF

top of a staircase, a giant smirk on her face.
    â€œDo I have your word you will make a champion out of him?” Lucius said. “I may safely wager on him as my prized warrior?”
    â€œYou have our word, Senator!” one man replied. “Or he’ll be dead within the week.”
    â€œThen I’ll want my money back!” barked Lucius.
    â€œRight!” Hermes cut in. “So that’s where Homer is now. Pandora and Alcie have no idea where he’s gone and have been out of their minds with worry and work.”
    â€œAnd they don’t see Iole very often because she’s become a …”
    â€œVestal Virgin,” Hermes said. “I was completely unprepared for that. I miscalculated when I materialized them all into the household and Iole ended up in the … what do you call it?”
    â€œI just call it the Vestal’s room,” Mercury said.
    â€œWell, with the spell of familiarity on the entire house she became the Vestal, junior class, no questions asked. You know, we have priestesses back home in Greece, and they’re important—very sacred. But they don’t seem to have quite the importance that yours do here in Rome.”
    â€œOh, you bet!” said Mercury. “Vestals are tops! If they happen to be walking about on the streets, they canpardon, on the spot, someone condemned to death and on his way to be lion food. But you’d better not touch ’em. Bad news. What about the dog?”
    â€œDido was protected under the same spell as the girls. Lucius’s wife, Varinia, loves him; thinks he’s been their pet for years. He’s on a long tether in the back garden and she sends out the best of the table scraps after every meal. Pandora is with him as often as possible.”
    â€œSo,” Mercury said. “She’s got five evils in the box; pretty close to the end of her quest.”
    â€œYeah, but this one seems to have her stumped. And to make matters worse, she can’t concentrate on it because of all the preparations she and Alcestis have to help with for the big celebration.”
    â€œWell, it’s not every day Rome gets a new ruler,” Mercury added. “Big doings. And Julius Caesar’s no ordinary mortal. He started what amounted to a civil war in these parts and then, completely defying logic and all his advisors, he took his troops across the river Rubicon and beat the togas off Pompey and his men, basically destroying a treaty that said Caesar, Pompey, and some other general would split everything three ways. Done and done. Then he just crowned himself ruler of Rome and on and on and on.”
    â€œI like him,” Hermes said thoughtfully.
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œHe’s a doer. He gets things done.”
    â€œGotta respect.”
    â€œGotta.”
    â€œSo,” Mercury went on, “a week ago, Caesar declared the start of a period of celebration and heavy-duty feasting which will conclude with a really big blowout in a few days at the home of Valerius. All of Rome is buzzing with who’s going to be invited, what to wear, and some such nonsense.”
    â€œThat’s gonna be some bill!” Hermes snorted.
    â€œI wouldn’t want to pay it.”
    â€œAnd that, my brother from another mother, is why Zeus wants me to start bringing the Hera parts to Rome. He and Jupiter have decided that
all
the immortals are going to the final feast.”
    â€œSo then, Pandora has nothing regarding …?”
    â€œGreed? Nope, not yet. She’s been scrubbing floors and washing Rufina’s hair, gabbing with Alcie and sometimes Iole. Everybody got caught up on various adventures in the underworld and Persia, they kidded Pandora about the young boy, Douban, who likes her so much, and all of them put their heads together about where Greed might be hiding. At night, she told everything to her wolfskin diary, and then, one day Pandora tried to call her father back in