Ugh. Why wasn’t everyone grossed out by his arrogance?
“Awesome. We can’t wait to see you in action. Everyone, please give DJ Sunny a warm welcome as he enters the House of Stars!”
Apollo gave a barely-there nod to his new adoring fans before walking up the lit path and opening the door to a large stone-grey building. After he disappeared into a dark corridor, the camera cut to the presenter on stage outside.
“Will DJ Sunny light up the stage and win a recording contract worth a whopping £500,000? Come back next week for his first performance, where your vote decides if he walks away with a life-changing prize.”
We watched the rest of the episode, but I wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I was thinking about how much Dad was going to hit the roof when he found out. And where I’d be hiding when it happened. What on earth was Apollo thinking?!
To be honest, it served Dad right. He shouldn’t have been gallivanting around with a woman he’d only just met. It had been weeks since he’d been home for any decent length of time. He, of all people, knew that his offspring can’t be trusted not to cause trouble.
“I wish I had cool siblings like you.” Noor’s voice interrupted my preoccupied state. “All I have is two little brothers who leave disgusting smells around the house. Don’t ever live with pre-teen boys.”
“Or teen boys. Having a big brother is the worst. I can’t even use his ID!” Yasmin said.
“You’re so lucky, Helen,” Noor said, turning to me. “All your siblings are way older. You’re practically an only child!”
“Yeah, and they treat me like a toddler. You saw how rude my big sis is,” I said. And they didn’t know the half of it. I could never tell them about the “makeover” Aphrodite gave me when I first moved in.
This conversation was starting to irritate me, and I couldn’t work out why. Maybe I couldn’t deal with my friends bickering about their perfectly normal families with perfectly normal siblings. I’d love to have the type of family where I could just invite my friends over at a moment’s notice. The type of family my friends had.
“Helen, I completely forgot to ask!” Yasmin said. “Where are you going on your date with Marco tomorrow?”
I smiled and everyone went “ooooooooh” like the studio audience on House of Stars.
“He messaged me last night saying it was a surprise,” I said. “All I know is that we’re meeting at Holloway Road tube station at seven thirty p.m., and I should wrap up warm.”
With this grim weather, it looked like I’d be smothered in a parka, scarf, boots and several layers anyway. January is definitely not the time for figure-hugging date outfits. Not that I have much of a figure to hug. But anyway.
“A surprise! That’s hella romantic,” Yas said. “What would you do if he took you to somewhere dead fancy? Ooh, like the Shard?”
“Nah, no one goes to the Shard on a first date,” Noor said. “That’s, like, marriage proposal levels.”
“You’re so lucky to have a boyfriend on the horizon, Helen. I turn fifteen this year and nothing!” Daphne said. “In the olden days, I would have had a husband and, like, five kids by now.”
“Do you want a husband and five kids?” Yasmin said.
“Yeah, and it wouldn’t stop there. You’d have to do all the cooking and wash their lice-infected clothes by hand,” I said.
“Oh, forget it. I was just making a point,” Daphne said.
“Anyway, what happened to Adam from Spanish?” I asked. The last I knew, things between them seemed promising.
Her ears went pink, but not in a good way. “He decided he wanted homework help from Sareeta Moore instead,” she said. “But that was ages ago.” Why didn’t I hear about this?
“I’m still not talking to Adam,” said Yasmin as she put her arms around Daphne. “He asked to borrow my protractor in maths yesterday, and I blanked him.”
Daphne must have noticed my confusion. “It happened last week. The day after Marco emailed you,” she said.
Waves of guilt washed over me (more like a splash than a tsunami – but still). I’d been so obsessed with Marco the last few days that I hadn’t clocked Daphne’s boy trouble. I wasn’t going to be the type of person who dumps their mates the second they get attention from guys.
“Honestly, girls, I’m over it,” said Daphne. “But Yas? Feel free not to lend him any stationery.”
TWENTY-ONE
I came home from Daphne’s the next afternoon, welcomed by Buddhist chanting music and the smell of something delicious being cooked. But it was freezing – like the heating hadn’t been on in days. I took off my ankle boots and went to the kitchen to switch it on.
Eros was there, frying onions and wearing nothing but khaki shorts and Maria’s striped apron. Which would usually be weird in the middle of January, but the gods aren’t bothered by the elements.
“It’s so nice that you’re home!” I went to give him a squeeze.
“Afternoon, lovely,” Eros said, adding chopped red chillies to the pan.
Here Eros was, calmly cooking while his Uncle Apollo was breaking nearly every rule in the gods’ handbook. Did this mean that he didn’t know? A part of me was excited to break the news to him like it was a juicy piece of gossip. Finally, I knew something the gods didn’t.
“You won’t believe who I saw on TV last night,” I said.
“Spill!”
“Apollo, on that new reality TV show House of Stars! I was watching it at Daphne’s last night, then suddenly there he was being introduced as a contestant.”
Weirdly, Eros didn’t look anywhere near as surprised as I expected him to be. He just carried on chopping.
“Typical Apollo, really. He never could resist the spotlight.”
Maybe I wasn’t explaining it properly?
“Eros, you don’t get it. This is more than just a talent show. It’s prime time, for one. And he will be watched by anyone who logs in online, twenty-four hours a day. Dad is going to hit the roof!” That got Eros’s attention. He looked up from his chopping board.
“Maybe it’s best that your father doesn’t find out about this. It’s not that big a deal, and he’ll only overreact.”
“How can he not find out about this? It’ll be the biggest thing on telly every Saturday night!”
We all tease Dad about his allergy to anything he considers “lowbrow”, so he’s unlikely to accidentally tune in. But he’s the head of the gods. How could he not sense that something was off?
Also, and I didn’t want to admit it, but a small part of me felt bad keeping a secret from Dad. Even if he was hardly home and seemed to forget about his parental responsibilities.
But I was not going to be the one to tell him about the TV show. And maybe Eros was right. If it was that big a deal, Dad would drag Apollo out of that house himself.
“I get it. So what’s for dinner?”
“I’m making a batch of chana masala using the spices I brought back from India. It’s a vegan chickpea curry.”
“Oh.”
“But don’t worry, Maria left your dinner in the fridge as usual. Gods forbid you eat a plant-based meal,” he muttered.