Chapter One #2
Our bus barrels down the curved highway, and as we emerge from a tunnel, Mount Hymettus bursts into view, its greenery punctuated by the white slate of rocky paths.
White buildings crowd the landscape below it.
Athens unfurls in front of our eyes as we trundle down each bend in the road.
Even from a distance, the view promises the bustle of a modern city exploding around its ancient roots.
I’m too far away to make out any details, but I can spot the central hill on which the ancient Acropolis has been resting for thousands of years, surveying the landscape that has changed so much around it.
Today it’s surrounded by a crowded sprawl of apartments and office buildings.
And it finally sinks in. After years of studying the ancient beginnings of this place—the language, culture, literature, art, and philosophy of this land—I’m actually here.
What better escape is there?
—
The traffic around Syntagma Square might be the most chaotic driving I’ve ever witnessed, and that’s really saying something, as all the driving I’ve seen to date has taken place in New York City.
The bus swerves and lurches as a zillion cars and motorcycles leapfrog around us.
Car horns and overlapping voices shout through the street.
I’m not prone to motion sickness, but I find myself desperately scanning the horizon to stave off the carsick feeling brewing in my guts as Kendra careens into a narrow, cobblestone-paved side street.
Mercifully, we stop here.
Ms. Barlowe grips the back of her seat to stand shakily in the aisle. The bus comes with a rickety microphone that sends a screech of feedback through the bus. We all cringe alert, and Ms. Barlowe flashes us an evil grin as she stows the microphone back into its port behind the driver.
“You’ll just have to listen closely,” she half shouts in that teacher-projection kind of way.
“We’re here at our first stop. We’re going to tour Syntagma Square with Ms. Galanis and her daughter, Melanie, who will be joining our trip, and then we will be benevolent rulers and free you for lunch and shopping in the surrounding area. ”
From the back of the bus, Lucy cheers. She’s been ready and waiting for her first Greek meal since the moment we found out about the trip.
“But first,” Ms. Barlowe goes on, smoothly ignoring Lucy, “I have an exciting announcement.”
We all sit up a little straighter. The last time she had an exciting announcement, we found out we were spending half our summer break in Greece.
“As you know, part of this summer will be spent researching and working on your special projects,” Ms. Barlowe says.
Liam and I exchange excited looks. Given that our cohort includes the eight biggest nerds in the school, we’re all actually excited about our projects.
As soon as she found out about the trip, Ms. Barlowe designed an open-ended assignment to let us research any aspect of ancient Greece we want and present our findings however we decide.
It feels like the most grown-up, academia-y project I’ve ever gotten to do in school.
Plus, I finally get an outlet for all my research into the stories and myths about the followers of Artemis.
Liam is already deep into his project. He’s incorporating his research on the Battle of Marathon into a novel in verse.
His drafts of the opening pages are stunning, and I’m already obsessed with them.
And not just because, as one of the fastest girls on the school’s track team, I’ve been his main source for “what running feels like.” Even Liam has boundaries he will not cross in the name of research, and exercising outside of the school’s pool is one of them.
I have no vision for my project. Just a heart full of love for Artemis (and four notebooks full of research).
“The Stephen Goddard Research Institute Fund for Precollegiate Scholarship.” Ms. Barlowe pauses.
“Phew. The guys who gave us the money to come here have developed an academic decathlon, in which you’re all invited to compete.
There will be ten events, your special projects being one.
The rest range from academic challenges like speech and debate to summer-camp fun along the lines of scavenger hunts and talent shows.
In addition to the money to come here, these guys also gave us prize money totaling five thousand dollars, to be awarded to the student who wins the most points in this summerlong decathlon. ”
There’s a pause, and then the bus explodes into a cacophony of questions.
“When’s the deadline?” Amalia asks. She’s scribbling in her notebook, and she’s somehow already developed a color code.
“Can we still present our research any way we want for the project piece?” Henry asks. He’s a rising senior in AP Drawing and has been working on a series of oil paintings starring people of color from Greek myths.
“No way you’re changing your project,” Bodhi tells him, waving his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. “It’s your masterpiece.”
Liam, ever the pleasure to have in class from his elementary school days, raises his hand.
“Can I change my topic?” George yells from his seat next to Lucy. “Nothing about the Trojan War is winning originality points.”
“You should still let yourself be guided by your passions,” Ms. Galanis says, and Ms. Barlowe nods heartily.
“You’ll be working on these projects for the month in addition to all the work you’ve already put in,” she reminds us. “It will be difficult work, and you’ll need your passion to pull you through the tough moments.”
“Do we have to enter?” That last one comes from me, and the bus falls eerily quiet as everyone stops to stare.
“Why wouldn’t we?” George asks. “We have to do the work for our projects, anyway. Might as well try for some prize money.”
It’s true that five thousand dollars could take me a long way.
It’s enough to bring me back here later on in my high school career, when I’ve had more time to study the classics.
It’s enough to plan a year’s worth of visits to Andrea at UCLA without my parents in tow.
It’s enough to justify cutting down on my hours at my part-time job scooping gelato and to buy back some of my Friday nights.
But the thought of competition is also enough to send me spiraling.
I’m the only freshman in this program. Liam and Amalia are the only sophomores.
Everyone else is a junior or a recently graduated senior, with a billion AP classes and advanced projects under their belts already.
What chance do my subpar research and childhood love of Artemis stand against Henry’s art talent or Liam’s collegiate writing skills?
I didn’t come here to spend the summer worrying about not being good enough.
“It’s not mandatory,” Ms. Barlowe says. Her eyes meet mine, and she squints at me through the thin frames of her glasses, as if trying to read me. “But we’ll encourage all of you to go for it.”
I nod. The only thing scarier than competition is disappointing Ms. Barlowe.
She’s my favorite teacher, and she took a huge leap of faith by letting me into the program in my freshman year based on my eighth-grade report card and the impassioned essay about the female goddesses I submitted alongside my application.
It’s been the main goal of my year to prove to her that she made the right decision.
She loved my midterm project about Anne Carson’s take on Hercules.
Letting her down now that I’ve finally made it to a rising sophomore is a terrifying thought.
But the brain gremlin is starting up its favorite tap dance. You’re not good enough for this. If you enter this competition, all you’ll do is prove that to everyone else.
“We’ll have more time to go over the project and answer all your questions at the hotel tonight,” Ms. Barlowe says. “For now, let’s get off this bus and into Athens!”
Everyone cheers, and even I muster up a whoop through the thick fog that has mercilessly descended upon my thoughts.
We move to gather our things, the bus aisle growing thick with backpacks and totes as everyone files toward the doors.
I follow Liam, and my feet finally land on the sidewalks of Athens.
Being a pedestrian in Syntagma is just as chaotic as being a car passenger.
The crowds walk thickly on the sidewalk, in the street—everywhere, it seems, is fair game for a throng of people to amass.
Syntagma Square is the city center of Athens.
A huge paved square sits in the middle of the busy intersecting streets.
It’s looked over by the impressive Hellenic Parliament, an imposing building with walls the color of faded sunlight and a set of Ionic columns across the entrance.
The smell of fresh-cut greenery mixes with the spiced scents steaming from the street food vendors lined along the sides of the square.
Every corner of the square is bursting with color and sound—the shouts of people calling to one another, the screech of tires coming too fast around the bend, the spray of water hitting the sides of the fountain that sits in the middle of the square.
It’s my first glimpse of Athens up close, and I love it here already.
As we all know and as Ms. Barlowe reminds us while we make our way toward the parliament building, it was built in the 1830s and ’40s as the royal palace for King Otto and now serves as the home of Parliament and the Senate.
Before it stands the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a cenotaph war memorial watched over by the Evzones guards.
“And don’t worry, we did time this right,” Ms. Barlowe says with a grin. “In just a few minutes, we’ll see the changing of the guard.”