"He had fallen in love with Atalanta and with divine help from a certain goddess (whom he promised to thank after winning the race) he was able to win Atalanta in a race. Like promised Hipponemes got to marry Atalanta, but probably due to his love and joy, he forgot to sacrifice to the goddess like he promised.
"The goddess punished Hipponemes as well as Atalanta, through a different god. They lost their identity, but they lived happily ever after."
"But mum," I chuckled "You know that's not what really happened."
"Is that so? So tell me, what really happened?"
"Aphrodite tricked Atalanta and Hipponemes into doing..."
(I didn't know how to put the next part without making my mum question my innocence)
"...stupid things in Zeus' temple" I eventually said. "And Zeus turned them into Lions."
"Isn't someone studying his mythology?" My mother asked ruffling my hair.
I pulled out. "Mum, you've got to stop treating me like a kid. I'm fourteen."
"You'll always be a kid to me." My mum suddenly had a distant look in her eyes. "Once upon a time," she suddenly said.
"There was a girl named Julie. She lived without her parents in northern California. All she ever wanted was to have a nice and happy family so that her children's life would be better than hers.
"One day she met a guy on the street. He was loving and strong, caring and smart. It didn't take long for Julie to fall for him. They hung out for a couple of months had a few dates and soon, Julie found out she was pregnant. She was so happy that she finally had a child-children in fact because she had a set of twins. She swore and made her lover swear that they would never abandon their children."
At this point, my mum's voice broke. She paused and I waited for her to continue.
"A month before she was to have her baby, her lover came to her with sad news: "'My love we can't see each other anymore
"Julie was clearly shocked but she asked: "'Why not is it because I'm pregnant?
"'No my love it has nothing to do with that, I'm it's...it's just that we're not meant to be. No wait let me explain. From where I come from, no one is to have dealings with anyone outside the community. I love you and now they suspect. If we keep on seeing each other, they'll discover you and they'll kill you. Please take care of yourself and our babies. I promise to visit as often as possible.
"Julie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Before she could compose her thoughts, her lover had gone. Left to herself for a month, she cried and hoped it was a clever joke, but when Julie's lover didn't show on the day she was to give birth, she committed suicide believing it best for her and her babies. She couldn't let her children live the no-parent life. Rumor has it that her ghost still torments men who dare abandon pregnant girls."
Scary? Not a bit. I had heard the story a million times but I still wanted to hear it again. It was like I could relate with Julie; about some parts though. I didn't know about hunting men for eternity.
Anyway, mum always seemed a bit sad whenever she told the story and
it remained my job to keep her talking about other things. So I saw this as the perfect opportunity to ask my mum:
"Who are my real parents?"
Her mood seemed to dim even more.
"Dylan we've talked about this, I don't know." She paused. "All I know is, you're the best thing that ever happened to me? I..." Her voice broke. "I picked you up and saw we would be more than perfect for each other."
"Why didn't you leave me at the Church?" I asked, my voice getting steadily higher.
"Would you have preferred that?!" My mum's voice was higher too. She seemed on the verge of tears.This brought back my senses. I stood up and hugged my mum. She didn't deserve that. I wouldn't have asked to be brought up by anyone else. She had sacrificed so much for me.
"I'm sorry mum." I said. "I just wish I knew who my parents were. Maybe then I would know who I am or who I'm meant to be."
"I know, I know." She took a deep breath. "I just wish I knew too."
After about two minutes of silence, I pulled out of the hug and told my mum "I'm going to find out who they are someday; whatever it takes."
My mum didn't show the slightest sign that she had heard me and like we shared a mind, we changed the topic. We talked about: her childhood, how business seemed to be moving forward (not ike I understood a word she said), movies (I wondered how she found time to watch them) and girls (she even teased me about having a girlfriend. I mean, seriously mum?)
Then for the second time that night the subject shifted to schooling . Believe me, I would have rather talked about girl issues (not like I had any) because school was a touchy subject.
The past two years, I had been to three schools already. The first two being boarding schools and the present a private school I started attending two weeks ago.
"How do you like your new school?"
"Well it's nice." I said. "I mean the teachers are nice (except Mr. Gill, he's a #!@$!# but I decided to not say that). They have nice facilities and the students are really nice to me (except Big J. His crush had asked me out to prom and now he had dedicated his miserable life to making my life miserable. But I also left that out).
"That's nice to hear son." Mum sounded genuinely relieved "I just hope this one wouldn't be like the others..."
I understood what she meant. Remember I said I had been kicked out of two schools already, what I didn't say was why. About this time last year, my class took a trip to the zoo. Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Franklin was our trip guide (is that a word?).
He stopped in front of a boar constrictor to tell us a bit about it. Then out of nowhere, a rock fell out of the sky and hit his head so hard we had to call the ambulance. After investigations, everyone said I was the closest to him (so much for trying to be attentive) and since the management had to blame someone... well you can guess what happened next.
During another zoo trip in my next school, it turned out I hadn't I learned from experience. I was once again in the frontline. I blame that on my stupid curiosity. Anyway, this time, the teacher was talking about a tiger.
"And this class is a Blac Chyna sorry I mean South China tiger. It could be..."
Naturally, I sneezed. Turns out I was allergic to Blac Chyna sorry I mean South China. Opening my eyes after sneezing, I saw my class teacher-the one who apparently had a crush on Blac Chyna-on fire.
I mean literally on fire. He had to jump into an alligator pool with a clear do not swim sign. Anyway, I also got expelled and now I'm a student at silver high--at least for now.
"Mum I swear I didn't do any of those things." I said for the thousandth time that month.
"I know Dylan." She sighed and picked a marshmallow. "I just hoped you wouldn't be like him."
"Like who?"
"Umm..."
Just then, I heard a breaking sound, like someone had stepped on a twig.
"Did you hear that?" I asked
"Hear what?"
"It sounded like there was someone there."
Did I mention that lately, I'd had this feeling crawling up my spine that I was being watched. I felt like some specimen during biology class. I mean whenever I walked home from school, I saw the same Limo with tinted glasses pass me like four times.
Even when I rounded a corner any security camera in the area seemed to swivel in my direction. It was weird. I didn't want to tell anyone, especially my mum. She would probably think I'm overreacting or imagining things.
"It must have been the driver." I said even though his snores echoed round the woods.
"We should go inside." Mum said. I didn't want to think this was her way of dodging my earlier question, but I didn't ask again and I didn't remember any of it till much later.
The rest of the vacation was quite fun so it came as a shocker to me when my mum finally said.
"Alright Dylan. We've had enough fun for six months. It's time to go home."
I knew begging my mum would be futile. She was so stubborn and if we had been related by blood I would have said I got my stubbornness from her. But now that I think of it, a lot of people have complimented me saying I look exactly like my mum. They obviously didn't know the truth about our relationship , but I couldn't help but agreeing with them.
The trip home was quite uneventful and I wished it could go on forever. The trip ending meant I get home and getting home means I had to go to school the next day.
When I finally got home I rushed out the RV, ran across the lawn, ignored my mum's scoldings, pushed open the front door, ran up the stairs and picked my game console pad.
It had been forever since I worked my fingers on that new game Hero Legends. I had barely crossed floor two when my mum knocked on my room door and opened it without waiting for me to tell her come in. She really needed to stop treating me like a kid. I was about to complain when she said...
"If you want me to start treating you like a grown man, you better start acting like it."
~How did she...~
"And turn off that TV. Do anything else other than playing that video game. Remember you have school tomorrow."
My turned around and left, leaving me with certain questions. One, How did she know what I was going to say? Two, What other productive stuff could I possibly do other than play video games? Three, Is my mum a mind reader?
I ended up wasting the rest of the day studying, sleeping and hoping schools wouldn't exist when I woke up. It was hopeless.
Silver High was an expensive private school not too far from home. I walked to school every morning, because I insisted I didn't want any chauffeur, and I also walked back for the same reason. Now the time's about twelve and I'm having my fourth and worst class for the day. History. I sat a few seats up front and a certain someone decided to be his usual stupis self.