4 - Ye Gods! by Tom Holt

Author:Tom Holt [Holt, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Contemporary, Urban, Humorous, Satire
ISBN: 9780316233408
Google: I_2O-ogfBEkC
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2012-09-04T05:00:00+00:00

Jupiter paused for a moment, searching for the right word, and looked out of the window.

“It’s not as if,” he said, “he’s done anything wrong—”

“But you just said—”

“Well,” Jupiter replied, “that’s not quite true. He’s been very naughty. Conspiring with prohibited persons. Duffing up gods. Can’t be allowed to do that sort of thing. But nothing serious; nothing we can’t deal with—” Jupiter’s words tailed off and he squinted at something sticking up out of the ground between the rose bushes and the Arum lily. “Excuse my asking,” he enquired, “but is that the skeleton of a tyrannosaurus I can see out there?”

“Where?”

“There.”

Mrs. Derry looked closely. “Oh that,” she said. “Yes.”

“Where did he get that from?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Derry. “I don’t want to know, either. Hopefully, he’s given up doing that.”

“Has he?”

“Well,” replied the Hero’s mother, “last month there were a couple of Rottweilers and a big sort of lizard thing, but apart from that there hasn’t been anything since the mammoth. Just as well, if you ask me; it’s a small garden and it was getting so bad we were having to double-bank them in places. And it only takes a shower of rain or something like that—”

“Yes,” said Jupiter, shuddering, “yes, quite. Well, as I was saying, I really don’t want to have to come the heavy father with the lad. It’s really not my style at all. So if you could see your way to having a word with him—”

“I’ll try,” said Mrs. Derry doubtfully. “But you know what they’re like at that age.”

“Not Jason,” said Jupiter. “And I always knew that if you told him not to do it, then he’d stop. You know he always listens to you.”

“Well—”

Jupiter managed to restrain his grin of triumph. “Just tell him,” he said, “that you’ve heard he’s been getting into trouble and how worried you’ve been and ask him to stop it; that’ll do the trick, I promise you. He looks up to you, you know.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Derry again. “If you think it’s for the best—”

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Jupiter said. “Not that I’d ever willingly let him come to any harm, you understand, but even I can’t be in more than four places at once, and these people he’s been seeing — Prometheus and Gelos and that crowd — really, they’re no good. I mean that. Sooner or later they’ll get him into real trouble, and it may well be that I won’t be able to do anything for him. It’s for his own good,” Jupiter added, recalling the phrase from the back of his mind. “You’ll see.”

“All right, then,” Mrs. Derry said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Jupiter smiled. “That’s splendid, then,” he said. “Right, well, it’s been great seeing you again, Phyl, but it’s time I wasn’t here. Give my regards to— er, you know, your husband.”

“Douglas.”

“Quite so, yes, Douglas. How are things in the — what is it he does?”

“He repairs television sets.”

“Does he really? How very clever of him. Not that I watch much television myself, actually, but— well, do give him my regards, anyway.

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