Athena wants to upgrade a labyrinth for King Minos, but her approach causes problems in this Goddess Girls adventure. Athena’s arrogance gets the best of her when her attempts to improve King Minos’s labyrinth have unexpected—and disastrous—results! Joan Holub has authored and/or illustrated over 140 children’s books, including the Goddess Girls series, the Heroes in Training series, the New York Times bestselling picture book Mighty Dads (illustrated by James Dean), and Little Red Writing (illustrated by Melissa Sweet). She lives in North Carolina and is online at JoanHolub.com. Suzanne Williams is a former elementary school librarian and the author of over seventy books for children, including the award-winning picture books Library Lil (illustrated by Steven Kellogg) and My Dog Never Says Please (illustrated by Tedd Arnold), and several chapter book and middle grade series. She also coauthors the Goddess Girls and Thunder Girls series with the fantastic Joan Holub. Visit her at Suzanne-Williams.com. Athena the Proud 1 An Invitation Wednesday Morning PING! PING! ATHENA SLID INTO her seat in her Beast-ology class at Mount Olympus Academy just as the lyrebell for second period rang. She pushed her long wavy brown hair back as she pulled her textscroll for the class from her bag. Right away her dragon-headed teacher, Professor Ladon, held up a rolled sheet of papyrus. “An interesssting letterssscroll hasss arrived, which I will now read aloud sssince it concernsss sssome of you,” he announced to the class. Licks of flame flew from his lips as he spoke, setting the edge of the letterscroll on fire. “Godnesss!” he exclaimed. The teacher’s eyes bugged, and he began shaking the letterscroll with one clawed green hand in an attempt to put out the flames. Poseidon, a handsome godboy with pale turquoise skin and eyes, jumped from his seat in the front row. “Don’t worry, Professor Ladon. I’m on it!” he called. He grasped the long handle of the trident he always carried and extended its drippy three-pronged end toward the letterscroll. As drops of water sprayed from the trident’s prongs onto the papyrus, the flames quickly fizzled out. “Thanksss,” hissed Professor Ladon. He smiled, baring huge, sharp dragon teeth. Athena’s blue-gray eyes widened, and she drew back a little. The sight of those teeth never failed to startle her. But Poseidon grinned back at the teacher, unfazed. “No problemo.” As godboy of the sea, he was all about water. He loved tinkering with the fountains here at MOA, and had designed a magnificent water park with polished marble slides, gleaming fountains, and pools of turquoise water down on Earth. “Asss I wasss about to sssay,” the teacher continued, wisely holding the papyrus scroll farther away from his long flame-spewing dragon snout this time. “I will now read the letterssscroll. “DEAR PROFESSSOR LADON, I AM WRITING TO INVITE FOURTEEN SSSTUDENTS TO BE GUESTSSS AT THE GRAND OPENING OF MY NEW AMUSSSEMENT PARK. WHEN: THISSS SSSATURDAY. WHO: PLEASSSE SSSELECT SSSEVEN BOYSSS AND SSSEVEN GIRLSSS, A MIX OF GODDESSSGIRLSSS, GODBOYSSS, AND MORTALSSS. THISSS ISSS A SSSPECIAL PREVIEW JUSSST FOR THEM. THEY WILL HAVE THE PARK ALL TO THEMSSSELVES. LOCATION: MY PALACE IN KNOSSSOSSS, ON THE COASSST OF THE ISLAND OF CRETE, JUSSST SSSOUTH OF GREECE. A MAP ISSS ATTACHED. YOURSSS TRULY, KING MINOSSS P.SSS. NO WEAPONSSS ALLOWED.” Murmurs of excitement rose from the class. Athena leaned over and whispered to Persephone, the pale-skinned, red-haired goddessgirl who sat next to her and was one of her three best friends. “Did you catch that article about Minos’s new amusement park in yesterday’s Greekly Weekly News??” Persephone nodded. “Uh-huh,” she said. “It sounds really a-maze-ing.” Both girls giggled at her little joke. The king had officially named his park Minos’s aMAZEment Park because its central attraction was a cavelike labyrinth. Which was basically a simple maze with numerous passages that ran beneath the king’s palace. The park had been designed and built by Daedalus. He was the most famous mortal inventor and architect on Earth, yet he was only sixteen years old! As the goddessgirl of crafts, among other things, Athena was a keen inventor herself. In fact, one of her inventions—the olive—had proved so useful to some mortals in Greece that they’d named their city Athens after her. In a contest at MOA earlier that year, her olive had even beat out the water park Poseidon had invented. “So which of us get to go?” asked a dark-haired, dark-eyed godboy named Apollo. Good question, thought Athena. She caught Persephone’s eye again and crossed her fingers. Persephone crossed hers back. Because who wouldn’t want a chance to preview a fabulous new funpark? Before Professor Ladon could answer the question, a godboy with a lizardlike tail turned to grin at Apollo. “Don’t you already know who’s going, Mr. Godboy of Prophecy?” Eve