Medusa discovers that having the golden “King Midas” touch has its ups and downs in the sixteenth Goddess Girls adventure. When Medusa suddenly becomes able to turn objects into gold just by touching them, she is thrilled. Gold, gold, everywhere! But it’s not just objects that become golden—it’s also food, and, even people! Her new ability turns out to be more dangerous than delightful, but can she do anything to reverse it? 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. Medusa the Rich 1 Queen of Mean SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! THE SNAKES on top of twelve-year-old Medusa’s head gobbled down the handful of dried peas she tossed up to them as she sat cross-legged on the floor of her dorm room at Mount Olympus Academy one Friday afternoon. Though her snakes had been the result of an accident with Snakeypoo, a botched invention of the brainy goddessgirl Athena’s—it had turned out to be a happy accident. Medusa adored the dozen snakes that had replaced her hair. She’d even given them all names: Viper, Flicka, Pretzel, Snapper, Twister, Slinky, Lasso, Slither, Scaly, Emerald, Sweetpea, and Wiggle! They were her pets now, and she couldn’t imagine life without them. “Help me choose?” she asked them as she dug through a box of comic-scrolls she’d written and drawn over the years. (Some she’d created when she was just six years old!) “Don’t be too nice. If you don’t like something, say so, okay? Only my ten very best ones can go into the collection I’m submitting to the Comicontest.” Eager to help as always, her snakes wriggled their heads forward for a better look as she pulled out a comic-scroll and unrolled it. “Ooh! Remember this one?” The comic was one of her favorites, drawn after she’d given Zeus a winged horse named Pegasus on the day of his wedding. “It’s the one where Principal Zeus granted my wish to become immortal as a thank-you for my wedding present.” Zeus was not only the principal of MOA; he was also King of the Gods and Ruler of the Heavens, which meant he had the power to do such things. “I was immortal only for a single day. But still. Good times.” She sighed happily. Medusa shifted to lie on her stomach. The comic-scroll was titled The Queen of Mean (episode #25): Immortal for a Day. Starring her—as the Queen of Mean! In this episode the queen had gotten her chance to be a goddessgirl for one day, thanks to Zeus. Like almost all of her comics, this one was autobiographical—loosely based on things that had happened to Medusa in real life. The queen looked like her and was a superhero who used something called payback magic to get even with dastardly evildoers. A magic cheese was one of her coolest—and stinkiest—weapons. As her snakes followed along, Medusa began to read the best parts of the comic aloud to them in a dramatic voice: “?‘Discovering that she can suddenly make winged sandals fly without help (something she’s never been able to do before Zeus made her immortal), the Queen of Mean laces them on. She buzzes around the Mount Olympus Academy courtyard, doing awesome flips and tricks in midair that no one at MOA has ever seen before! Voom! Boinggg! Zonk!’?” Medusa made fun sound effects to indicate the tricky flips. “?‘Then the queen zooms home to Greece.’?” Now Medusa switched to speak in a higher-toned voice, the one she imagined the queen would use: ‘?“I vow to use my amazing powers to fight evil,” says the Queen of Mean. “And also vow to show them off sometimes!”’ Medusa went on, switching back and forth between a normal narrator voice and the queen’s voice. All the while her snakes gazed intently at her drawings. “?‘When the queen gets to Greece, a seal herder named Proteus is terrorizing her poor parents. No problem! thinks the queen. She whips out her magic cheese and shouts the magic word—“Gorgonzola!” Poof! “Take that, Proteus. How does it feel to be vaporized?”’ “Of course, Proteus doesn’t reply because he’s vapor now, and vapor can’t talk,” Medusa reminded her snakes before continuing with her comic. “Afterward my mom—that is, the queen’s mom—says, ‘Thank you for saving us, Queen of Mean. You rock!’ Then her dad grunts as usual, but in a happy way this time. Next the queen’s parents take down the pictures of their other two immortal daughters