Read Online Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs - Free Book Online

she must sense how clueless I am.
    “Your family.” She gives me a pointed look. “Your god.”
    Still not clear, I look around.
    The second floor hall is full of students, and from the outside they all look fully normal. I see all the standard cliques. Populars here and nerds there. Jocks in a huddle and cheerleaders all around them. Freaks glaring at everyone from the corner and geeks trying to avoid getting knocked down. Stoners, burnouts, prudes, and skanks. Nothing unusual.
    “Look at that group.” Nicole points across the hall.
    Clustered around a set of lockers, a group of girls with perfect hair, heavy makeup, and suggestive clothing cling to boys with metrosexual taste in fashion and gel-spiked hair. Miniskirts and tight T-shirts abound. Not so different from the populars at PacificPark.
    “Steer clear of them,” Nicole warns. “The Zeus set. Power, privilege, and partying. They make Paris Hilton look like a Vestal Virgin.”
    The Zeus set? I guess I can see how being related to the ruler of all the gods would come with extreme popularity. Who would dare to cross them when you might wind up with a thunderbolt in the back?
    One of the boys shifts, opening my view to the other side of the group. Stella stares back at me, willing one of those thunderbolts to hit me, I’m sure.
    “Stella’s one of them?” I ask, looking away before those gray eyes turn me to stone or something.
    “Not exactly.” Nicole flicks a sneering glance at the group. “She’s one of Hera’s.”
    “So then why—” I begin. Then I remember Hera’s role on Olympus—Zeus’s consort.
    “There are alliances,” Nicole explains. “Zeus-Hera is the strongest.”
    Figures. Not only is Stella a colossal evil, but she’s got the popularity and the genes to back it up. I am more than thankful her powers are grounded right now. Otherwise Nicole would be carrying me to class in a baggie.
    Looking around for something other than the evil stepsister to talk about, I ask, “What about them?”
    Another group of students, all with sun-bleached hair, is gathered around a water fountain. They look like they washed up in the last wave. A lot of pooka shell necklaces and flip-flops. The guys are wearing brightly colored boardshorts and Hawaiian print shirts.
    Some of the girls are in sundresses, some in camisoles and breezy skirts. One of the girls looks just like a picture I saw once of Cameron Diaz surfing.
    “That,” Nicole says, pointing at the surfer crowd, “is Poseidon’s posse. Most of their brain cells have burned off from too much time in the sun.”
    At the center of the circle I notice a guy with white-blond hair that looks a little like Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale.
    “Forget it,” Nicole warns when she sees me looking. “Deacon’s dumb as a box of rocks.” She tilts her head, as if considering him for a second. “Actually, that’s an insult to rocks.”
    From the other end of the hall I hear a boy squeal, “I got it! I hacked into the Olympic mainframe!”
    He’s obviously a geek—complete with thick black-framed glasses and high-waisted pants. He’s clutching a calculator-sized PDA in his hand, jumping up and down and revealing a total lack of coordination as he practically trips over his own feet and falls into the rest of his group.
    “Geeks?” I ask.
    “Hephaestus,” she replies with a sigh. “I think he’s embarrassed by them. I know I would be. Not one of them has a chance of scoring an Aphrodite like he did, but I bet one day they make Bill Gates look poor.”
    I always thought it was romantic how the deformed god of fire married the beautiful goddess of love. Kind of like a mythological Beauty and the Beast. Looking at his descendants, however, I’m thinking more along the lines of Weird Science—but these guys don’t look coordinated enough to build the perfect woman.
    Seeing all the cliques grouped according to ancestral god makes me wonder about Nicole. Seems like she doesn’t hang out