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ABRAMS BOOKS - Norris Shana

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119 pages

English

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Homers Iliad, the classic tale of love and revenge, is shrewdly retold for teens in Troy High. Narrated by Cassie, a shy outsider at Troy High, the story follows the Trojans and Spartans as they declare war on the football field. After the beautiful Elenawho used to be the captain of the Spartan cheerleaderstransfers to Troy High and falls madly in love with Cassies brother Perry, the Spartans vow that the annual homecoming game will never be forgotten. Off the football field, an escalating prank war fuels tensions between the schools. The stakes are raised when Cassie is forced to choose between the boy she loves (a Spartan) and loyalty to her family and school. Troy High will seduce readers with its cast of mythic proportions.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	01 mars 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781613120149
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0321€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Shana Norris has brilliantly recast the entire ensemble of Homer s Iliad to fit the contemporary setting in her novel . Readers will be seduced by the watchful observer, Cassie, who narrates the story with a simple honesty and takes you page by page into this vengeful tale of pride, love, and glory. - ALAN
While The Iliad story line lends richness to the narrative, the book stands alone, and readers unfamiliar with the classic will still enjoy the war between high schools, started over a beautiful girl. - School Library Journal
Norris s prose is breezy, and playful references to the Iliad entertain. - Publishers Weekly
A LSO BY S HANA N ORRIS
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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:
Norris, Shana. Troy High / by Shana Norris. p. cm. Summary: Best friends Cassie and Greg get caught in the middle of a decades-old football rivalry between their high school teams, the Spartans and the Trojans, in this novel loosely based on Homer s classic tale, the Iliad. ISBN 978-0-8109-4647-7 [1. Competition (Psychology)-Fiction. 2. Best friends-Fiction. 3. Friendship-Fiction. 4. Football-Fiction. 5. High schools-Fiction. 6. Schools-Fiction.] I. Title.
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8109-9665-6
PZ7.N7984Tro 2009 [Fic]-dc22 2008046182
Copyright 2009 Shana Norris Book design by Maria T. Middleton
Originally published in hardcover in 2009 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. This edition published in 2010. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Printed and bound in U.S.A. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialmarkets@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
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F OR MY GRANDPARENTS , C HARLES AND M ARY T HOMAS AND J IMMIE AND G EORGIA H UDLER

I THINK THERE IS NO ONE OF MEN WHO HAS ESCAPED FATE, NEITHER THE COWARD NOR THE BRAVE MAN, AFTER HE HAS ONCE BEEN BORN.
- Homer, The Iliad
IT WAS A LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON WHEN I kissed my best friend.
We had been playing our favorite video game, Martial Battle 2, in his parents den. Playing video games was something we did a lot. Kissing was not.
Oh, you are so dead, Cassie Prince, Greg Mennon growled, his eyes locked on the TV screen.
We watched as the two fighters on the screen lunged toward each other. My fighter, a woman dressed in a long flowing gown, grabbed Greg s hulking fighter and slung him over her shoulder. He fell so hard, he cracked the virtual floor. The screen proclaimed, CASSIE WINS!
That s what you think, I said, kicking Greg s foot with my own. I even beat you in heels.
You cheat, Greg told me.
I snorted. Yeah, okay. If it makes you feel any better, go ahead and believe that I cheat and not that you just suck.
Greg hit the button on his controller to start a new game and the Choose a Character screen appeared.
So tomorrow s the big day, he said as he selected his next fighter. We go back to being enemies again.
I rolled my eyes. I can hardly wait.
Every school had a bit of a rivalry with other schools, but the one between Lacede High and Troy High was legendary. It made sense, I suppose, that our mascots were the Spartans and Trojans, respectively. Just as the Greeks and Trojans battled thousands of years ago, our schools fought wars on the football field.
The rivalry had been going on since before my parents had been in high school. Back in the 1950s, right after Troy High was built, Lacede and Troy played their first football game against each other. The game took place at Lacede and everything was going fine-until the fourth quarter. Then a Trojan player caught the ball just before being roughly shoved out of bounds by a Spartan. Or at least, that s the Trojan version of the story. The Spartans claim that the Trojan had already stepped out of bounds before he caught the ball. The Trojan shoved the Spartan back and the coaches had to break them up so the game could continue. The referee sided with the Spartans.
But that wasn t the end of it. The next time the Trojans lined up to start their offensive play, one of the Spartans said the Trojans played football like little girls and they should try cheerleading instead. The quarterback leaped out of position to lunge at the Spartan and wrestle him to the ground. Soon, all of the players, even the ones who had been sitting on the sidelines at the time, were throwing punches at one another. And a bloody brawl ensued.
Troy lost the game, the Trojan quarterback was banned from the team for the rest of the season, and war between the schools had been declared. During my parents time at Troy, some guys had let a bunch of pigs loose during a dance at Lacede. In revenge, the Spartans had rigged up buckets of soured milk to dump onto the Trojans when they entered the school one morning.
The rivalry was a thing of legend around the two neighboring school districts. Everyone had a story. Everyone liked to act as if they played a part in continuing the saga.
Greg went to Lacede High.
I went to Troy.
Greg pressed the Start button and our fighters appeared onscreen again, staring at each other while the countdown flashed between them.
I punched at the buttons on my controller, making my fighter throw a wild series of punches and kicks so fast that Greg could barely get his fighter out of the way in time.
Twenty bucks says Lacede kicks Troy s butt this season, Greg grunted as his fingers tried to keep up with mine.
My dancing lady tried to grab Greg s blue wolverine, but he jumped out of the way at the last second, flying over her head to land behind her and grab her around the waist. The wolverine swung the dancing lady over his head, but I got her to free herself and somersault through the air, then land gracefully.
I rolled my eyes. You know I think that rivalry is stupid, but there is no way Lacede will beat Troy. You haven t seen Perry and Hunter practicing.
Perry and Hunter were my older brothers and both played on the Troy High football team, Hunter as the quarterback and Perry a cornerback.
And you haven t seen Lucas, Greg told me. His older brother was the Lacede quarterback.
His fighter grabbed mine again, but this time she couldn t break the hold. He tossed the dancing lady backward, slamming her into the ground.
Greg punched the air with his fists. Booyah! Who sucks now?
I threw my controller at him. Grow up. It s just a game.
Aw, what s wrong? Greg taunted me. Sad now that you lost? What happened to all those big words about how you can kick my butt in heels?
I bopped Greg over the head with a throw pillow. Shut up.
Wanna play again? he asked.
I m tired, I said, leaning back into the couch.
No, you re scared. He poked a finger into my ribs. Scared of being beat again.
Puh-leeze , I said, swatting his hand away.
But Greg wouldn t give up easily. You re scared of wounding your pride. Every time you start to lose, you claim you re tired. He leaned toward me, smirking. Admit it, Cassie. You re just scared. You ve never done a thing in your life that frightens you.
Oh, really? I asked, suddenly filled with annoyance and the desire to prove him wrong.
For months I had thought about kissing Greg, had even dreamed about it. But I d always been too afraid to do it, too afraid of ruining our friendship.
We d met two years ago at band camp, when Greg had discovered me hiding in a supply closet and scarfing down three pints of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream stolen from the counselors freezer while everyone else watched the evening movie. I had planned to share it with my roommates in the hopes that maybe they d stop calling me Gassie. Which they had started doing on our first night at band camp, when I accidentally laughed so hard that, well, you can guess what happened.
But then as I had headed back to my room with the stolen ice cream, I d overheard my roommates laughing about me with some other girls in the common room.
So I hid in the supply closet and started eating all of the ice cream myself. I was halfway through the third pint when the door opened and Greg came in, looking for a soft rag to clean his trumpet with.
I had seen Greg around camp before then, but I could never work up the courage to talk to him. Not only was he a Spartan-even in band camp Spartans and Trojans didn t mingle together-but also other people always surrounded him because he was so nice and friendly. And I well, before Greg, my last best friend had moved away when I was ten and I d just never really gotten along with anyone else. It didn t help that my brother Perry liked to tease me in school in front of everyone. The rest of Troy High followed his lead just because they thought he was so cool.
Now, the supply closet was pretty roomy, but I was not thrilled at having company. Just as I was about to hurl a spoonful of ice cream at Greg s face in the hopes of getting him to go away and leave me alone, he took the carton from me, helped himself to a big spoonful, and somehow made me laugh.
We d been inseparable ever since, even though our schools were the biggest rivals in the area. Unfortunately, we had to endure constant harassment about being friends.
But still, the thought of being more than friends ha