Chapter One: Avalon Gaery

My name is Avalon Gaery, and there are a few things you need to know.

For one thing, I've been kicked out of several schools in the last year. For a long time, my mom, brother, and I had been crossing the country in hopes of a place we could settle down in. But we ended up going from Oregon to New York within ten years. We started moving around when I was seven, and barely two years later my brother moved away. All I could remember of him, besides his name being Felix, was that I hated his guts even more than a regular brother-sister relationship.

It was the beginning of November when I had the dream about a guy a year younger than me, about sixteen, and two other people at a phone booth. They were crowded around it, trying to get the person on the other side of the connection to listen to them. One of them had black hair and sea green eyes. Next to him was a girl with blonde hair and a guy with brown hair.

"This is to protect you," the girl said into the phone, "Now where are you? Where is your parent?"

She waited to hear a short response.

"Please I-" she began.

"Annabeth, let me talk to her," the guy with green eyes said, "I might be able to get her to listen."

"I don't know, Percy," the other guy said, "I think we'd be better if we just go off now and try finding her manually."

"Just let me try," he replied.

Uncertainly, Annabeth handed the phone over to him.

"Hello? Are you still there?" Percy said into the phone.

He paused to let the girl reply.

"Look, I'm pretty sure you don't know me, and I'm sorry, but I can't tell you my name. Your friend, Dominic Yuley, is he with you?"

There was another short answer.

"I know it's very confusing, but you need to get him and his brother over to your house right now. This is important. They are in danger."

The person on the other line shouted into their phone so loud Percy pushed the phone away from his ear.

"What? No! This isn't a prank. And who's Derick?" He paused. "Derick is Dominic's brother?" Percy looked a bit panicky. "No! Don't-" He cursed under his breath and slammed the phone down.

"Dominic has a brother?" Annabeth asked.

Percy nodded and looked at his other friend. "Grover, do you think you can track down where she is? Hopefully she still gets Dominic and his brother over-"

I sat up in bed, gasping for breath. What was that about? Shaking my head, I got up and got dressed. It was already five o'clock. If I wanted to be on time for school for once in a while, I'd have to eat breakfast pretty fast.

As it happened to turn out, my mom, Audrey Gaery, had prepared me bacon and eggs. After saying good morning, I sat down and began wolfing down my breakfast, already forgetting about my dream.

"Sweety, you don't have to eat everything in two seconds," my mom said.

I swallowed a bit of egg. "Todays an important day, Mom," I told her, "It's the day Johnny comes back from the hospital. And don't call me Sweety."

"Johnny's coming back?" She didn't seemed any bit more interested in my reasoning behind eating so quickly as she was before.

"I got a text from his dad yesterday," I explained, "The doctors finally think the cancer is gone. He's coming back. I don't want to be late."

She looked at me skeptically. "The cancer's gone? That doesn't just happen, though..."

I glared at her. "It did happen," I snapped, "That's what matters." I stood up. "Well, I'm out of here."

"Alright," my mom said, "Be good, though. And don't make any trouble at school."

"I'll do my best," I said as she kissed my forehead, even though I was thinking, Yeah, like that's going to happen.

You see, I have a small track record with bringing trouble to schools. Well, I wouldn't say small... After all, one nearly burned down. Another was nearly blown to bits. I went to summer school once to learn archery, and guess what happened? Several trees nearly fell on top of the headmaster of camp. I always got blamed, one way or another. I was surprised that I had lasted as long as I had at this school, Firzenax. And it was only a little over three months through the school year. Pretty sad, right?

My mom was driving out of the parking lot outside of where we lived when I walked outside with my backpack. I raced down the sidewalk and through the street to where the bus stop was, ignoring the people who honked at me when I crossed the street without looking either way. Breathless and out of energy, I stopped at the corner of two streets in the middle of a small crowd of people.

"Are you alright, Avalon?" the kid next to me asked.

I nodded my head and straightened up. "I could run for another mile, Dominic," I told him, smiling.

"But you made it on time," he teased, "You never make it on time."

"Today's special," I said, "because Johnny's coming back."

"Johnny's coming back?" Dominic gasped, "Johnny Rosener?"

I nodded, laughing in relief. "I got the text last night. His father said he's going to bring him over to the school today. He said he's well enough to come for at least a day."

"This is great!" Dominic said, "Johnny's coming back!"

"Rosener?" someone nearby said. I recognized Derick, Dominic's brother. He was probably one of the only people who didn't care if Johnny recovered. "The cancer patient recovered? Oh, that's a miracle, isn't it?"

I balled my fists at the sneering tone of his voice. Lucky him, the bus rolled up right then and there. Everyone hopped on.

There were several reasons that some people tend to miss when it comes to me being friends with Dominic and not Derick. They were brothers, had the same mischievous smiles, had the same curly black hair, but they were nothing alike, which is something Derick argued about a lot. But Derick was more of an evil angel while Dominic was a savior. Dominic had had the guts to actually say hi the first day of school when he had seen me sitting alone at lunch. Derick would only walk by me and try stealing something out of my pocket each day, hoping I wouldn't notice. Dominic had always gotten my things back, even if it did enrage his brother, who was a senior.

Once settled on the bus, Dominic and I pulled out our cell phones and texted as many people as we could about Johnny. We told a bunch of other people on the bus also, so even more people were texting others. When we got to the high school, it became apparent that they already knew. Johnny had been big news to the school when they found out he had cancer. They had been nice enough to fund the project that would rid him of cancer, and seeing him come back must be a huge announcement, seeing how there was a banner that read: Welcome Back!

"I wonder how many people already know," I said as we stepped off of the bus, "I mean, the school must've only just found out last night, but they probably are messaging the parents or something."

"It's possible," Dominic said, picking a few roses out of the school's flower bed. When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "If Johnny had a favorite flower, they'd better be roses."

I smiled at him. He'd always been considerate of others. He sometimes would even go the lengths of stealing to quench other's sorrows. He reached over and pulled a length of ribbon from a senior's pocket and wrapped it around the stem of the roses.

"You know, you shouldn't be stealing things from other people," I said quietly, waiting for the mob of people to go through the door.

"Is it really stealing if you're doing it for someone else?" Dominic asked.

"It justifies it, maybe," I told him, "but you're still stealing from someone."

He sighed. "Well, it being justified is enough for me."

We rushed up the stairs when we got to them and navigated around the halls to find our lockers. I said goodbye when he found his locker and continued on my way to find my own.

The day went slowly. Gym passed. Math dragged on. Social Studies nearly bored me to death. Science wasn't all too interesting. Language Arts came and went. And then Latin was interrupted with an assembly. Everyone went to the auditorium to see what was going on. Walking in, I saw the principal standing on the stage with the microphone in his hands. We were only waiting for a few minutes when he started.

"I've been hearing quite a few questions being passed around the school about the banister on the front of the school," Mr. Pardoa said, "Well, we have some good news for you. Everyone remembers young Mr. Johnny Rosener, yes?"

There was a lot of nodding and many people said, "Yeah."

"Just last night, around eleven o'clock, we got a message from Mr. Rosener's father about his condition," Mr. Pardoa said. He stopped, letting all of this sink in. A few people waited with baited breath. "It has been officially announced that he has been cured of cancer completely."

Everyone began clapping and standing up. A few people had tears in their eyes. I heard someone say, "He'll live!" A bunch of people were hugging their friends. The principal asked everyone to have a seat as the commotion died down.

"I have a printed version of what Mr. Rosener said," Mr. Pardoa told everyone, "Here, Mr. Rosener said, 'The doctors called it a miracle, but Johnny and I call it a blessing. We'd like to-' You know what? I'm not going to read this." He glanced over to his left. "Mr. Rosener, would you please come out here?"

Even I gasped as Johnny was rolled out on a wheelchair by his father, looking as if he had never left at all. Both of them were smiling big time. Someone started clapping, setting everyone else off. A few of the teachers whistled in congratulations as the microphone was passed to Johnny's father.

"As Mr. Pardoa has said," he said, "both Johnny and I call his recovering a blessing. Honestly, the doctors had almost given up by that time, but we kept on fighting. A few people called us foolish, some people called us downright stupid for fighting on and on, but now we can look them in the eyes and say, 'But look at where it got us, look at where we have gone.'"

There was even more clapping. Johnny whispered something to his dad and he was passed the microphone. The clapping died down momentarily.

"What my dad has said is true," Johnny said, and I was surprised to hear how strong his voice was, "but really, we couldn't've done it without all of you. I mean, the fund raisers, the hope you all gave not only me but my parents and their parents and everyone else in our family, we couldn't've gone very far without all of that, so here's a round of applause for all of you."

Everyone clapped again.

"Now, don't take me wrong when I say this, but there are two people out there in the crowd, at least I hope they're out there, and I'd like to recognize them especially," Johnny said, "Please welcome to the stage Avalon Gaery and Dominic Yuley."

A lump formed in the back of my throat as I stood up and walked towards the stage. Dominic did the same, still holding his roses in his hands. Everyone was clapping once again. And then Johnny surprised everyone once more by standing up and giving Dominic and I a big hug. He stayed standing.

"Avalon and Dominic both have regularly been paying me visits down at the hospital," Johnny said, "They joked around with me and talked to me. Each time they came around, I forgot about the cancer, I forgot about why I was in the hospital. They really did help me through this trying time."

Everyone began clapping, again. Someone shouted, "Speech!"

A lot of people chuckled at that, even Dominic, Johnny, and I. Johnny shrugged and handed the microphone to Dominic.

"Oh, er, lady's first," he said, and pushed the microphone into my hands, getting a lot of laughing out of that.

I shook my head. "Fine," I said, "I know a lot of you know I absolutely hate speeches, but I'll try my best. I really am glad about Johnny recovering, I mean, who wouldn't? It truly is a blessing that he has recovered. I don't think anything could really mess up this moment, right now. Nothing could."

Everyone clapped as I handed the microphone to Dominic.

"Now, er, I agree with all Avalon has said," he said, "And, if I was the principal of this school, I think this would deserve a party, right?"

I heard Johnny laughing quietly as everyone began cheering and couldn't resist laughing a bit also. Mr. Pardoa took the microphone.

"There will be one in the gym directly following this," he said, and the cheering got louder, "There will be food and drinks there. Please follow your teacher's instructions."

Mr. Rosener insisted Johnny sit back down in his wheelchair as everyone began filing out of the auditorium. Dominic clapped him on the back.

"It's nice to see you, bro," he said.

"Same here," Johnny said, "We'll see you in the auditorium, Mr. Pardoa."

The principal nodded and walked off.

"I'll be in the gym, Johnny," Mr. Rosener said, "I'll let you all catch up."

He walked over to the principal and together they walked out of the auditorium.

"So," I said, "what exactly happened before your recovery?"

Johnny rolled back and forth in his wheelchair. "Well, I can't really explain it," he said, "This man came in to say hi and gave me his condolences as everyone else did, and then he said, 'You will get better. I know you will.' It was weird, as if that guy had an idea of how I was going to recover. And..."

"What is it?" Dominic asked.

"Well, the guy, he had sandy hair, outdoorsy good looks, and a really bright smile." He looked at me a bit shyly. "Avalon, you showed me the one picture of your father. I think that guy was your dad."