This is my first attempt at a PJO story, and it doesn't even really have a plot! It's mostly just going to be short chapters based on some things that happened to Percy before The Lightning Thief and all his other adventures, with two or three things every chapter. There probably won't be that many of them, it's just something I thought I'd try :P And on a completely unrelated note, I found out how to make page breaks!

One of the hardest things writing this was refraining from using big words, haha. Percy is six in this chapter, so it would be pretty unnatural for a six-year-old to have the vocabulary of someone who's *my age that I'm not saying on the Internet*.

Disclaimer: Ugh, I forgot to put one of these on my other stories. Whoops. Anyway. I'm not Rick Riordan, because I'm *my age that I'm not saying on the Internet*. But I can tell you guys that I'm younger than him.

I was being stalked again.

It had happened at every school I went to. You would think I got used to it over time, but I didn't. Every time it happened I just felt scared like the last time, and I knew I'd be just as scared the next time just as much as I knew there would be a next time.

See, weird things happen to me no matter where I go or what I do. One of my earliest memories is from pre-school, when we had naptime. I miss naptime, I really do. Anyway, during my nap I strangled a snake. Don't ask me how, but when my mom came to pick me up, I was playing with its dead body.* Gross, if you ask me. That was two years ago. I was four.

When I was in kindergarten, well, kindergarten only lasted a day. I walked in and my teacher had snakes for hair. Like, real live snakes that were hissing and everything. I knew because I'd seen snakes before on TV. I said I felt sick - not a complete lie - and I went to the nurse's office. The nurse called my mom, who came to get me. On the ride home, I cried about the snake-haired teacher and said I never wanted to go back. Well, you can imagine my relief when she said I didn't have to.

So I kind of skipped kindergarten. I went back to real school for first grade, which I'm about to finish. I'm going to first-grade graduation next week and it will be the most fun thing ever, not to mention the first time I ever finished a year of school.

Now I might not, because of the old lady in the street.

She was one of those old ladies that you might see wandering around a Goodwill store, who barely has enough money to get enough food for herself. Mom says I shouldn't stare at them, but when this one crossed the street outside the playground, I couldn't help it.

The old lady had fangs. I'm not kidding. Real fangs. And claws. She didn't look at me, but I knew she was here for me. She'd dropped all her groceries that she had been carrying on the sidewalk and was picking them up way too slowly. I tried to get a teacher to make her go away, but they didn't. They couldn't see the fangs and claws! I told the teacher that she was stalking me, but he didn't believe me. He said she was picking everything up too slow because she had Arthur Itis. I don't know what that is, but he said it's a disease that old people get when they get old.

What that has to do with the fang lady, I'm not sure. I don't think she has a disease, unless there's a disease that can give you fangs and claws. One time she looked up at me, and I think it might have given me a heart attack. I don't know exactly what a heart attack does, but I've heard people say it when they get really surprised or scared. I was both of those. The fang lady's eyes were on fire! They were glowing! I think she may have even hissed at me.

I have never been so glad for recess to be over. When school was done and Mom came to pick me up, I ran to her as fast as I could and slammed the car door shut, buckling the seat belt on my car seat.

She just laughed and said, "Are you that excited about meeting Gabe?"

I had forgotten about that.

That night I met Gabriel Ugliano for the first time. He was a real charmer... for about thirty seconds.

Mom found him on this weird-o dating web site for losers who can't get a girl who they actually meet in person. At least, that's what I thought, because all the guys on there were drop-dead UGLY! I'd seen a bunch of their pages. They looked like cows, and Gabe was the ugly one to rule all the other ugly ones.

Mom had shown me a picture of Gabe. She'd printed it off from the web site so she would know who to look for when we went out for sandwiches tonight.

"Now, Percy, this is Gabe," she had said. "If things go well, then Gabe might be your new daddy. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"He's gonna be my daddy?" I asked, nose wrinkled in disgust. "He can't be. He's ugly. That's not what my daddy looks like." Yeah, I never knew my dad. But I had a trace of a memory. It wasn't much, just a smile, and a warm feeling I felt whenever I thought of him. That was my dad.

I'd never seen a picture of him, either. Mom didn't have any, and whenever I asked why not, she said she didn't want to talk about it. She had taught me that if someone says they don't want to talk about something, then I shouldn't keep asking them about it.

"I know," was all she said in reply. "But he's not your real daddy. He might be your new daddy."

I still didn't want to meet him, or even have anything to do with him, so I was pouting in my car seat all the way to the restaurant.

When we pulled up, Mom turned around and sighed. "I want you to have a good attitude, Percy. Please. This means a lot to me." Another thing she drilled into my head was that if something means a lot to somebody, then I shouldn't try and get in the way.

We walked in, and as soon as we did I wanted to leave. Gabe Ugliano was fat, ugly, and smelled totally gross. Kind of like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.** Yuck.

When he saw us he broke out in a yellow-toothed smile. "Sally and Percy?" he asked. His breath smelled like smoke. I bet one of the cigarettes in the ash tray outside was his. No, actually, I think his would probably be laying on the ground somewhere.

"Yes," Mom answered. "And you're Gabe?"

"Charmed," he replied. He and Mom shook hands, and Mom gave me a look, like, see Percy? He's a perfectly nice man, even if he does smell bad. I didn't care. I still didn't like him.

But even the kind factor was self destructed a few minutes later, when Gabe asked my mom, "So are you payin' for yourself and the kid?"

He probably couldn't tell, but I knew my mom well enough to tell the look of hidden anger that passed over her face. "I wasn't aware I was meant to," she answered calmly.

"Fine, woman, I'll do it," he said, but he didn't sound like he was real happy about it.

When we ordered and the person at the cash register told Gabe the price, his face turned purple. "That's ridiculous," he snorted. "Robbery, that is." And Gabe started cussing out the poor random worker, who started sputtering and turning red. Gabe even said some words I didn't know.

Mom was as embarrassed as the worker. I bet she came across jerks like him at the candy store sometimes. "Gabriel, just stop it. I can pay." He backed off, breathing heavily like he'd just been in an intense fight.

The rest of the time we were with Gabe, he acted like a total jerk. I don't know why Mom said this meant so much to her, but since it did, I just kept my mouth shut for most of the time. It was hard when he started talking about me.

"So what's with this kid anyways?" he asked with his mouth full. "He don't talk much. You don't talk much, do you, kiddo?"

"He just takes a while to get used to new people," Mom replied.

"Huh. Well, we'll be good buddies in no time, won't we, kid?" He flashed a disgusting smile at me. I wanted to toss my drink in his face.

When dinner was over, Gabe staggered up. "Well, nice meetin' ya, Sally," he said, giving us another whiff of his smoky breath that now also smelled of his supper. I think I might have grimaced just a little. Gabe was so smelly! Smelly Gabe, I thought. A fitting nickname. "Real nice one, you are. I've taken a liking to you." he winked, but it looked more like he was trying to disfigure his face.

We finally got into our car and drove away from Smelly Gabe. When we did, I blurted, "Mom, don't ever date him again!"

She didn't answer, but I knew she was thinking the same thing.

It turned out I was wrong about that. In August, while we were on our annual trip to Montauk, my very favorite place in the whole world, for my birthday, she laid the big news on me.

She was getting married to Smelly Gabe. The minute the words came out of my mouth, I started crying. Yeah, I'm not much of a crying kind of guy, but imagine the grossest guy you know. Then imagine him being your stepdad. Dare you not to cry!

"Why?" I asked. "I don't like him. He's smelly and mean and... and I don't like him!"

"I know you don't," she said sadly. "I don't like him much, either."

"Then why are you marrying him?" I wailed. She frowned at me, and I realized that she hadn't been done talking.

"I have to, Percy. I have to marry him. You'll know why when you're older."

I didn't want to know when I was older. I wanted to know now. "But he's too mean for you," I sobbed. "You need someone nice... like Dad..." I knew he wouldn't ever let Mom get married to Smelly Gabe if he was here. Who cares about what I'm going to know when I'm older?

"No, don't say that. Your dad is part of the reason I have to." Then she must have really felt bad for me, because she got me ice cream, which I ate, but it didn't make me feel a whole lot less miserable.

And that was why my seventh birthday was my worst one yet.

*Percy mentions that situation on page 40 of The Lightning Thief

**the "moldy garlic pizza..." description came from The Lightning Thief, page 30