Chapter 1- Of Crazy Girls and Flying Babies

Luke was sitting at the table, doing his homework. Tavy, his younger brother, was sitting next to him, eating chocolate chip cookies. This obviously resulted in Luke giving up trying to guess which continent was Asia and instead start eating cookies with his brother. Just when he was about to grab the last cookie, someone knocked on the door. He instinctively looked in that direction, while Tavy made a grab for the last cookie and put it in his mouth. Luke looked back at the plate and, seeing it empty, turned to glare at his brother, who in turn stuck his tongue out at him.

-Knock, knock, KNOCK.

Luke got up quickly. It looked like someone was trying to knock down the door. He then remembered that said person had already knocked on the door once and was probably really upset about the fact that the door remained closed. Especially due to the fact that it was raining outside. Oops.

/-/-/-/

Thalia was very wet, very tired and very upset. The fact that the door was still closed after she had knocked on it twice did nothing to change her mood. Oh wait, it looked like the door was opening. She glared at it like it was the cause of all her troubles.

A blond boy, about nine years old, was the person that opened the door. And which consequently was at the receiving end of Thalia's stare. He was about to apologise when he noticed exactly who was the person that had been knocking on the door. Which just happened to be a rather wet seven-year old girl wearing what must have once been a pretty pink dress before it had been covered with mud, carrying a blond baby, who was miraculously still asleep, and glaring at him like he had pushed her into a puddle of water and then ran away.

Before the boy could say anything, however, Thalia stormed in and placed the baby on the couch. Said baby had been covered by a light blue blanket and was therefore significantly less soaked than the girl. She then turned around to face the boy.

-Are you just going to stay there and get soaked? 'Cause I've just done that and it isn't as fun as you might think.

Luke, who had indeed forgotten to close the door (actually, he had been standing still ever since he opened the door), quickly closed it. The girl looked kind of familiar to him. In fact, he now remembered seeing her at school. However, they had never even spoken to each other and the girl was two years younger than him, so he had no idea what she was doing in his house.

-Who are you?

Luke didn't ask that question. It was asked by Tavy, who had just appeared from behind the couch. Three-year olds do that sometimes. You know, appear out of nowhere.

-Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus.

Oh, that explains quite a lot, thought Luke. The main reason he remembered Thalia was because she had once been thrown out of class for somehow electrocuting another girl. Which was weird, because before that incident Luke had considered her a girly kind of girl. (Electrocuting people didn't seem like a very girly thing to do in Luke's mind. Maybe the other girl had insulted her clothes and hairstyle? Luke filled it away under Things to Think About Later.) It also explained why she had randomly appeared at his house. Although how she had figured that Luke was a demigod and where he lived was a mystery to him.

-The pine tree?

Thalia looked at Tavy with a weird look in her face. Luke decided it was best to interrupt that conversation before Tavy started to tell Thalia how she would die. That's another thing three-year olds do sometimes. You know, prophesize people's dooms.

-What are you doing here?

-Oh, I was just singing in the rain with my baby brother when I saw your house and I thought "Well, ain't that a jolly good house" so I decided I would just pop by. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a nice warm bath. Watch Jason so that he doesn't do anything stupid like, you know, fly to the moon or something. Where's the bathroom by the way?

Before Luke could say anything, Tavy pointed towards the bathroom and Thalia, thanking Tavy with a nod of her head, went inside the bathroom. Luke sighed. Tavy just didn't see anything wrong with letting crazy seven-year old demigod girls take a bath in your bathroom, when they hadn't even been invited to your house in the first place.

-The baby's awake.

Luke turned to the couch, but he didn't see anything there. Not a waking baby, not a sleeping baby. He looked at his brother, wondering if he had picked the baby up when Luke wasn't looking despite barely managing to lift a cookie jar. Tavy was staring at the ceiling. Luke frowned and followed his gaze. A little blond baby was floating in the air, almost touching the ceiling, his little blanket held tight in his arms. He seemed quite pleased with himself. He also seemed to be drooling. On top of Luke. How much weirder could things get?

-Let's call him Fly.

Luke looked at his brother. Tavy was smiling as if someone had just given him a puppy as a birthday gift. Luke was about to explain to him all the reasons why he couldn't keep the baby when Tavy's eyes glowed green. He turned to stare at his brother and then, with a voice that was definitely not his, he spoke.

-The Wolves are coming.

As soon as he said that, his eyes turned blue again. Tavy shivered and then went back to staring at Fly. Luke bit his lip and stared at his brother, a worried look on his face. It had been almost two months since the last of Tavy's, well, seizures. And some good four days since his month's last one. At least Tavy hadn't seemed to notice this one. Or maybe he had just learned not to care. He had seen it happen tons of times now, but it didn't make it any less scary. He would give anything so that his mother and brother would stop having these seizures.

-Jason, get down from the ceiling. Come here now, it's dinner time.

Luke turned around to see Thalia standing at the door of the living room/entrance, with her arms raised towards her baby brother. Wait, were those Luke's clothes she was wearing? He was just about to question her about that when his brother interrupted him. Luke was getting interrupted too many times this afternoon for his liking.

-His name is Fly now. -He informed Thalia.

Thalia paused, as if thinking about something. She then smiled.

-Fly is a cool name. We'll call him Fly from now on. We need to do a baptizing ceremony first though.

Tavy's eyes lit up at the word "ceremony". He quickly ran to his bedroom, no doubt in search of ingredients for the ceremony. Luke hoped he wasn't going to cook the baby. He turned to look at Thalia

-Why are you wearing my clothes?

-Well, it's not like I had anything else to wear, is it?

-What about the dress you were wearing?

-It's dirty. And wet. Plus, I threw it away.

-Why?

-Because it was dirty. And wet. Plus, I really hate dresses and fancy hairstyles.

-Then why are you always wearing them?

-Because of my mom. She's obsessed with clothes and alcoholic drinks. Which is why I am going to live with you from now on.

Luke looked surprised.

-But won't your mom notice?

-Nope. She just notices clothes, not people. Talking about moms, where is yours? Is she sleeping?

Luke nodded.

-She's really nice, I bet she'll like you. Why did you come here of all places though?

Thalia smiled.

-Well, I didn't really know where I was going when I ran away but after a few houses I saw yours and it looked nice and comfy. Plus, there were little statues of greek monsters in the lawn so I figured that you must be a demigod too. And then when you opened your door I recognised you from school. Who's your godly parent, by the way?

Luke was surprised. Thalia had noticed him at school?

-Hermes. Also legacy of Apollo, which means my great grandfather was Apollo.

Thalia smiled.

-Pleasure to meet you, Luke son of Hermes.

-The pleasure's all mine, Thalia daughter of Zeus.

They shook hands.

-Now, if I'm not mistaken we have a baptizing ceremony to attend. Better hurry or we'll miss all the fun.