Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus is owned by Rick Riordan.

Chapter One

"Why is he bleeding?" They stare down at the boy lying on the ground. Bianca tilts her head.

"Because he's an idiot," Nico snorts. "A stupid, hopeless, idiot."

"I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose."

"I think it's a new phenomenon." He laughs. "Yeah. I can picture it. Kids Get Nosebleeds Because of Extreme Idiocy. Scientists Find No Cure."

"Hey, Nico. Bianca. You guys know I can hear you, right?" They turn back to Percy, his hand covering up a mess of blood. Nico rolls his eyes.

"No, I thought you were earless, dummy."

Percy sticks out his tongue. "I'm fine. It's just a nosebleed. And I'm not a dummy, I'm a stupid, hopeless, idiot."

Bianca laughs. Her little brother glares at her. "What?" she asks Nico. "You said it."

"Just go wash your face, Percy. And change your shirt," Nico says, turning back to his cousin. "Quick, before it gets all over the grass. You know Gaea hates it when we mess up the lawn."

"Crap, Gaea's here? She might just be the strictest park gardener in the history of park gardeners. Oh gods, I see her coming. Crap. Crap, alright. Okay. I'm going."

He gets up and trudges away, wiping his nose on his left sleeve.

Nico shares a look with his sister. "Let's see how long he lasts at Goode without getting himself into idiotic situations," she says.

"He's a stupid, hopeless, idiot. What do you expect?"

They laugh, both knowing that he isn't really stupid, but he is sometimes an idiot, and he's definitely hopeless.

ooo

Percy feels his cousin's hands on his shoulder. "Go on," Nico urges him. "They're not going to hurt you."

Percy rolls his eyes. "Yeah, right. Have you been to high school? Do you know what high school is?"

"Have you been to Goode?" Nico asks. "Do you know what the definition of the word 'good' is?"

He nods. "Yeah."

Nico claps him on the back. "Great. Because Goode is nothing like that."

They both press their hands to the big metal doors, and with the click of the handle starting a series of movements in the lock, they're inside.

ooo

The first person he talks to doesn't know Nico, but she seems to know the person behind Nico.

"Grover!" the girl calls out.

The boy behind Nico–Grover, apparently–waves back to her. She makes her way through the sea of students, jostling him in the process. She must have felt it, too, because she turns around to Percy instead of continuing to the so-called 'Grover'.

"You're new, right? I'm Annabeth."

Annabeth has blonde hair–which is normal–and grey eyes–which are not. Not blue-ish grey, either. They're an intense, stormy color. Percy isn't sure if he's scared of them, or mystified. Probably both.

"Uh, yeah. I'm Percy Jackson."

"Percy Jackson," she breathes, staring at him with all her might, "you have drool on your shirt."

He looks down at his wrinkled t-shirt, and seeing a spot of something, he realizes this girl–Annabeth–is right. He isn't sure what to say, but he feels his face getting redder and redder, so he looks down at his shoes.

Nico snickers behind him.

Blondie spots him and leans in his direction. "Who's this, Percy Jackson?"

Still a little pink, he tells her that it's his cousin, Nico.

"What class do you guys have next?" Annabeth asks, tucking a loose blonde curl behind her ear.

Nico says that he has science, but Percy isn't sure. "I don't know," he admits. "I forgot."

His cousin nudges him. "That's why we have schedules, dummy."

With a glint in his eyes, he says, "I'm not a dummy, I'm a stupid, hopeless, idiot."

Annabeth hands him a paper he hadn't even noticed he's dropped. "Okay, stupid, hopeless, idiot," she says, smirking, "let's see how well you can survive a lunch period at Goode. You'll see my table in the corner, okay?"

"Um, yeah. Okay."

ooo

Math has always sucked, but Algebra is worse.

Mrs. Dodds (Percy isn't even sure why anyone would marry her, but she is a Mrs.) already hates him, even though he hasn't said a word to her. Maybe she can just tell that he's bad at math. Maybe she sees the look in his eyes that means he's so bored, he might just fall asleep. Whatever it is, she hates him.

"Mr. Jackson!" she bellows, clutching her stick of chalk so tightly it starts to crumble. "You haven't answered a single question this morning. Does that mean that you've already covered this subject?"

He looks up from his empty notebook and his perfectly sharpened pencil with a chewed up eraser and frowns. "No, I–"

"Perfect!" she chortles, strands of grey hair slipping out of her bun. "Why don't you come up and answer this one?" she asks, scribbling a new problem onto the big, green, chalkboard.

He walks up slowly, so slowly, that she tells him to hurry up. He hears some kids giggling, others looking just as bored as him. The white chalk dusts his fingers, and powder falls off of the edges when he writes a, slightly crooked, equal sign. The problem makes his head spin. Numbers and letters seem to be moving around and changing place.

"Mrs. Dodds!" a boy yells out. Percy spins around, spotting the boy that Annabeth had been waving to earlier. "Mrs. Dodds!" he calls again.

"What is it, Grover?"

"The bell is about to ring. Can we start packing up?"

She checks her watch and nods, scowling. "Alright. You may be seated, Mr. Jackson."

When the bell does ring, its sound peeling through the classroom, everyone jumps out of their seats and rush to the door, sporting large heavy binders. Grover's waiting for him, smiling slightly.

"Thank you."

"No problem, Percy. She's always like that."

"Is she even human?" he jokes.

Grover laughs. "No way. She's definitely at least part monster."

ooo

When he does find Annabeth's lunch table, there are more people than he would have expected there to be.

A girl with hair the brightest, reddest, bushiest hair waves at him. She's holding a pile of fortune-cookies, each one neatly inside their own plastic packaging. Percy shyly waves back.

"Sit down!" Annabeth tells him, pulling out a chair next to her own. The metal legs screech loudly on the cafeteria floor.

He lays his tray down at the table and sits, even slowly than he had walked to the chalkboard in Algebra.

"This is Percy Jackson," Annabeth tells her friends. "Percy, these are my friends."

"Hi, friends," he says.

There's a Piper and a Leo, who are seated next to each other. There's a Frank, who's a little more timid than the rest, and the redhead turns out to be named Rachel. Apparently she's the queen of fortune cookies. Grover's there, too, in a Rasta cap and crutches leaning against his chair. The fall down multiple times, and every time he just picks them up and leans them on the back of his chair again.

Then there's Thalia and Jason Grace, and Hazel Levesque, all of whom Percy knows. Of course, he hadn't known they went to Goode (Nico had, for some reason, neglected to tell him that), but it makes him feel a little better to have three more cousins at school. Hazel was Nico and Bianca's half-sister, and even though they didn't look the same or have the same mother (unlike him and Bianca), they were close.

"Perseus!" Thalia exclaims. "You didn't tell me you were coming to Goode!"

Rachel spits out her chocolate milk. "Did you say Perseus?" she snorts. Thalia ignores her.

He likes them all.

He's never really had friends before, except for his baby brother, Tyson, and his mother, but neither can really be considered his friends.

When they're all packing up their things, a group approaches the table. The boy leading them has golden hair and a long scar along his face. There's two girls behind him. One is beautiful but nasty at the same time, and the other looks like someone's sprayed liquid cheetos all over her face.

"Who's this?" the boy asks Blondie. "A new kid?"

She doesn't answer. She doesn't look at him. For a moment, she doesn't even breathe. No one at the table does, until Frank squeaks, "Please go away, Luke."

But he doesn't seem like he wants to. Neither do the two girls by his side, both smiling. They pull up chairs and sit down on either side of Percy.

"I'm Nancy," Cheeto-Face says, "and that's Drew."

"Um, hi."

He stares at his tray so hard, he thinks it might explode. He concentrates in the ridges and the carvings in the plastic. He looks at the logo on the side as if it is the most interesting thing in the world. Right now, it just might be.

They tease, too. They laugh at Annabeth and at Rachel and at Jason. When they dump a full carton of skim milk (which, at least in Percy's opinion, is the single most disgusting thing on the planet) on Hazel's head, Percy realizes he's had enough. And suddenly, his fist is in Luke's face, and then Luke's on the ground, and the whole cafeteria is staring at them in their little corner.

The rest of the table is staring at him, too.

But the difference is, they're smiling.