I leaned back in my seat and checked my watch for the 100th time that lesson. It was the last lesson of the day and just five more minutes remained so I couldn't be bothered to do any more work. It was the last week of school before the summer holiday and most the teachers had at least attempted to make their usually dull lessons vaguely entertaining. Mrs Harrietsham was the exception and would continue to work us hard right up until the last second. Luckily for my classmates it was their last lesson with her, ever. Unluckily for me I was being moved down a set and was stuck with that cursed Maths teacher for another year. But I put that fact out of my mind. In one week I would be on holiday and not only that my stepdad was taking my mum and I to America for two weeks.

When the lesson had finally finished I hurried out the door and walked briskly to my locker. I knelt down and tried to jam my key into my lock, but everyone was desperate to get home so I ended up getting crushed up against the lockers. Only when most of the kids had left was I able to shove my maths book back in my locker and stretch my legs. I stood up, turned around and walked right into the boy who had his locker above mine. He was called Grover which I thought was a pretty weird name, and he was American, from New York to be precise. He had curly hair, a bad case of acne and a bit of a limp.

"Sorry…" I murmured.

"It's alright." He replied.

"Why are so late coming out?" I wondered allowed.

He shrugged. "Talking to a teacher. You're name's Lily, right?"

"Yeah. You walking into town?" I asked and he nodded. I didn't know him that well but I had no one else to walk with so I figured what the hell.

"You haven't seen Dan have you?" Grover asked. Dan was his best friend.

"Nope, sorry."

The walk into town passed quickly but then again it usually does when I'm talking to someone. It didn't seem long before Grover said he had to go.

"Hey!" I shouted. "I never asked, what are you doing over the summer?"

"Me and Dan are going to New York,"

I laughed nervously "That's so weird, I'm going there too!"

"Maybe we'll bump into each other."

"Yeah, maybe. Bye then!"

"Bye, Lily."

The week passed quickly enough and it wasn't long before we were clearing out our lockers for good… Well six weeks anyway. I tried not to show it too much but I was seriously excited about going to New York. The furthest I had ever got from England was France so it was going to be the first time I had ever travelled on a plane. The flight we were due to be on left at 7:00 am so we had to get up at half two in the morning. Luckily the cases were already packed and waiting by the door so all I had to do was pull myself out of bed and get dressed.

The taxi journey to the airport took a surprisingly short time but then again not many people are up and about at three in the morning so it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. The airport itself was immense, though I think I would have still been impressed if it had been half the size. Never having even entered an airport before, I founded myself gazing at the simplest little thing and feeling rather small. By the time we had got to the departure lounge I had worked myself into a bit of a state. I could see a variety of planes on the runway through a giant window and I couldn't understand how anything made of metal could actually fly.

The journey to the JFK International airport took seven hours and 45 minutes and despite having got up so early I couldn't sleep at all. Everything from the food to the safety instructions in the back of the seat fascinated me and my stepdad Graham provided me with endless anecdotes about his many plane journeys. My mum meanwhile wasn't quite so confident; she griped the armrests, her nails digging in painfully. It didn't help my initial first-flight jitters. Especially when she started muttering "Please don't let the plane crash!" I didn't realise it at the time but it was quite a bumpy ride, there seemed to be an awful lot of turbulence and the landing couldn't have been bumpier but as a first time flyer I thought it was normal. My mum looked so relieved when we could finally get off the plane.

"Well." She said. "Thank God that's over!"

I laughed. "I didn't know you were scared of flying."

Graham smiled, "Honestly Sarah, there's nothing scary about flying!"

"I wasn't scared!" My mum said defensively and rather ironically.

That just made Graham and I laugh even more.

We left the airport and hailed a taxi to our hotel. As I sat in the back of the taxi I discovered three things that really got me about New York. The first thing was the accents. I know, I know it sounds stupid but I'd never visited the USA before and the only place I'd ever seen America was on the TV screen. The other thing that got me about New York: The sheer size of it. I was dwarfed by comparison as I followed my mum and stepdad to the hotel, buildings loomed above me and cast gigantic shadows. The third thing was the cars. Yellow taxis, cars driving on the right side of the road, over head traffic lights… Actually everything about New York was alien to me but I loved it all the same.

When we arrived at our hotel my mum and Graham went to check in while I dragged the suitcases over to the lounge area and got my book out of my in flight bag. It was a book on Greek mythology, which I'd become rather interested in towards the end of term. I was reading a about the numerous monsters that featured in Ancient Greek Myths when I heard a chilling scream. My head shot up and my book tumbled to the floor. My mum was rigid with shock, staring in horror at the entrance because next to the glass door of the hotel was a huge green monster. Great green ropes swung in every direction as my eyes struggled to make sense of my surroundings. I screamed when I realised what it was because what I had thought were ropes were in fact necks attached to those necks were ugly snake-like heads. But the worst thing was I recognised it, slowly I tore my gaze away from the monster and looked downwards. My book rested on the floor open at a seemingly random page. On the page was a picture, a picture of a large monster with many necks, exactly like the one which was about to eat me. I let out a small gasp as I read the name underneath. Hydra. The monster which Hercules slayed in Greek mythology and it was making its way towards me, spraying poison wherever it looked.