If Goode High is a castle, Annabeth Chase is the queen.
And not the mean kind, either.
You watch as she strides down the hallway, curls tossing. Her posse follows: Piper, Silena, Reyna, Hazel, Rachel, even that bulldoggish girl with the braces. The "hot" guys: Jason, Nico, Will, Frank. Grover, who isn't that good-looking but is too kind to not like. Leo, who sets fire to the science lab on a regular basis.
You know everything about them. They know nothing about you.
Annabeth holds court in the lunchroom. Because this is Goode, and Rachel is Rachel and Piper is Piper, the space has long been renovated to look like a cool new cafe.
The food is still terrible though.
She laughs, throwing her head back, the sunlight a halo around her head. You wonder who told the joke. Could you ever make someone laugh like that?
You know the answer. You are too dorky, spend too much time with your head underwater (your mom likes to joke that you are part fish), dye your hair too many weird colors. Before people get to that, you wear bright blue hoodies with black everything else. There is always a look in your eye that scares even Nico, Goode's resident Death Guy, away.
You never laugh with friends at lunch. You sit alone and proofread your mother's next novel.
Today, the group picks up their things and heads to leave a couple minutes earlier than usual. You have no time to escape, early, to your next class.
As they pass by the table, you attempt to turn invisible behind the prototype copy of the third book in your mom's most popular trilogy to date: The Kane Chronicles. No luck.
Annabeth walks up, gasping. "Is that the third book in the Kane Chronicles? The Serpent's Shadow, right? It's due to release in three months! How'd you get an advance copy?"
Why is she talking to you? You are a peasant, and she is a queen.
You attempt to brush it off. "Oh no, just a favor from someone I know."
She doesn't back down. "Who? Give me their number. I will die knowing there is a copy of that book somewhere in this world and I have not read it."
You sigh. You really need to interact more- one pleading look from Annabeth Chase and you cave.
"I got it from my mom," you inform her. "It's the third draft. She's still working on it. There's a reason it's not due for another three months."
She takes a second to process this. It's then that it dawns on her. "Your mother is Sally Jackson?!"
You grimace. "I try to keep a low profile."
She grabs your arm, steering you out and chattering away. You try not to enjoy it too much.
You are a peasant, and she is a queen.
But servant boys can fall in love with royalty, can they not?