Ch. 1

Jackie

"Demigods, or half-bloods, are the children of gods and mortals. But every 50 years, when 2 demigods get together, three of those types of children are children of the elements-water, air, and-"

"This is so boring," Jackie complained. She snapped the book shut. "Why would my mom have this book anyway? She's usually into architecture and reality," she wondered aloud.

"Jackie!" her mother yelled. "The school bus is here!"

"Coming!" Jackie started downstairs, hiding the book under her pillow. As she went downstairs, she noticed the calendar: May 2, 2008. Something felt wrong, but she shook it off. She was gonna be late for school.

"Mom! Where's my lunch?" she scolded. Usually her mom put it on the corner of the counter, but today it was missing. Jackie noticed her mom wasn't her usual perky self, and she asked what was wrong.

Slowly, her mom turned around, revealing a muddy face with an evil grin on its face. With all six arms, the creature picked up the refrigerator and threw it at her.

She screamed.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP!"

Jackie woke up to see her mom standing above her with the alarm clock in her face.

"Honey, are you okay?" her mother asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She rubbed her eyes, and looked at the calendar:

TODAY: MAY 2, 2011.

Today. Not May 2, 2008…

"Okay, sweetie. Here, this is a special pen. It was your father's, but he would like you to have it." That's what Jackie thought she said, all she did was grab the pen and go downstairs. But I could be wrong…what's so special about a pen anyway? she thought.

The bus squeaked to a stop, and Jackie stepped on. She gave a quick nod to the bus driver and went to find an empty seat. Sitting down, she took off her backpack and proceeded to stare at the window when she heard a faint clink. Glancing at her backpack, she noticed that the pen her mom had given her had fallen out. Sighing, she picked it up and examined it. There were strange words on it, but slowly they rearranged.

" ," she said. Riptide. "How the heck did I know that?" she wondered aloud. The bus halted, and a boy with brown hair and eyes and a girl with black hair and blue eyes stepped on, laughing together.

Selena di Angelo. She had long jet-black hair and electric blue eyes. Her father owned the school they all went to, which made her mega-rich and popular with an attitude. So why, Jackie asked herself, did she ride the bus?

Kody Valdez. He had messy brown hair and deep brown eyes with a mischievous glint in them. He was the star football player, "which also made him in the 'ultra popular' group", she thought disdainfully . He was also good with fixing things and technology. He and Selena were next-door neighbors and best friends.

"Can I sit here?" the voice startled Jackie out of her musings, and she looked up to see a pair of electric blue eyes looking at her.

Selena

"Is someone sitting here?" Selena repeated. asking the girl. She had just stepped on the bus and the bus driver had a famous reputation for just starting the bus, even if students were not seated.

Oh yeah, he also liked to stop unexpectedly.

"Um…no," she replied. Selena smiled and plopped herself down. They sat in an awkward silence and Selena directed her attention to the girl. She had shoulder-length black hair and gray eyes with a tinge of green, making it look like a foggy green color. Selena knew she was in her homeroom class, but she couldn't remember her name.

"So why aren't you sitting by Kody," the girl snapped, stressing out the name. Selena ignored the tone and emphasis. Many kids thought they were an item. RUMOR. They were just close friends. "He wanted to talk to some of the football players and discuss some tactics for the game," she shrugged, pointing to the two boys who looked like they were in a deep conversation. "Oh…," the girl trailed on and again they sat in awkward silence. Selena felt a poke on her leg and glanced down, bringing the item up, which she found out was a book. She glanced at the title and saw it had a confusing amount of strange symbols, Demi-gods and Monsters. She glanced back at the title, confused. What was that? Did she know this language? She shrugged it off and looked at the girl, holding up the book. "So you like Mythology too?" The girl nodded, but seemed confused as to how she had the book. Selena smiled, "Cool, me too."

They talked on more and more and figured out more about each other, their thoughts of one another changing. Selena thought Jackie, whom she thought was a quiet person, but figured out that when she talked, her mouth could never stop. Jackie thought Selena was just a snobby rich girl but she learned that she was actually pretty cool with an aura of confidence.

"So, what's with the bag?" Jackie asked, pointing at her bag. Selena glanced down and sighed. Her bag was black with swirls in a thunder blue color and didn't have zippers. Of course, when she brought it to school, everybody liked it and brought bags with no zippers, but they also asked the same question and she didn't always like to say why. She was about to make up something up when they arrived at school. Saved by the school, she thought thankfully and said bye to Jackie and walked to a waiting Kody.

"So, who was that?" Kody asked as they walked toward the doors. "Oh, that's Jackie, you know, she's from our homeroom class," she replied. He nodded his head and they walked in silence. That was a nice thing, they could always be in silence but it would never be awkward. Her thoughts drifted back to the question Jackie had asked and hugged her bag to her chest. It was a present from her parents on her birthday. It was her favorite and she loved it, but there was something strange with it that she could not tell her askers. For some reason, the bag never liked the things that were placed in it. For example, her books and things would always fall out, as if there was a hole on the bottom, but when she checked, there was nothing wrong with her bag. It got so annoying, she had to carry a separate bag for heavy things. And every single time things fell out the one thing that didn't fall out was a miniature figure from her father. She shivered, "It's so creepy," she thought. Kody looked at her worriedly. "Sel? You okay? It's cold here." He wrapped his coat around her and she smiled. "Thanks." She reached, shaking, into the bag and pulled out the figure.

The face of the Greek god Hades stared back at her.

Kody

Kody thrummed his fingers against the desk and glanced at the teacher, Ms. Thorne. She seemed pretty nice and a lot of the kids liked her, but Kody, no matter how many times he tried to convince himself that she was ok, always thought he saw a dark fog surrounding her. He shook his head and looked at Selena. She wasn't paying attention to her, heck, she wasn't even looking at the teacher, she was passing notes with the girl, Jackie?, He wasn't sure.

He pulled out his brown wallet and stared at it. There was a hammer and a forge engraved on it, along with his initials on it. His father had said he made it himself, but Kody didn't believe him. There was also some kind of tab on the side that Kody couldn't figure what it was for. He tried to pull on it again, but it still wouldn't budge.

"Kody Valdez!" Ms. Thorne called out. "Please step out with me for a minute."

The kids around him snickered, but Jackie and Selena looked a bit worried. The entire class fell silent as she gave them the look, but immediately commenced to talking the moment they stepped out the door. Jackie and Selena looked at each other and whispered something to each other, each with scared looks on their faces, for some reason. It's just Thorne, he thought. It's not like she's going to turn into a monster with six arms or something.

As he walked out of the classroom, though, he had some misgivings. What had he done?

"Do you know what you are doing, Kody?" she asked him in a sweet tone that was enough to make him feel sick.

"No, ma'am," he replied, a little bit wary of why she pulled him out. Besides, politeness is always the way to go when dealing with angry adults.

"Kody, you have been pulled out for playing with some magical items not allowed in school, honey," she said, as though she was not at all talking weirdly.

"Excuse me?" he asked, disbelieving. "I don't think I heard you right. Magical items? I don't have any. They don't exist," he said, not at all polite this time. He said the last part as though he was talking to a three-year-old. The one thing that always drove Kody nuts was when people falsely accused him of doing things he didn't do or had no idea he did.

"Oh yes they do, and you know it, sweetie. Don't deny it," she took a few steps back and started morphing into what looked like a clay mud figure.

Before he could get over his shock, the figure started lumbering over to him. It had six arms, and a grotesque face with an evil leer on it. Kody couldn't move as it reached and picked up a desk, preparing to hurtle it right at his face. He dove out of the way as it sailed past, narrowly missing him by 6 inches.

Jackie and Selena burst out of the classroom, taking in the situation with wide eyes. The creature turned around to face its new targets, and all of a sudden, Selena, who had been holding her backpack in her hands, held a silver bow and quiver of arrows, and Jackie drew a sword from behind her back. They looked astonished, and definitely surprised at their new weapons, but somehow reassured. There's nothing like having pointy weapons at your disposal during a fight when you know there's a chance you might become... well..., Kody didn't want to think about it. He then felt something hot in his pocket and pulled out his wallet, which was on fire. But, for some reason, he could hold it and not be burned. Almost like an instinct, he pulled the tab. The wallet curled up and expanded, turning into a 4 foot long spear with its point on fire. He was amazed. Well, maybe his dad made it. He was cool like that. But his mom had to have added the fire. It was totally her thing.

At the same time, Jackie slashed the monster with her sword, Selena let loose an arrow, and Kody threw his spear with all his might at the fiend. The thing that was Ms. Rose Thorne exploded then disintegrated into a pile of dust in the middle of the hallway.

Kody took one looks at the pile of dust and quickly turned to look at the girls, with a shaky breath the asked, "Are you guys okay? What just happened?" He walked over. "How in the world did you guys get this stuff?"

"Same as you," Selena said, still shocked from the fight. "Instinct."

Jackie still held a sword in her hands, and Selena still held her bow and arrows. Jackie clicked something on the hilt, and it retracted back into a pen. Selena retrieved her other arrow and stuffed her weapons in the discarded bag, which accommodated them with no problem. And Kody pulled the tab again, and the spear shrank and returned to its original form as a wallet. His emergency credit cards, money, and things were still intact, despite the fact that it was just recently on fire.

Neither of them spoke until Jackie turned her pale and confused face to Selena and Kody and said, "Do you want to come over to my house? I have a huge library and we can look this weird stuff up. Honestly, I think their's a logical explanation that we overlooked and I wanna know what the heck is going on, and confront my mother and father with this stuff. After all, they gave this pen to me."

They nodded, and hugged again.

"Wait," Selena said. "My mother gave me this stuff, and Kody's father gave him his wallet. Do you think, somehow, that the items are all linked? Or maybe our parents are in on it together?"

"I don't know," Jackie replied. "And I'm not sure I want to, but we have to if stuff like this keeps happening."

And Kody silently agreed as they walked back in the classroom.

There was another teacher, a Mr. Browne, and all the students seemed accustomed to him and insisted he had been there the whole year. None of the trio seemed surprised; after what just happened, they weren't sure they would ever be surprised again.

"Mom! Dad! I'm home! Is it okay if I brought some friends? We're researching something!" Jackie yelled as she and the others tramped in. Kody winced at the volume of her voice.

"Yeah, sure honey, just don't do anything other than school stuff, 'kay?" her father answered, too preoccupied to notice anything amiss. As a doctor, he had been working late, and he looked worried.

Kody's first thought was, Holy cow, it's huge! The three teenagers made themselves comfortable in the library, and Jackie whispered, "I didn't want to say anything until we looked some stuff up." The other two nodded.

Jackie's mother and father came up and introduced themselves, Jackie's mother offering cookies. "Hi kids! Would you like some cookies?" she asked, setting the plate down.

They scrambled for the cookies, not noticing the chocolate chips were blue. "Thanks, Jackie's mom," they chorused, even Jackie, who giggled. Kody noticed her mother was not at all irritated with that, in fact she smiled and wrapped an arm around her husband.

"Please, call me Annabeth, and this is my husband, Percy."