1- The email

Summer was looking to be a gloomy prospect for me this year. Camp was overflowing with newcomers and old-timers who had other places to stay were encouraged to stay at home this year until all the cabins had been sorted out. Chiron would have appreciated help from campers who knew what they were doing but there was absolutely no room.

I dreaded the thought of having to spend the whole summer in San Francisco with my dad and step-mom. Even though we got on almost perfectly now, Dad always had new projects to work on (why is that battles which took place so many years ago need so much analysing and daughters alive now only get an occasional phone call?) and my step-mom, Anisa, was too caught up with the terror twins. I found myself wishing for a miracle. You never know what can happen if you wish hard enough…and if you have an amazing boyfriend with great parents.

Ω

I entered my room at St Margaret's Academy for Young Girls (more like young Barbie dolls too hard to control). The door is stiff and old and it takes a huge push for it to open and, after a hard day's work, it's the most annoying thing in the world. Apart from the fact the numbers on it were fixed on properly, everything was wrong with it.

The room is too small for me and my roommate, Shelley, to share. We'd tried our best to hide the pea-green (puke) coloured walls with pictures and posters and covered the damp patches on the brown carpets with colourful beanbags. But still the ancient ugliness stood out like a sore thumb.

"Ugh, this room makes me want to puke so bad!" Shelley groaned as she came in behind me.

I nodded in agreement and rolled my eyes at the crack in the ceiling's plaster which was impossible to hide since it was too high up.

"Someday," Shelley sighed, plopping down onto an orange beanbag and gazing up at a poster of the Twilight stars, "I'm going to be as famous as those guys. And then, I can afford to live in places way classier than this hell hole."

I couldn't help but like Shelley despite her big ambitions and a strange love for things fluffy and pink. She had a likeability around her; she was always laughing and smiling in class but I heard her cry at night because then was the only time she could admit she missed her family. Her grandmother was her only family, really, since both her parents were killed in a car crash when she was six and her uncle hardly counts since he lives in Tokyo and send one postcard a year for Thanksgiving. Her goal was to become an actress and get discovered by some hunky director who would sweep her off her feet and tell her he loved her twenty times a day unlike the "losers" she'd dated in the past. I also couldn't help but feel sorry for her; having her heart broken so many times by her parents, lame guys and loneliness must have been hard.

I sat down on my own turned on my iMac, a present from Dad and Anisa for my birthday. The screen slowly came to life and my wallpaper loaded: a picture of me and Percy from the last summer at camp in a canoe; we're both laughing at the stupid joke Grover told us to get us to loosen up for the camera. I turned to make sure Shelley wasn't looking because I almost felt guilty for having a great boyfriend.

The blinking icon on the screen told me I had one new message in my inbox so I loaded up my email account. No doubts about who it was from: only Percy was un-busy enough to ever send emails. I opened the email, labelled URGENT!!!, and read the text on the page:

Hey Annabeth! Enjoying the last day of school?? Just wanted to ask if you had any plans for this weekend cuz we're heading down to Montauk for two nights and I wondered if you wanted to come along. Well…I hope you can. Love from Percy.

I was so happy at the thought of actually having something to do this summer, and with Percy, that I actually sighed way too happily.

"What's up?" Shelley asked. She'd crept up behind me and even though I closed the window, I was too slow; she'd read the whole thing.

I waited for her to hide the fact she wished she was me and lie about how great she thought this was. But she didn't. Instead she gave me a long, jealous look and said: "That's how it starts, you know. He invites you to stay the night, lies that his parents are going to be there and takes you totally by surprise. And you think you're enjoying it but really you didn't that to happen so fast and two day later he says he's sorry and within ten minutes he's holding hands with the girl from the cheerleading squad." She blinked back tears, ruining my happiness and even though I felt sorry for her, I hated her for that just that minute.

"Percy's not like that, Shell." I said quietly.

"I know." she replies with the tears running down her face, "Your boyfriend's not like that. I'm sorry I said it. I guess I wish I was you sometimes, Annabeth. Your love life is pretty much perfect, right? You don't know how lucky you are."

"Yes I do." I told her, "I know just how lucky I am. Sorry, Shelley."

Shelley blinked and shook her head. "No! Don't be sorry – I'm the one who should be apologising for ruining your happy moment!" Then she grabbed me and pulled me out of my chair, "No time to sit around, you lazy girl! Time to get packing – we have a boy to dazzle!"

I laughed and hugged her. She was right - we did have a boy to dazzle. And not just any boy; Percy Jackson's really something special.