There were four of them. Four kids in that group. I had never seen them show up to school a full week. Four days, tops. Three of them were dyslexic. Three of them had ADHD. One was short, super hairy, and crazy for enchiladas.
Great at Greek. Crashed and burned in English. The blonde always wore an orange t-shirt with a vest. And I knew there were words under that vest. The spiky-haired one easily tricked my teacher thinking they had perfect attendance–all year. The other boy, the only one to bother giving a name, was Percy. He carried a sword in his backpack.
And they acted like I was weird?
They'd look at me funny. Whisper to each other. I guess I wasn't too much different than them, I had dyslexia, ADHD, but didn't try much for Greek. I wasn't a fighter, a hider, or big in hypnosis.
I needed answers. They came into the school six months ago. I couldn't stand it.
I approached them at lunch. "Hi Percy, and…."
The blond raised her hand. "I'm Annabeth, and this is Thalia."
"Right. Well, I have a question…" Percy nodded for me to continue. "Why do you ditch school so often?"
They all froze. Then Thalia stood up and snapped her fingers. "We don't ever ditch school!"
I stared at her. "Again, why do you always ditch school? I'm not fooled like the teacher."
Percy and Annabeth looked at each other. "Oh my gods," Annabeth muttered, "she can see through the mist…"
I'm completely baffled. "Oh my 'gods'? And what on earth is the mist?"
The bell rang too soon for them to answer me.