I wanted to take stab at my own story. I've been thinking about it for a while and this is my first chapter. To those of you following my Percy Jackson stories, I would really like to hear what you think.


Sometimes you hear a story and you just know it can't be true. This is one of those stores, and while I swear it really happened, there is nothing I can do to prove it to you. All we brought back with us was the sand in our clothes. We gathered up as much of that as we could and put it in this little glass jar, but it looks like regular old sand. I know what you're thinking; you could have just filled that up with sand from Lido Beach on any one of a thousand trips there. We didn't, but unless some scientist can prove it's from 2500BC Sumer and not 2012AD Sarasota, you'll have to take my word for it.

Before you hear the story, I guess I should tell you a little bit about how this whole thing got started. I blame everything on my best friend Nicky. It's his fault we got stuck with the topic we ended up with in the first place. See we were sitting in our world history class when our teacher, Mr. Reed, gave us an assignment. We had to work in pairs, so no problem me and Nicky of course. Each pair had to select a topic from the board and do a research project on it. This is where it becomes Nicky's fault. As my best friend, he knows I sometimes get lost in my thoughts in class. He was supposed to pay attention and get us a great topic, but he didn't. In fact, he waited till the very end and we got stuck with Gilgamesh. I mean how horrific is that? I didn't want to do a report on some stupid old giant that might or might not have been a real person, but it didn't matter, thanks to Nicky that was our assignment.

Something else happened, I'll explain later, that makes this whole think even more Nicky's fault, but I guess I should tell you a little about us first. My name is Danielle Elisabeth Samuelson, but everybody calls me Dani. I'm your typical thirteen year-old seventh grader from Sarasota, Florida. I have sandy-blonde hair, brown eyes, and a decent tan, even though I don't really work on it. When you live where I do and your mom drives a convertible, you just automatically have a tan. Nicky is Stephen Nicholas Richards, and we've lived in the same duplex for as long as either of us can remember. I live in the top half with my mom and little brother Tommy. Nicky lives with his dad in the bottom half. Nicky has really blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smile that says; don't turn your back on me you never know what I might be up to. Nicky is usually up to something, but he's actually pretty harmless if you don't count the time he took a picture of me to school from when I was three and playing on the slip-n-slide in just my Little Mermaid panties.

I think Nicky and I are best friends because we are so much alike. We live in the same building, we take all the same classes at school, we like the same music and movies, and we both only have one parent. Well, I actually have two, but I haven't seen my dad in so long that it hardly counts. My dad left my mom when my little brother Tommy was born. Now that I'm a little older, I can understand why my dad left her. I just don't understand why he left me. See my mom and dad are both white like me, but when my brother Tommy was born half African-American, my dad left. I used to get a card on my birthday and maybe a present at Christmas from him, but I haven't heard from him at all in about three years now, so I guess he's forgotten I exist. It doesn't really matter. My mom makes pretty good money and she really loves me and Tommy. I've never met Tommy's dad. Mom says he was just a male model she met about nine months before Tommy was born. Male model you ask, my mom works for this big clothing store chain in the marketing department. It's her job to hire models to wear the clothes for the sales papers and stuff. She said he doesn't even know Tommy exists, and that's just the way she likes it.

Nicky lives with only his dad because his mom died in a car accident when he was two. He says he doesn't even remember her, so it's no big deal, but I know better. Sometimes he gets really sad, and I know it's because he wishes his mom were still here. I share my mom with him a lot, and he shares his dad with me, so it all works out. My mom and Nicky's dad don't date or anything, but they help each other out and we do things together like go to the beach, baseball games, play miniature golf things like that. We're really like a big extended family. That's why Nicky knew it was his responsibility to pick a better topic than Gilgamesh.

The other person involved in our little adventure is my little brother Tommy. I kind of felt sorry for getting him into the situation, but we had to take him to the library with us when we did our research, so he got dragged along. In the end, I guess it's a good thing Tommy was with us. It's also a good thing he's pretty smart for a ten year-old boy, despite the fact that he's madly in love with Selena Gomez. I said he was smart. I didn't say he had good taste. Tommy is adorable, and that's saying a lot coming from his big sister. He has big dark eyes and dark curly hair that mom lets grow to about his shoulders. He also has the brightest smile I've ever seen. Looking at Tommy, I guess I can understand why mom went for his sperm donor, as she calls him.

Getting back to what happened, since I didn't know much about Gilgamesh, I mean what kind of a name is that anyway, we had to go to the library. Mom dropped us off that Saturday morning and Nicky's dad was going to come pick us up three hours later, so we would have had plenty of time to find enough information to fill the three-page requirement. I had to take charge of finding books on the topic. Who knew there were so many versions of the same old thing? We picked out a couple versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh and another book called Never Grow Old by some guy named Trent. Nicky picked out this book called Gilgamesh the Hero. I think it was because of the picture on the cover. It had this guy, I'm assuming was Gilgamesh, standing on the head of a huge bull and pulling on its horns. That was definitely a guy picture.

We picked out a table and sat down, but that is when Tommy started being a pain-in-the-butt. "I don't know why I had to come. It's not my report. Blah, blah, blah."

"Why don't you go find a book to read?" I told him.

"Like what?" he asked unable to think for himself, since it was Saturday morning.

"I don't know," I said being a little terse. We just learned that word in reading class. Never thought I would get to use it, yay! "Why don't you get Harry Potter?"

"Read them all," he said which was true.

"Then get Percy Jackson, something, but you're not gonna sit here and drive me crazy," I told him.

"Geez, Dani, wake up on the bitch-side-of-the-bed this morning?" Nicky said.

"You don't think I'm going to do all the reading do you?" I asked looking at him because he was just sitting there.

"I was hopin'," he says with a grin.

"Well hope again," I said pushing his bull book in front of him.

"Fine," he said then started looking through the book, for pictures I'm sure.

Tommy came back a few minutes later with a book in his hand. "Seriously, why would you get book three of a five book series?" I asked getting aggravated.

"Because you didn't go to help me," he said plopping down in the chair next to me.

"Oh come on," I said taking his hand and dragging him back to the 'R' section. By the time I put his book back, grabbed The Lightning Thief, and got back to the table, Nicky was gone. "Just great," I mumbled thinking he was off playing around.

I started to read the one book I picked out that wasn't just the Epic of Gilgamesh. I was just starting to get into it when Nicky showed back up with this really dusty, smelly book in his hands. "What's that?" I asked glancing up at him.

"The librarian came over and saw what we were reading. He suggested I get this book and take a look," he explained. He put the book down on the table, sending a tiny cloud of dust into the air then started turning the first few pages. I went back to my reading not saying anything else, Tommy, thankfully, seemed to be getting into his own book, and Nicky was quietly turning the pages. The part of my brain that wasn't focused on what I was reading was thinking; he is so wasting time.

About ten minutes later, Nicky said, "Look at this."

"What?" I asked a little aggravated at being interrupted.

"There is this, poem like thing here," he said turning the book, so I could see it.

"Incantation," I said correcting him.

"Whatever Miss Smarty Pants," he said with a grin. "It says we can go back in time if we repeat it."

"I'm not putting your name on this report, if I have to do it all myself," I told him.

"Seriously I think we should give it a try," Nicky said which got Tommy's attention.

"Why would you even want to go back in time? They don't have Taco Bell or Mountain Dew," I said knowing he could never give those two things up and survive.

"Can't you just humor me?" he asked, and I could tell he's actually serious about trying this.

"You do know we aren't doing a report on H.G. Wells?" I said, remembering the book we read last year in our reading class.

"Please Dani," he said now begging. I hate it when he does that.

"Yeah come on Dani," Tommy said now joining him.

"Fine, if it will get you back to work," I told them and put my book down.

Nicky walked around to our side of the table, so we could all see the book right-side-up, and we started reading the lines out loud.

History is all around

Within these walls it will abound

But nothing here will serve as well

As going to that time to dwell

If courage you have and knowledge you seek

Continue on, these words to speak

Lead me to the ancient time

When I complete this ancient rhyme

"See," I said picking my book back up, "Nothing, now please get back…" That's when it started. I don't really know how to describe it. My head was spinning, and I felt like I was falling through some kind of tunnel. It was like being dizzy and on a waterslide at the same time. The funny thing was I wasn't alone. Nicky was next to me with this crazy look on his face like; oh my god it worked, and Tommy was just behind me screaming his head off. It seemed like we must have gone on this way for at least ten minutes. When we finally cleared the tunnel, we landed on this huge sand pile. I'm not talking about some pile you might see on the beach where some kids gathered sand in their pails and dump it out in one spot. I'm talking about a pile like twenty dump trucks dumped their loads all out in one spot.

"That was freakin' awesome," Nicky said trying to stand.

"Watch out," I yelled when he started tumbling down the sand.

"I'm Okay," he called back when he came to a stop close to the bottom.

I turned to my little brother who landed just to my left and a little higher up on the pile. "Are you Okay, Tommy?" I asked him because he had a really confused look on his face.

"Where are we?" he asked looking around.

"I have no idea," I told him honestly.

"We're gonna be in trouble with Mom," he said, and I could tell tears are welling up in his eyes.

"Please don't start crying. We need to worry about getting back first," I told him.

"Are we really in the past?" he asked.

"How could we be?" I told him with a smile that I hoped was reassuring him 'cause it was not working for me.

Once Tommy and I reached Nicky at the bottom of the sand, Nicky had already made a lap around the pile. "I think we're in Sumer," he told us with a huge grin on his face.

"I think you're full of…" I stopped myself because, as much trouble as I was already going to be in, the last thing I needed was Tommy telling Mom I was cussing too.

"Let's see if we can find somebody," Nicky said like we were looking for the nearest crossing guard on our way to school.

"Are you crazy?" I asked grabbing his arm. "Let's just say, and I'm not saying I believe it, but let's just say we really are in Gilgamesh's Sumer. Look at us. They're gonna lock us up for being aliens from another planet then we'll never get home."

Nicky looked at us for a second then said, "You might be right. We've gotta find Gilgamesh without anybody else seeing us."

"First of all, what makes you think Gilgamesh wouldn't lock us up, and second of all, what makes you think we would be allowed to get anywhere near him? He's the king," I said getting a little scared not just at not knowing where we were but at the thought of really being in the past.

"He was a demigod for one, so he would accept weird things. I also think he would want our help," he explained.

"How could we help him? We haven't done any research yet," I asked while my head was wondering how he even knew anything about Gilgamesh.

"You've got that book," he said pointing at the item I hadn't even realized was still in my hand.

"We can't change the past," I told him, "Haven't you ever watched Star Trek? Really bad things happen when you go back into the past and change how things happened."

"Okay, we won't change anything, but we can help him get where he was going anyway," Nicky then suggested.

"Are you that determined not to read? You want to risk our lives trying to live this instead of getting back home before we get in trouble with our parents?" I asked him seriously getting ticked.

"Come on Dani, please," he begged again.

"Can we at least look through your book and figure out how we get back home first?" I asked thinking that, in case we do get locked up, we might still get home.

"Deal," he agreed then we found a shade tree, sat down, and poured through his book.