Flashback 16 years ago:

I sat at my desk laughing and telling jokes, getting in trouble and just being well a SEAWEED BRAIN, as Annabehth would delicately put it. Seaweed Brain is the mental condition bestowed on my by my best friend Annabeth Chase. I basically mean's, I'm an idiot but an invincible one. I think that's the thing Annabeth is most annoyed with me because of; I'm an indivisible idiot. Which means if I have a "Seaweed Brain moment" and she hits me in the arm it doesn't hurt. Yep the good life. But anyway it's lunch and Annabeth, Thalia, Nico and I are eating.

"Hey Percy what do you think you're going to be when you grow up, well if I let you live that long?" Thalia said, slapping me on the back of the head with her napkin. I just laughed and said:

"I'll probably work for Green Peace, or something. Maybe the Navy Seals, or Coast Guard."

"Yeah, but you'll end up some dork without a girlfriend and a job." Thalia teased, kicking me under the table. (Which by the way doesn't hurt, invincibility remember! BO-YA!)

"Ah hey, don't be so mean, at least he'll have a girlfriend." Annabeth said, smiling at me but still punching me in the arm. (Yeah I know harsh right?)

"Hey watch like 20 years from now, when you fall off a boat Thalia and you start drowning. I'm going to come out on a helicopter and have to save you. Watch you'll see! I'll have an awesome job."

Nico gave me a super high-five across the table.

"Yea!" I said, feeling confident in my future, Oh so confident.

Think again kid, think again…. way again. Things change

I stared at the desks. Well you wouldn't say I stared at them, but gaped. Yes that is the simple word to explain my complicated expression. Now you see the desks didn't amaze me, like they had all gotten up and done a flip for me. But rather he was amazed by the prospect of them, the idea. The idea that I, Percy Jackson expelled boarding school student extraordinaire was a teacher. Not just any teacher, teacher of Marine Biology. A teacher of tenth graders.

That was when I realized that he would be doing the one job; I loathed most on the planet, when I was a kid. When I had been a kid I had thought: Hey I'm going to be superman one day! You can't be superman you've got a bunch of nitwit 10th graders in your class. You can't be superman when you have three kids, a semi-nagging wife, and monsters at your back every five minutes.

Yeah you thought the monsters would leave me alone wouldn't you? YOU ARE SO WRONG!

How would you like if at three-o'clock in the morning you wake up not because your baby's crying but because there's a Kindly One in your kitchen. Or maybe a sea monster in your pool, or maybe even the Minataur on your lawn threatening to eat your kids. Yeah that's my life in a nutshell.

How did I get here?

So my morning went like this.

I woke up and found my wife gone well, she had actually gotten up in the middle of the night, and she was STILL her computer, taking some Zs. Yeah I walked into my living room this morning and Annabeth is sitting there snoring on her keyboard. So you know what? I shook her… bad idea Percy bad idea. So this is the extent of our conversation:

Annabeth: "Huuhhhhhh? Wa?"

Me: "You fell asleep at your computer for the millionth time last night."

Annabeth: "Oh yeah I figured out this idea that if I changed the right angles on the arches and made the pillars tilted the denial molding would precipitate upwards and…."

Yeah so, Annabeth started babbling about something about angles and other architect stuff. I barley ever listen because as much as I love her, I can't stand there forever listening to stuff like that. It makes my "wittle Seaweed Brain hurt" as Annabeth would say.

And so she saw that I was bored and not listening she (yes I bet you guessed it) hit me on the arm. But as you know, I'm the Invincible Percy Jackson, Hero of the Second Titan War, and that so did not hurt. Zinggg!

So anyway, when we were eating our breakfast and my son ran in screaming his head off.

"Mommmmm! Charlotte tripped me!" Lukas yelled at the top of his lungs.

You see my kids are teenagers going through life like we all do and at the same time have this weird hatred of each other. It's not even about their age difference, Charlotte's 15 and Lukas is 13, which does also complicate things. I don't get it but, I didn't have a little sister till I was 18 (Who is 21 now by the way!). I guess I don't get it… But Annabeth (who had two twin brothers) is convinced it's because they take after us (Poseidon VS Athena, and the rivalry thing. Which WE got over a long time ago), in a different way.

You see my daughter Charlotte takes after me, (Yea, she's little Daddy's girl) and Lukas takes after Annabeth. I know its sad my son is a nerd, but don't tell Annabeth she'll kill me for calling HER SON, Mr. Straight A+ (Minus his doubled dyslexia, and ADHD) a nerd. MHHHMMMMHH. Yea, he is SO not a nerd. But I still love him, he's a good kid, well when he isn't complaining that his sister is harassing him, punching him or about any other bodily harm related thing. I think she kind of is like Annabeth in the way that she is ALWAYS punching people. Boys, girls, anyone really… she doesn't have issues or anything but seriously I think she needs to use all that bent up emotion on monsters like her mother did. And still does. Thank the Gods for that…

So then Charlotte came running into the kitchen with a big scowl on her face, and her arms across her chest, saying:

"Hey I so didn't do it! Lukas, tripped over a shoe box someone put randomly in the hall." Charlotte said giving me a look that said, please-daddy-help-me! I just sat there, because I knew she probably had been trying to trip him anyway. Ever since he glued her schoolbooks to the ceiling last weekend. Yea that was so fun to get down. It took me like 16 jumps just to get that math book down….

"You so did trip me you little-"

"Lukas…" Annabeth interrupted, knowing what he was about to say something real nasty in front of his little sister, Katie. Oh I forgot to talk about Katie, yeah she's four and we still don't know what part of the half-blood gene she got. Chiron's is convinced she's going to be a hybrid, a mixed blood like her sidling but who has both abilities. There still is a possibility she won't get them at all, and monsters won't even sense her. Wouldn't that be great?

"Hey! Lukas put juice in my backpack! See Dad?"

"So she pulled the plug on my TV right in the middle of Law & Order!"

"Why do even watch that show, you nerd? Well you stole my phone and hid it in your sock drawer."

"How did you find that?"

"Oh it was right next to your superman undies, it stuck out real easy. But anyway Mom can I have a new phone this one has Lukas's germs on it."

"Oh please Charlie, it doesn't have my germs on it… but it does have thousands of other kinds germs that you can contract from my under garments."

"Ehhhwwww!" Charlie said dropping her phone.

But anyway, Charlotte and Lukas started rambling on about things they were convinced they had done to each other. We ended up taking away Charlie's phone (which really pissed her off) and taking away Lukas's laptop for a week. Well one because, Charlottes tripped her brother and, and we also found out that Lukas had poured apple juice in Charlotte's backpack. Oh sweet parenthood isn't it lovely?

So after the whole fight during breakfast, we all crammed into cars and Annabeth took the kids to school I drove to school. That was when the staring at the desks phase happened. Even though I've been teaching for two years now I still can't get used to it. The whole being a teacher thing is weird, I mean it's easy because I know so much about the ocean and all (Hello my dad is Poseidon! God of the seas remember?) But still it's hard. The students are from the ninth and tenth grade and it's funny because now I know how Chiron felt when he recruited me!

I've actually recruited a half blood or two since becoming a teacher, and it's been fun. Well not fun because then there's more monsters but you get the idea. I worked at camp for a couple years getting internship (I actually told my college it was a summer camp for kids focusing on survival training in the wilderness and marine biology. And they bought it!).

-&-

I sat at my desk for a few moments, and looked over my lesson plans. This year would be easy, and I even hoped there would be minimal attacks on my half blood students and me. I found my self, praying to Annabeth's mom (which rarely happens) that my students wouldn't be complete idiots.

And then the students came in.

I heard a rustling down the hall and the scuffling of sneakers. There was a large boom as the door opened and the students poured in. That was when I got my first look at them. And in those first few minutes of the day when I realized my doom.

The first to come in was a tall girl with flaming red hair and a pair of pit-bull eyes. She was wearing a green scarf over her head and large black sweatshirt that said: Here comes trouble. (How refreshing) Next was a short pudgy kid with muddy brown hair and big glasses. He had a strangely familiar face, which I couldn't put my finger on. Then as more students poured in I glanced back at the girl with flaming red hair, and realized: "She looks just like Clarisse" I thought abruptly. It was a scared thought…could she be a half blood, as daughter of Ares? It was a scary thought; I thrust t from my mind quickly.

Next there were a pair of girls walking in who looked like twins. They both had the same bright blond hair, tanned skin and perfect smiles. The way they were talking sparked an old memory. They reminded me of someone, someone very beautiful and distant.

The last student was a tall thin boy with thick brunette hair that he couldn't keep out of his eyes. He had long arms and legs, and a huge smile. That was when I noticed the eyes, those sea-green eyes. He was always fidgeting and reminded me of myself, so much. Then I had an even scarier thought: "Another son of Poseidon… I hope not." My dad had told me when I was 16 that I might have a brother or sister showing up in the future. I had he was kidding then, maybe he wasn't.

Suddenly I realized my daydreams should finish, because my class of tenth graders was full. They reminded me of my last year's class, twitching and all nervous on there first day of tenth grade. I tried to smile and calm them, but it barley worked. Teenagers always are permanently like that.

" All right class, I'm Mr. Jackson. I'll be your Marine Biology teacher this year. I just know were going to have a good time this year. First of all I'd like you all to know that if you have any questions about anything really you can come to me after class and ask."

I could have sworn I heard crickets in the back.

I went through the usual stuff: rules, seating charts, what we might be learning this year. Then it was time for the names. Not my favorite part, because with my dyslexia I can't really read that well and I usually pronounce peoples names wrong. That always makes for a lot of laughs.

"Alright here we go. Andrew." I said hoping I had said his name right.

Luckily a kid in the back raised his hand.

"Annie?" I said, hoping that it was right.

No one raised the hand. "Oh Hades I said there name wrong what am I going to do!" I thought frantically then a quick thought came to my mind. I walked over to the desk were the tall kid with Sea green eyes sat.

"Hey what's your name?" I said stupidly, suddenly knowing I had embarrassed him.

"Noah." The kid said looking at me like I had asked him to explain Einstein's theory of Relativity.

"Well Noah can you tell me what this says… I can't pronounce it." I sad, embarrassed.

I pointed to the name. " Uhmmmmhmm." Noah tilted his head and like he could read it either. "I think it says Adrienne." Noah said after a few seconds.

I looked at it for a second, maybe it was Adrienne.

I called it out; one of the girls with bright blonde hair raised her hand. I mouthed "thank you" to the Noah kid, and got back to my desk.

I called out the rest of the names, but some were harder than others. One kid's name was Taymesha Anne. Who name's their kid that? I mean even a person with dyslexia wouldn't be about to say that?

But after that I learned that the second kid to come in; the one with muddy brown hair, and thick big glasses rims. His name was Stephan. And that girl that strangely looked like Clarisse, yeah her name is Dana. The twins are Adrienne, and Kylie. Then there's Noah, it scares me how much alike we are.

So there's the prospect that there are four half bloods in my class, that's like four times the usual monster attacks. Yeah no pressure.

-&-

So right in the middle of class, when we were talking about summer vacations and different sea life we'd seen that summer. (Could my dad count as sea-life? Maybe he could.) I heard yelling and dragging of feet down the hall. At first I thought is was a monster and I put one hand on Riptide, hidden in my desk. But as soon as the voice was clear I knew exactly who it was.

"Katie Athens Jackson, don't you squirm! Your father is going to fix this, but I don't know…. YOU'RE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE! Well maybe not, but your still going to explain what happened to your father… Hey don't touch that water fountain! Ahhhh!"

I flinched, it was Annabeth.

"Mr. Jackson you're wife's here to see you its urgent." The school secretary said, in her always-bland voice. "Should've warned me sooner…" I mumbled under my breath.

Then there was a knock on the door, and I opened it. And would you guess what I saw… Annabeth all wet with Katie at her hip, a big half smile-half scowl on her face. The funny thing was Katie wasn't wet at all. Yeah I think I found out who Katie takes after….