Percy Jackson was ostracized from his classmates, in the beginning, not because he was strange and strange things happened around him, but because of the simple reason of the fact that he only had a mom.
"I don't have a dad," he says with all the surety of a child who has yet to have the birds-and-the-bees talk.
"What about the smelly guy?" one of his classmates later asked, after Sally married Gabe.
Percy shrugged. "He's Gabe. Not dad."
"Not your biological dad," an older student argued (someone who has had The Talk).
"I don't have a dad," he insisted.
Sally caught wind of this and immediately set Percy straight, saying that his father was "lost at sea". Which, honestly, didn't mean a whole lot to a child who saw a void in his life. No matter the reason for it, "lost at sea" is about as good as "nonexistent".
As Percy grew older, from elementary to middle school, he was ostracized from his classmates because of the strange things that happened around him, the strange people that followed him, and, honestly, the fact that he, himself, was rather strange in comparison to the rest of them. (And he was poor.)
Grover might have been the first strange friend that Percy made, but he was by no means Percy's last.
Through middle school, Percy was ostracized because of his reputation of a "troubled kid", which was interpreted as a euphemism of "violent and to be watched carefully". The dichotomy between "violent and to be watched carefully" and Percy's actual self—strange, but rather selfless and awkward—put even more hackles up as classmates remembered documentaries of supposedly harmless people. (They're not subjects of documentaries because they were harmless.)
By the time Percy reached high school, they're all fourteen. Unbeknownst to his classmates, he's blown himself out of a volcano, held the sky on his shoulders, travelled the Bermuda Triangle, and escaped the Underworld.
They all saw the oddest streak in his hair, the confident set of his shoulders, and his eyes that have known hardship. It didn't help that he blew up the gymnasium during orientation.
His classmates feared him.
("I heard that he was kidnapped when he was eleven and taken cross-country by some madman."
"Really? I heard that he blew up the St. Louis Arch."
"Oh, he did. That was when he was trying to get away from the lunatic that kidnapped him.")
("Didn't he blow up a bus with a Revolutionary War cannon?")
("How d'ya think he got that gray streak?")
("This wasn't the first time he blew up a gymnasium. Apparently he did something similar at the end of seventh grade."
"I thought that he was acquitted of that?"
"Are you a moron, James?")
("His eyes are so weird.")
("I heard that he dumped his class into a shark tank once.")
He walked into his junior year with a smoking hot blonde at his side, a spring in his step like the world has lifted off his shoulders, and still managed to move in such a way that invites speculation as to who he killed.
(Kronos, King of the Titans and Lord of Time. That's who he killed.)
The blonde didn't stay, only kissing his cheek (to the irate yelling of a nearby teacher) in goodbye as she sent him off to Goode.
Percy then disappeared only weeks into his junior year and never returned.
Come senior year, he returned whipcord thin, nothing but solid muscle and bone, and power in his stride.
Every step said, "I survived."
Every blink said, "I'm here."
Every fleeting smirk said, "You can't stop me."
Every grin he gave to the blonde said, "I'm going to live my life."
So senior year of high school?
Senior year of high school, absolutely nothing happened around Percy Jackson. He doubled up on his schoolwork to graduate from high school on time. No one knew the blonde girl's name, despite the blatant eavesdropping and trades for potential information.
Percy Jackson walked like he owned the school.
He greeted Mr. Blofis cheerfully in the halls, became acquaintances with some people through group projects, and had the unremarkable year that was due to him.
He walked across the stage to get his high school diploma and was flattened by his toy poodle (hellhound) that was hilarious for everyone. His girlfriend, the blonde, kissed his cheek—after wiping the dog slobber off.
They're never seen again.
So based on my experience with private school, people are generally more perceptive than in public school. Mine was pretty cutthroat—perhaps a side-effect of growing up with the sons and daughters of lawyers and doctors and the mafia (don't ask) (seriously do not ask) alike. Percy tended to go to private schools, normally private boarding schools. Admittedly, I have no idea if private boarding schools are different than regular private schools, but I'm going to take my shot at it.
**I actually draw a lot on my own experience of private school during this, so if something seems outlandish...dude, it's either my life or it's canon. XD
Real quick, does this count as a character study?
I know I haven't done anything in a loooong while so I wanted to post this to let you guys know that I'm alive. Struggling, but alive. Getting myself in the right mindframe to write something that you will enjoy has been...hard.
Writing this was a bit of a struggle since I couldn't make up my mind between present and past tense (finally tried to stick with past tense) but if I missed something, please let me know. It's pretty easy for me to miss something since I'm the writer and the beta reader.
Thanks,
Ruby
*edit: y'all I missed so many tense changes it's ludicrous