so here's my newest story becuase i just realized how much i hated my other stories. I've had this in my mind for a while but i never really developed it until a couple days ago. some things about this story need to be explained first.

1. no, i dont own percy jackson, obviously
2. i love writing fanfictions that are intertwined with history, so just keep your mind open when you read this. i know it seems boring but trust me, it should get better in a chapter or two.
3. i know it isn't totally historically accurate, so dont bother me about that.
4. if, for any reason, you should feel offended by this (although i have no reason why you would be, since it's a percy jackson fanfiction), just don't be because i didn't intend it to be. I'm just writing it because i love history.
5. dont bother me about not having quotation marks in the latter half of this chapter. i know, i know, but i'm trying something new. I just started reading Angela's Ashes, and Frank McCourt doesn't use quotation marks. I'm pretty much doing it becuase my character are speaking in Vietnamese, and, since I can't, I'd just do it like that unless they were speaking English.

"Mama! Mama!"

A tall, buff soldier with rough, tanned skin, sunglasses, and a buzz cut grabbed Phuong by the arm. The five-year-old let out a high pitched scream and started crying, but the man hoisted the little girl over his shoulder and ran through the crowd. They were near the city limits, and the American carried her not far, just outside. The girl kicked and screamed, beat the man's back, cried, and punched his head with her little fists but he didn't let her go. Large blades of a helicopter beat like wings behind her, and her hair blew into her face. Her mother did not follow, but waited, screaming meaningless words that Phuong could not hear. Both were crying as the man hopped into the helicopter and set her down with a couple other children. They were all around her age or a couple years older, very much like her in many ways. They were all skinny and small, with light brown or honey-colored or darker, curly hair. Several had a lighter complexion than most Vietnamese, some darker, and one of them had several freckles splattered across his cheeks. The man returned a few minutes later with another child, then closed the door, and they set off.

The helicopter slowly lifted into the air. Phuong sat whimpering with the other children, and soon she fell into a long, deep sleep. She woke often when her head fell to the side, or when the child next to her moved. Occasionally, they would stop, and a man would pick her up and carry her somewhere else, but her eyes were too heavy to stay awake and see where they were going. She often heard voices speaking in a strange language, but they got jumbled around in her brain so much it could have very well been her own.

Phuong woke up again while they were moving, but they weren't flying anymore. She was with some other kids she saw in the flying thing, one sleeping and one staring straight at her. City streets raced by her. It must have been a big city. Roads were smooth and covered with black-gray stone. Buildings grew from the ground everywhere, reflecting the sunlight. They weren't dull and broken like at home; instead, they shone and radiated health to the world. People walked on the side, not crowded into the streets, carrying only small handbags instead of chickens or pigs or whatever else people would be lugging around. They all looked like the soldiers back at home, tall and funny-looking. Even the women looked like the soldiers, some of them had hair like sun and some of them had puffy brown hair and even a few had hair like fire. Hair isn't supposed to be like fire, is it?

Sometimes she saw groups of people, young ones, with long hair and beards and all kinds of funny-looking clothes. They held signs in front of buildings, shouting and screaming, and more soldiers but in blue held them back. Phuong cranked down the window and heard the screaming, louder, and the only word she recognized was the one she missed the most; Vietnam. City noises were let in too, and the rush of the wind whipped her hair to one of side of her face. Streets were covered, not with bikes, but with different things, bigger, and metal, with more people inside of them. Some were red, some were black, some were green, some were fancy and others were beat up, and some had people inside them having a good time singing in a strange language. A kid about twice Phuong's age in the thing next to her looked out the window in her direction. He tapped his father on the shoulder and pointed, and the father stole a glance in her direction, then kept on driving.

Finally they arrived at a large building, and the man who was also in the car went inside. A woman came back out and grabbed the hands of the two other children and walked them inside, then came again for Phuong. She led her through a waiting room with a front desk and chairs, through a hallway with several classrooms, a dining hall, a play room, then upstairs into a long hall with many, many doors on either side. Throughout her walk Phuong saw kids, lots of them. Some her age, some slightly younger, some much older. They all looked like her; Vietnamese but not Vietnamese. Like her. Kids in the village teased her for it, would not let her play in their games. They called her con lai, bui doi. Mixed-race child, uncared-for child, living dust. Not because her mother did not marry and had her anyways but because her father was American and he left before she was born. She didn't know there were others. Finally she could play games with the other children, because maybe they were teased and bullied and couldn't play games with the other kids.

The woman led her to a room near the end of the hall. She opened a door, and inside, there were three other little girls about her age. Two were playing with dolls on the pink rug, and another was sitting on the lower of two bunk beds, reading a picture book out loud in English. The woman spoke to the girl sitting on the bed, then she left, leaving Phuong in the room with the other girls. The girl with the book stood up and spoke to Phuong in Vietnamese, for she did not know any English.

Did they pick you up in the banana helicopter? the girl asked.

Yes, I think so.

Did they take you away from your mother too?

Phuong only nodded and tears blurred her vision.

They took me last year, because I didn't know my father.

I didn't have one.

They took me and brought me here and baptized me and told me my name was Maria now. Before, they called me Mai.

I'm Phuong.

That's Carmen, Maria pointed at one of the girls with freckles. She doesn't have a Vietnamese name because her mother wanted her to be American like her father. She lived near Saigon and she was already baptized when she was a little baby. That's Ly, she pointed to the other girl, and she got here last week. She's like you, that's what Ms. Cunningham said, she doesn't know any English. Carmen knows some because she grew up in the city and went to school for a while, but she's only been here about a week. I never went to school but I learned English here. Reading, writing, and speaking. I've been watching the television and President Ford says that they're taking all the Vietnamese-American kids out of Vietnam before the Communists get them.

What's a television? Phuong asked.

It's a box where you can see what people are doing from far away. Some of them are live, and are actually happening, but others are written to make you laugh and cry.

i hope you like it and i hope you keep reading. I'm not sure when I'll have the next chapter up, maybe tomorrow, but i doubt it. maybe this week though.

I'd really appreciate if you'd review, too.