Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, only my characters, their family, and the plot

Hellhounds and Fairy Dust

My Abnormal Life

Hello, my name is Zipporah Adelle Rippers (and yes, my mom was possibly drunk when she named me), but you can call me Zippers.

…....No, seriously, call me Zippers.

Where I got the name Zippers? Well, combine Zipporah and Rippers, and bingo! You got Zippers. I am also called that because I have an unhealthy obsession for zippers on my clothing...........but what can I say? They are shiny and awesome.

Anyways, I have wavy black hair, brown eyes, tan skin, freckles, and am all American, baby! I don't like my brown eyes though, they're too plain. So, I usually wear silver contacts, that have no connection what so ever with the fact that I like shiny things. Nope, not one bit.

Back on topic, I guess I'm on the tall side, but I prefer that oh-so-much to being short. Well, I'm tall and lanky, and I've got some guns.

…...Noooo, not like "shoot 'em up" guns, like muscle guns. Silly, guns are illegal! I'll stick to knives, they're shinier.

Once again, back on topic, I'm twelve years old, thus being in sixth grade. I know! Surprisingly enough, I have not been held back. Joking aside, I'm actually pretty smart. In English, history, world cultures, different languages, and music. I suck at math and science, but yeah, I'm pretty good at everything else. If you couldn't tell, I have a little ADD, but that's about it, and it's actually not very prominent. My teachers probably hate my ever loving guts, but they can't do anything because I'm one of the smart kids, and one of the better kids too.

Oh yeah, I go to Yancy Academy, school for the disturbed and clinically insane. Okay, that's not what it says on the pamphlet, but it might as well!

You may be wondering what I'm doing at a school like that, if I only have ADD, and it's not that severe, and I can give you a pretty good answer:

I see monsters

Yeah, hardy har har, laugh it up. I am, in fact, not insane (possibly). I see these monster things that are from Greek mythology all the time! They never pay attention to me, but sometimes I see them chasing kids who are flipping fighting them with swords and crap!

I ended up at Yancy because, I guess, I flipped out about it one too many times. The breaking point apparently was when I pushed my little cousin away from a "poodle".

The damn thing was a hellhound.

So, it was just standing on the sidewalk happy as can be, while looking for something. My family was taking a walk through the park when we passed it, but I had learned from experience to just ignore the monsters, and not even comment on it because everyone else saw something totally different. So, I just walked passed it as if I didn't see a two ton dog with three heads, when my cousin was like "poodle!"

Now, I don't know how they could have possibly have gotten "poodle!" out of that, but all my mom and aunt said was "It looks nice enough" and "I hope it doesn't have fleas". Now me, knowing it was certainly not "nice enough" was like "Ohs noes! It will eat joo like a finger sandwich!" and pushed her away from the dog from hell. Then, the dog took off, hitting a tree that fell down (apparently it was "old") and ran after some kid that was wearing furry pants, leaving me with a crying five year old and a mom yelling "that's the last straw!".

So, that's how I got to my personal hell. You really do not know how frustrating it is to see these things while no one else sees them. Well, almost no one else.

Meet my best friend, Antoinette Skeffington. She is half French, has long black hair, shining hazel eyes with gold flecks, normal height, and looks like a supermodel. I'm not saying that just because she's my best friend either, ask anyone and they'd agree.

Well, Antoinette is in the loony bin because she has ADD and dyslexia. She also sees my monsters, and gets attacked by them sometimes. That's probably why we're best friends though, it feels good to know that you're not completely crazy, or to have someone to at least be crazy with.

Me and Antoinette though, well, we're not really anything alike. She's really bossy, boy crazy, girly, a little bit snobbish, and a total drama queen. Well, me, I'm athletic, likes to do physical activity and get dirty, is lucky if my favorite shirt isn't ruined in a week, a bookworm, and would also be lucky if a boy even sneezed in my direction if I'm standing next to Antoinette.

She's a lot different when it's just us though, she's more goofy and spazzy. That's something that I cherish, and am proud of.

Our relationship goes beyond being best friends though, I'm kind of like her protector. I've decided that I'm going to protect my best friend from these freaky monsters since no one else seems able to. We've made a pact to always be there for each other. That entails the duty of nearly doing most of Antoinette's homework. I make her write everything herself though, so she learns something, but let's just say her grades aren't to pretty by herself. This is necessary though, because her mom says that if she fails even one subject, she has to move schools, and that just won't do.

As for our relationship with the rest of our class, well, we're kind of forbidden territory. Antoinette, well, she's like a goddess among pigs with us, and is automatically a queen bee. Me, being her hand hand man(/woman) automatically marks me off, and my hight and strength thrown into the mix helps too.

This girl name Nancy Bobofit tries to make fun of us sometimes in an effort to become the head honcho, but Antoinette always cuts her down to size. Most the time though, she's just a suck up to Antoinette.

I feel bad for the kid she picks on all the time, Percy Jackson. He has ADD and dyslexia like Antoinette, and I guess he's cute enough, but no where near as godly as Antoinette, which makes him open game. He only has one friend, whose name is Grover. Grover had some disease that makes his legs all weird, and is the perfect target for Nancy. Antoinette also thinks that Grover has a crush on her because we sometimes catch him starring at her, but I don't think I see anything crush-like in his eyes.

I think I see, I dunno, fear? Worry? Eh, I was never good at that whole "eye reading" thing, it's none of my business anyway.

I think Percy is cool though, and I sometimes get Antoinette to convince Nancy to back off. Antoinette considers Percy a comrade, or something weird like that, because Mrs. Dodds hates him like she hates her.

Well, our psycho math teacher hates me too, but that's because I yelled out that math was "a load of bull" when our principle was in the class. It was an accident, of course, but that didn't make her hate me any less.

Mrs. Dodds doesn't hate them like that though, it's more of a deep seated hate, one that makes her go out of her way to make them miserable. All I can say though, is that I don't like her. Sometimes she seems to flicker and looks like some demonic thing, but not even Antoinette can't see it, so I figure it's my wish that she became some creature so we could burn her at the stake.

….....I'm sure you have that feeling sometimes too.

The good thing is that we have a good teacher too. Mr. Brunner is our Latin teacher who is in a wheelchair. He's really cool and does a ton of stuff on Greek mythology. He likes me because I really pay attention in his class, on account of me seeing Greek mythology monsters, and he likes Percy and Antoinette too. Antoinette even does good in that class, because she seems has a knack for anything Greek.

I remember once that Mr. Brunner told me to watch out for Antoinette when I was in detention because I saw some giant snake thingy on our way back from our field trip, and ran up to the bus driver and slammed on the gas right before it took a bite out of the bus. It was an all day field trip, and almost everyone was sleeping except for me and a few kids I don't talk to. The others claimed that the only thing they saw was a big balloon in the shape of a snake when I stupidly made my case.

Antoinette believed me, of course, and I think Grover did too. That guy is either really gullible, or just plain stupid, but I was happy someone believed me anyway. Mr. Brunner was the first person to watch me for my two month long detentions, and the only thing he said to me that day was to watch out for Antoinette. It was weird, but I promised him anyway.

From that day on, I was sure the old man knew more than he was letting on. I never said anything about it though, because it just didn't feel right to.

That's about all you need to know about me. The only other thing that I think is important would be that I've been having a funny feeling for a while. It feels like everything is about to, I dunno, change.

Either way, I'm staying with and protecting Antoinette no matter what, and not even a god could stop me.