I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER

Percy's POV

Pillar-Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

Percy-I didn't either. I like how you conveniently only add yourself.

Pillar-Shut up and say the next part. Your interrupting the flow of the story.

Percy-All right, sheesh. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Pillar-Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

Percy-They have no idea what a half-blood is, idiot. Maybe you should explain it to them.

Pillar-Perseus Jackson...

Percy-All right. I get it when my logic is not wanted. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

Pillar-But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Percy & Pillar-Don't say we didn't warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson and my twin sister's name is Pillar Jackson.

We are twelve years old. Until a few months ago, we were both unhappily boarding students at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah. You could say that, though Pillar thinks mentally deranged sounds better. Like the dark, depressing music she likes to listen to.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know—it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes. Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus. Pillar decided she would sit on the cannon and swing her legs, changing the aim of it, but of course we got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, Pillar sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk—not the one I told her to hit by the way—and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good, and I was going to make sure my sister was too.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and ketchup sandwich, while poking Pillar in the back of the head, ten times a minute.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Pillar on the other hand, she was the complete opposite of Grover. Even though her sea green eyes were exactly like mine, she had a false coldness in them. She believed that it would keep the bullies away. She was someone that had a rough exterior, someone no one wanted to get upset. On the outside, she was rude and merciless, but on the inside, Pillar was the second sweetest person I know.

Second.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair and physically harassing my younger sister. It sucked that she knew Pillar and I couldn't do anything back to her because I got us on probation a few months ago.

It was an accident, of course.

The headmaster had threatened us with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're both already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

"We get suspended. Whoop-de-do. Big deal." Pillar said, dryly. She turned and slapped Nancy's hand, who was reaching out to poke her again.

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess we were about to get ourselves into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking.

Pillar took it upon herself to tell them to shut up for my sake. She couldn't care about this sort of history, but every time she opened her mouth, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give her the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured my sister and I were devil spawn. I guess she always figured whatever one of us did, the other one had to have helped. She would point her crooked finger at us and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew we were going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

That was the day Pillar just about smacked Nancy across the face.

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed, except for Pillar and Grover. They both gave me a satisfied nod. Though Pillar's had more of a spark in her eyes than Grover.

Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

"Easy. That's the only thing I learned in his class this year." Pillar whispered beside me, more to herself than out loud.

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," Pillar took over for me, explaining what she remembered. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued for her, "and the gods won."

"Good job, Mr. and Miss Jackson. Next time, though, and this is just a thought, let Percy answer for himself."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

"How the world are we supposed to know that?" Pillar questioned aloud, raising her eyebrows at Mr. Brunner.

"Perhaps you should be asking your brother the same question."

She turned to me expectantly.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson and partial credit Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover, Pillar, and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Jackson's'." I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?" Questioned my sister.

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy and Pillar Jackson."

"I...I understand, sir." I clasped my hands behind my back, squeezing my bones.

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed us so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshiped. But Mr. Brunner expected us to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that we both have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and we have never made above a C— in our life. No—he didn't expect us to be as good; he expected us to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. I highly doubt Pillar can. She can barley stay awake in her classes for ten minutes.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told us to go outside and eat our lunch.

As we walked outside, Pillar shook her head and took hold of my hand.

"I just don't get it, Percy. He knows we have mental disorders and still believes that we can top everyone off. I'm grateful that he believes in us, but it's not as easy as it looks. I wish he knew that."

I nodded, agreeing with her. "Maybe he's just doing that so we can have hope in ourselves. Half the time, we give up with everything that we do."

She laid her head on my shoulder. "Maybe. I wish he was more realistic about it, though."

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Pillar, Grover, and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

"You mean we're not geniuses. I'm not any better at learning than you are. If anything, I'm worse." Pillar munched on an Oreo, putting the box she stole from the teacher's lounge in between the three of us.

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give her some deep philosophical comment to make her feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?" She didn't have much of an appetite for the apple, so she let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

I felt a hand touch my shoulder gently and I turned to look in misty blue eyes.

"Percy..."

"I just miss her, Pill. I want to be back in our tiny apartment, eating blue waffles in the morning. I feel bad for leaving her with our step-dad, but if we go home, she'll just send us back here. She won't be proud of our effort. We're barley even trying."

"You know that isn't true, Percy. She'll be proud of us no matter what. We are trying. You are trying. You've done so much this year. You've helped me stay in line, helped Grover deal with the other kids, helped me make friends so I wouldn't be alone, all while dealing with your own problems. I don't think you've realized it but your the only reason our family, including Grover and Gabe, have stayed together. Stop thinking like that. Besides, why should that matter. I'm proud of you. I always have been. And I'm sure Grover is too. Right, Grover?" She turned to him, a glare set in her eyes.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm proud of you, buddy. You've done a lot this year. Practically working yourself to death." Grover nodded in agreement.

I smiled and gave Pillar a quick hug. "You're an amazing sister, you know that?"

She grinned at me. "Of course I am. I'm perfect."

I sighed at her and looked away, towards the museum.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." That wasn't the right thing to say.

Pillar shoved me. "Percy, shut up." She hissed.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

She whacked me on the back of my head, as she stood up to follow Mrs. Dodds.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her." I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You— will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. " Now." Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

"Hey, did you-?" Pillar asked, tapping my shoulder.

"Nope. I'm seeing it too." I say, walking forwards to keep up with her.

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure. There are rare moments when Pillar and I miss something at the same time. They're usually different pieces of information.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

"Percy, I don't think we're seeing things." Pillar barley whispered, tugging on my hand.

"It's probably nothing. She's probably going to make us buy Nancy a new shirt at the gift shop."

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

We followed her deeper into the museum. When we finally caught up with her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Percy..." Pillar whispered, barley saying anything.

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

"Percy..." Pillar said again, tugging my hand nervously

I shushed her.

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Percy!" Pillar exclaimed, backing up from me and Mrs. Dodds.

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me and my sister to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward Pillar with a murderous look in her eyes.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at her.

Pillar yelped in alarm as came in contact with her, golding her shirts with her talons. She squirmed, trying to free herself from her grip that it was no use.

Mrs. Dodds raised a shrivled hand.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I sprinted towards them, and I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

We was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me and my sister.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing? I had nearly believed that I had, until a tiny sob echoed in my head. I knelt down on the cold floor of the gallery room, staring at my twin.

I stroked her hair and pulled her into a safe and reassuring embrace. "Stop crying. It's okay now. Nothing is going to hurt you. It's just me." I soothingly whispered in her ear, my heart breaking every time I heard her gasp for air.

"I almost died. I would have died, had you not reacted so quickly." She murmured, her voice laced with fear. "Percy," she looked up at me, "what was that?"

I wiped the tears off her face. "I don't know, but that's not my biggest concern right now. My biggest concern is you. Are you hurt, Pillar? Is something wrong?"

She mouthed "no" and buried her head into my shoulder, ending her tears.

We sat there like that for a while. Me, holding her, while Pillar get's herself together. I didn't mind it though. I only cared about whether or not she was okay. This is my sister, we're talking about. I care for her like no other and if something is wrong with her, something is wrong with me.

"Percy?" She spoke after a while.

"Yes, Sis?"

"Can I borrow your jacket. My shirt has holes in it."

We went back outside, my arm wrapped around Pillar protectively.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me nor Pillar, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Grover still didn't say anything.

Thunder boomed overhead.

I rolled my eyes at him and asked Grover to watch over my shaken-up sister while I go talk to Mr. Brunner.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher." He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?