The school bus boycott… Kind of
It was the last month of school. Chiron had let Jayke attend my school, PS 316. It wasn't a new school and all the uniforms looked the same. Black pants and a white polo. Yeah, really creative…
It started like a regular day. Or as regular as it can get for a son of Poseidon… I got out of bed and dressed quickly and took out my deodorant from the top of the dresser. It was gel-like and pretty cool to touch. I started to press my finger into the gel. It felt sort of like Jell-O. I put on my deodorant and brushed my teeth. I saw something stuck in between my teeth and I went to pick it out with my finger and suddenly I had a very bad taste in my mouth. The deodorant gel had flavored my finger.
"Agh!" I grunted and washed my mouth out with water.
I started to walk to the bus stop with my half brother Jayke.
Jayke had been taken into a foster home. He didn't like them, much. They had tried to change his name from Jayke Krystal to Jayke Lambert. He put up a fuss and so they left the subject alone.
"Percy I want to go back to camp," Jayke trudged along side me.
"I know, but you have a home here. Plus, you have to go to school," I tried to reason with him.
I realized he had changed since the first time I met him. His shaggy blond hair was now short and neatly combed. He no longer wore his cap everywhere and he had grown almost as tall as me. It was kind of sad that he was two years younger than me and we were almost the same height.
"Y'think Annabeth is at camp now?" Jayke stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"I'm not sure. She might be."
Annabeth was my best friend. We have known each other for almost 5 years. She was a daughter of Athena.
We stopped at the corner of the street by the bus stop and Jayke leaned against the pole, talking to a few of his weird 7th grade friends. I walked over to a few of my friends. Katy, Athia, and Ryan all stood in one corner. Katy was Asian and had terrible grammar. Athia and Ryan were brother and sister, but you wouldn't think that. Athia was really smart and she had light brown hair and tended to yell at me a lot for no reason. Ryan was blond and a little chubby. He was a few years younger than Athia and he was usually the one in trouble.
"Hey, Percy what's up?" Ryan gave me a high-five. Athia just looked at me as if I had poked her in the eye.
"Percy, you're late. What if the bus came early?" Athia scolded.
"I'd hail a cab," I replied with a smirk. Athia just rolled her eyes.
"Athia is just grump because she not get all A," Katy explained.
"No kidding? You got an F?"
"No! I got one B. I was going to the A honor role!" Athia defended. Cripes, she was a grump.
The bus pulled up and Jayke and I sat in the back of the bus. He was chewing gum so he hid his face behind the seat. I looked at the person driving our bus. It wasn't the regular driver, Ms. Shields. This was a fat old sot with a mean face and ugly wrinkles. The bus started to continue down the street. The scary thing was the driver was staring straight at us instead of the road!
"Jayke, look." I nudged him and he took the gum from his mouth and looked over the seat.
"Yeah… a new bus driver so what?" He went to hide behind the seat again but I grabbed his white polo and pulled him back up.
"No, she's looking at us and not the road!" I whispered. Jayke's eyes widened and he sat straight up in the seat.
"That looks just like the lady I met back at my old school before the Lotus Casino," Jayke murmured.
"You—." I didn't get to finish my sentence. The bus swerved to the side of the road. A lot of the kids screamed I fell out of my seat. To my horror the bus driver had gotten out of her seat and was walking towards us. I don't know how, but the bus was still driving itself. The driver was transforming as she came closer. Her hands formed into long claws and large, leathery wings sprouted from her back. Athia and Ryan screamed.
"What-what is that!" Ryan screamed. They could see the Fury through the mist? Only half-bloods, gods, and very few mortals could see through the mist…
I dug into my pocket for Riptide and uncapped it. The Fury flinched at the sight of the Celestial Bronze.
"I'll distract her! Get everyone out of the bus!" I screamed and I stood up. I held Riptide up as the Fury lunged and tried to sink her claws into my chest. I parried her move and stabbed her in the ankle. She wailed in pain and slashed at my shoulder. I wasn't ready for the attack and she had made a deep scratch in my left shoulder. It felt like it was on fire. In a burst of anger I stabbed the Fury in the neck and she vaporized into a pile of yellow, foul smelling dust. I clutched my shoulder, which felt it would explode. I knew I had no time to rest, the bus was still moving and I had a bus-full of confused mortals.
Jayke was trying to calm them down but most of them we're either screaming in terror or trying to crawl out through the windows. I wonder what they saw through the mist.
I grabbed the steering wheel and tensed up. My shoulder was on fire. I veered right and the bus jerked toward the right. Some kids screamed cuss words. I put my foot down on what I hoped was the brakes and prayed to the gods it would work. The bus stopped on the side of the road. I clutched my shoulder, which started to throb. Jayke had collapsed into a seat with relief and all the kids had piled out of the bus.
"Well, that was fun," Jayke grumbled and walked past me and out of the bus.
I looked at my blood stained shirt and winced. It was worse than I thought. I needed Ambrosia and Nectar quick… The pain was getting worse. The last thing I remember was Jayke screaming my name and Ryan clutching his hair in a panic. Then it went black.