CHAPTER 1:
Annabeth Hits Leo with the Great Pyramid
So I guess I thought that after Kronos, everything would go back to normal. Er, well, normal for a demigod I guess. But then, of course, Gaea decided it was time to wake up from her beauty sleep (and I promise, she could have used a few thousand more years of that), and Juno (sorry, Hera. I still do that sometimes from my time in the Roman camp) decided to uproot me from my friends, family, and life in general. Oh, and she dumped my memory too. Nice lady, huh. Anyway, so me and Jason brought the camps together (that was interesting; some of the fights the Greeks and Romans got in were insane!) and a whole bunch of us went off to mess up Gaea in Greece. We won, as is obvious by the fact act that I'm telling this story and am not dead, and now Gaea's back underground where she belongs. So I should get to go home, right? Nope. Everything should go back to demigod normal, right? After all, we'd saved the world twice now. But no. Because Annabeth just had to see the Pyramids. Great.
"Did you know they only took 20 years to build it?" she said excitedly about the Great Pyramid. "I've heard there are still miles of tunnels left to be excavated! Nobody knows how far they go."
Leo pantomimed barfing behind Annabeth, and I had a really hard time stifling a laugh, not only because Annabeth had been going on about this for hours, but because Leo had built mechanical barf that was now 'splattering' on the ground. Annabeth, apparently, heard Leo because she whipped around and pegged him in the forehead with a miniature pyramid. Jason broke first. A loud guffaw left his mouth explosively, and then Piper started giggling uncontrollably. I tried, I really did, but at about the same time as Frank I folded over in laughter. Hazel managed a little longer than the rest of us before a small chuckle left her mouth. Annabeth had a triumphant look on her face and Leo was rubbing his head where the point (what had Annabeth called it? Oh, a pyramidion, right. ) had connected with flesh.
Grover trotted up to a bunch of fifteen to eighteen year olds sitting in the middle of the sidewalk laughing their heads off. I imagine it was a pretty funny sight. "What did I miss this time?" Grover grumbled.
"Annabeth hit me," said Leo, trying to act miffed but failing miserably.
Grover laughed and passed around waters."Figures I'd miss that," he smiled good-naturedly. "What's that?" he asked pointing at Leo's mechanical goop.
"Barf," I said trying to control my laughter. Leo wasn't the only one failing miserably.
"Right..." Grover took a step back. After that, a whole other round of laughing shook the group, this time including Annabeth and Leo.
A few tourists gave us weird looks, so we stood up and dusted ourselves off, still giggling a bit. Annabeth was holding some pyramid architecture book that Jason had asked about. We'd all tried to stop him, but nevertheless, the question was asked. I didn't really mind, though. Most of what Annabeth said still went right over my head, but I liked listening to her talk.
"Guys," Hazel said, "our bus for Cairo leaves in, like, half an hour. We should probably, you know, go to the bus station." She had become a kind of voice of reason for us. Jason and I, well, we'd both rush into a situation without a minute of thought. Leo got distracted a lot, and Frank was Fiercely protective o Hazel. Seriously, the other day, some guy gave her a funny look, and Frank decked him. She'd scolded him, but secretly, I was sure she was pleased. Annabeth, once her mind was set on something, was very difficult to dissuade, but Hazel somehow managed it. Sometimes. Piper tended to charm speak people without realizing it, and Hazel was always telling them to keep their cash or cars or, this one time, shirt (even Gaea wasn't scary compared to this ninety year old Greek guy trying to strip for Piper. I still have nightmares about that one). At any rate, she was right so we hastened to the station. (I know, hastened. I've been spending a lot of time around Annabeth)
When we got there, this porter dude kept trying to speak with us in Arabic. Hazel replied in Latin, receiving a puzzled look from the man, so Annabeth tried Greek with much the same reaction. Piper pulled out some French, but that didn't work. I, ever resourceful, tried English, but he definitely didn't get that. It was Leo who got some luck.
"Hola, señor. Necesitamos abordar el autobús numero diez. ¿Donde lo está?"
"Sí , señor. Va a este pasillo y despues va al signo verde. El autobús está allí."
"Muchas gracias, señor." In English, Leo said, "That way," pointing at a hall to our left.
"I didn't know you were fluent, man," Jason said.
"Yeah, well..." he looked a little uncomfortable.
"I just want to know why in Hades an Arabic man would know Spanish. That's so random!" Piper wondered.
"Yeah," I agreed, "I thought the majority of people learned English as a second language." (There's Annabeth again.)
"Oh well," she said. "It's not exactly important, now is it?"
"Guess not," replied Hazel.
"BUS TEN. NOW BOARDING BUS TEN" a voice from an intercom announced in several different languages including, thankfully, English.
The bus was made four seats across with an aisle in the middle, so we sat in pairs. Annabeth and I sat together, and I think Jason and Piper shared a row, with Hazel and Frank across from them and Grover and Leo across from us, although, honestly, I wasn't really paying attention, because this was the first semi- alone time I'd spent with Annabeth for awhile. Grover and Leo started talking about mechanical barf, so that left me free to talk with her.
"Something occurs to me," she said in a voice that meant she was about to say something either really interesting, or go on about architecture for the next 3 hours. I hoped it wasn't the latter.
"What?"I asked, mentally crossing my fingers.
"Well obviously the Greek/Roman gods are real," she said.
"Uh- huh," I replied, not knowing where she was going with this.
"The Egyptians had Gods too."
"And you think they're still hanging around, too?"
"I don't see why not," she said, a gleam in her eye.
"Hm," I said. "I wonder how they'd react to us?"
"Probably not too well" she said.
That was when the sandstorm blew up , causing the outside world to turn a reddish brown color.