AN= I DO NOT OWN PJATO OR BTR. THEY BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS.
Logan's POV
We got back from Rocque Records. Gestavo told us that he was going to Fiji for awhile. When we got to the apartment, James went to the bedroom he shared with Carlos, who was jumping on the couch. Kendall sat on the couch watching a Minnesota Wilds game. I went to mine and Kendall's room to read in peace. When I sat on my bed, I felt someting poke me in the back. I jumped and turned. What I saw surprised me. It was a freaking box. I picked it up and carried it to the living room.
"Hey Logie, what ya got there?" Carlos asked as he stopped jumping. Kendall turned around and asked,"What's with the box?"
"I found this on my bed. I have no clue who it's from.", was my reply.
James came in and said as he sat on the couch,"Well, open it!" I sat down and opened the box. "It's books. Five of them. With a note addressed to us. It says:
Dear Big Time Rush members,
We feel the need to give you these books for future reference. When you're done reading these books, come to New York. We will meet you there.
From,
Greek gods and goddesses"
When I finished reading, we started laughing. After we calmed down, Kendall asked,"What are the names of the books?"
I took out the books and read,"It's a series. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief; The Sea of Monsters; The Titan's Curse; The Battle of the Labyrinth; and The Last Olympian."
"Well, how about we read these books for the heck of it. We got nothing else to do.", Kendall said. We agreed. "Logan, you read first."
I picked up The Lightning Thief and found the first chapter.
"CHAPTER 1: I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER" I read.
"Wow I can already tell this is going to be good!" Carlos said.
(Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.)
"What's a half-blood?" James asked while looking at me for the answer.
"A child of an Olympian god and a human." I answered. I was going to say more but Kendall said,"Just keep reading."
(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.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.)
Carlos whimpered and jumped behind the couch. Kendall reached back, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him back onto the couch.
(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 none of this ever happened.
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.
Don't say I didn't warn you.)
"Why would he be warning us?" James asked.
"It's fiction! How should we know?" I said and kept on reading.
(My name is Percy Jackson.
I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yeah. You could say that.
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 was going to say 'sweet' when Kendall said,"Logan, we know what you're going to say, but keep reading."
(I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.)
I waited for them to start laughing, but they didn't. So, I kept reading.
(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.)
"What's tweed?" asked Carlos "It kinda has the same texture as wool," James replied, to our surprise.
(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, but of course I got expelled anyway.)
We all 'Oooo'ed in sympathy for him.
(And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.)
We laughed at that.
(And the time before that...Well, you get the idea.
This trip, I was determined to be good.
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.)
James mimed puking at those words. I had to hit him in the back of the head to get him to stop so we could continue.
(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.)
Kendall's POV When Logan finished reading, he had what we call his 'thinking face' on.
"Logie has his thinking face on, I wonder what he's thinking", Carlos said as he walked over to stand in front of Logan and waved his hands frantically in front of his face. Logan stood up, with the book in his hands, and started pacing, looking at the paragraph he just read, muttering things like,"...scrawny...acne, beard...sixth grade...crippled...disease in legs..." When he looked up, his eyes were glazed over. He asked,"Where's the dictionary?"
"It's in your desk since the rest of us never use it," I said. When Logan was in our room, I whispered to James and Carlos,"What do you think he's thinking about?"
They both shrugged. Logan walked in and sat down in his seat. He set The Lightning Thief on the couch and began flipping through the dictionary. After a couple of minutes, he found what he was looking for. He said,"I know what Grover is."
We must've had confused looks on our faces because he rolled his eyes, picked up the book we were reading, and reread the last paragraph to us. When he was finished, he looked at us like he was excpecting us to catch on. "Are you serious? There is no leg disease or disorder that prevents you to walk normally, but allows you to run like normal. He shouldn't have acne and the formings of a beard in sixth grade." As he picked up the dictionary, he said,"If I'm correct, this book is about the Greek gods and goddesses, so Grover has to be one thing, a satyr." We finally caught on. He set the dictionary down on the coffee table and began to read again.
(Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me 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.)
"How can someone that scrawny do that?" James asked. "Everyone can do that," I said while motioning for Logan to keep reading.
("You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."
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 I was about to get myself into.)
Logan stopped and looked at us with a worried expression on his face, but went back to reading without saying anything.
(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, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.)
"Kind of like Logan's 'devil's glare'" James said. Logan glared at him so hard he was shaking. "Logan," I said,"just keep reading."
(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 I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say,"Now honey," real sweet, and I knew I was 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.")
Nobody's POV
Logan stopped as the door to the apartment opened and their girlfriends came in. Lisa went over to sit in Logan's lap; Kylie sat down beside Kendall, who put an arm around her; Jamie and Carrie also went and sat by their boyfriends.
"You guys are actually listening to Logan read? What happened to you guys?" Jamie asked teasingly. The guys told their girlfriends the run-down of the story so far, then they continued.
(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. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
"Mr. Jackson," he said,"did you have a comment?"
My face was totally red. I said,"No, sir.")
"Whose face wouldn't be red?" Lisa asked.
(Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"
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," I corrected myself. "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 Kylie as she buried her face into Kendall's chest.
("Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.)
They all laughed.
("-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued,"and the gods won."
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!" the guys shouted. Their girlfriends hit them in the stomach to get them to stop shouting and continue the story.
("Busted," Grover muttered.)
Everyone laughed at the coincidence.
("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.
I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. 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 and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said,"Mr. Jackson."
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.)
Lisa and Logan had their 'thinking faces' on.
("You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.
"About the Titans?"
"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 Jackson."
I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me 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 worshipped. But Mr. Brunnner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
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 me to go outside and eat my lunch.)
Lisa's and Logan's 'thinking faces' intensified. "WHAT ARE YOU TWO THINKING?" everyone else yelled.
They both looked up and said,"Nothing." And with that, Logan started reading again.
(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.)
Lisa looked at Logan, shaking her head, saying,"Global warming, yeah right."
(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.
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 genius."
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said,"Can I have your apple?")
They laughed.
(I didn't have much of an appetite, so I 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.)
Logan stopped and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. Lisa got off his lap, turned him around, and laid his head in her lap. She started combing her fingers through his dark brown hair, calming him down. He started reading.
(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.)
"I hate her and I haven't even met her," Lisa said while glaring at the book as if Nancy was real and should be cowering at the intense glare.
("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.)
"A wave?" Lisa asked. "That's kind of like what I hear when I get pissed."
(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.)
"No, it wasn't. You never guess what your punishment is going to be!" Lisa said.
"How do you know that?" James asked.
"I back-talked a teacher once, and I got detention for it," she answered.
Before anyone asked anything else, Logan began reading again.
("Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"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.)
"Like Lisa's and Logan's 'devil's glares' combined," Carlos said. Then he became the reciever for their glares.
"Just read, so we can continue," Kendall said.
(Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrence, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.)
"How'd she get there so fast?" Jamie asked.
(How'd she get there so fast?)
They laughed.
(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 don't think so," Carrie said.
(I wasn't so sure.
I went after Mrs. Dodds.
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.
Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.
But apparently that wasn't the plan.)
"Huh?" everyone asked.
9I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.)
Lisa's 'thinking face' was on again.
(Except for us, the gallery was empty.)
"Uh-oh," Lisa and Logan said.
(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...)
"Who would want to do that?" James asked.
"Apparently, Mrs. Doods does," Logan said before continuing.
("You've been giving us problems, honey,' she said.
I did the safe thing. I said,'Yes, ma'am.")
"Yes, go with the safe thing. Lisa would probably say,'What the bleep are you talking about?'", Kylie said. Lisa just rolled her eyes while everyone but Logan started laughing.
(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.)
"What the-" before Lisa could finish, Logan started reading again.
(She's a teacher, I though nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.)
"Why would she hurt you," Carrie thought,"they're nice."
Everyone else gave her an 'are you crazy' look.
(I said, "I'll-I'll try harder ma'am."
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.")
"PSYCHO!" everyone yelled.
(I didn't know what she was talking about.)
"Niether do we!" Carlos shouted.
(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.)
All the girls rolled their eyes.
(Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book & now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.)
"That's the stupidest book someone ever wrote or even thought of!" Lisa yelled.
("Well?" she demamded.
"Ma'am, I don't..."
"Your time is up," she hissed.
Then the wierdest 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 to ribbons.)
Lisa almost lunged for the dictionary and was turning the pages so fast, you would've thought she knew the freaking thing by heart. Then, her eyes widened as she said,"Mrs. Dodds is a Fury."
"A what?" pretty much everyone asked, except Logan.
"The Furies," Lisa read,"are three cruel earth goddesses of revenge and retribution. They are terrifying-looking creatures with horrible features. Their breath burns and poisonous blood drips from their eyes. Their heads are wreathed with snakes. In Greek myths, the Furies were sisters. Their names were Alecto, Magaera, and Tisiphone. They punished crimes such as murder and injustice, and they were reputed to continue punishing a sinner, even after his death, until he showed remorse."
There was silence until Logan started to read again.
(Then things got even stranger.)
"What can get stranger than a Fury appearing as your math teacher?" Carlos asked.
Thunder boomed.
(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 can a f****** pen do to that thing?" Lisa yelled, along with Kendall and Jamie.
("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.)
"What? Is it a pencil now?" everyone asked.
(It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.
Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.
She snarled,"Die honey!"
And she flew straight at me.
Absolute terror ran through my body. 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.
I was alone.
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.
My hands were still shaking. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.)
"They weren't contaminated with anything!" everyone shouted.
(Had I imagined the whole thing?)
"NOOO!" everyone yelled.
(I went back outside.
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.")
"Who?"
(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, so I thuoght he was messing with me.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious.")
"Yes," Lisa said,"it is, since you just killed your math teacher, who just happened to be a Fury."
(Thunder boomed overhead.
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 alright?")
"That's the end of the chapter", Logan said.
"I want to read!" Lisa said. Logan handed her the book.
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