Day 6 of the Ten Days of Percabeth challenge. I'm posting this two hours before it's officially day two but you know what, I have too much to edit tomorrow before I leave for a camp. Saturday I am not home, so expect day 7 either today or Sunday.

dedication: a fry

disclaimer: me no own

6

10 Chase-Jacksons

Maybe a Chase-Jackson

1) Clio: Annabeth Chase the II

"Mama?" I called, lying on my bed.

"In a second," she called back. I waited patiently for her to get satisfied with the straightness of the wall or angle of whatever she was designing right now, until she appeared in my doorframe.

"Yes sweetheart?" She asked, her hair held up behind her head with two pencils, crossed like swords.

"I was just wondering if the cells of a vegetable and an animal cell were the same, but I looked it up in my book and they aren't because a vegetable cell has a body called chloroplast, and I was wondering if only a plant had them because that part of the cell did something only a plant could do." I asked.

"Correct," Mom said. She knelt next to my bed and pointed in the big book. The vegetable cell drawing looked like a rectangle with squiggly lines in them, but I knew better. Those were key parts of life on earth.

"The difference here is that that particular body allows the plant to feed itself with photosynthesis."

"I think I heard Uncle Malcolm talk about it," I said.

"Probably," Mom said. "And the chloroplast makes something called chlorophyll, which is what tinges plants green. Do you want to know another difference between the two cells?"

Eventually she ended up sitting on my bed and talking and answering questions and going through the pages of the book so fast one of us would definitely get a papercut.

We heard the door open and close which meant that Dad was back from work. I heard him lean in the doorframe.

"What are my two favourite girls talking about?" He asked.

"Cells," I said. "Well, that was before. Now it's genes."

"Annabeth," Dad sighed, "I thought you promised that we wouldn't teach Clio eight grade level stuff until she was ten."

"Well, she asked and I won't be the one who'll deny her knowledge," Mom replied, crossing her arms and smiling at him.

2) Orion: the reason the swim team just got hotter

I laughed so hard I nearly felt soda in my nose canals. I started choking which made Myra, Ren and Sam laugh harder.

"You sound like you're going to die man, calm down." Sam said.

"Seriously, we have a competition in three days. We kind-of desperately need you." Lori said.

The swim team didn't always sit together- what were we, a TV show?

But before competitions our coach thought that it'd be good to get the 'team spirit' up. So instead of sitting with Myra, Ren and Sam, I sat with Myra, Ren, Sam, Lori, Jake, Nick, Oliver, Olivia and Alberto. It was actually hilarious because so many jokes about guppies and seaweed could be made.

That's when a blue nail polished hand slapped down on my table. It actually alternated white, green and blue, so I was guessing she was trying to be preppy about our ugly school colours.

"Hey O," she said to me. I looked along the arm and up at Kitty Parker's face.

"Hello Kitty," I said. The swim team guys shut up and shuffled around and took tiny bites out of their food. Cheerleaders usually stuck to hovering around the football players and taking their numbers for going on the next date in the movie theater's back row or all not. It sounded stereotypical and it was sad, and it made my mom rage about young women's imagery of themselves and how we-didn't-fight-for-equality-so-this-could-happen, but it was true. "How may I help you?"

"The Cheerleaders are looking for a gig," she said. "Thinking we could spread school spirit further. We were wondering if you would like us to come along next Thursday."

I glanced around at the others. Myra frowned with her straw stuck between her lips. Jake was checking out Kitty. Sam's jaw had dropped. Ren's head was cocked to the side.

"We'll think about it," I promised.

"Is this about the fact that O is hotter than the average Greek god?" Lori –who is not known for the thought/mouth filter- blurted.

She didn't mean it, I swear, I prayed. I'd heard horror stories about a few people at camp and… well; getting complimented like that, even innocent comments like that, was potentially life combusting.

"Don't be silly," Kitty said with a lip gloss smile. "It's about school spirits."

"I think that the budget for the Cheerleaders got cut again and they're trying to prove they need more money," Ren said.

"Aliens," Nick whispered.

3) Penelope 'Penny': Daddy's girl

"Did you see that Dad?" I asked.

"You bet I did, great shot," he said, throwing his own line.

"Well, now that that's done, fishing just got boring." I said.

"True," Dad nodded. For a few seconds it was really quiet, like sentimental bonding fishing trips are supposed to be like, just two people starring out at the ocean. I've always associated more closely with the ocean. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because I'm unfortunately named on account of Athena. Her favoured hero was Odysseus, and Penelope was his wife. The logic was that the name might calm her down about her DNA being mixed with Poseidon's when my mom got pregnant. Nah, I'm just a daddy's girl.

"Want to swordfight instead and let the fish live?" He asked me.

"Yes!" I said my hand reaching for Tsunami, the click pen in my pocket.

4) Daphne: Was not told about Camp Half-Blood

I was milling around the guest room at Grandma and Grandpa's apartment, going through old boxes. Grandma had promised a box full of old paperbacks- the ones that smelt like old books with yellowing pages and textured paper. Heck: the best.

I unfolded the flaps of one after freeing it from under this massive one that contained old pictures. I wasn't interested in pictures. Between one picture and a thousand words, I liked the words better.

I took out this spiral notebook. Really plain and boring, but the name on it sparked. At first I noticed that 'Percy Jackson' was written on the cover, but then so was 'Annabeth Chase' and 'Grover Underwood'. Then off the line more names followed. Clarisse Larue, Katie Gardner (except someone had crossed it out and written 'Stoll' overtop, which had been crossed out again and replaced with 'Gardner'), Will Solace, Connor and Travis Stoll, Malcolm Pager… Some names I recognised, like, Will Solace was in all those Olympic commercials and Clarisse Larue was somehow important in the US Army and the first woman to have some job. Malcolm was an uncle, and I was pretty sure that 'Pollux Leduc' was a wine critic or something that had a column for himself in the paper.

Weird, I thought. My parents were successful people too; maybe they'd gone to the same school or something.

I opened it and starting reading- except it was odd. It wasn't a diary, or a yearbook of some sort like I'd expected. It looked like a… a story. Like someone had written out fantasy stories. They were good enough to publish, or at least put on the internet- that part became clear the second I got by page 5, though I sat down and read much longer. The action built up, the mystery the shock and it was a funny, funny thing. I wondered why Grandma hadn't published this one like she'd done to her other stories.

The second the Greek gods appeared I got giddy as a schoolgirl because I'd always thought that they were the coolest ones. Between the blocks of text there were graphs of battlefields with little X and O's and a legend that showed symbols for stuff like 'cannon' or 'trench' or 'Greek fire'. Sketches of monsters that I'd read about; tips and tricks on things like Armour polishing, Twelve Best Places to Hit a Dragon (if you can run fast it enough), Sword Sharpening- do it yourself!, or Fighting off damn cabin 7's rhyming curses damn them all by Clarisse Larue.

I didn't get remarkably far, when I got too curious. My dad's name in there as a character was one thing –Grandmother had probably written this, after all- but mom's? And Uncle Grover's?

I pushed myself back up and wove between the bed and the piles of cardboard boxes and back in the living room where the Olympics were blaring. Grandma was in the kitchen dicing cheese and arranging them on a platter of crackers.

"Grandma," I asked.

"Yes honey?" She said smiling at me.

"I found this in the guest room," I said showing her the notebook. "Much better than any old paperbacks, why didn't you publish it?"

Grandpa, Mom and Dad turned. When my parents saw the notebook their green and grey eyes met and Grandpa turned off the TV and watched as if two atomic bombs were meeting each other.

"Daph," Dad said. "Can you just… give me that? So I can… check something?"

5) Theo: who should be locked in a psycho ward

My heart raced fast. Dad waited at the door, jiggling his keys.

"Theo," he called. "Are you coming?"

I swallowed. "Yeah, okay."

"What's wrong?" He asked. "You afraid to go to school, kiddo?"

"Percy, be nice." Mom called from the kitchen, where she was trying to simultaneously gobble down breakfast, reply to an email and find a pen.

"I'm coming," I said closing my hand around my backpack strap. I gulped. "Bye Mom, love you."

"Love you too, sweetheart." She called. Dad opened the door and let me out.

We walked down the stairs because according to my parents and most of their friends 'elevators are for losers'. They always said it like a private joke.

"Are you okay?" Dad asked.

"Me? Yeah, of course, I'm fine, I'm great, I'm perfect, swell, why do you ask?" I asked.

Too many adjectives in one sentence for a 'fine' or 'great' or 'perfect' person to say, I grumbled to myself. My ability to lie was deteriorating by the day.

"When I asked you if you were afraid to come to school," he said. "I wasn't kidding. Is there a kid at school? Is that why you've stayed home and asked again this morning?"

"I stayed home because I was sick," I defended knowing that I was busted.

"No you weren't," Dad said. "And if your mother had a minute to spare she'd have noticed too."

"Why did you leave me off the hook, then?"

"Because I figured that something was wrong," Dad said, "and that eventually you'd talk about it."

No way. I don't want to be shipped off to a psycho-hospital in New Delhi or something.

"Nothing," he said. "Just tired. And overstressing for those tests next week. Who's idea was it not to place a law about a graded material quota anyways?"

"You'll ace them," Dad told me. "And you know it. What else is there? Is there a kid at school?"

"No Dad. They consider me too mentally superior to pick on." I said. That's why I can't be freaking losing my marbles all over the place and- and doing crazy stuff like hallucinating and… and…

"Alright, alright." Dad said. "But… you know that you can tell us anything, right?"

"Yes, Dad." I said.

We stepped out of the apartment, into the cool fall air. I loved fall, I'd always liked it. I'd always been glad my birthday was in fall too, but since I'd turned twelve four days ago, I hadn't stepped out of our Manhattan apartment. I'd pretended to be sick and spent the day searching through the internet –even the second page of Google results- to see if there was such a thing as 'Juvenile dementia' and how old you had to be to be schizophrenic.

He didn't say anything and that made me more nervous. Like, I'd turn around and it wouldn't be dad, it'd be some kind of snake-headed, rooster-footed, fang-clad, evil-eyed, forked-tongued beast.

We walked for a while and I stopped in my tracks, looking in an alley we'd walked by where this dog the size of a tank had its head stuck in the dumpster. Like, literally stuck, it was struggling to get its head out. I grabbed Dad's arm to pull him away and he looked at me crookedly.

"What?" He asked. I looked back in the alley.

"Nothing, lost my balance." I promised. Dad looked at me suspiciously. He knew that something was up.

We walked some more and I heard a helicopter. It sounded really low so I looked up, and sure enough it was. It was probably heading for the hospital.

Then I noticed the sun and for a second I was looking at an Italian sport car instead.

Look down, keep walking, keep walking, you should be used to your mind being completely, locco.

A while later I saw a guy on a motorcycle. He pulled up his visor to squint at the sun and flash the finger at it, and I saw that his eyes were pure flames. I sucked in a whole lot more air than the average human lung could hold, grabbed on to a bench and stopped. Dad noticed and turned around.

"Okay Theo, you can tell me what is wrong, or I can pry into your life and dissect it for info, what's wrong?" He asked.

I looked over my finger at motorcycle guy looking straight at freaking me and my will broke loose.

"It's just that I'm going nuts and seeing these things all over the place and I am losing it!" I panicked. "Like… Like that guy!"

The motorcyclist sped off as soon as I mentioned him, but not before Dad could turn around and spot him.

Dad looked at me for a moment, that eerie calm way he looks at me when he's mad.

"Okay, you're not going to school, and I'm not going to work. Come on; let's go get some ice cream. The Marble Slab too." He said.

For a second I thought that he might be trying to calm me down with the eternal Jackson cure for calming down -sugar- but then I realised that we were near a DQ, and so if we were walking an extra 20 000 blocks to Marble Slab, there was something bigger going on.

6) IQ: the brains

"Saw your parents yesterday at the conference, dweeb face." Curtis said, banging Q against the wall. His head snapped back and hit the brick wall. Owe- ack- Frigg! Why was there nobody in the schoolyard on nights when the Trivia club and the Football Club and/or detention ended on the same night? A couple of cops would be of use. Honestly, that was a lack of planning and misuse of logic.

"Now I'm really confused as to why you ended up like you are. Skinny like a twig, bug-eyed glasses, ugly like a butt, I mean, do they make you cover your face when you go out as a family?"

His hit men (or at least that was Q's word for it but 'suck-ups' would do as well) laughed like the primates that evolution had left them behind as.

"I saw your parents too, Curtis. But I really understand why you ended up like that. I mean, your mother also looked like she possessed the cerebral cortex of a baby squid." Q said.

For a second Curtis looked confused and Q nearly managed to squirm out. He was faster than he looked, even with a backpack of textbooks and binders weighing him down on most days. He had to thank bullies like Curtis for that asset. Oh, and Camp Half-Blood- definitely Camp Half-Blood.

But Curtis made up for brains with brawns and even though he was a great wrestler when techniques were used and it wasn't muscle against muscle, Q was stuck.

"I don't know what the heck that is, but take it back." Curtis said; his red face about three inches from Q's.

"I see no need."

This was Q's fatal flaw. He could not kneel down and just walk away calmly. No. He should technically be smarter than that (but then if 'technically' was a thing, his parents wouldn't exist, thus no Q at all to imagine this technicality- woopsies, paradox) - but he just was. His friends at Camp made fun about it 24/7 and Chiron told him that it truly wasn't his fault, but rather his parents. Mr D told him that as long as it got him killed one day, it didn't matter.

He got smashed against the wall again, so Mr D must be at least a bit satisfied since his omnipresent self must have known what was going on right now.

"Take it back," Curtis growled. "You're weak, Q. You're stick-thinn. You probably can't lift a baseball bat with one hand. A bumper car can run you over."

That hurt Q a bit. He was a demigod, and while he knew that those came in all shapes and sizes and talents, sometimes he looked at crumpled pots or Renaissance paintings of mythology scenes and then at himself. He was no hero. He didn't have the muscles or solid abs or dreamy good looks (definitely not that last component). Hercules and Theseus and Perseus (the son of Zeus, not Dad) would look down on him and call him cute if they even bothered to comment. And, come on: every demigod wanted his/her face on a vase or something, and Q as a legacy was no exception. Some settled with t-shirts, political billboard, posters and sports memorabilia nowadays.

Q grabbed himself in his hands and remembered the one thing that his mother had told him on the very first day she'd sent him to camp, as if she'd known that it would happen. Well, knowing Mom she probably had.

Your name's Isaac Quintus Jackson. You are named for two of the greatest minds in the world, Newton and Daedalus, but your initials too are a play on words. You're a legacy of Athena, Q. That's not always easy but just because your muscles aren't blown to a size that makes referees want to check you for steroids doesn't mean that you're not strong.

"That's very physically probable," Q said. "But one day you'll be washing my Mercedes."

7) Camille: New Rome's Angel

"One," she said.

"Two," Alexander counted.

"Three!" Camille yelled out. She launched herself down the street and she knew that Alexander had too. They ran out across New Rome- which was considered by some as a form of suicide, but Alexander and Camille were experts at this. They'd been living in the chaotic Roman city since they were born. They were as good as dodging chariot traffic and swerving around people and merchants as one could get at dodging chariot traffic and swerving around people and merchants.

"I'm gonna win!" Alexander yelled out.

Last minute trick for Camille: she put the petal to the metal and stepped on it, putting on that burst of energy that she always saved for later, and her legs moved twice as fast taking giant leaps and ultimately sliding under a fruit cart baseball style and getting up in time to slam against the walls of Barbara's Bridal Shop, before Alexander even took off the imaginary laurels.

"Gosh dang it, cuz," he said. "Look, we've been racing since I'm four. I think I'm worthy of the knowledge. How the Pluto do you do that?" He asked.

Camille panted, looking her cousin in the icy blue eyes he got from Uncle Jason.

"People," she panted, "Unintentionally slow down without realising it when they think it's in the bag. Now c'mon, you owe me gelato now."

And so they walked –partially because people gave running-like-hell children-who-were-too-old-for-that dirty looks when they ran, partially to catch their breath- to Gaius' Gelato. That man had owned the shop when Alexander's father had joined the legion at the age of two, and Camille didn't doubt that he'd own it when their great-grandchildren would be in the legion.

The little bell rung and at this hour. The legion was going through drills, the Greek branch of Camp here was giving Greek lessons, most kids were trapped home doing chores, and adults were working. Alexander and Camille were lucky. The store was empty, smelling like vanilla and chocolate and fruits.

Gaius smiled at them.

"It's my two favourite filii," he said. "Alexander, Camille, how are you two?"

"Good," they chanted.

"Gelato, you want? Let me guess, mango for Alexander and chocolate chip cookie dough for Camille, yes?" He asked. Gaius spoke with an Italian accent and nobody was sure why since he'd a) never been to Italy and b) wasn't Italian anyway.

"You're good," Alexander grinned.

"No, you two just come here too often." Someone said. Camille turned around and saw Aunt Reyna.

"Hi!" Camille said. She made a point of sounding ridiculously joyful around Aunt Reyna.

"Hello Camille, Alexander." She said. "Aren't you supposed to be at school, Cami?"

"No, today was just an exam." Camille said. "When you finish, you go."

"And it took you what, three minutes?" Aunt Reyna smiled. She was a truly beautiful woman when she smiled. She still scared the Hades out of everyone, but she was beautiful.

"Half an hour," Camille shrugged. "I don't believe in revision and my mom drilled me like the legion last night."

"And you," she said pointing at Alexander, "Don't have anywhere else to be either, do you, since the school's pipe system broke? Okay, as long as. Continue with your floundering. Gaius-"

"A cup of lemon gelato for you, Rey- I mean, Officer Grace?"

"No thank you," she said. "I was just coming around to check if your security issue had been breached again."

"Umm- no, they haven't seemed to come back." Gaius said. "Thank you for your trouble, I thought the office would've buried the report by now."

"The office and my head aren't the same things, Gaius." She said with a wink. "I'll be off then."

She kissed Alexander's forehead on the way out and flicked Camille's hair, which was her subtle ways of saying 'I love you' without saying it.

Gaius handed them the gelato and they searched their pockets for the money but he waved them off, as they inquired about the so-called 'security breech' and talked about this and that, and Camille shared news from the Greek Education center on the outskirts of town where she learned ancient Greek and myths that she wouldn't learn if she joined the legion.

"No, no, no, just a nice chat with two legacies is good payment." He said.

"You know Alex," she said sitting at one of the round Willy-Wonka-style tables in the shop. "I think I'm going to join the legion."

"Really?" Alexander said. "What about Camp Half-Blood? It's, like, your favourite place ever."

"Joining the legion doesn't mean I leave it forever," I said. "It's just that there aren't that many Greeks around this joint and half of the kids our age are going to join. The Greeks are going to go learn at Camp Half-Blood, but I don't want to go live at camp, on the other side of the country by myself. My parents are the Greek diplomats here, they can't leave."

"Mm-kay," Alexander said taking a spoonful of gelato. "What do your parents think?"

"My Dad was in the legion. He says that if I like mud and blood and hard work I'll be okay, but I think he still wants me to go to camp a bit. Mom said that whatever I want to do I am free to and should do." Camille said.

"Well, if you do join, there's just one thing."

"What?" Camille asked.

Her cousin grinned slyly.

"We have to get in the same cohort."

8) Seth: The sweet nerd guy who's actually really hot, you just don't notice it.

I brushed a streak of hair out of my face but it fell back. Mom said to blame Dad's genetic baggage. She's the long-haired blonde, so personally, I blame her.

I should be used to it. Every time I hunched over a book my hair flopped in my face which added up to twenty million times a day.

I focused my attention more as an interesting theory on the true author of the work of Shakespeare was brought up in the paragraph. My hand flopped around the library table where I'd spread out, longing for a highlighter and I felt it get pushed in my fingers. I looked up and saw Christy Gordon sitting in front of me.

I smiled in thanks and uncapped it to go highlight that part of the magazine and I heard giggling. I looked up confused because I hadn't seen anyone particularly socially royal come into the place. More giggling. I saw Erica, Michelle and Gail standing near the library shelves, huddled up.

I turned back. Giggling airheads wasn't a rare sight around this joint.

"So," I heard Christy say.

Uh oh, talking.

I straightened up and took my ear buds out of my ears, pausing the TED talk I was listening to.

"Hi," Christy said.

"Hello." I said unsure where this was going. Me plus popular people ended in two ways. Detention for them because they'd punched me, or me being punched and alone in the hallway. This was why it paid off to be a wallflower. Why I kept to my own business.

"You know, you get about twenty times hotter when you study." She said. I frowned. What the hell was the appropriate response to this?

"Umm…"

"I mean, your hair's always fluffy and brown and your eyes are always that grey colour, and your glasses are always cute just the way they fit on your face, but you get, like, insanely hot around books." She said.

I was not used to girls going into epiphanies-of-realising-Seth-Chase-Jackson-was-hot in front of me. I thought that was physically impossible until today, and I still wasn't sure what in the world was going on.

"Umm…"

I sucked at social interactions.

"So," she said. "I have an idea. You can pick me up at seven on Friday and we go to Felix' party down in Brooklyn." She flipped her hair. "It'll be fun. What do you say?"

I wasn't sure whether she was serious (low chances), whether this was one of those bring-the-biggest-loser-to-a-party things where extra points were given if you brought someone of the opposite gender (highly probable), or if she'd been dumped recently and rather show up with me than show up single.

"Umm…" I said. "I… kind-of can't."

"You can't?" Christy said. "Well that's too bad, how come? There's no way a good boy like you got in trouble unless there's a side I don't know." She arched an eyebrow.

Was that supposed to be seductive?

It was in books, so I guessed so.

Why was she trying to seduce me? My brain could not handle this.

"No, umm…"

"Seth!" Someone called. I turned around and saw Val walking as fast as she could through the library without getting yelled at by the nutty librarian. Her backpack was over one shoulder, her school blouse was buttoned one too high like whenever she was in a rush in the morning and she was carrying books that she only managed to balance at such a speed with will power and some kind of blessing.

"Hi sweetheart," I said as she stood next to me. I put an arm around her waist and she leaned down for a kiss, her black curls tickling my face.

"Oh," Christy said.

"Yeah," I replied. "So..?"

"Sure," Chrissie said, getting up unwillingly. Val watched her with her glassy-eyed superficial 'what is this popular person doing here who does it think it is oh my god let's kill it with fire' look, and then took her place.

"What was her problem?" She asked.

"Epiphany," I said. "Why, are you perhaps jealous Miss Benedict?"

"Nah," she replied. "I realised that nerds were hot a long time ago."

9) Laurel: who can't see through the mist and was never told a thing about camp

If boring jobs are genetic, then please, somebody, shoot me now.

One's an architect and one's a teacher at a rough school in a rough neighbourhood. Sitting and talking all day. Always walking to work in the same pattern, wearing footsteps into the cement, navigating mazes of cubicles… Gah, that idea makes me sick.

But that's my parents.

Looking at their old yearbooks, they looked like the kind of people who didn't do any of those things. My mom was in track, and in a couple of brain power teams like trivia, or debate team. My dad was just a really good athlete; captain of the swim team was one piece of evidence. But nope; they didn't go to the Olympics or to a world research lab for cancer. My parents are just like most people's parents: average-Joe people who fell in love, got good jobs, got a good house, had a kid.

Bleh.

10) Zander: who just isn't as good

He hit the ground with a hard 'thud' and a painful shoulder. His opponent's foot topped him off- Jake Temple, son of Zeus.

"I win," he said. He took his foot off and offered his hand. "Better luck next time, Zandy."

Zander took it and was hauled to his feet by his dad's cousin.

"I'll get you one day, man."

"'Course," Jake grinned.

As Zander walked off rolling his shoulder, he didn't think so.

"That's great," Hugo, counsellor of cabin three said. Zander knew it wasn't, and he knew that Hugo was a little disappointed with him. Again.

It wasn't like Zander was a bad fighter. He'd gotten himself out of certain pickles already. He wasn't a totally useless bag of bones. It was just… well, to put it into perspective; his parents were Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. So all of camp had decided from the first day that he'd stepped foot in it that it wanted Zander to be smart and brawny and just plain good.

He wasn't.

He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he just wasn't.

And he saw it in the people's eyes that that was disappointing.

Definitely a Chase-Jackson

The smiling child who features in many childhood pictures, sandwiched between two parents made beautiful by their smiles, and clearly loved.