Penelope O'Malley is about twelve and has dyslexia and ADHD. She lives with her cruel aunt and uncle, her spoilt cousins, and a chocolate Labrador called Dolly. She is about ten years younger than Percy. This is basically going to tell us how she got from Blessington, in Wicklow, Ireland, to Half-Blood Hill.

If I owned this, why would I be here? I only own the characters you don't recognise.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my dad hadn't died. My mum would be alive, I wouldn't live with aunt Joyce and uncle Mike and their truly awful children, Eily and Harry.

I suppose I should really explain all of this. I used to live with my mum, Maria O'Malley, but she died when I was five. She was from Arklow, and, like me, she had a love of the sea. Her parents died when she and her twin sister, my aunt Joyce, where ten years old. She grew up with her doting grandparents after that.

She met my dad on a sunny day at Brittas Bay. I don't know much about him, not even his name, but I know that I look a lot like him - I have his eyes and hair - and he was one of those people who smile a lot. So far as I know he was Greek, but I'm not sure. He died when I was very small, but if I try hard enough, I can remember his smile. I have a picture of him and my mum from when she was pregnant with me, which is how I can tell I look like him.

My mum died when I was five in a car accident. I was in the car too, but I was in the back and only broke my leg. My mum's chest was crushed and she was killed on impact. Our chocolate Labrador, Dolly, was six months old at the time.

It was the last week of primary school when things started to happen. Weird things had always happened around me, but mythical creatures appearing at my school is taking things to a whole new level. We had two days left of school when a phoenix of all things appeared in the playground and started trying to eat everyone.

Now I know that in legends Phoenixes are depicted as being friendly and nice, but the reality is very different. They look like overgrown vultures with very few feathers, and the ones they do have are about a foot long and are on fire. It's just the feathers that are on fire too, the rest of it is pink and ugly. And you know the way birds don't have teeth? Well phoenixes do, and they're sharp!

The funny thing was, no one else seemed to notice it, even the teachers just stood there, and when I tried to tell them they just told me to 'stop telling fibs.' So there I was, being chased around the playground by a big, almost bald bird, screaming my head off, while the other kids just gave me funny looks and traced a circle with their finger beside their ears.

I heard Miss Murphy, my teacher, yelling at me to come back, but all I could think about was getting to safety. Before I knew what I was doing, I jumped into the lake. The phoenix, unable to put the brakes on at that speed, fell in after me. The beast burst into blue flames and was gone leaving only a yellow powdery substance floating in the water. It was then that I thought of something: How the hell was I still breathing?

I got out of the water and I was still dry. Weird. I ran home and started packing my things, I'd had enough of this. It was then that I remembered Eily was home 'sick' today.

Eily is a large, ugly girl of about fifteen. She has dishwater blonde hair that sticks out like iron wool, her nose is upturned like that of a pigs, and she has a permanent sneer on her face. Between Eily, Harry, and their parents, I'm always covered in cuts, bruises, burns, etcetera.

Anyway, as soon as she saw my uniform tossed in the corner in a maroon heap and me pulling on a pair of red docs that were my mum's when she was my age and hat a few patches that were still shiny (they were originally patent leather), and the suitcase on the bed full of my stuff, she wanted to know what was going on.

"Where are you off to, fish face?" asked Eily. Fish face had always been her nickname for me.

"None of your beeswax Eily," I said, trying to ignore her as I tied the laces on my shoes. "And besides, I'll be out of your hair." I was caught off guard by a sudden blow to the head and knocked to the ground. I touched the tender area where I'd been hit and saw blood on my fingers. I closed the suitcase, got a tissue and some frozen peas from the kitchen, put Dolly on her lead, took one hundred euros from uncle Mike's wallet (I know it's stealing, but he would have paid that to get rid of me), and walked out the front door, Dolly walking along beside me and suitcase rolling along the path behind me. I had the tissue on the cut on my head, holding the peas on top of that. I was off.

I got the train to Brittas Bay, where my parents first met. As soon as I got there I sat down on my suitcase and let Dolly run into the surf. She was ecstatic.

It was then that someone sat down next to me. I didn't look up so all I could see of him was his leather sandals. "Y'know," he said, "this really is a beautiful beach." I wasn't really listening.

"hmm."

"Do you live near here?" I shook my head, what business was it of his? "Shame, it's a lovely area."

"It is. My parents met here."

"Oh? Where are they now?" I felt myself choke up.

"They're both dead."

"I'm sorry." I hated it when people said that, how could they say they were sorry when they didn't even know the person that had died? "I have a way for you to get out of her." My ears pricked up at this. "Two hippocampi will be here soon. The smaller one will carry you and your dog, the larger one will carry your luggage. They will take you to a beach a long way from here. When you get there, ask to be taken to Chiron, he'll give you somewhere to stay. Good luck, Penelope." I was going to say thank you and ask how he knew my name, but he was gone.

I thought he was mad, but just then, two things appeared out of the water. They were hippocampi, half horse half fish. There horse half, the head, was white, and it's fish half was rainbow coloured. One was significantly larger than the other, so I tied my luggage down to that one. I got dolly and tied her lead around my waist, putting her in front of me with her belly on the hippocampus's back. And with that we raced off.

In no time, we were passing fishing boats, ferries, and even a few islands. I don't know how, but I was able to tell exactly how fast we were travelling at. We were going at about twenty-five knots an hour, which is seriously fast.

After a few hours, we arrived at a beach. It was beautiful, white and sandy. I remembered what the man at Brittas Bay had said, so when I saw a woman with blonde curls and stormy grey eyes I asked to see Chiron. The woman looked shocked, but lead me and Dolly through what seemed to be a summer camp to a big farm house. On the porch was a man in a tiger stripes shirt who looked like a cherub who'd grown up and gotten fat, and a man in a tweed jacket with curly brown hair in a wheelchair.

"Annabeth," said the man in the wheelchair, "who's this you've found?"

"She didn't say her name, just that she needed to see you."

"Hmm, you may leave us to talk." Annabeth looked worried by this, it was obvious that she was suspicious of me.

"But Chiron-"

"Leave us Annabeth." She left in a stormy mood. "Now my dear," he addressed me now, "what is your name?"

"Penelope O'Malley."

"And how did you get here?"

"Hippocampus."

"And do you have any idea who your immortal parent is?" At this stage I was feeling a bit dazed and confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I assume you know of the Greek legends?"

"Like Hercules and Perseus and the minotaur and all of those stories?"

"Well, this will be a little hard to take in but those stories are true, the gods are real. And one of them is your parent."

"Well, this explains a lot."

"Such as?" asked the man in the tiger shirt.

"Well, just this morning I was attacked by a phoenix."

"I'll send you and your dog to cabin eleven, Hermes' cabin."

"Thank you sir." Chiron called out to a man with black hair and green eyes the colour of the see, the same colour as mine.

"Percy! Please escort Miss O'Malley to cabin eleven." The man came towards me and gave me a kind smile. He really did look a lot like me. We were walking back towards the cabins, past an arena were there was a game of volleyball going on when Percy began to talk.

"I know it's scary at first," he sounded sympathetic, "but most half-bloods are claimed after about a week, so you wont be sleeping on the floor for long. I'm Percy Jackson by the way, son of Poseidon and the sword-master here."

"I guess I should have guessed there was something odd about me when a person with scaly skin and yellow eyes taught us for two week in Junior Infants and no one believed me about her being some sort of lizard." Percy gave me a smile.

"I got stalked by a cyclops in school, no one believed me either."

"I wont have to go back to my aunt and uncles' house will I?" I must have looked terrified.

"Don't worry, we have year round campers who attract too many monsters to survive in the mortal world or who just have nowhere else to go. Here we are, Cabin Eleven." We were standing outside a wooden cabin with that symbol, the staff with snakes twisting around it that you see in hospitals and clinics. "Good luck!"

"Thank you." I pulled my suitcase and dog through the door to see about half a dozen campers wandering around. Cabin Eleven was the biggest cabin of the lot, and was one of the original eleven cabins (apparently). The reason it was so big was that any campers who and't been claimed yet went to the Hermes cabin until they were claimed. Most of the beds were taken, but there was one left in the corner of the cabin where I was directed by Cabin Eleven's councellor, Shirley Bastet. Kind of ironic that the daughter of a Greek god had the surname of an Egyptian one. She was a tall, African-American girl with black eyes and frizzy black hair tied in a pony tail. She was probably about sixteen or seventeen, but she looked a lot older.

"So," she said, "how are you liking camp so far?"

"Well, I haven't seen everything yet, but so far everyone's been nice to me."

"Where are you from?" Arklow, Wicklow, Ireland. But I was forcibly moved to Blessington when my mum died when I was five. And you?"

"I've been here since I was six. I'm from St. Loius. My mom was really sweet and kind, but I had a nasty step dad."

"My aunt, uncle and cousins weren't that nice either."

"What made you leave?"

"A combination of having had enough and I was chased by a Phoenix that morning. This guy started talking to me when I got to Brittas Bay and sent two hippocampi to get me here."

"Hmm. Sounds like Poseidon was watching over you."

"Well, he was kind to me, so I owe him one, whoever he was." A conch shell blew in the distance.

"Dinner time! You can dedicate your sacrifice to the god who saved you."

"I-it's not a living sacrifice, is it?"

"No, you just put a bit of your food into the fire and dedicate it to one of the gods if you want to. Everyone has to do it." Shirley walked with me to the cafeteria (which was outside in the sun) and to the Hermes table.

The Hermes table was crowded. Well, more crowded than the other tables. From what I'd been told, you have to be claimed to move to another table. Everyone is claimed by the time they turn thirteen, so I'll be claimed at some stage in the next nine months. At the top table are the adults, the people who teach us. I recognised Annabeth, the one who'd been suspicious of me, Percy, the one who showed me to my cabin, Chiron, the guy in the wheelchair, and the guy in the dodgy Hawaiian shirt. I decided to ask Shirley who the others were.

"Well," she said, "The one at the end with all the eyes is Argus, our head of security. The guy in the wheelchair is our Activities director, Chiron, who is actually a centaur. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt is Mr. D, or Dionysus, but campers are supposed to call him Mr. D. Next to him is Grover, the satyr. He's on the Council of Cloven Elders. Then there's Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, the sea god. He has powers over water, bears the curse of Achilles, is our sword master, and is going out with the woman next to him, Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and our Ancient Greek teacher. Then there's Nico, son of Hades, he supervises the rock wall, and that's his girlfriend, Jenny, daughter of Hecate, next to him." (Jenny is an O/C)

I thanked Shirley as we walked towards the hearth with our plates full of our favourite foods; I'd chosen breaded salmon with chips. Everyone was dropping the best bits of their food into the fire, like the biggest roast potato or the juiciest pork chop. I did as Shirley had instructed me earlier and put about a quarter of my salmon in with a few chips for good measure and said a silent prayer of thanks to the god who rescued me.

There were around thirty tables in the cafeteria, some empty while others crowded. There were only three tables that were empty: The Artemis table, the Hera table, and the Poseidon table. Tables like the Hermes table were rowdy, while tables like the Athena table were quiet and their campers wellmannered.

Just as I was sitting down to eat my dinner, a lightning bolt appeared over the head of one of the boys from the Hermes cabin. As it turned out, Jason Burns was a son of Zeus, so he was sent to join his brothers and sister at the Zeus table. "Hey," said Shirley, noticing the glum look on my face, "don't worry, you'll be claimed soon." I knew she was probably right but I couldn't help but feel a little upset that it hadn't happened already.

The next week was difficult. I was good at things like canoeing and swimming, and I was okay at rock wall climbing, but, as Nico said, it was probably because I didn't want to get turned into charcoal. I was surprisingly good at Ancient Greek, but apparently all demigods' brains are fine tuned to understand no other written language properly. I guess that explains the dyslexia. Sword fighting was one of the 'classes' I found difficult. I couldn't get a balanced blade and I always left the arena with more cuts and bruises than anyone else. Percy keeps reassuring me that it's just because I'm a beginner and telling me that I should have seen him when he started out here, but I think I'm just lousy at sword fighting. And I refuse to talk about archery. End of.

Every night, before lights out, I look at the photo of my parents and wonder who my dad was. I suppose I could ask Chiron or one of the other adults, but something told me I should just keep it to myself and wait to be claimed.

At the end of the week at dinner, Chiron was making an announcement about lost property-I wasn't listening properly- when he suddenly went silent and everyone stared at me. "What?" I asked, thinking I must have something on my face. The campers started murmering things like "There hasn't been one in years" and "wouldn't have thought she was exactly Big Three material" It was the latter that made me realise, I was the daughter of Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades.

"My dear," said Chiron worriedly, "I think it would be best if you came with me."

Cliffhanger! So how does everyone like it so far? Should I abandon it or keep going? Review and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is accepted, it helps make me a better writer, but no flames please.