A/N: Read aacquater's 'The Essay' and couple of other people's works on the theme of Percy Jackson writing an essay on family and had to jump on the bandwagon. Enjoy.
Most Annoying Relative
Wait…what do you mean I have to present this? That wasn't in the syllabus!
How much extra credit are we talking about? *Sighs* Okay, fine. But only because I really need the points.
Back to the topic: Most Annoying Relative. Wow, you teachers sure know how to pick the tough questions. There's some fierce competition for that spot with all the family members who have tried to murder me.
Now mom's side of the family has been nice enough. Not a word against me. No pot shots or any other kind of shots. Of course, they're all dead—her parents, her uncle. No sisters or brothers or anything. Luckily my dad's side of the family more than makes up for it. Picking just one most annoying took some serious thought.
The first annoying thing any of them did was kidnap my mom. Totally not cool dude. I was twelve. I mean, he thought I'd stolen his prized possession—the whole family thought I was a thief at that age—but my mom? Why couldn't he have kidnapped my stepdad Gabe? Uncle kidnapper could have kept him and my other uncle wouldn't have decided 'hey, there's a boy who needs killing'.
He still thinks that.
I've got two uncles so to tell them apart I'm going to call them uncle kidnapper and uncle trigger-happy. You guess who is who. Uncle kidnapper would be higher up on my sh…oot list but he did return my mom willingly after learning I didn't steal anything. Not my favorite relative, he did throw me in jail once, but I've dealt with worse.
Like my cousin. Let's call him cousin Thug, that's a good name. He was working with the real thief a few years ago to help frame me. Thanks cus. And to make things worse he tried to kill me (luckily, I won that fight). But that wasn't the end of cousin Thug. You see, he's got a couple of sons who stole their dad's wheels and tried to run me over. Wasn't anything against me personally, Thug's kids love tanks and stuff and running anyone over. They're real considerate like that.
There's my aunt, who's married to uncle trigger-happy. Let's call her Aunt Harpy, it's an understatement but close enough. She kidnapped me, drugged me to wipe my mind, sent me to this wilderness survival boot camp and made me miss a year of school—which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to repeat it. I was a little too busy surviving as a homeless amnesiac on the other side of the country to study English.
If I listed all the relatives who've tried to off me…we'd be here all day. Even my great-grandmother got in on the 'kill Percy' bandwagon and she's older than dirt. Literally. For some reason she really wanted my blood. Maybe she read too many vampire books. But she wanted my girlfriend's blood too, so that bumps her up on the list.
Then there's my grandfather. He started this…organization, let's call it, by murdering his own father and ruling with an iron fist. Then he had kids and feared they would follow the family tradition. That's understandable. His youngest son was uncle trigger-happy and they all agreed he was the worst father in the history of fathers. (Spoiler, they're right.) So he decided the solution was murder and cannibalism. He was going to kill all his kids and get rid of the evidence by having them for dinner.
Or, you know, maybe eat them, then kill them. He was one sick, twisted…well, if I said that out loud my stepfather would have to throw my future kids in detention.
Luckily my grandmother, who isn't evil, found out what her husband was up to and tricked him, saving all her kids. He was arrested on many, many accounts of abuse, attempted murder, actual murder and attempted cannibalism. That was sometime during the stone age so everyone thought he'd died in jail.
Nope. A couple years ago he turned up alive and started a come-back. He was the one stealing all my family's precious sh—stuff and putting the blame on me. He tried to kill my girlfriend, multiple times. Tried to kill my friends multiple times. Succeeded in killing some friends…and twisting Luke, our old camp leader, to his side. Luke turned his back on us and tried to kill me and most of the people I know.
Sometimes he succeeded too.
Grandfather was jailed again. Luke died. Lots of people died. Some were good friends. Some were desperate traitors, killing for grandfather and Luke.
There are others. I've had several half-brothers who've jumped on the 'kill Percy bandwagon'. One of them tried to do me in before it was popular. Another tried to rob me and all my friends blind of everything we owned, including our lives. I even had a brother who liked feeding my friends to a giant turtle. And don't get me started on the cousins. There were a couple of family reunions called to vote on my imminent demise. Don't think I've forgotten everyone who voted 'Yay'.
But there's a reason betrayal is considered the worst crime. More heavily punished than murder or torture or rape and after Luke turned his back on all of us, on me? I'd have to agree. Grandfather betrayed us all, starting with his wife and children, but he also convinced others to turn traitor. People I thought of as friends, mentors, family tried to kill me. My friends. That cuts deeper than flesh. So despite trigger-happy's execution attempts, two different kidnappers and Great-Grandmother's Bathory reenactment, the award of Most Annoying Relative goes to …
Grandfather.
He's got some tough competition though.
A/N: Tried a different editing style on this piece just to see if this was better or worse than my other stuff.
