Disclaimer: All the proper rights go to the proper people. All the stuff I created belongs to me. I've reworked my Camp Half Blood series. Some details are the same, and others are very different. Some adult themes are present; however I will try to keep it PG13. Also note that I am only posting the reworked series, not any of the spin off stories.

Surviving New York

Chapter One: Green Hair and Daydreams

For the record, I've always felt that there was something different about my family. We always seem to find ourselves in odd situations, but somehow my mom has continued to get us out of them.

Normally she would scream at me to get my brother to the car, or to close my eyes and sing at the top of my lungs. We would be having a nice picnic lunch or visiting a historical landmark when all of a sudden my mom would get an alert look on her face. Her grey eyes would sharpen and her features would tense and almost become robotic.

We would have to stop whatever we were doing and she would order something like, 'run and don't look back', or 'take care of your brother!' or, 'Meredith find a group of people, you'll be safe in a crowd.' If we were lucky mom would find us right away, spray us with a bottle of Febreze and then take us to the YMCA.

See, the YMCA is our safe haven. Mom makes us go there every morning and then when she comes home from work. We spend about a half hour to an hour in the pool, air dry, and then leave. Ugh, it's become such a pain now that I'm high school, but at least during swim season, I have to be there before school anyway.

So yeah, anyway when I'm not smelling like Febreze, I reek of chlorine. 'Soak in the water, Meredith, let it fill up your pores,' or 'Trent, make sure you get your hair wet," something like that. Mom normally goes swimming with us.

I'm in the water so much, that nearly everyone calls me Mermaid.

The girls at school would make fun of me by asking me, how was my trip to Atlantis? Or did I find Nemo yet? The worst is when the water turns my blond highlights green. Then I look like I have muddy grassy hair. At least with Trent, when his hair turns green, it looks like its to support his seasonal sport. But for me... well... in order to survive the nasty assault of name calling, I normally roll my eyes, or do the best that I could to ignore them. Showing emotion makes things worse, and turns you into a target. Normally the nasty girls would get bored and go back to talking about themselves, the latest fad, or they would simply start making fun of someone else.

My brother, Trent, isn't as disciplined as I am. Sure he does fine when we are enrolled in a martial arts class or fencing lessons, but in school... he's one of those kids. You know one of the kids that the teacher learns their name within five minutes of the first day of school.

Breathing exercises and squeezing a stress ball just doesn't work for him. Luckily, mom got us both tested by child services to get an I.E.P. (Individual Education Plan). This way the teachers have to be more patient and give us certain allowances.

Trent is allowed to take a walk at least once every half hour. He has to sit next to a window to soak up the vitamin D from the sunlight and he can move to the back of the room so that he can fidget as much as he wants without distracting the other kids. At least he soaks up his lessons like a sponge and maintains average grades. So, since he calls me Mermaid, I tend to call him Sponge.

We have one last saving grace as far as school goes. My mom allows us to wear her special pair of glasses. She told us that they were created by Benjamin Franklin, a maternal relative of hers, and that we were allowed to wear them whenever we were reading. Which is great, because for whatever reason I can always find them when I need them most. Otherwise the letters on my paper act like they're in the Olympics performing a balancing beam routine. I hate looking stupid in front of the other kids so being able to read without having to dissect each word is truly wonderful.

Those were the good old days. Life was much simpler and I wasn't aware of how crazy and special we really are. Don't get me wrong, we've had close calls, especially when I've seen really strange things, like the time when my grandparents were killed in a car crash... It's only recently that I learned what really caused the crash, but that is too upsetting to think about right now...

I have to look at the positive side of life. Like mom says, 'we have our health, Meredith. That is a blessing in itself, and most importantly we have each other.' She's totally right, of course, though I do miss my grandparents...

Well, anyway there's me, Meredith Shelly Glew. I just turned fourteen last February. I enjoy swimming and drawing. I also love watching the history channel and playing strategy role playing video games with my thirteen year old brother, Trent. He drives me crazy at times, but he's cool. I guess we have the typical sibling relationship.

Then there is my mom, Sophie Penelope Glew.

Mom's had a rough life. Back when she was in high school her parents were going through a real rough patch. My grandmother was always fighting with my grandfather about her. Mom never said what they fought about, just that it was about her and that it was tearing their marriage apart.

It got to a point where my mother decided that the only way to save their marriage was to do something so dramatic that it would pull them all back together. So, she decided to think about having me. Yeah, you heard me, she thought about having a baby in high school.

Personally, I think that was a pretty unwise thing to do considering the risk that was involved, but she said that after she thought about it, she couldn't unthink it. She tried of course, whatever that means, but what was done was done, and that's final. So here I am.

Grandpa always said to me that we have to be very careful about the choices we make in this life, because the smallest decision could change your entire future. He also had me promise not to think about making any babies and that he prayed I didn't inherent my mother's special innate gift.

Confused? Yeah, me too, I'm just repeating what's been told to me. I hope someone explains it to me one day. Because I really want to have kids someday, and well, you kind of have to think about having them first, right? Well, whatever, moving on.

Lastly, my family consists of my foster sister Zillah Colleen O'Shea. Zillah is an interesting choice for an older sister. She has tight curly red hair, bright green eyes and ghostly white skin. She smells like lilies even though she doesn't wear any perfume.

We met Zillah almost two years ago when we were visiting New York City. So, yeah, I was twelve at the time, Trent was ten, and Zillah was thirteen.

Now, that was an interesting trip. My mom has been trying to finish her degree from college, for like ever, and part of what she needs to graduate is to take certain courses in the humanities. At that point she was taking Art History. So, we took a day trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Surprisingly, the trip was going according to plan. We live in North Jersey, so our drive into Jersey City only took about an hour. Then we hopped on the Path and took the subway to get to the museum. Pretty boring up to that point. Which, by the way, is a good thing.

What happened next was kind of creepy. Now, at the time I thought I was daydreaming. That happens a lot. Mom says it's because I'm a Pisces and we're lost in the house of the unconscious. Pieces are ruled by the planet Neptune. She said that my mind sloshes back and forth like the changing tides. So, I have periods of absolute clarity, and focus. Then I have periods where I'm lost at sea and nothing makes sense.

At this point of the trip I thought I was 'lost at sea.' I followed my family off of the subway and toward the stairs. Mom and Trent were several feet ahead of me on the stairwell as we exited the subway. I was trying to get a grip, see I hate small spaces, mom knows this, but thinks it's silly to fret over something so insignificant.

Well, anyway I was clenching my stress ball, trying to put my mind back into focus, when a group of tourists bumped into me. I gripped the grimy hand rail to maintain my balance, but in the process my stress ball slipped out of my hand and bounced several steps downwards towards the subway platform.

I jumped down the stairs to land on the platform the same time as my ball.

"Hey, watch it kid!" Some stranger pushed their way past me as I bent down to pick up my ball.

"Jerk..." I muttered under my breath, and then ran past him to try to catch up to my mom and brother.

Blinding white light scorched my retinas as the sounds of street traffic filled my ears. I held my hand over my eyes as I scanned the sidewalk looking for my mom's curly blond hair. They were about half a block away, and apparently hadn't noticed that I wasn't behind them anymore.

In the same direction as my family I noticed a man dressed in black a couple of blocks away. He looked like a blotch of dirt on a camera lens.

'Odd', I thought, 'it's summer, why would anyone ever think to wear that much material when it's so nice out?' I blinked and he was a block closer.

My heart started to race, that was impossible. Sure enough a second later he was standing next to my family. He stopped and turned towards them and cocked his head to the side. I tried to focus on his face but it was like a messed up photograph. Blurry in a hauntingly ghostly manner.

My knees felt weak as a sick feeling filled my stomach. Why was he staring at them?

My footsteps felt so heavy as if time moved in slow motion. Then the man in black was no longer next to my family, but was right in front of me.

The energy drained out of my body. I felt like curling up and taking a nap on the dirty sidewalk. I couldn't speak, couldn't move, and worst of all he placed his hand on the top of my head and then ran his fingers through my hair. "Pity... we could have made good use out of you and your family." He tilted my chin up to look at his blurry face and whispered, "perhaps if you survive I'll find something useful for you to do." I could swear he smiled, but my eyelids felt like they weighted a thousand tons. "Sweet dreams."