I really missed this place. I thought when I first stepped foot in Camp Half Blood, I didn't realise that being away for so long in San Francisco would make me miss it this much.
"Hey Annabeth!" One of my good friends Percy greeted me walking up, usually we came to the camp together, but not this year.
"Hey," I replied looking around the camp and sighing, I really did miss this place.
"You look like you haven't been here in about ten thousand years," Percy laughed.
"It feels like it," I replied with a sheepish smile. Right now I didn't feel like my normal self, but I figured that after a few hours at camp, I would start to feel better. As I glanced over the camp once more, something I saw made my heart stop beating in its tracks, standing by one of the cabins was Luke.
"What's Luke doing here?" I asked, not realising that I had asked it out loud until I received a reply.
"Oh they decided to give him one more chance," Percy replied with obvious disgust, he really hated Luke after all the trouble he had caused. I wanted to scream and jump for joy, but instead I said,
"Maybe he'll be better, you never know," Before walking off to my cabin. My cabin looked the same as it usually did, white carpets, olive trees painted on the walls, and brass owls almost everywhere you turned. It may not have been as awesome as some of the other cabins, but it sure seemed to fit Athena well.
"Boo!" I jumped at the loud voice behind me before whipping around to see the smiling freckled face of my cabin mate/ half sister Julia.
"Don't scare me like that again," I scolded with my eyebrows furrowed together and my hand resting on my heart, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's when people sneak up on me!
"You might want to work on your reflexes a little more," Julia responded with a light smirk.
"You might need to learn on how not to give someone a heart attack," I said sounding whiney like Percy did sometimes, I guess what they say about friends rubbing off on you is true. Julia rolled her eyes before pulling out an architect magazine to look at.
"Like oh my gosh what happened to my cabin! Where are all the hearts? Where is all the pink?" A girl with long blonde hair and sparkling green eyes asked with her mouth dropped open in shock, she was obviously a daughter of Aphrodite.
"Um, this is the Athena cabin," I said trying to sound as nice as possible, but it's hard to do with people like that.
"Oh well that explains a lot," She said flipping her blonde hair before walking out of the cabin to go to her own. I was glad that not all of the Aphrodite cabin was like that, just a select few.
"We should go mingle with the other campers," Julia said already heading to the door. I smiled and readily agreed, I was mostly eager to talk to Luke. When I got out there though, what I saw made my blood boil, a tan girl with long bushy hair and glasses was standing next to Luke and it looked like they were having a deep conversation.
"Hi, who are you?" I asked trying my hardest to sound nice, I knew that you trapped more flies with honey than vinegar.
"My name is Shireen, daughter of Apollo," The girl said with a smile, nearly blinding me with her perfect pearly whites; it only made me that much more jealous.
"Hello Shireen, my name is Annabeth, daughter of Athena," I said shaking her hand.
"Nice to meet you Annabeth," Shireen said with another blinding smile.
"Nice to meet you too," I said, I didn't mean it though, I wanted this girl to go jump off a cliff.
"How long have you been going to camp?" She asked with a slight cock of her head.
"Eight years, this is obviously your first year here," I said with a light smirk, thankfully, Shireen didn't notice it.
"You're right, I heard children of Athena were smart," Shireen replied with a genuine smile.
"Well I must be going now! I want to play my guitar!" Shireen said, as she was walking off, I flipped the bird to her back.
"What was that about?" Percy asked walking up to me.
"What was what about?" I asked with confusion.
"Why did you flip Shireen off? She seems pretty cool to me," He answered. I sighed,
"I just had a bad feeling about her, I mean she was in a deep conversation with Luke."
Percy looked at me with his mouth open in shock,
"And I thought she was so nice, I should have known after all of these times not to trust nice seeming people," He said bitterly looking down at the ground.
"Yeh, I say we find some way to get her kicked out of camp before she does too much damage," I said. I then looked over and saw Shireen talking to Mr. D, I crept in closer so I could hear the conversation better.
"I will not put a music class in the camp, this is for battle training Sharlene, not music making," Mr. D said, for once I was glad he was ignorant to remembering people's names. Percy once told me that Mr. D said people's names wrong on purpose, I sort of believed him too.
"But you were talking about teaching a drama class here," Shireen protested.
"I specialise in drama, Apollo specialises in music, if you want a music class, you have to convince him to come down here and teach it," Mr. D said before walking off with a light huff. I had to chuckle at this, it looks like little miss Shireen wouldn't be getting her way.
"What are you smiling about?" Percy asked.
"Nothing, where is Grover?" I asked changing the subject. Percy shrugged,
"Beats me, he ran off when we first arrived here."
"Probably went to go see his girlfriend or something," I said with a light shrug, I had more important things to worry about than Grover's whereabouts, like whether Shireen was trying to betray the camp.
"Are you punks just going to stand there, or are you going to get the hell out of my way?" I recognised Clarisse's gruff voice instantly.
"We're discussing important matters," I sighed, Clarisse could really get on my nerves sometimes. Before Clarisse could reply, Chiron trotted up to the campfire.
"I would like to welcome you all to another summer at Camp Half Blood."