Procrastination Time

By Becky Creighton

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or any of its characters, or ANYTHING. The awesome Rick Riordan does.

"Saving the world…saving the world…Kronos, hmm…"

I started tapping the page with my biro at a steady beat, watching the shadows of the pen flutter back and forth. The golden light cast by my desk-lamp was making my head spin so I flicked it off and sat in the darkness for a few seconds. In the dull grey that washed over everything, the thick wood of the desk began to look like chocolate. Outside, snow sprinkled lazily over Camp Half-Blood, reminding me of icing sugar.

But then I groaned, because when inanimate objects start to remind you of confectionary, something's up.

"Gods dammit!" I said, scrunching up the paper into a little ball and tossing it on to Cabin Three's floor, making a pathetic little thud. How in heck's name do they expect me to come up with a plan to save the world if they know perfectly well I suck at thinking? That's Annabeth's job. And now because I have to do something as irksome as stopping a dude who's chopped into a billion pieces from blowing up the world I get to miss spending Christmas with my mom and Mr. Blow – Blofis, or something.

I held my head in my hands and ripped another blank page from the pile, sniffing. It would start to taunt me again, with its intimidating blank stare. I stared back, insulting it with as many Monty Python quotes I could think of using my awesome telepathy skills.

It's just a piece of paper, Percy Jackson.

I ignored the little voice at the back of my head, and delved into what knowledge I had of psychology so I could make the page go mad and write the plan itself.

Think, Percy! What is paper used for? To write stuff. Yeah, we know that already. To write what stuff? Fanfics? Well…I suppose. Notes and things. Important things. And important things tend to be…serious and intellectual?

I stopped. Yes, victory was mine! All I had to do was annoy the sheet of paper by doing the contrary of what its purpose is! Brilliant stuff, Perseus!

Your head is full of kelp, said the inner Annabeth.

So, I flicked on the light again, thick black pen in hand; and I started to draw a cartoon.

It was an image I had at the back of my mind for quite some time. I needed to let it all out.

However, it dawned on me that it was vitally important that Annabeth's eyes NEVER fell on this doodle. Or Thalia's, for that matter. Both can think of creative ways of killing me, so I'd better keep my gob shut.

Just a little cliff right here…big black scribble of hair, a bit of lightning….erg, speech bubble, intimidating letters, dead looking expression, aaaaaaaaaaaand….goofy blonde hair and the fancy sword! There. The masterpiece was complete!

I held the drawing up to the light and grinned a huge cheesy grin, y'know, they sort they make Stilton out of. I knew Annabeth would never approve; neither would Thalia, but yet again, they weren't going to see it, were they?

I sat back on my chair and let the page flutter on to the desk, watching the snow from my window. Everything felt even more silent than it had been twelve seconds ago, so I had to look behind me, just to be sure. Fortunately Mrs. Dodds was not crouched underneath the bed armed with a poleaxe like I had been expecting, so I figured all was well. I twiddled my thumbs a bit more, wondering why my train of thought was four minutes late.

It then occurred to me that I hadn't figured out how to save the world yet.

Percy, stop goofing off and focus! Inner-Annabeth said. This is the world we're talking about here!

I know, I know, I'm on it. Just give me some time here!

I just snapped. I had more headaches than Tom Cruise had lawsuits and my eyeballs felt like they were going to ooze out of their sockets, so I bolted upright, flicked off the desk-light and threw myself on the bed, wrapped myself in the duvet until I resembled a large blue egg and performed the Mrs-Dodds-with-a-poleaxe security check that I carried out daily. Demon grandmothers wielding instruments of warfare failed to present themselves, so I let my head fall back on the soft pillow, mumbling "Lights out…"

Then I could finally slip into an uninterrupted beauty sleep, filled with dreams of blowfish, my entire life conducted in the style of my cartoon, and lovely blonde haired grey-eyed girls dancing around na –

Well, I'll just leave that to your imagination.

All was going swell until I remembered that I still didn't know how to save the world.

AN: I have no idea where this fic came from, but while I was writing it I couldn't stop myself from drawing Percy's cartoon. No prizes as to what incident he draws. I'll have it up on deviantart as soon as I get the time...is it this obvious that I'm running out of ideas?...