Hi. I'm Gabbi Thalassa. Let me just start by saying that I never wanted to ride a chicken. I would have preferred to just ride my horse. It was not my idea. For your own sake, I'll start at the beginning.

I'm adopted. My mom d-d-…Oh fine, I'll say it. She died when I was four. It was really hard for me. Mom and I were really close. She took me to work with her, and hardly ever let me out of her sight. I loved going to work with her every day, because she worked at a zoo. I sometimes got to pet the animals, but never the eagles. Mom said they were dangerous. Mom would sing me to sleep at night, because of my nightmares. She had the most beautiful singing voice. It was just as gorgeous as her. She talked to me about lots of stuff. If I asked a question, she'd answer it, no matter what. When Dad came up, she answered my questions, very indirectly. All I knew about my father was that he and Mom never married, but if they could have, Mom would have married him in a heartbeat. The topic usually went unmentioned, because I don't like talking about my dad either. He's a jerk for leaving my mom. Anyway, I just enjoyed life with my mother, and I'm glad I did. Then when she, ah, passed on, and I went into foster care, life got pretty rough. I moved around a lot, because no one seemed to want me. I was constantly "the new girl". School was extremely difficult, because I switched schools and curriculum often, and my dyslexia and attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder made learning hard enough besides. Then, finally, my last foster home was with Nathan and Kathy Simmons.

Nathan and Kathy were an older couple with no children, living in Quiona, West Virginia. They had a large acreage, but only had a dog and a garden. The rest was wild orchards and fields. There were some barns in pretty good shape, too. I moved there two weeks before my eighth birthday. I hadn't expected any presents, because the last time I'd had a gift on my birthday was when Mom was alive. June first was just another day. Then the Simmons' gave me a filly. I named her Dancer, because her dam's name was Ballerina. I was ecstatic; a horse all my own! We were inseparable, we did everything together. I pretended we could communicate telepathically, and I told her everything, and imagined her replies. We would 'talk' about how much we wished the Simmons' would adopt me so that I could stay here forever and ever. One month after I arrived in Quiona, Kathy's friend, Li Song, came over and brought her son, Chris to play. We played and they talked. Then when the Songs left and Nathan got home from work, I was told that the Simmons' wanted to make Quiona my home. They wanted to keep me! I was so excited! The process was long and dreadful, but finally after all the mountains of paperwork were done, I was Nathan and Kathy's daughter. I kept my last name, because I didn't want to give up Mom.

That fall, at school, I met a girl named Andreina Cortez. We became best friends in an instant. We were both dyslexic, ADHD, and horsey. We did everything together, from coloring pages to lemonade stands. We were Gabbi Cortez, Andreina Thalassa, Kaydreina Cortassa. I had a great time with her and the other friends I met. From third to seventh grade, life was nearly perfect. Then it changed. In eighth grade Language Arts, the teacher assigned us The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, to read. Andreina and I were partners, and read the book all the way through. It was torture to our dyslexic minds, but we struggled with it till we were finished, then read The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian, The Demigod Files,and The Ultimate Guide.We watched the movie and cursed the directors for ruining the plot. We were admittedly obsessed. I think that's when the weird things started happening again. Monsters from the book started coming to life, literally. I'm going to spell that out for emphasis: L-I-T-T-U-R-A-L-Y.

Somewhere along the way, my partner-in-crime, my other half, my soul sister, my best friend, Andreina, got caught up in boys. I don't pretend to understand why, but she started thinking about boys, and makeup, and dating a lot more. I think the scientific term is puberty. Anyway, when we talked, I was the only one talking about horses, rather than both of us. I would talk about stuff such as, what stallions I'd breed Dancer too and the babies she'd have (in my imagination), and she would talk about what boys she had crushes on and what guys had crushes on her. I mostly ignored it. I couldn't have cared less. She dated lots of different boys. I rode lots of different horses. Then the exchange student from Australia asked Andreina out and she would not stop going on and on about his accent and how ripped he was and how much fun their date was going to be. It was annoying; I wanted to talk horse, but no. Finally the designated day came around, and she went on her date. My parents were on a date too. I was alone, at home, with Dancer. I was fine. I saddled up my horse and headed for the trail. I rode for a long time, thinking about randomness.

Then Andreina interrupted me by calling my cell phone. I answered, and she screamed, "Gabbi, save me! Hurry, he's a-" then the phone cut out. I turned Dancer toward Quiona, because the next closest town is an hour away, then spurred her into a gallop.

All of a sudden, the voice I imagined for Dancer started to talk in my head. "Gabbi, this might freak you out, but I'm a pegasus, and I'm going to reveal my wings, so calm down, it'll be faster."

I was startled, because all the times we've 'talked' I really just imagined her answers/comments. So I was like, "Hah. Thank you, brain, for popping out one of your random comments. No more reading for you."

And Dancer's voice said, "Gabbi, seriously, I am your horse, and I'm talking to you. Let's fly." Then gorgeous, chocolate brown wings sprouted from my horse's withers. They were the same color of Dancer's coat.

I shouted in my thoughts, "YOU'RE HALF CHICKEN?"

She snorted. "No, I'm half duck. I'M A PEGASUS. No poultry involved. Get it right." She leapt into the sky and suddenly we were flying. Flying is twice as good as galloping. The wind was really in my face, and it took us about two minutes to get to Quiona, a fifteen minute ride. I looked around for Andreina, and then I saw her, running. I looked, and saw a thirty-foot-tall-freakishly-blue-ice-dude-who-was-freezing-everything-with-his-breath. I screamed, and she looked up. We swept down and she jumped on Dancer. We flew up and away just as the ice giant slammed his fist on the ground where we had been. As we flew north, ish, Dancer yelled, "To Camp Half-Blood!" I kind of recognized the name, but my head hurt and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a tent-like room. There were some girls in my room, and they all looked alike. They had brown skin, and their green hair blew around in a nonexistent breeze. One of them said, "Oh, look the little human wakes! Some one go tell Chiron. Do you want some nectar, sweet? Or some ambrosia? Do you need to use the restroom?"

I was like, "I'm not a butterfly." At least some of kindergarten had made it through my thick skull. "What the heck is ambrosia? Who are you? Where am I? When did I pass out? Why am I here? How did you find me?"

She smiled like I was a puppy dog that had just learned a new trick, "The little half-blood is curious! I wonder who her parent is. Maybe it's Athena. Sweet, you need some nectar, you look pale. I'm Aspen; this is Oak, Maple, Willow, Birch, and Elm. We are dryads, tree spirits. Here is some nectar." She passed me a glass of honey-colored water. It looked gross, but I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. It was liquid chocolate chip cookies. Nathan's chocolate chip cookies. Delicious.

Then a man rode a horse into the tent. Or maybe he was part horse. I don't know, my head hurt so much, I couldn't tell a horse from a chicken. He said, "I am Chiron, the centaur."

I said, "I'm Gabbi. Is my horse okay, cause I think I fell off."

He looked at me, considering how much to say, and said, "Yes, your pegasus is fine. You did fall off. Some campers who saw the incident said you displayed some excellent pegasi riding nonetheless. Where did you learn?" I didn't know what he was talking about, so I told him where I learned to ride horses.

"At home, with Andreina. We taught ourselves."

He looked slightly impressed, then said, "Interesting. However, the question now is how you owned a pegasus and had a demigod best friend, and still failed to realize that you are a half-blood. And now you are laying here in front of a centaur, you've been waited on by dryads for a week, and you still think you are hallucinating." I sighed.

"No, the question is: WHY is everyone pretending that Rick Riordan's books are real? Is no one going to explain?" Centaurs, dryads, pegasus, demigods, these people had to be joking.

Chiron said, "I'm sorry. I'll explain…wait. You've read those books? Aren't you dyslexic?" Chiron looked amazed.

I said, "Yeah, I'm dyslexic, and yeah, I read those books. They are, like, the only books I've ever read."

Chiron said, "Alright. The best way to explain is to tell you the truth. Rick Riordan is the camp scribe. Did you not heed Percy's warning? In his first book, he tells readers to stop reading if they recognize themselves in his story. You apparently didn't." I laughed.

"Duh. I thought they were fiction. Thanks for explaining, though."

"Farewell, I am needed for Capture the Flag." The horse man said, then he bowed and left.

"That didn't just happen. I did not just speak to a centaur." I was starting to realize the truth in what Chiron had said, and it scared me. I didn't want to admit that I was a demigod.