Chapter 1: Minor Emergency

Nobody cares about me….I know that sounds angsty and that every teenage girl says that, but in my case, it's really kind of true. I am Lou Ellen, and I'm the daughter of Hecate, Goddess of Witchcraft and the Phases of the Moon and a bunch of other things I can't seem to remember. Some people say Mom is some kind of schizophrenic goddess who's multiple personalities include Artemis (who has a cabin here at Camp Half-Blood, but no kids) and Persephone (you know, the Queen of the entire freakin' Underworld who Hades married….or kidnapped…to the Ancient Greeks, it seems like kind of the same thing…yikes). You'd think being all those different, important people at the same time would make my Mom important.

Not so much, really. Mom's a minor goddess. Maybe it was the fact that she had to worshipped at crossroads that stopped Mom from catching on with the Ancient Greeks. I mean, if I were a goddess, I'd ask to be worshipped at, I don't know, McDonalds or something. Everybody goes to McDonald's, so it'd be super-easy to just drop in a little sacrifice while you were waiting for your Happy Meal. Walking all the way out to a crossroads just isn't as snappy.

Or maybe it's that Mom preferred sacrifices of goats and pigeons. Most gods back in the day ordered up sheep or pigs from 1-800-Worship-Me-Or-Be-Smited. Mom was like that girl at your school who eats really weird stuff, like hummus-flavored soy burgers or vegan carob bars. Maybe that's why she was never really popular.

A couple months ago, though, it got worse. Mom helped a titan named Kronos and a bunch of other demigods like me destroy Mt. Olympus, which is currently on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. A son of Poseidon-he's the sea god, and he's a lot more popular than Mom-named Percy Jackson stopped her. Percy's pretty nice….he's the one who decided Mom and a bunch of other minor gods should get their own cabins.

That's how I became head counselor of the Hecate cabin. Percy disappeared shortly after that, though-bummer. Then this other guy, Jason Grace, showed up. I only saw him once, when all the counselors met at the Big House. I guess I should've paid more attention to him, because he turned out to be pretty important. At the time, I was playing "got your nose" with another counselor…but with a twist. I actually magically removed her nose from her face! I love magical jokes like that. Anyway, Chiron made me put the nose back and Jason and his two friends, Piper and Leo, went on a quest and kind of saved the world.

Then, we found out Jason's a Roman. Big surprise! I don't mind though…the Romans gave Mom a cool name. "Trivia". Today that's a game…you know, 'Trivial Pursuit?' I love that game. Mom's Roman name makes her sound smart, like she knows a million secret random facts that nobody else does.

I like the thought of having sort-of cousins from Mom's Roman side. A lot of demigods here at Camp Half-Blood, though, don't like their godly parents' Roman aspects. I was using magic to spy on that Jason kid when he first got here (magic's good for reconnaissance! And hey- a lot of kids thought Jason might be up to something at first) when I overheard him talking to Clovis, the head counselor of the Hypnos cabin (Hypnos is a minor god, too-the God of Sleep). I would have canceled the spell so not to pry into their conversation, but this was a momentous occasion.

Clovis is cool and cute and all, but he's…..narcoleptic. I've always wanted to talk to him, since he's another minor god cabin counselor, but he's never been awake long enough. This kid falls asleep at the drop of a hat, so nobody I know has really ever been able to hold a conversation with him.

I don't really even look at Clovis that much, to be honest. He's cute when he's sleeping, but he's sleeping all the time. Every time I see him, he's sleeping. Watching him sleep makes me feel like a perv, so I generally avoid him.

But the fact that this Jason kid who nobody knew much about (and Percy's girlfriend, Annabeth) had gotten Clovis to completely wake up and have a big discussion was too interesting to turn away from. So I looked. I learned that Clovis is a little bit freaked out by his Dad's Roman side, Somnus. Somnus kills people who sleep on the job.

Clovis not only sleeps on the job, he sleeps on the dinner table, on the campfire, on the middle of the volleyball court….well, you get the idea. If Clovis was Somnus' kid instead of Hypnos', he'd probably be dead by now.

Morpheus, the God of Dreams, helped put everybody in the Manhattan area to sleep a few months back so Kronos could end the world and stuff. Morpheus is the son of Hypnos, so I guess you could say he's Clovis' half-brother.

I think it would be cool to have a god for a half-sibling, personally. But some of the kids at camp have been talking bad about Clovis about it, like he thought Morpheus had the right idea or something.

People talk bad about me, too, because my mom tried to destroy Olympus. I get why she did it….before a few months ago, Mom didn't even have her own cabin. She and Morpheus and a bunch of other minor gods got basically no respect. By extension, I didn't either, but see, I don't care what other people think of me. Mom does care, though, and that's why she joined Kronos. I don't think some of the demigods here are ever going to forgive her for it.

I don't blame them….Mom's the reason some of them are dead. They were on Olympus with Percy when she started hexing it. Mom was just another minor goddess who helped Kronos cause damage to at least half the campers here, or their parents. We're at peace now, but people still talk.

I feel bad for Clovis, though. I always know when people are talking about me. Clovis is always asleep when the other kids start bashing him. I don't think he has a clue.

I really wish he'd wake up one of these days and hear what people say about him. He's a lot cooler than people give him credit for.

Or, at least, that's what I was thinking about when the forest caught fire. It was midnight and Chiron had asked me to keep watch over the camp borders that night. He's been a little paranoid ever since we found out Gaea's back. She's Mother Earth, by the way….and I think she wants to end the world or something.

I was happy to keep watch, though. It was a full moon, the kind of night where I feel like I can sense my Mom's presence. According to the myths, as the moon fades away, so does she. Her power is at its peak when the moon is super-bright. I like looking at the moon at night. It makes me feel closer to my mom, like she's watching over me. I like the night, and the camp border is a good place for moon-viewing.

I didn't really get to watch the moon, though, because one of Hephaestus cabin's automatons got lose and self-destructed. It made a pretty big explosion and a fire started. It wasn't a big fire, though, so I figured I could just run over to the Big House and get a few pails of water to put it out.

I was at the Big House, filling up a bucket, when I saw him. Clovis. He was sleep-walking.

I've heard that waking up a sleepwalker can be dangerous, so I just kept filling my buckets. I looked at him though….his eyes were glazed over, but I noticed they were really….bright.

Like moonlight.

I told myself to stop staring at him and turned off the faucet. My buckets were full.

As I raced back towards the forest with my buckets, I realized something. Clovis was following me.

I kept running towards the camp border. Firefighting was more important than a sleep-stalker, I told myself. I couldn't let the fire spread.

I threw the first bucket on the fire when I saw him.

Clovis was about to sleepwalk right into the fire!

"Hey!" I screamed, but he didn't hear me. Gods, Clovis was a heavy sleeper. I grabbed him by the arm.

"Clovis, wake up!" I screamed. "You're going to burn yourself!"

Clovis pulled away from me and I screamed when I saw his hair was on fire.

I tore off my favorite black scarf and patted his hair, smothering the flames.

"See, you idiot?" I grumbled when I saw that he was OK. "Bad things happen when you sleep all the time! If I wasn't here, you would have burned to a crisp."

"Then I'm glad you saved me!" Clovis replied, tossing a bucket of water on the rest of the flames.

I jumped. I hadn't realized he'd woken up.

"Sorry if I scared you," Clovis smiled serenely. "It looks like the fire's all put out now. It wasn't really a big one."

"Umm, yeah, thanks," I mumbled. Then, I realized my hand was still on his hair and I blushed. I pulled my hand away faster than the fire had started.

I was so embarrassed that I almost didn't hear what Clovis said next:

"Sleeping all the time isn't all that bad, Lou Ellen. If I hadn't been sleepwalking tonight, I would never have seen how beautiful you look in the moonlight."