Chapter 1

I was staring at my ceiling. My life was horrible, I kept getting into trouble! It wasn't my fault someone thought me and my brother pushed them into the fountain on our field trip... People naturally hate me, think I'm a stuck up snob, which I'm not. I'm almost the exact opposite of that. The only people who believe me are my mom, brother and friends. There are reasons for this, and for why I've never fit in, but we should start at the beginning...

We were going to the Greek museum in New York for a field trip. I was in a group with my favorite teacher, Mr. Brunner who taught Latin. He was everyone's favorite teacher. That's because he always brought in swords and ancient things. Everyone was talking, except me and my brother, Percy. Whenever we tried to get them to shut it the other chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, gave us the evil eye. She was this tiny little math teacher who came from Georgia, and always had a black leather jacket on. She was more mean than any other teacher I knew.

She had always loved Nancy Bobofit, and had always hated me, Percy, and our best friend Grover. Mrs. Dodds always kept Percy in for detention. He was dyslexic, so what? Being dyslexic means that it's hard to read, and the letters move around the page. Percy and I were also ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Basically, that means we can't stay in one place for a long time. When Nancy made a comment about a naked guy on a stand I asked her to please shut up, but it came out a little louder than I wanted it to. Everyone started laughing. How was that funny?

"Miss Jackson do you care to comment?" My face was turning red.

"No, I think Nancy does, though."

He pointed to a picture. "Would you like telling us what this picture shows?"

I recognized it. My being a fan of Greek myths, I told him what it was. "That would be Kronos the titan eating his kids, correct?"

"Mhmmm, and he did this because...?"

"He didn't trust his children, the Gods, so he ate them. His wife hid Zeus, while giving him a rock to eat instead, so when Zeus got older he tricked his dad into throwing up his sons and daughters-"

"Eww, gross!" a girl from behind me interrupted.

"-so there was this big war against the Gods and Titans, which the Gods won." I smiled. Sometimes my love of reading was good. Grover and Percy smiled at me, too.

Percy whispered, "Nice job Cat."

Everyone in the group snickered at me for being a know-it-all. Nancy mumbled to the person next to her, "How are we going to use this in real life? It's not like on out job applications it's going to say, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids'."

"To rephrase Miss Bobofit's question, Miss Jackson, why does this matter in real life?"

Grover snickered at Nancy and whispered, "Busted," which he got a reply of shut up.

I thought about it for a minute. "I don't know Mr. Brunner. If we become scientists who try and find out things about ancient Greece?"

"Hmm... half credit, Miss Jackson, Zeus did feed his children a mixture of wine and mustard which made him hurl up his children, then the Gods cut him up with his own scythe, and scattered his tiny pieces of body into Tartarus, the deepest and darkest part of the Underworld. Anyway time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds will lead you outside." All the girls were holding their stomachs, all the guys pushing each other around being their normal, idiot selves. Me, Grover, and Percy were about to follow when Mr. Brunner called out, " Mr. and Miss Jackson?" We looked at each other. How well I knew that was coming... "Both of you need to learn how to answer my question."

Percy asked, "About the Titans?"

"About real life. Also about how your studies apply to it. What you learn from me is vitally important, and that's what I expect you to treat it as. I will only accept the best from you two."

He pushed us hard. It was pretty cool on tournament days when he put on suits of armor and made us carry a sword up to the chalkboard and name every single Greek and Roman God, their mother, and what they worshiped. I did fine because I never got below a B in my life, the exact opposite of Percy Who'd never gotten above a C, yet he expected us both to be getting A+es . I got an A+ , but Percy couldn't remember all the name and facts, less likely spell them. Percy mumbled about trying harder while Mr. Brunner looked sadly at a statue, as if he'd known the person. Then he made us go outside to have lunch.

We were all on the front steps of the museum, so we could watch the people walk along Fifth Avenue. There was a huge storm overhead. Massive, clouds blacker than I had ever seen. New York had been having a lot of weird weather lately, snow, rain, hail, wildfires caused by lightning, I wouldn't be too surprised if this were a hurricane. No one noticed, though. There were people pelting pigeons with lunchable crackers, Nancy was pickpocketing some woman's purse, and Mrs. Dodds wasn't noticing anything. Percy Grover and I were sitting on the edge of the fountain, away from everyone else, mostly because we were the kids who got picked on. Well, Percy and Grover,anyway. People used to pick on me, but then I punched Nancy and I had no more problems. Another reasoln is we didn't want people to think were were from Yancy, the school of crazy people.

"Detention again? And lemme guess, Cat didn't get it for being an exemplary student," Grover said. It was true. I mean, the fact about me being an exemplary student. Whenever I was about to get detention the teacher would always say that this was my only warning and to never do it again and it won't go on my permanent record, so I can get into a good school, blah, blah, blah.

"Nope, not this time, not from this teacher," Percy replied. "Thank goodness." Percy and me have never said thank God. It just didn't feel right. Like it should be something different. Goodness felt a bit better, but still felt weird.

"Good. Hey, Cat can I have your apple?" I always had an apple. Grover knew that, but that didn't stop him asking me every day for it.

"Grover what do I always say?"

"No."

"... The other thing."

"I should bring my own."

"Exactly, but I have two this time, so here," and I handed him my apple. He looked surprised, since I almost never share them. I was in love... with a piece of fruit. I really needed more friends.

"Fanks," he said with a mouth full of apple. Meanwhile Percy was staring in the direction of where are mom's apartment was. We hadn't seen her since Christmas, and I knew Percy was dieing to see her again. Finally Mr. Brunner showed up. He parked his wheelchair on the handicapped ramp and started eating celery and reading a novel. An umbrella stood up in the back of his wheelchair, making it look like a portable cafe table. That's when Nancy and her friends appeared. One of the girls dumped her half-eaten lunch on Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at Percy. Most likely she didn't see me, because if she did she wouldn't have done that. It was weird. I was in plain sight, but usually I just blended in with water. I decided to not reveal myself yet. Then Nancy started taunting Percy about where I was. I tried counting to ten and keeping cool but the next thing I knew Nancy was in the fountain screaming: "Cat and Percy pushed me! They're evil I tell you, EVIL!"

Mrs. Dodds just appeared next to us. I swear she is a secret ninja.

Kids started whispering: "Oh my gosh did you just see-"

"The water-"

"It just grabbed her!"

"Cat and Percy are creepy like that... I didn't even see cat till Nancy was in the water!"

All I knew was that this was probably my sixth school in 6 years. I sighed. There was always something. Mrs. Dodds made sure Nancy was OK and promised to get her a new shirt from the Museum gift shop, then turned on me and Percy. She had a triumphant smile.

She pointed at us then said, "You two. Come with me. Now."

Grover tried to save us. "Wait! It was me who pushed her. I did it." I was surprised he tried to do this. Usually he was afraid of Mrs. Dodds.

"I don't think you did, Mr. Underwood. You will stay here." Nancy grinned. Me and Percy glared.

"Come, now." Mrs. Dodds called from the entrance to the museum. Like I said before. Ninja. We walked toward her. Halfway up the stairs I looked back at Grover, now biting his nails and glancing at Mr. Brunner and us, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to stop Mrs. Dodds from talking to us. Mr. Brunner was too absorbed in his novel to notice, though. She led us all the way back to where we were before. We were the only ones there. She crossed her arms and started... was that growling? That's weird. A growling ninja... don't see that every day do you? "Percy you've been causing problems... as for Cat, you've been such a good student, I don't know why you would do this... But did you two really think one of you could get away with this while we were confused about who did it?"

"What do you mean?" Wow. You never say that in a time like this. It's not like two people can push a girl into a fountain. There was thunder.

"You know what I mean, boy! Confess and you will not suffer as much." Suffer? Did she just say suffer? That did not sound good. When we didn't answer her eyes started glowing, her fingers stretched into talons, her jacket turned into large, leathery wings, and her teeth grew and became yellow. Maybe she wasn't a ninja after all... Things only got stranger from there. Mr. Brunner rolled in, two pens in hand, and tossed one to each of us.

"Use them well!" he shouted. Mrs. Dodds went for me. I calculated my best bet was to catch the pen, because if this was weird the pen might be a flamethrower or something awesome like that. When I caught it it became a bronze sword. I was hoping for a flamethrower, but this would have to do. I tried slashing her, but she dodged. She wasn't going to make this easy. Let's hold up a second. You can tell I was thinking like a warrior. I had never fought anything in my life. I was athletic, playing hockey, basketball, and volleyball and you had to be. But I had never used a sword. Something just came over me. Like I knew what to do without knowing. It felt weird... Anyway back to the story. Percy tried hitting her. He got her shoulder, and it went right through her, and she turned to sand. This was creepy. Me and Percy were the only ones there with the sand. No Mr. Brunner. Definitely creepy. We still had our pen/swords. We went outside, dazed. It was raining. Grover was still by the fountain, a map over his head.

"I hope Ms. Kerr gave you detention for a month."

"Who?"

"Our teacher. Duhh." That was odd. A lot of odd things just happened. I could barely comprehend myself.

"Hey, Grover. Where's Mrs. Dodds?"

"Who?" He paused before saying this, like he was wondering if he should actually tell us.

"Seriously Grover, we need to know." Thunder boomed. We walked over to Mr. Brunner.

"Oh, those are my pens! Please bring your own writing utensils in the future please Mr. and Miss Jackson. We handed him his pens.

"Sir? Where's Mrs. Dodds?" He stared at us blankly.

"Who?" I decided I hear that word too much.

With a sigh I said, "The other chaperone? She was our pre-algebra teacher?"

He frowned and said, " As far as my knowledge there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy academy, and certainly not on this field trip. Are you two feeling OK?"