Amazing Water
"So how was school?" Sally asked when Percy came home.
"Great!" Percy told her happily. "I actually managed to concentrate inside a classroom for once. And it was kind of fun, too."
"Really?" Sally said, smiling happily. "That's brilliant! Which class was it?"
"Chemistry. Chemical formulas are based on Greek and Latin so I can actually read them. And it's mainly about salt and water. And guess what?" Percy told her with a grin. "Dad's the teacher."
"What happened to the one previously teaching?" Sally asked, wondering if that was done by mist.
"Maternity leave," Percy replied.
Sally chuckled. Yes, there definitely were ways for Poseidon to get a female teacher to take a suitably long vacation now that the oath had been lifted.
"So, what were you learning about salt and water today?" she asked.
"Well of course everyone knows the H2O for water and the usual salt is Natrium Chloride," Percy began. "Not that it's the only salt, but the one people usually deal with. Then we went about to see about breaking the ion-bond of salt," Percy said and chuckled about the memory. "Dad had us try and do it with smashing only to find out that doesn't work before letting as see just how easily water does it. And afterwards he explained exactly how."
Sally chuckled. It was brilliant in all counts. Water showing up as a miraculous, magical matter, capable of doing something they can't do, enjoyable and motivating – who didn't want to know the secret behind magic tricks, after all? And Poseidon got a bunch of students seeing water as something amazing, powerful and mysterious. It was, too, as far as Sally was concerned.
An hour later Paul came in. "Sally, I got to tell you," he said, grinning widely.
"About Poseidon being the Chemistry teacher in Goode?" She asked. "Percy told me about the class."
"It's related to that, sort of," Paul said. "He and Percy had quite amusing discussion at lunch-break about Cherry Coke." Paul went on and told Sally about it. "And…" he took out the note from his pocket and handed it to Sally.
She blinked once after reading it. "So your name really is Blowfish?"
"Looks like that- except I don't exactly feel it that way." Paul said. "It's just such a… well, you know."
"Could be worse," Sally told him. "And maybe you should officially change your name to Blowfish now that two gods are all for it."
"I'll think about it," Paul said.
That's when the doorbell rang. Percy opened the door to his Dad, coming in with bags filled with fruit and some vitamin C in concentrated and long-preserving form of tablets. Seeing the contents of the bags, Percy rolled his eyes. "Dad, honest, I don't need all this…"
"Few weeks ago you made it absolutely clear in rather extreme ways that you do, Percy." Poseidon told him sternly.
"Oh." Percy said. Apparently climbing onto Dad's throne had consequences even if he had been forgiven. He'd be getting loads of attention now, whether he liked it or not. And he probably was not going to get sweets, cookies or cans of soft drinks any time soon. He wasn't quite sure how to deal with that.
