1- Exploding Toilets and Teachers

. . .

Three things that should have never been mixed: school field trips, my brother Percy, and myself. Why? Bad things almost always happened on trips! Like when we went to an old battlefield and Percy accidentally shot the bus with a cannon and I touched a part of the ground wrong making a geyser come up to spray the entire class. Or the trip to the aquarium when Percy stepped on the walkway wrong and the entire class took a swim, and when I somehow managed to actually break an exhibit just by touching the glass. Stuff like that, you know?

But I had a feeling that the trip to the museum was going to be okay…I hoped seriously and prayed to whatever deity or deities were out there that that trip went well. Still, I didn't have very high hopes despite the fact that our Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, was in charge of the trip—though our obnoxious algebra teacher was coming along, not much for high spirits. It also didn't raise my hopes that the exhibits were all about Ancient Greece and Rome. My only good subject in school: Latin and Mythology. And it was the least likely to be useful in my future.

So…there I was on the bus with my only friend—my roommate actually, go figure—Trish Brunner. We were sitting near the front of the bus, a few seats in front of my brother and his friend Grover. Trish was dyslexic, like me, but not as bad—she could read perfectly if the book or writing was upside down. And she's disabled—paralyzed from the waist down. It took two guys to get her on the bus without the school having to get a massively handicap friendly bus. As it was, there was only one spot for a wheelchair, and Trish had insisted that Mr. Brunner took that spot—he was mysteriously paralyzed as well.

Anyways, so we were sitting there and I glanced back to check on my brother—he was sitting right in front of the school bully, Nancy Bobofit. The stupid girl was throwing food at Grover's head and Percy was getting really angry about it too. I sent a glare at the girl and she only smirked. I turned back around and sighed.

"What's wrong?" Trish asked lightly and I only groaned in response.

"The one who acts about as bad as Ares on a good day." Trish laughed at my reference—and it fit Nancy to a T. The girl was almost exactly how I'd imagine Ares to be personality wise—obnoxious and sadistic.

"Ah. So who is Athena in this instance?" I smiled at our joke and shook my head a little.

"Not Athena. Our Satyr friend." Trish nodded in understanding. We were both very obsessed with Greek Mythology and so tended to have our little inside jokes revolving around it. We referred to Grover as a Satyr because he walked sort of like a goat might if it were to walk on its hind legs.

. . .

So far the tour was going well…well, as well as it could go with everyone talking and not paying a lick of attention. Trish and I stayed about a full yard ahead of the group the whole time, listening closely to Mr. Brunner as he explained different artifacts. We got to a Stele for a girl about our age after a while.

"Wow…" I muttered, reading the inscriptions along the sides and bottom of the Stele. I heard Percy yell at the others to shut up and looked up. I sighed and straightened from my crouch, intent on avoiding the impending conflict.

"Can we go to the bathroom?" Trish asked before I could get the words out of my mouth and I looked at her dad. He nodded and turned back to deal with the other students. Trish grabbed my hand and tugged me towards the bathroom. We got there and I opened the door to both the bathroom and then the handicap stall for her.

"Do you need help?" I asked lightly, knowing the answer would be no. I just asked in case.

"I can manage." She answered just as lightly, shaking her head and going into the stall. I nodded and closed the door for her. I went to the sink and leaned on it, rubbing my temples in an attempt at calming myself down. "Are you okay?"

"A bit aggravated. They're all so rude! You know? It's like they don't care at all about anything beyond themselves." I complained and Trish laughed a little.

"I completely understand the feeling. Now calm down. I can hear the pipes shuddering." I smiled slightly at her mild, but true, joke. Whenever I get angry around plumbing or water, things explode and get wet. Ever since the pipes almost exploded in our room the first time—near the beginning of the school year actually—Trish has given me heck about the weird reaction of water to my emotions.

"Yea…I hear it too." We went silent after that until Trish got back in her chair and pushed the door open as she exited the stall.

"Let's go on outside. Mr. Brunner has probably let everyone go to lunch already." She said as she dug through her purse for her hand sanitizer. I nodded and we left as she pulled the little bottle out and rubbed the hand sanitizer into her hands. The moment we got into the hall, I heard a screech and looked towards the exhibit it came from.

"Did you hear that?" Trish nodded, her expression hardening minutely. What was that sound? Somehow I got the feeling that Trish knew.

"Yea. But we need to let my dad know we're done in the bathroom." I nodded slightly, not asking her if she knew what the sound was. An old woman blocked our way to the exit and I sighed.

"We need to get outside please, Ma'am." She growled—or at least that's what it sounded like, though I'd never heard a person growl and it actually sound like a real animal.

"Where is it…?" She turned towards me and I caught a glimpse of her face under her little straw hat. She was absolutely hideous. I grimaced and then realized that the woman had leathery wings too.

"What…?" I blinked in confusion—though the wings didn't disappear when I opened my eyes so I knew it wasn't some sort of illusion—and heard the motor on Trish's chair straining. I glanced at her.

"Mil…run!" She turned her chair around and made her way back to the bathroom. I bolted after her—not really wanting to get involved with a woman with leathery bat wings anyways—and looked back at the old woman just as she ripped out of her clothes and revealed herself to be a batty old hag. I mean that literally, not like the expression! She seriously looked like a bat-woman—leathery, wrinkled skin, the turned up nose and everything! Made me think of a painting I'd seen of a Fury, but that was beside the point.

Trish and I made it back into the bathroom and I looked back before shutting the door because I'd heard scraping on the floor as the woman followed us, her wings folded and holding her in the air as they scraped along the floor like super-long legs. I looked at Trish, hearing her digging through her purse frantically.

"What are you looking for? I doubt you have something that can destroy a Fur—" She gasped, cutting me off.

"Don't call them that! And I'm looking for something important! It should help…ah! Found it!" She pulled a bracelet out of her purse and held it out to me. I eyed it warily, wondering if she was going crazy. "Take it! She's about to come through the door!" I took the bracelet from her, unsure about how a bracelet could possibly help in this situation. But either way it went…maybe it turned into a shield or something. The door rattled on its hinges and I pushed Trish and her chair into the handicap stall just before the Fury burst through the door to glare at me. I stood in front of the stall door as though I had some way of protecting Trish—though it seemed to be after me so I figured if it got to me, it'd leave her alone.

"Where is it?" I tightened my grip on the bracelet and it suddenly got bigger. I almost dropped it in shock when it transformed, not into a shield but, into a gold—or maybe it was bronze? Gold was really too soft a metal to turn into a big weapon like that—and silver trident with Greek engravings.

"What the heck?" I hit the Fury away from me with the trident when she attacked and she slammed into the wall of sinks and mirrors with a loud crash and crack. She recovered quickly and came at me again.

"Where is it?" I frowned, getting pissed that she kept asking where 'it' was and didn't bother to say what 'it' was in the first place.

"Where is what? Leave me alone!" I heard an explosion and one of the stall doors flew at the Fury, propelled by a stream of water. The toilet exploded? Great…

"Use the Trident!" At Trish's words, I threw the trident like a javelin at the Fury—not really thinking about it at all—and hit her right in the heart. She dissolved instantly in a shower of gray dust. I walked over, shocked speechless, and picked up the trident. It turned back into a bracelet just as a woman hurried through the hole in the wall that the door occupied previously.

"What are you girls doing in here? What is all this damage?" A guard, I could tell by her uniform. Oh great. Trish came out of the stall, pulling her hand sanitizer out of her purse.

"Sorry. I really had to use the restroom. It was like this when we came in just now." The guard woman seemed to believe Trish and we exited the bathroom. We started yet again for the exit ramp and I heard another screech—which I now easily recognized as a Fury. "You don't think that's another…?" I nodded and ran towards the sound.

"Most likely. Percy's in trouble!" I just had that gut feeling that he was in trouble. I knew that feeling from all the times he'd been in fights, but this time it was exponentially worse. Trish sped after me and I gripped the bracelet in my hand. We got to the Greek exhibit and I saw Percy, holding a bronze sword. Another Fury came at him and I recognized the face as our algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds. So she was really a Fury? That made sense to me actually—I'd noticed how the hump in her back was distinctly shaped like two sticks sticking out.

Percy cut the Fury in half and she dissolved into dust the same way the other Fury had when I hit it with the trident. Trish relaxed quite a bit and I ran over to my brother. It didn't look like he was injured or anything, just in shock.

"Percy, are you okay?"

"Mil?" He blinked in surprise at me and then looked at Trish.

"Hey Percy. I thought I heard you in here. Mr. Brunner will be pretty upset if you don't get back outside soon. Come on!" She headed down the hall and I stared after her in shock. I knew she'd seen the Furies. She'd been in a right panic in the bathroom even! But yet she was acting suddenly as though she hadn't seen Percy dissolve the algebra teacher right in front of us! After a moment, Percy and I followed her.

. . .

About midnight that night, I made my way to the staff fridge for a midnight snack. I passed Mr. Brunner's office and heard the motor on his chair propelling him across the room. I slipped pass and grabbed a cheese stick out of the fridge before turning to head back to the room.

"Chiron…Father. Two Kindly Ones came after them at the museum. The only reason they survived was because of their father's…" Was that Trish? I stopped in front of Mr. Brunner's office, looking in through the crack in the door. Was that sound just now…hooves? I saw Trish sitting in her chair, but the shadow that I figured was Mr. Brunner looked more like he was sitting on a horse—or he was a centaur, honestly after running into two furies, I wouldn't have put it past both of them to be centaurs.

"Altricia. We can't be sure that the pact really was broken."

"Then explain why the plumbing always starts to act up when Emily is angry! Or why both Riptide and Minerva reacted to them! I saw it in his hands, Father!" Trish answered hotly. Riptide and Minerva? I fingered the bracelet from the museum and hurried to my room, eating the cheese I'd snatched quickly.

I sat on my bed once I got into the room and took off the bracelet. I examined the cord. Gold thread laced with silver that threw rainbows when the light hit it just right. I squeezed the bracelet in my hand and it expanded into a trident again. Minerva was the Roman equivalent of Athena. And I recognized the name Riptide as a sword used by every major hero in mythology who was the demigod child of Poseidon. 'Their father's'…? What did she mean by that?

And why did she call her dad 'Chiron'? What would this trident, named after Athena, have to do with my father? I looked at my book of mythology, but decided against looking up a story about Poseidon. I didn't really want a reading related headache. So I looked at the inscriptions on Minerva. The characters made sense, so my theory that they were Greek was right. Though they looked more like Ancient Greek than modern. So that meant it was old enough to have been made during the times depicted in mythology.

'In memory of our friendship, and rivalry. Forever and eternal for my uncle.—Athena'. So this was given to Poseidon by his rival and niece Athena? Wow. I tried processing the facts presented to me. Why would Athena have given a gift to her least favorite family member besides Ares? That was just the inscription on the handle, the one on the central spoke of the trident caught my attention and I read it. It wasn't as clean cut as the first, so more likely than not, it was put there by someone other than Athena.

'Claimed by the Sea. Ruled by mortality. A gift for any hero of mine brave as Athena'. Another reference to Athena. You'd think that Poseidon and Athena had a thing for each other, rather than an age old rivalry. Then again, some myths did claim that there was something between them—like the thing with Medusa was mostly because Athena was jealous.

"Reading the inscriptions?" I jumped at Trish's voice. I hadn't even heard the door open. "What do they say? I've never seen them myself. Just heard that Minerva was inscribed." I sighed a little. Better confront her about it now.

"What were you and your dad talking about?" She paused, seeming worried and more than a little surprised.

"Chiron—I mean, Mr. Brunner…he wanted to talk to me about…" I sighed again.

"Trish—Altricia. I heard you talking to him. What pact was broken? And what does plumbing have to do with anything?" She blinked and then looked around nervously.

"Father won't be happy about this…but still. I'm not human. And neither are you." My eyebrow rose automatically. The heck was she getting at?

"Then what are you?" She paused again.

"I'm a Centaur. And you…you're a demigod." I laughed at that. That was an impossibility if I'd never heard one. Mostly because she was talking about mythological beings. Sure, we'd been attacked by a Fury—so had Percy—and I was holding a trident that turned into a bracelet, but seriously?