Chapter 2

I dumped my tray in the garbage and speed walked to the school store, lugging my bookbag behind me. I was pretty sure that I was seconds away from blowing chunks, but our field trip was the next day and then term would be over in less than a month. I didn't have time to hang out in the bathroom and throw up. I needed to figure out a course of action, which, to me, was actually something I could debate with myself. I'm sure a lot of people would have known right off the bat that they wanted to meet and help Percy, or that they wanted to find out where Percy was going and then go the opposite direction, right off the bat. I was different. I was the kind of person who always wanted to be brave, but also wanted to preserve their own life. I'd never had the urge to be a princess of a superhero like other kids, even when I was little. Deep down, I'd always been content with following a career path that would make me happy and allow me to support my parents when they needed it. Sure, sometimes I fantasized about what would happen if I won the lottery or something, but that wasn't what I'd really wanted.

Still, I wasn't selfish enough to really believe that leading an apple pie life was more important than the whole world, imaginary or not. Percy succeeded in the end, but there were some things I'd be able to smooth over. People I could save.

I came to a screeching stop in front of the (legal) school store, which had established itself in a small room with a huge window and bar out into the hallway. It was probably intended to be a concession stand, actually. A really badly placed concession stand, since the gym wasn't even in this building. The school store basically sold things that were absolutely must-haves, like pencils, erasers, and extra time on the school computers. I'd also heard that, if you caught the right guy, he'd sell over-the-counter meds to you under-the-counter. We were supposed to get that sort of thing from the nurse, but it was a hassle and a whole lot easier just to have your own stash. That wasn't what I was there for, though it might have actually come in handy.

I glanced at a stack of composition notebooks and then looked away before I even had a chance to check the price tag. I hated those. They weren't sturdy at all; it seems like the covers always fell off after a few months, no matter how careful I was. Plus, it's impossible to neatly tear pages from those things. Too much of a headache for a dumb notebook. Luckily, the store also had the spiral bound kind (the old ones made with one piece of wire, that actually stay in one piece). I looked at the price and cringed. The coffee here was crap, but still… there went my coffee money for the next couple of weeks. Man. I grabbed three of them, which was probably a lot more than what I needed, but it seemed good, just in case. a handed over three bucks and shoved two of the notebooks in my bookbag whilst pulling out a pencil. I hurried in the general direction of the cafeteria and then stopped, leaning against a wall and sinking to the floor. Depending on what I decided to do, I wouldn't need this, but I was worried that the longer I waited, the fewer details I'd remember. Sure, I'd read the PJO books almost a dozen times, but even the biggest fan could get a little rusty.

I started to write, glancing around to make sure nobody was watching me. Sure enough, the hallway was clear. I hesitated. Was this really a good idea? If the wrong person found me with a notebook full of the future, I'd be in trouble. Big trouble. If someone less bad found me, I'd just wind up on medications - more medications. I already had to take some, though I wasn't sure what there were or what they were supposed to do. Still, I wasn't game to stuff my body with even more pills every morning, since the ones I already took made me feel nauseas and even more lethargic than I already was. More side effects were the last things I wanted.

I'll just have to be careful. Least of all could Nancy find these. If that happened, they'd either go mysteriously missing or the entire school would read. Both options were bad. Unfortunately, there wasn't anywhere foolproof to hide it - not in my room and not in the entire girl's dorm. I'd have to sleep with it or something.

I looked down, expecting to see my own sloppy version of shorthand (eg more lazy writing than actual shorthand) but my handwriting was actually really neat, and it was taking me a long time. I frowned. What the hell? My handwriting had been neater when I was younger, and when my teachers had to breathe occasionally, giving us a chance to take neat notes, but I hadn't been like that in forever. If my personality had carried over like some of the students had noticed, shouldn't my handwriting have made the transition as well? I tried to write faster, but then I couldn't even make sense of my own writing. I blinked a few times and brought the notebook closer to my face, but it took me a minute to realize what had taken me almost three minutes to write out.

Leuk is BAD, Ares stelo otlb

I felt almost humiliated. This was so not me. I'd been reading college student-oriented books at this age before, but I couldn't even spell 'Luke' or 'stole'? I hurriedly erased what I'd written, tears pricking my eyes. I'd have to check that out later. Was this me stupid or something? What if I couldn't read? I hadn't been paying attention to any of my classes, least of all English, as I hadn't thought I needed them, but… clearly I'd been wrong.

Pictures it was then. Luckily, my art skills seemed to have carried over, and even if the only things I'd ever been good at using were pencil and pen, that was all I needed right now.

I doodled a picture of a decent looking guy with short, spiky hair inside of a 'no' symbol, and then a sloppy caricature of a buff man holding a cartoon lightning bolt. In between the two, I drew a watch on a serving platter (serving the Lord of Time, I imagined) and there was the main point of the first book. I turned several pages and then thought back on the second book. That one, I'd always been less familiar with, since I'd lent it out to a friend for five years and hadn't read it as much as the others as a result. Still, I remembered the basics: Thalia's tree got poisoned, Grover almost got eaten by a Cyclops. So I doodled a tree with a curly, woolly fur hanging from it and a profile image of an eye with very long, dark eyelashes and the reflection of fangs in the black, lifeless pupil. I also drew a sloppy boat underneath it to remind myself of the Odyssey. The I went on with The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian, doodling a few large things in the center of the page to remind me of the main point of that book.

The good thing about this was that it would be a little bit harder for anybody else to tell what it was really about. Still, I had to put a surprising amount of effort into making sure that they just looked like random illustrations, albeit in a weird and occasionally morbid style. As I was finishing up with the fifth book's main doodles, the bell rang. I shoved it in my bag and hurried off to English class, which was luckily just down the hall. I remembered my struggled to write down a few simple words and my heart dropped in disgust and disappointment. I slid into my seat and put my head down on my desk. I was wearing glasses, but what was the point of them if I couldn't do what I loved the most anyways? What if that wasn't just a brief, weird thing and I honestly couldn't read for the life of me? That was my favorite hobby, down the drain. I wondered if praying to God would have any effect in PJO world, then decided it wouldn't. Instead, I shot my pleas up to the goddess of wisdom and hoped that this was some freaky fluke.

Mr. Nicholl started class and put a short story up on the projector. I quickly discovered that it wasn't.

The story was supposed to be about culture. It was about this Mexican-American girl who grew up in Idaho the American way until her aunt came to visit from Mexico city. It was exactly what you'd expect of a middle-school short story: the girl thinks her aunt is a dumbass but then is surprised how totally awesome her heritage and culture is, and it changes her life forever.

Sort of like the fact that I couldn't read at all.

I wanted to throw up.

Usually when I get like that, there's something within the tells me to stop being a drama queen, but this time, there wasn't a single brain cell that felt I was overreacting.

Reading was a huge part of my person. I'd always been leagues ahead of the others in my class in terms of reading level - usually I was reading stuff five to eight grade levels ahead. People always thought I was really clever because of it, and it was really the only thing I had to be proud of. I'd never been a very good person, my body was, I thought, lacking, and even though I was incredibly smart, I didn't put enough effort forth in other academic areas to excel the same way. In terms of art, I couldn't paint or sculpt or work with copic markers or exacto knives - just pen and pencil. I'd drop out of martial arts after only a few months of training, and I sucked at PE. Reading was what made me proud of myself, and I'd lost it.

I ended up getting another detention, because in the middle of class I stood to get a Kleenex so quickly that my desk flipped, and when Nicholl tried to check on me, I 'replied in a sarcastic and degrading manner in front of an already restless and disrespectful class'.

Well, fuck Nicholl. I'll figure this out myself.

I didn't have time to research that afternoon, since I have to stay after school and wash his blackboards, erasers, and desks, but I knew I'd have to sooner or later. There had to be some way to fix this, right? Because it was obvious enough that I was suffering dyslexia. Of course, that was a problem in and of itself, but at least I didn't have ADHD. That definitely lowered the chances of anything too weird going on.

Right?

Ø

"Is there ketchup in that?" I asked, feeling one hundred percent disgusted. It wasn't just because of the peanut-butter-and-ketchup sandwich. It was because I was seated by Nancy Bobofit, who I had grown to hate more and more as time went on. Her very presence repulsed me, and here I was, sandwiched between her and the window. She smelled weird, like she hadn't showered, but the smell was going away. Either that, or I was just getting used to it.

A glob of the sandwich planted itself in Grover Underwood's curly hair and I cringed. Poor dude. She'd be throwing a lot more, and since he was directly diagonal from us, she didn't have to go to much effort to hit him. Of course, I wasn't exactly swimming in sympathy, since I was too occupied with what would go down today. I really wasn't planning on doing anything, since today was important to the entire plot, but it still freaked me out to know that today, Mrs. Dodds would let her hair down, per se, and make her attack.

"What do you think?" Nancy asked sweetly, dropping a piece of the sandwich in my lap before turning back to Grover. At first I was enraged, but I slowly settled down when an idea hit me. She was being particularly cruel and had peeled the sandwich opened so that the interior of the sandwich was exposed - trying to get it to stick to Grover or even Percy, I guess. So when she turned to throw another piece of sandwich, I picked up the piece in my lap and delicately, gently stuck it to the back of her head. Her hair was so thick that it acted as a cushion, and if she felt it, she didn't do anything. Then, best of all, she leaned back, and I had to turn away to stop myself from laughing. "What happened to your piece, Mary? Did you eat it?"

"Saving it for later," I replied smartly, wiping an amused tear from the corner of my eye. Nancy snickered and went back to throwing sandwich at Grover. I glanced at her back, where the bread was still firmly stuck, but mashed. Peanut butter and glistening, red ketchup was smeared all through her ginger locks. A lock of her hair was stuck together, and the back was in knots now.

The bus began to slow and then rolled to a stop in front of this neat looking building with four sets of two pillars and crowds pushing through the door in the front. I'd never been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I couldn't really make myself look forward to it for obvious reasons. I had a bad feeling that I'd be spending more time anticipating the future of this trip than actually enjoying it.

We all filed out of the bus and I hurriedly stepped out behind Nancy, since I didn't want anyone to know about the sandwich in her hair. She was pretty stupid, so if I waited about fifteen minutes, she'd forget that she'd even given me a piece of her nasty lunch and I wouldn't get in trouble even if she did realize how gross the back of her head now was. Besides that, I really wanted it to stay there as long as possible.

I checked my pockets. All my stuff was still there, which meant that she hadn't done any pickpocketing on the bus. That was surprising, considering that I had a debit card in my pocket (I guess it made sense that my family was rich since I was going to Yancy), but it was a good surprise. If she'd taken it, I'd have to deck her before Percy even had a chance to think about dunking her in the fountain. "Hey, Underwood," I called, waving my hand, and the brunette turned to look at me. "You've got ketchup in your hair." The sandwich wasn't there anymore, but… gross. Actually, I really needed to wash my hands. Who knew where Nancy Bobofit's hands had been, or who else had been inside that bus.

"Thanks," said Grover, looking confused as my nose wrinkled along with my thoughts. I held out a small packet of disinfectant wipes from my left pocket and he took one, looking really, really puzzled. Then he wiped his hair off and threw it in the garbage. I, on the other hand, obsessively scrubbed at the skin of my palms, fingers, knuckles, and wrists even as Mr. Brunner began to talk to us about some of what we were seeing.

The ceilings inside were high and domed, in some places. I was sure that if I shouted, my voice would echo many times over. After all, Mr. Brunner definitely wasn't yelling, and his voice echoed a little. He rolled on in his wheelchair and we followed him. Ordinarily, I would have fallen behind and gotten in trouble for staying to read each and every plaque as I analyzed each sculpture, and I felt myself sinking into misery again. I yawned, swaying on the spot as I blinked myself awake and tried to force myself to listen to Mr. Brunner. Unfortunately, I, as usual, felt completely drained, and my brain was having none of it.

"This is so stupid," hissed Nancy to Phoebe. "It isn't like it's the Mona Lisa. Like, can we move on?"

Phoebe giggled. "Apparently Mr. Brunner thinks it is."

"I don't get why we have to look at all this old stuff anyways," complained Sarah-Grace.

"But isn't it kind of cool that this stuff has managed to survive for so long, Gracie?" offered a brunette girl whose name I hadn't bothered to learn.

"Only because people took good care of it," Phoebe protested.

"Shut up," snarled Percy from the far right. I could practically feel Mrs. Dodds staring at us. I remembered that from the books, but they didn't even begin to cover how freaky she was. When you can not only tell that someone is t\staring at you without looking, but who is staring at you without looking, it's just not a good sign. I was only glad that she wasn't looking at me.

Really, it was a shame that I wasn't enjoying the trip more. In real life, even before I had read the Percy Jackson books, I loved mythology, though it was Greek mythology and ancient Egyptian art that enraptured me the most. So most of the story-related stuff was simple for me. In addition, I had a little experience with learning new languages, since I'd been taking German for three years before waking up at Yancy Academy. Memorizing vocab and grammatical rules had always been easy for me anyways, so I figured that plus my experience was probably why I was the top student in Mr. Brunner's (aka Chiron's) class.

Yes, I was top in something. Not that it made up for my English issues.

"... she spends all her time drawing gore in that dumb notebook," Nancy said, and I noted that she was staring. Trying to get a rise out of me, huh? "We all have our issues, but I bet she's a crazy psychopath. I don't know why they put her in dorms with the rest of us."

"She isn't very smart either. We've all seen how long it takes her to read a single word," the brunette girl mused. My blood ran cold, and I felt myself waking from my drowsiness.

"Whatever," Sarah-Grace said dismissively. "She hasn't strangled us in our sleep so she can't be too bad."

Phoebe giggled. "At least she hasn't stolen anyone's -"

"Shut up," snapped Nancy.

"Shut up," Percy whisper-shouted, but the girls kept on talking and Mrs. Dodds shot him a glare again. I pushed through to the front of the crowd so I could actually hear.

"... about five-fifty BC," Mr. Brunner was saying, gesturing at something incredibly small and white. It looked like a pebble, but I couldn't be sure. "Engraved jewels like this one often showed images of animals and occasionally portraits." He paused. "Miss Easterling. Could you tell us all what is engraved on this gem?"

"Mmm?" I was momentarily caught off guard, but I stepped forward and peered at the pale gem through half-lidded eyes. The smell of coffee grew stronger the closer I got to Mr. Brunner. I was incredibly jealous. "A satyr."

"Excellent, Miss Easterling," Mr. Brunner said, eyes sparkling. I looked away and rolled my eyes. Apparently he doubted that I'd been paying attention, and he was right to, since as usual, I was half-in, half out. I allowed myself to fall into the back of the crowd again and looked around. The building was massive anyways, but in my twelve-year-old body, it seemed even more so. I was insignificant; insignificant compared to this huge building and the ancient things within it, and insignificant compared to all that was going to happen soon.

So why was I even here? What was the point?

We were walking again. We stopped at a carving made from animal bone and some pottery. I should have taken the time to enjoy it, but I didn't. Instead, I spent a huge portion of my time with my eyes half-closed, trying not to think about anything.

We stopped in front of a stele. I certainly recognized it; this was the part where good Mr. B. would pester the crap out of Percy. I pushed my glasses up onto my nose and opened my eyes just a millimeter more to let in more light. It had a well-carved sphinx on top, and the rest of it was sort of shaped like an obelisk with the top part cut off. On the facet we could see, there was a naked man. Even with my glasses on, the image wasn't clear from that distance, so I couldn't make out too much more. Overall, it was like a lot of classic art. Not really realistic, but recognizable in style. Aside from what was about to go down right here, right now, there was nothing fascinating at all.

If I recalled correctly, the Greeks believed that the way a body was treated after death was incredibly important. If it was handled properly, they might not make it into the afterlife. For instance, they point the coin in the mouth of the dead person, so they could ferry over the Styx. And I was pretty sure they had some kind of funeral rites, and that they might even make sacrifices to or for the dead person.

It was far from what I'd done at funerals as a Baptist, but it was obvious that my Christian views didn't really apply here.

"Nice dick," I heard Nancy Bobofit say, and I groaned. Honestly, these kids were brainless. Not that high school kids were any better.

Before I had time to say something rude, Percy Jackson did. "Will you shut up?" he said, probably for the seventh or eighth time in the past couple of minutes.

"No point, dude," I whispered. "You can't fix stupid."

Nancy turned to me, about to make a sarcastic comment, but Mr. Brunner called, "Mr. Jackson, did you have a comment?"

I turned back to Percy. He was totally flushed. I remember in the books, he said Mr. Brunner was his favorite teacher. He was probably embarrassed. "No, sir," he answered respectfully.

"Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?" Mr. Brunner asked him. For once, I knew that Percy wasn't at a disadvantage. This was a picture, and it was one we'd seen before. There wasn't a word on it, so his own dyslexia wouldn't be a problem. Even if there had been text there, it would have been Greek. Again, not a problem.

"That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" Percy replied casually, but Mr. Brunner asked him to expand on that. "... Kronos was the king god, and -"

"God?" our teacher asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Titan," Percy corrected. "And… he didn't trust his kids -" I snorted. No kidding. "- um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up -" I snorted to myself again, remembering Zeus's 'grown up' behavior in the books. "- so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans, and the gods won."

Simple. Even for Percy. I flashed a smile at him, as if in congratulations, and turned away from the snickers of the Bobofit Bunch. That's when I noticed it: Mr. Brunner was staring at me. He looked back at Percy almost immediately, like he was musing on what Percy had said, but I was confused. Was it the snorting? What did I do to warrant attention? "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

The truth was that I kind of saw her point. I mean, even now, Greek mythology was just something interesting to study. It was fun. It was fascinating. but there really wasn't anything to learn from it, unless you counted 'don't be like the gods because they sleep around and are basically trigger happy lunatics'. They weren't like Aesop's fables or anything. Sure, sometimes the myths had a sub-lesson. But they were mostly just stories.

Still, just because I hated Nancy Bobofit, I turned to look at her like she was the dumbest person this side of the Mississippi.

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner began, and I grinned at Nancy, leering at her through my nearly shut eyes, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

Percy, of course, looked like a deer caught in the headlights, since there was no real way for him to know the answer. It was actually kind of mean for Mr. Brunner to ask him that, but that was adult logic for you. "I don't know, sir," he answered finally.

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed, which wasn't really fair, but it also wasn't my business. Depending on my upcoming decision, I wouldn't even see percy again after term finished. "Well, haalf crediiit, Mrrrrr. Jaaaackss…" And then he lost me. I had trouble paying attention in class, but it was never anything so bad and obvious. It was more like I used to miss chunks of the lesson because I'd fall asleep if the teacher talked too long. But it wasn't like this was a grammar-rules-you've-been-learning-over-and-over-for-years sort of thing, and Mr. Brunner didn't ramble on and on about things. This was interesting, so it bothered me that I kept missing things, that I couldn't keep my eyes up front, and that the only time I was ever really awake was when I should have been sleeping.

I headed out to lunch with the rest of the class without even glancing back at Percy. It was probably rude for me to ignore him - I hadn't even made eye contact with him before until I'd smiled at him earlier - but I hadn't come to a decision about how to move on, and I didn't want a personal relationship with the kid to cloud my judgement. My stomach growled and I rubbed my stomach, pulling the single apple I'd brought with me from my pocket the instant I stepped outside. It wasn't cold anymore, the way I liked my apples, but it would do. I sat down by the fountain, since it was hot out, and the brightness made me lazy, like a cat stretched out in the sunlight, and the fountain provided a lot of shade. I should probably be better about hydrating myself.

Yeah, that was a bad decision.

The apple was pretty good - red delicious. I wiped it off with a disinfectant wipe and rubbed that off with the inside of my sweater sleeve, and then I bit into it, savoring the supple crunch of the flesh of the fruit. It had just the texture I'd been hoping for - not all apples did - and it was just sweet enough to satisfy my tastes. Juice ran down my chin and I licked it off, taking another huge bite.

Grover and Percy sat down less than six feet from me, but I didn't mind them. They weren't talking to me, after all. I didn't want them to.

"Detention?" Grover asked as I stretched into a yawn, scooting away so they wouldn't think I was eavesdropping.

"Nah, not from Brunner," Percy answered, though he sounded upset. Irritated, even. And for good reason. "I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a geniu - Hey. You're top in our class, right?"

My heart literally stopped for a second. I turned slowly his was, like I wasn't sure he was talking to me. After all, people didn't talk to me, unless they were Nancy Bobofit. "Yes," I answered, meeting his sea green stare. He had really intense eyes. But even if I hadn't been a talker at age twelve - still wasn't at sixteen, but I was bolder now - I was never one to be intimidated by someone's gaze (unless they were Mrs. Dodds) so I met them evenly.

"So did you know the answer?" Percy asked urgently, his black brows drawing together in frustration. Grover stared at me worriedly, but if I was remembering the first chapter of the book right, he was usually concerned about something. It probably had nothing to do with me.

"Not off the top of my head," I replied, and Percy looked terribly disappointed. I paused for a moment. I couldn't tell Percy who he was right now - Grover would undoubtedly stop me - but I could say something else. "I don't think it was your stereotypical 'you can learn from it' answer, though. I mean, most of those events couldn't really be applied to our everyday lives. They don't have any moral value at all. Maybe he was trying to convince you to say something clever."

"Events?" Percy asked, raising his eyebrows. He caught it. He isn't entirely hopeless.

Still, my heart was catching in my throat, and I felt really embarrassed for some reason. "Well… I guess I think about some of the advancements the Ancient Greeks made and I think… well, they weren't stupid. They were artists. Thinkers. Scientists. Would the same people who produced Aristotle be wrong about all that other stuff?" Grover looked borderline terrified now, but the only thing I was worried about was that I didn't make any sense.

Still, Percy seemed to get what I was saying. "So… you believe in gods? You think Mr. Brunner -"

"Not necessarily," I interrupted, shaking my head. "It's just… something I think about sometimes. I'm sorry. I really went off on that one, huh?" Percy smiled a little, but he seemed to be deep in thought. Bingo… "But maybe it was just 'you can learn from them' after all. Who knows."

The satyr looked relieved, and then we stopped talking. I took another bite of my apple and frowned. With the heat out there, it would get warm soon. Gross. I'd have to eat it quickly.

Within a few minutes, the water would yank Nancy into the water as if on its own accord. Within minutes of the, Mrs. Dodds would reveal herself as the Fury Alecto. It occurred to me that, as a mortal, I'd be affected by the Mist after words. Won't I? Damn. Then the decision to help Percy or not wouldn't be mine at all. Why would I be transported here if I was destined to do nothing? Why would I be taken away from my life and my family so I could do nothing? I scowled and began to dig through my pockets. Nothing. And I hadn't brought my lunch sack, so… no pen. Damn! My fingernails aren't even long enough for me to make marks on my skin. I'll have no way to take notes. And if my memories of Mrs. Dodds are destroyed, what if I forget the rest of the books? I didn't finish the notebook yesterday. In fact, all I have is the basic plot, and none of that will make sense if I can't remember details and characters. How was I supposed to solve this one?

And then Nancy Bobofit just had to walk over.

I'd hated her from the start, and I'd known she was going to come by the fountain from the minute I sat there. But I didn't think I was going to talk to Percy (and Grover, by extension, I guess). I already wanted revenge on her for embarrassing me the first time I ever attended a class at Yancy, and for being a jerk the entire time I'd known her. Somehow, talking to those two guys must have made me sympathetic, because when she walked over and dumped her lunch all over Grover. I was pissed. And I could also see that Percy was pissed, even more than I was, really. I saw everything that was about to happen like images flashing through my mind, and the new, impulsive side of me rose, my body suddenly bursting with adrenaline. I was standing before I even realized it.

I reached out and shoved Nancy Bobofit straight into the lukewarm water of the museum's fountain.

And there was chapter two! It's a bit long but hopefully it was decent. Please drop a review if you can! They really do inspire me to get off my butt and write (:
Have any suggestions? Feel free to leave them. I'm writing this story as I go (though I do have a few chapters prewritten at a time, so if you have any ideas regarding the near future you should let me know fast.