Chapter 1: I Fight a Manticore
It was lunch at my high school, John F. Fremont High School. I just walked out of my favorite class, English with Mr. Pacten, with my friends Annabeth, Grover, and Percy.
"Hey, did you get the homework that Mr. Pacten gave us, Mara Jade?" Grover asked.
"Yeah, I finished it during class, well most of it," I told Grover.
"Well Percy didn't get it and neither did I and could you help us this lunch?" Grover said. Percy punched Grover in the stomach. I chuckled.
"Sorry guys, I can't," I said.
"Great, besides the boys didn't need help anyways. I'll just help," Annabeth said. I never understood why she didn't like me.
"Okay, whatever. See yeah." I said good-bye and went to my lunch table. My second best friend in the entire world, Siam, was already at the table. She was chewing a tin can which was always very odd. Siam was also crippled so she was very delicate.
"Hey, Siam. What goes on?" I greeted.
"Oh, nothing much. Just that the football players are still waiting for an answer," she told me.
"Great. Football players wanting for me to be their girlfriend, so I could teach them how to read. That's great," I told Siam.
Siam laughed, "Well, that's football players for you."
"That's so true."
Then, my other friends came over, with their lunches in their hands. They had grilled chicken sandwiches. My all time favorite.
"Hey, Mara Jade," said Marissa.
"Hey, Marissa. What are we doing in torture class with Mr. Clawson?" I asked Marissa. Marissa is my third best friend in the world, right next to Siam and this other friend that I've known forever.
"We are doing the usual boring stuff that makes Mr. Clawson's class so boring," Marissa said.
"Yay! That's my favorite thing to do!" I said. My friends laughed.
Then a couple minutes later, I felt hot and humid (And no it wasn't my stomach growling of hunger).
"Think that I'm to cool off in the pool," I said.
Mattie (another friend, big shocker there) disagreed with my opposition.
"Mara Jade you're always in the pool or doing something weird. Can't you just stay here for one lunch?" Mattie said.
"I'll be fine."
I left the group and went to the pool.
When I was walking to the pool, I had a weird feeling that I was being followed. My weird feeling was correct.
Mr. Clawson, my science teacher, was standing about 2 feet away from where I was standing. Mr. Clawson has white, bushy hair, and small, brown, hawk-like eyes. The eyes were the scariest part of him. This teacher was a teacher that nobody liked.
Anyways, Mr. Clawson started to walk towards me. I started to fast walk and maybe out walk him. I was wrong. Mr. Clawson started walking faster and so did I. We were up to the point where we were running. When I got to the doors of the pool area, Mr. Clawson was coming up behind me. Who knew that old people could run so fast? I opened the doors and locked them so the freak teacher couldn't come in. I gasped for air. I felt like I ran a marathon. I then started walking towards the turquoise-blue water of the pool.
As I walked, I saw a blur. The blur had ruffled, jet black hair and he was swimming so fast that I couldn't keep my blue-green eyes of where he was. But then the blur slowed down and then I knew exactly who that blur was.
Percy stroked his way through the water, to where I was standing. I sat down and put my feet in the warm water.
"Mara Jade, what are you doing here?" Percy asked.
"I just needed to cool off. That's all," I told him. "Besides, why do care?"
"Hey! I was just wondering." Percy said. "So, why do look like you ran a marathon in New York and locked the doors?"
Great! More questions that I had to answer.
"I feel like I ran a marathon and why I-" I stopped. "Wait, how did you know that I locked the doors?"
"I have super hearing."
"No, seriously. I locked the doors when you were underwater. So how could have you heard them?"
"I told you. I have super hearing underwater," Percy said. He was probably playing around with me.
"You're so weird."
"That's me," Percy said. But I told him the story anyway. About Mr. Clawson chasing me and all the rest.
There was an awkward pause after I told Percy the story. I took a glance at the clock that was on the wall. Lunch was starting to end and I couldn't be late for Mr. Clawson's science class. Ode to Joy.
Percy saw the clock to and got up and went to the boy's locker room. As I was waiting for him, I walked to the doors of the pool area and guess who was there? Why none other than Mr. Clawson, himself. He started to walk towards me, slowly and silently. As he was walking, he started to change to a different form. I didn't know what was going on. As he was changing form, he started to growl like a lion, waiting to devour me into pieces. Then he grew a long tail that looked like a lion's tail. But it was different, too. It had arrows pointing at me. Mr. Clawson was himself anymore. He was a monster. Then Percy came out of now where. He had a pen in his hand that in just a few seconds turn into a sword. I didn't know what was going on. The monster started to shot at us.
"RUN!" Percy exclaimed. What did he think I was going to do? Just stand there? We both started to run around the pool, but the creature wasn't giving up. As we were running around trying to get away, the creature made an arrow go into my arm. I screamed so loud that I think that you could hear me from outer space. The monster aimed another one at my arm. This time I fell into the water of the pool. I could see Percy from above trying to fight the thing. As I was in the water, the pain in my arm started to go away. Anger boiled inside. I just had to let it out. The water started to rise and started to turn into a circle. The ground began to shake. I saw outside. Thunder started to rumble Los Angeles. Lightning crashed against the skies. I took all of my anger to the monster. The water rose and clashed against the monster. It was done. I defeated the monster and I was now tried and weak. Percy was just standing there with his mouth open.
"How-did-you-WHAT?" Percy exclaimed while stammering his question. But this time, I couldn't answer him because the same question was in my head, "How did I do that?"