III: School
French Toast:
He could never quite get the hang of it; some of his classmates could get the bread perfectly evened and golden crisp on both sides, the bread lush and eggy—but never soggy—in the middle with a crackling crust. His always, always turned out limp and bland, the eggs sputtering around scrambled instead of going into the Mighty White.
The bossy girl next to him was named Rebekah, and she was eyeing him beadily. "You didn't whip them properly." She said in an undertone to the new boy, "This is Miss Gaudrie's class, whip them properly."
Percy stared at the bowl of liquid egg in despair; it had a watery, uneven consistency. "How do I—"
"You're supposed to be managing your food yourselves!" Miss Gaudrie scowled from across the room. Rebekah gave Percy a sympathetic look and turned to her own whisk.
Looking away from Miss Gaudrie's reproachful and piercing gaze, Percy picked up his whisk again and began beating. He put too much strength into his circling wrist, however, and splats of raw egg drenched his chin and apron.
"Dammit!"
Rebekah inhaled sharply. Miss Gaudrie swivelled around from where she had been writing recipes on the board.
The class turned deathly silent.
"Who said that," The teacher said quietly, "Who's the one with the quick mouth?"
Percy bit the inside of his cheek. Those angry-eyes turned to bruise him. "It was you, wasn't it? What's your name—Jackson?"
He sighed. "Yes, miss."
"You insolent little monkey, that's what you are!" Miss Gaudrie shouted. A glint came into her eyes. "You'll just have to do a recital, then; won't you?"
Percy looked at Rebekah for help; the girl shrugged sadly—tough luck—and mouthed, "It's the worst punishment."
Recital, it turned out, was torture for his dyslexic and ADHD mind. Miss Gaudrie had snatched out some pages from some book or another by Shakespeare, or something, and Percy was to properly memorise—as if deciphering the blocks of letters wasn't already hard enough—five pages of the stuff in one day and recite them perfectly to her tomorrow. If he messed up even a little bit, he was to do it all again—with an extra page.
His dorm-mate was a helpful, titchy little creature who helped him in reading the words, though he wasn't any help in the memorising aspect of the punishment.
Needless to say, Percy only got it down pat after four recitals.
-v^v-
"Read aloud: Percy Jackson."
The boy groaned inwardly as he stood up with his book—something about the fauna of the Amazon—and embarked on the Herculean task of getting the words to make sense in his mind.
"The rivers of the… the… Amazing—"
"That's not the word." Miss Gaudrie snapped.
Percy blushed as someone snickered. "The rivers of the Amazing—" he winced.
"For heaven's sakes," Miss Gaudrie exclaimed. "It's the amazon—what ten year old doesn't know how to read that?"
Some soul endeavoured to be helpful. "He's dysle-sick, miss!"
"Did he tell you that?" the woman asked with a measure of disbelief.
"I am too." Percy said defensively. "I'm not bluffing!"
Miss Gaudrie scoffed; the rest of the class watched solemnly.
"You know what are?" The teacher finally said, "You're taking the easy way out—"
"If you don't believe me—"
"You're taking the easy way out; anything can be solved with a proper mind-set, but you're just too strung-up to try, aren't you?"
"Will you just listen to me?" He half-shouted, slapping the glossy lush pictures of the Amazonian greenery shut.
Miss Gaundrie glared at him and proceeded to flip open her teacher's copy of The Geography Set.
"Pages 68 to 73." she announced drily, settling on the Tundra section.
There was a flurry of sound as the students flapped towards the page, which was followed by a sharp intake of sympathetic breath; the pages assigned were the question and answer slots, whole mounds of nothing but intimidating text.
A brave voice at the back ventured, "But miss, there's not even a picture or what!"
A small bubble of rebellion was quickly squashed by Miss Gaudrie flashing her recital eyes at everyone and Percy was relegated to the corridor, with no one to help him figure out the words.
By the end of it all, his brain felt like it was bleeding.
-v^v-
French toast… again.
He could feel Miss Gaudrie's eyes on him as he cracked the eggs into a bowl, taking care not to get any of the golden goo trickling down the leaf-embossed porcelain. He managed to whip it proper this time, getting it fluffy and evened out. Rebekah gave him a discreet, approving nod.
First stage went fine, but here was the flipping—was the time right? Would it turned out charred? Miss Gaudrie was just waiting for him to mess up so he could be given yet another recital wasn't she?
Suddenly, there was a loud crackling noise of sputtering oil and a plume of smoke; a shout of miss, miss! Percy turned around to see one of his classmates in kitchen-danger—nothing to get too bothered about, but certainly something that required adult guidance.
Miss Gaudrie stalked imperiously to the back of the class and Rebekah suddenly appeared next to him, grabbing the spatula out of his hand and tossing the slice with expert precision.
"It's just a practice session so it's okay and this is the only time I'm going to help you, alright? Only because three recitals in two weeks is something no one should have. Look and learn, okay, I'm not going to help you next time."
Turning around to make sure that Miss Gaudrie was still occupied, she patted the sizzling toast with the base of the spatula and gave it another slick and twist, before motioning for Percy to get her plate. With great concentration, she deposited the perfect piece onto the plate and scuttled back to her station just as Miss Gaudrie pronounced the smoky scene at the back as fine, and overly dramatic.
With ill-disguised surprise and contempt, she eyed Percy's slice and didn't give him a recital for that day.
To show his gratitude, Percy gave his toast to Rebekah.
Mash:
Nothing said school dinner quite the way mash did, Percy thought. Squashed between two boys and facing a line of other boys, he felt out of place in this fancy school with its lacquered table—even for students—and high-backed plush chairs for the teacher's lounge.
Steaming carved bowls were exchanged over the chatter and a bowl of fluffy, white, sun-cloud mash was placed in front of Percy, accompanied by a tag-along tray of parsley sauce. He took a generous helping and passed the bowl along.
In front of him, digging in greedily, was a newcomer named Patrick. With his winning smile and prefect placed haircut, Patrick was the kind of boy you either loved or hated.
"This is the best mash I've ever seen in a school dinner," he announced, "I've been to four schools along the East Coast, and I'm telling you, you have never seen a mash quite like this." He squinted at Percy, who recognised that he was being subtly challenged. "Do you agree?"
"My other schools weren't so fancy." Percy replied, wanting to just eat without a fuss.
"Well, then—you've never had a mash like this."
"I dunno," Percy shrugged, spooning a bit of chicken into his mouth. "My mother makes pretty good mash, I guess."
Patrick raised his eyebrows along the line of boys, who understood that something interesting was going on. Eyes focused and cutlery stopped clanging so loudly.
"Your mother cooks?"
"Yeah," Percy looked confused, "I mean, why not?"
"Like, for fun?"
"She cooks for us to eat."
"Don't you get the help to do it for you?"
Realising the snobbery in Patrick's tone, Percy's fists clenched. A squirrelly little boy two spots down, who was either particularly brave—or more likely just drama depraved—started to murmur, "Goan, goan. He's having a go at you—goan."
"If you're having a go at my mother—"
"If your mother's the help, she's having a go at herself—"
Relishing the thought of a fight, the other boys began to take up the discreet chant of goan, goan.
"Say one more thing about my mother!"
"I would, but she's probably too daft to understand it!"
Percy spooned a heap of mash and slung it at Patrick's face. All talk went silent. He heard one of the chair's up at the teacher's lounge scrape back against the polished floors. Patrick stood up with as much dignity as one with his dinner on his face could muster, and took a leg of chicken and hit Percy square in the jaw with it.
The hall broke out in chaos.
Carrots and assorted vegetables, the least valued items, were the first to start flying. The meat went next, followed by pudding. Some bright kid started to slosh around the soups next, which was caused the real trouble. Intent on giving Patrick a one on, Percy rushed around the scene with colourful jellies in his hands, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. As he dodged a roast here and a chunk of lasagne there, Percy found that his collar was being held by a fuming mistress with blancmange down her right cheek and disappearing down her beaded collar.
"Percy Jackson," she all but spat, "I saw you throw the first go."
This wasn't his first report of bad behaviour. He was sent home the next day.
Army Lunch:
A friend of Gabe's recommended the next school. It wasn't that his stepfather gave a damn about his education, but this particular school came cheap, and was decent enough to stop Sally from worrying; both meant Gabe could ease off the stress and have more of the beer, so he encouraged it.
All of this was the reason why Percy was holding a battered tin over a dying fire, trying to get the water to boil to proper. Making army lunches was a newly introduced part of the school. Apparently, it encouraged innovation and grace-under-fire. In a straight line, his classmates squatted in front of their own fires, trying to get their water to boil with varying degrees of success.
Percy tilted his mess tin, rejoicing in the fact that the steel-coloured water was starting to bubble. He slid a fat sausage from out of the standard wrapper and plopped it into the water, his stomach already starting to grumble.
A gust of wind blew, which caused several of his classmates to curse. Percy's fire lived still. Just as he started to rip apart the packet of flavouring, his eyes caught a movement in the bushes. Percy felt his blood freeze, because movements in the bushes were never good things for him.
Percy Jackson saw monsters and believed strongly that he was either insane or had an especially vivid imagination.
A pair of yellowish eyes blinked at him from the gaps in the hedge and he scooted back in fear, upsetting his mess tin and getting scalded water all over his hand. His heart racing in his throat and yelping from the pain—his skin had started to blister—he looked back at the bushes. Nothing was there except gently fluttering leaves, yellowish in the sunlight.
His teacher, an anxious looking woman with a beehive, ran towards him to help him up. Percy Jackson was shivering badly, not just from the pain and the shock, but from the thought of his insanity creeping up on him like skeleton fingers in the dark.
He was afraid.