The HoO Crew Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 2
-ANNABETH-
After a regular breakfast and daily activities with my brothers and sisters, I went to my cabin and sat in my bed,thinking.Oh Seaweed Brain,I wish you were here...
Just then, Jason Grace burst open throught the door and into the cabin with a look of excitement in his electric blue eyes and for a moment,I was startled, but I got over my shock and quickly asked,"Woa,Jason!What's going on?".
He smiled for a moment but then his grin and his excited expression slowly looked like something suddlenly occured to him and what he was going to say probably would be bad for me.
That instantly got me thinking about the person that was always on my mind."Is it about Percy?"I asked hesintantly,I had no idea of what to expect,specially when it came to my boyfriend.
Jason hesitated, but then said"Well,sort-off. Rachel found these books in a mortal library and guess who their about?".
I looked at him,puzzled. So jason had ran all the way here,looked soo excited but hesitant, just to tell me about a book Rachel found in a mortal library? I might be the daughter of Athena, but right now I was too worried about a certain son of Poseidon to think about any mortal book. But Jason interested in a mortal book? That was too strange, so I looked at him blankly the way Percy used to look at me when he didnt know something, and said "No I have no you tell me?"
Jason smiled at me and said,"Come and meet us in the Big House so you can see it,Leo is getting other people and then we are gonna read it aloud to the entire camp".
I shrugged and followed Jason out of the cabin and into the Big the ,Clarrise,Leo,Thalia,and Rachel were sitting down with big smiles in their faces holding some books in their hands.
"What's going on guys?",I asked when I entered the room Chiron looked up and smiled at me with a twinkle in his eyes."You shall find out soon child,let's all go down to the amplitheater to begin reading".
Everyone nodded but I was even more confused,what the heck was going on? But I decided to follow them out to the amplitheater to find out.
-Scene Change-
When we got to the amplitheater, I saw all the campers rounded up there with curious but confused looks on their faces,like me.
Chiron pounded his hooves on the ground to get their attention."HEROES!Gather around! Today we shall read some chapters from a special book our Oracle has brought us!",he said.
Connor and Travis Stoll walked in front with confused looks."You asked us to come here to read a silly book?",Connor asked.
"You know how we feel about books,Chiron!",said Travis,with a bored look on his face.
"When you know what the book is about Travis,then you might be more interested",Chiron said to the brothers.
Travis snorted,"That's what our teachers always say..."but they stayed quiet.
Chiron then continued,"While reading this book,our Oracle tells me we will have some visitors,but first I will tell you what this book is about".
Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.
"This book,is about one of this camp's lost hero,Percy Jackson",he said.
I looked at him with my mouth hanging open like everyone else.
A book about percy? Theres no way...,I thought.
"I will read the first chapter",Chiron announced.
"I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher", Chiron read.
"Oh,Seaweed Brain"I said,smilling. Only percy would come up with a title like that.
"Nice title"Leo said,with a grin
"Look,I didn't want to be a Half-blood",chrion read
"Nice way to start a book percy",Will from Apollo said.
We all knew a half-blood's life was never easy.
"If youre reading this because you think you might be one my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth,and try to lead a normal life.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time,it gets you killed in painfull,nasty ways."
"So why are we reading this if Percy doesn't want half-bloods to read it?" Travis whispered to Chris Rodriguez
"Good advice from Percy?!Damn,he must have spent way too much time with Annabeth" Connor joked.
I punched his shoulder and told him to shut up.
"Jez Annabeth,I was joking" Connor said,rubbing his arm.
"If you're a normal kid,reading this beacuse you think it's fiction,read on.I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.
But if you recognize yourself in these pages-If you feel something stirring up inside-stop reading might be one of us.
"Real dramatic percy",said a kid from Ares.
"Ahhh, the FBI will be coming for us!" Leo and the Stollsas aid dramatically.
And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too,and they'll come for you.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
"Well,you never warn me"said Nico Di Angelo,which surprised me because I didnt know he was here.
My name is Percy Jackson.
I'm twelve years old,until a few days ago,I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy,a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.
"Ugh,I hate those schools" Connor said,wrinkling his nose.
"What type of schools DO you like?",Katie from Demeter asked him.
"Good point",he said.
"Was Percy a troubled kid?",Leo asked.
"YES!",everyone shouted, and then started laughing.
" You all think very highly of him" Piper said sarcastically.
"We do. He's got soo much seaweed in his brain,though" Thalia said with a smirk
She and Nico high-fived.
Am I a troubled kid?
You could say that.
"HAHAHA",The kids from the Ares cabin rolled over,laughing.
Even Chiron and I smiled at that.
I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it,but things really started going bad last May,when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow bus,heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.
"That sounds like fun",I said with a smile in my face.
Travis and Connor made a disgusted face."Torture",Leo and the entire Hermes cabin said.
I know-it sounds like torture.
"HAHAHA",Leo and the Hermes cabin laughed.
"Why do you even go out with him?"Thalia asked me with a small smile in her face.
I rolled my eyes at her but I smiled too.
Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.
Everyon look at Chiron,who was smilling.
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.
"CHIRON!"We all yelled. Chiron smiled wider but his eyes were a little sad.
You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class and also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons,so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.
"Greek weapons,Percy"Grover said,shaking his head.
"He really Did like my class"Chiron said wipping a small tear in his eyes.
"Who wouldn't love a class where the teacher has cool weapons?"Leo asked.
I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.
"And why would you EVER get in trouble Percy?",Travis joked.
I looked at Katie and she nodded. Then she hit Travis in the head and he got quiet.
Boy,was I wrong.
See,bad things happen to me on field at my fifth-grade school,when we went to the Saratoga battlefield,I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon.
Leo,Connor,Travis,the Hermes and Apollo cabin were all holding their sides,laughing.
"And accident with a war cannon Perce?",Will said.
"Only percy",Connor said,wipping tears of laughter from his eyes.
"What happened with the cannon,though?Keep reading Chiron!",Travis said with anticipation in his eyes.
They all leaned forward and kept quiet.
I wasn't aiming for the school bus,but of course I got expelled anyway.
"BWAHAHAHAH",They all exploded in laughter. Even the Ares kids were laughing too.
And before that,at my fourth-grade school,when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool,I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our an unplanned swim.
And before that..Well you get the idea.
"Aww,c'mon Perce!Keep going!",the Hermes cabin said before they realizied they were talking to a book.
"When Percy comes back,he is soo gonna tell us about this",Connor told Travis,who nodded eagerly.
This trip,I was determined to be good.
All the way to the city,I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly,redheaded kleptomaniac girl,hitting my best friend Grover in the back with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.
Everyone started talking at once.
"What kind of last name is Bobofit?!"
"EWWW!Who eats peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches?!"
"She was hitting goat boy with it? Oh it just got real!"
"HEROES!",Chiron had to shout to get us to shut up and pay attention.
Grover was an easy target. He was cried when he got must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth-grader with acne and the start of a wispy his chin and top of all that, he was crippled.
He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
"Way to blow your cover,Goat-Boy",Thalia said laughing.
"Thanks a lot Perce",Grover said shaking his head.
"You must really like Enchiladas then Grover",Piper said laughing as well.
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.
"And that is why,children of Hermes,we hate schools and their snobby principals",Travis said to the Hermes kids as if he was teaching them something important.
They all cracked up and nodded their heads with mock serious expressions.
"I'm going to kill her",I mumbled.
"DO IT!",an Ares kid said.
Grover tried to calm me down."It's okay.I like peanut butter"
He dogded another piece of Nancy's lunch.
"Of course you do,goat boy"Thalia said sarcasticlly.
"I was trying to calm him",Grover said.
Before they could start arguing,Chiron kept on.
"That's it".I started to get up,but Grover pulled me back to my seat.
"You're already on probation",he reminded me."You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."
Looking back on it,I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and -school suspencion would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
"He would have decked a girl?!"Piper asked with an outraged look on her face.
"No he wouldn't",Grover said confidently.
"I wonder what mess could have been worse than In-school suspencion",Leo said with a shudder.
"Um let me think... How about a little mess I like to call The life of a big three demigod?",Jason said with sadness and sarcasm in his voice.
The camp fell silent.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.
It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
"Longer,Percy",I said,shaking my head. The fact that those artifacts survived so long surprised me too.
He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old.
"Sounds like a creepy old hag" Jason said with a shudder.
"Nervous breakdown my ass,it was probably Alecto who caused it" Nico said with a disgusted look on his face.
"Who?"Leo asked.
"You'll find out"Thalia said seriously.
From her first day, loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.
"NO!That's nico!",Thalia said with a smile in her face.
Nico huffed indignantly.
She would point her crooked finger at me and say,"Now honey",real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.
Travis and Connor shuddered.
One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."
"Blowing your cover too much Grover",I said and face-palmed.
Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.
Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"
"Oh!It's about to get real!",an Ares kid said.
It came out louder than I meant it too.
"Of course it did,kelp head",Thalia said with a smirk.
"What was Percy's nickname for you again?...Oh yeah!Pinecone Face!" Clarisse said.
Thalia glared at clarrise and Jason asked,"Percy called you Pinecone Face?" He sounded surprised.
"Let's talk about that later please",Piper asked with some charmspeak in her voice. Thw campers all fell silent again.
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"
My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."
"I feel you dude",Leo said nodding.
Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"
"Five drachma he gets it wrong"Thalia said,looking at me.
"It's on",I said doubtfully.
I looked at the carving and felt a flush of relief because I actually recognized it."That's Kronos eating his kids right?"
Thalia grumbled and handed me five drachmas.
Katie shuddered."It just had to be that one"
"Yes", said,obliviously not satisfied."And he did this because..."
"Well...",I racked my brain to remember."Kronos was the king god,and-"
"GOD?!",Everyone at camp shouted,then they burst out laughing.
"God?", asked.
"Titan",I corrected myself."And ...he didn't trust his kids,who were the ,um,Kronos ate them,right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat later,when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"
"Eww!",said one of the girls behind me.
"-and so there was a big fight between the gods and the titans, and the gods won",I said.
"Nicely put Percy",an Athena kid said.
Some snickers from the group.
"But he got it right!",Jason said.
Behind me,Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "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.'"
"Maybe not for her,but for demigods...",Chris said.
"Still it wouldn't show up in a job application",Travis whispered.
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Duh,cuz hes a Half-blood,Chiron!",a Hermes kid said.
"BUSTED!",Leo and The stolls said.
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"Now were thinking like grover",Travis said.
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.
"Ears of a horse",The stolls said.
"I heard that",Chiron said.
"You see?",They whispered to leo.
I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach.
The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.
"When don't they?",Thalia said.
"Hey!",The guys of camp half blood said.
Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."
I knew that was coming.I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.
"Because they have",Thalia said looking at Chiron.
Chiron nodded sadly.
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."
"Poor Percy,he probably didn't know what he was going to find out",Travis said sadly.
Everyone stared at him in shock.
"What?!I can be deep and serious when I want to!",He said.
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."
I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.
"None of us can stay angry at Chiron",I said.
I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!' and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had everlived,and their mother, and what god they worshipped.
"COOL!I wish I had a class like that!",Connor and Leo said together.
But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to beas good;he expected me to I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
"I always knew he was special",Chiron said with a small smile.
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
"Which I bet was true" Clarisse said,shrugged.
He told me to go outside and eat my class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.
"What's Dad angry about?" Jason asked Thalia.
"We'll find out later"she assured him.
We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
"Looks like Poseidon is angry too"Piper noted.
Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.
"I hate her already",Thalia mumbled quietly,but I heard,"Nobody messes with Goat boy but me".
Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.
"Smart",Leo said approvingly.
Detention?" Grover asked.
"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."
"And that's what Annbeth loves about him",Travis said,wrigglying his eyebrows at me.
I blushed and said,"Not true".
"Yeah!She loves him because he's not perfect!",Thalia said. I gave her a gratefull look.
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"
"Really deep there ",Thalia said to Grover. He blushed while the camp roared with laughter.
I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.
I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.
"AWW!",The Aphrodite cabin said.
Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
"Im gonna hunt her down",Thalia said with a serious look
"And I'll help",I said.
"She's gonna get it",Rachel said.
"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth
"You know it would be hilarious if Bobadafit-",Connor started to say.
"Bobadafit?",I asked,laughing.
"Nickname for Percy's old friend",He said with a mischivious smile,"Wouldn't be hillarious if she had a crush on our dear Percy?".
Everyone was holding their sides with laughter.
Annabeth looked pissed.
Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.
"Ugh",Said the kids from Aphrodite,even piper."That's disgusting".
Connor and Travis were whezzing now.
"Only percy would make a joke like that!",they both said between laughs.
"Man,I should take lessons from this guy!",Leo said.
Jason huffed.
I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.
"A wave?"Jason asked in wonder.
"Son of Poseidon"I reminded him.
"Oh"
I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"
"YOU GOT TOLD!",Leo and the entire Hermes cabin shouted
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"
"—the water—"
"—like it grabbed her—"
"Way to go,Kelp head!",Thalia said,pupming her fist.
"COOL!"Leo yelled.
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.
As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."
"NO!",The entire Hermes and Ares cabin shouted,scaring the rest of the camp.
"What?!",I asked them.
"You NEVER-"
"Guess your punishment",said a twenty year-old man with salt-and-peper curly hair from the chair next to Chiron.
We all stared at him in shock.
"DAD!",The Hermes kids yelled in surprise.
"Hello Hermes",Chiron said calmly,as if gods always appeared next to him.
"Please keep reading",Hermes said.
We were wondering why Hermes was here. Wasnt Olympus closed down?
That wasn't the right thing to say.
"You see?",both Hermes and his kids said.
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me.I pushed her."
"Brave goat",Nico said
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.
"And she should",Nico nodded.
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.
"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.
"But—"
"You—will—stay—here."
Grover looked at me desperately.
"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."
Nancy Bobofit smirked.
I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.
Everyone who had seen that stare shuddered.
Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
How'd she get there so fast?
"I bet he's going to think he's hallucinating",Rachel said.
I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.
"Don't think It's the ADHD this time",Leo said
I wasn't so sure.I went after Mrs. Dodds.
Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.
"Defenitely Chiron",Clarisse said.
I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance , I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift apparently that wasn't the plan.
I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman for us, the gallery was empty.
Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.
"Uh..Growling?",Leo asked nervously.
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.
The camp was silent.
She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."
Thunder shook the building.
"What IS Dad mad about?",Jason asked but no one answered
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."
"Like that's a good option",Someone from the Hephaestus cabin mumbled.
I didn't know what she was talking about.
All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay onTom Sawyerfrom the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.
"HAHAHAHAHA",The Herme,Hephaestus,and Ares kids roared with laughter.
"Good one Percy!"Leo said.
"Smart move",Hermes nodded.
"It is a good book",I said shaking my head at my boyfriend.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't..."
"Your time is up," she hissed.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.
"A FURY!HE FOUGHT A FURY?!",Jason and some new campers asked in shock.
"Yes",I said calmly but I was worried too.
Then things got even stranger.
"How is that possible?",Piper entire camp held its breath
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
"What ho? Really chrion?"Leo,Piper, and Jason and I asked.
Chiron shrugged."He would remeber that from class" He explained.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.
The campers leaned foward in anticipation.
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.
"That...Is...EPIC!",Leo and Everyone shouted.
"You used Riptide in a class full of mortals?",I asked chiron shrugged.
Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.
She snarled, "Die, honey!"
"She can't drop the honey thing?",Leo asked.
And she flew straight at me.
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.
"Yes because that's natural for everyone," Jason and Piper said, sarcasticly.
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of ! Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.
I was alone.
The camp was soo awed nobody spoke.
"DAMN! He is a BEAST!" Leo said.
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.
"Magic Mushrooms?",Grover,Thalia and I asked.
"Nice Perce",Travis and Connor snickered
"He killed a fury,without experience,on his first try?",Jason asked,completely shocked.
"Well,Percy is a special guy",I said with pride in my voice.
Had I imagined the whole thing?
"Sadly,No Seaweed Brain",Thalia said.
I went back had started to rain.
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
I said, "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.
She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.
He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.
"You ARE a terrible liar",Rachel said with a smile.
"I know",Grover said sadly.
"You,my good satyr friend need some lying lessons from the camp experts",Travis said pointing at himself and Connor, who nodded his approval.
"I'll think about that",Grover said.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead.
Jason looked again at Thalia,but she shook her head.
I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.
I went over to him.
He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.
"Yeah bring pensils to a field trip,chiron" Clarisse said
I could have sworn chiron blushed a bit.
I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"
He stared at me blankly. "Who?"
"See grover?Even Chiron can lie!",Connor said.
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"
"No,I dont think he's ok,cuz he had some magic mushrooms for lunch",Leo joked and everyone chuckled.
"Next chapter. Who will read next?",Chiron asked.
"I will",Thalia said and took the book.
"Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death",she read.