Bolt: Chappie number twooo! yay! WHOOOOOOO!
ChiChi: Somebody gave her sugar. Said somebody has now been knocked out and stuffed into a black body bag.
Bolt: Weeeee are totally awesome, but are not Rick Riordan! Weee also have lost our copy of The Lightning theif, but know the plot pretty well.
ChiChi: Please review. Reviews make my little Chihuahua tail wag.
Finally, I was done the year. And, despite my earlier optimism, I knew that I was done at Yancy as well. My English teacher had decided, on absolutely no evidence, that I had plagiarized my last essay, simply because it was an A-worthy paper. The principal had called Aunt Sally to tell her that I would not be invited back next year.
Percy was done too. Ever since our trip to the museum, he seemed to be getting increasingly cranky. His grades were even worse than usual, and one day he snapped and called one of the teachers an old sod. To make matters worse, I laughed, earning us both a week's worth of detentions. And again, Aunt Sally was called, this time about Percy.
"So, here we are again," Percy sighed as we stood at the bus stop, waiting for the Greyhound to Manhattan.
"Yup," I muttered, my hands shoved in my jean short pockets, staring down at my black army boots. Pinkie whimpered and nudged me with his nose.
"Hey! Guys!"
We turned to see Grover racing towards us with his usual funny hop-run gait, his brown curls covered by a rasta cap. "Hey!" he smiled as he reached us. "Were you two just gonna head off without saying bye to your friend?"
"Sorry, man," Percy shrugged. "I guess we've just moved schools so much that we're used to leaving unannounced."
"Oh…" Grover didn't really seem to be paying attention; he was glancing fugitively around the station.
"Looking for more kindly ones?" Percy asked. I had no idea what he was talking about, but Grover blanched.
"Wha- What?"
"I heard you and Bruner talking last night," Percy said.
"Oh, well, you know," Grover started babbling, "I was just telling him that I was really worried about you, because you know, there was no Mrs. Dodds, and - "
"Grover," Percy shook his head. "You are a really bad liar." I snickered, while Grover hesitated. Then he pulled a small card out of his pocket and handed it to Percy. I glanced over his shoulder; it said something about Half-Blood Hill.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Uh, it's my…summer home," Grover shuffled his feet, still staring around the station. "Maybe you guys could…uh…come visit me sometime."
I stared. I'd forgotten that practically everyone at Yancy besides Percy and I were filthy stinking rich. I could see Percy's green eyes harden as he opened his mouth – probably to say something mean. I interrupted.
"Thanks Grover," I smiled, at the same time shooting Percy a warning look.
"Uh-huh…" Grover still seemed distracted. "Uh, mind if I go to New York with you guys? I gotta be there anyways…"
"No problem," I agreed. We all boarded the bus together. Percy and Grover started talking about sports, so I stared out the window, scratching Pinkie behind the ears as we started moving.
About halfway through the ride, though, the bus broke down. "What the…?" the bus driver muttered, getting out. Around us, tourists began stirring and muttering to each other.
Percy stood up. "Where are you going?" I asked. He gestured out the window.
"Looks like a farmer's market."
"Okay." I stood up too. Grover followed, although he seemed very nervous for some reason as we all left, Pinkie following as usual.
There wasn't much at the market. We poked around for a bit, until I glanced up to see Grover staring at something across the road. I followed his gaze to three old ladies knitting on a bench.
"Hey, Percy," I snickered. "I think those grandmas are staring at you." For some reason, Grover moaned as I said that. Percy glanced at the old ladies and smirked.
"Hah. I think those socks are a little big for me, though." That was true. The two on the ends were knitting some neon blue socks that were probably big enough to fit around my waist, while the middle one held a basket full of yarn.
The middle grandma took out a giant pair of scissors. Really, why did they have all this oversized stuff? Then she leaned forwards and snipped the yarn.
I snorted. "Very melodramatic."
Grover was whimpering. "She- she snipped the string! Did you see that? She snipped the string."
Percy and I stared at him. "Dude, are you okay?" my cousin asked.
"Sixth grade," the curly-haired boy was moaning. "Always sixth grade." He was staring at Percy with wide eyes.
Just then, the bus roared back to life. "Everybody in!" the driver yelled. We all piled in as we got back on the road. I zoned out again as Grover kept muttering and twitching.
When we finally reached New York, Percy seemed pretty pissed. Quite honestly, I couldn't blame him, with the way Grover was acting. As soon as we got off the bus, Grover asked us to wait for him while he went to the bathroom. Once Grover was out of sight, however, Percy immediately turned and started walking.
"Hey, hey!" I ran after him, Pinkie on my heels. "Where are you going? I thought…"
My cousin glanced back at me. "Do you really want Grover to see where we live?"
My shoulders slumped at the thought. "Guess not," I muttered. We quickly climbed into a cab and headed for home.
"You got any money?"
"No."
I sighed. Percy should have known better than to try and lie to Gabe about money. Somehow that guy had a cash-radar programmed into his pea-sized brain.
Sure enough, Gabe accurately predicted exactly how much money Percy had. Percy fished it out of his jeans pocket and threw it on the table angrily.
"There. I hope you lose."
"Your report card just got here!" Gabe yelled as we left to go to our room. "I wouldn't be so smart mouthed!"
Percy growled as we opened the door to…well, what used to be our room. I stared around, wide eyed, at the complete mess that it had become since the Christmas holidays.
"Gabe," Percy growled. "I'm gonna kill him…"
"Don't," I sighed. "I hate him just as much as you…" Percy cast a skeptical glance in my direction. "Okay, you hate him more. Because he hates you more." That was a sad but true fact. I guess Gabe's animal instincts, the only thing that really kept him alive, in my opinion, saw Percy as a challenge to the throne of 'alpha-male' in this house. Or maybe it was because Percy was Aunt Sally's real child, while I was just her dead sister's kid. Whatever the reason, he was a lot nastier to Percy than he was to me. But he was plenty nasty to both of us.
I sat down on my bottom bunk. I had always been there, mostly because I'm scared of heights, but also because that way Pinkie could sleep on the bed with me. Percy slept on the top bunk.
Shoving car magazines and empty beer bottles off of my bed, I sighed. "He trashed our room." I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I'm not really a teary person. At all. You could ask any of the kids in any of my schools. I scared the living crap out of most of them. Percy said that it was my eyes, again. Quite honestly, my eyes were my favorite feature, despite all the trouble they got me into.
Percy sat down next to me on my bunk. "Yeah, he trashed our room. What did you expect, really?"
I didn't answer. But just then, the door opened, and Aunt Sally came in.
"There you two are!" she smiled at us. I couldn't help but smile back. My aunt is like that. She has the most beautiful smile in the world. Sometimes I wished that she was my real mom, not just my adoptive mom.
"Come here and give me a hug!" she laughed. We both jumped up and hugged her.
"Oh, you two have grown so much since Christmas!" she sighed, holding each of us out at arm's length. I wrinkled my nose, knowing that that wasn't true; I was still very small for my age.
Aunt Sally glanced around the room, her eyes a little sad. "Sorry about the room. Gabe wanted a place to read his car magazines."
"He needs a whole room for that? Can't he do that in a chair?" Percy snapped. "Mom- "
"Sally!" Gabe roared from the other room. "Bean dip!"
She ignored him. "Guess what!" she smiled. "I have a surprise for you two!"
"What?" I asked, excitement kindling. We so rarely got surprises – there never was enough money.
"We're going to the beach! I rented our usual place for three whole days!"
Percy and I gasped. "When do we leave?"
"As soon as I get changed."
"Yes!" Percy pumped a fist in the air, while I started laughing from sheer happiness.
"Sally!" Gabe stuck his ugly head into the doorway. "Where's that bean dip?"
"Coming, dear," she sighed. "I'll make extra, as well, so that you can have plenty while the kids and I are gone on our trip."
"Right, your trip." Gabe's ugly, beady eyes turned towards Percy and I. "I want them kids' words that they won't get one scratch on my car."
I just rolled my eyes. "Sure thing, Gabe." Percy, however, had to point out the obvious.
"We're twelve," he snapped. "It's not like we'll be driving."
Gabe leaned forward to prod Percy in the chest with a fat, ugly finger. "Not. One. Scratch."
Percy sighed. "Sure thing, Gabe," he echoed me.
"That's right. A man commands respect in his house," Gabe nodded in what he probably considered an important way; it just made him look a little ill in my opinion. "That bean dip had better be on the table in five minutes, Sally." He ambled out, leaving behind the stench of beer and cigar smoke.
Aunt Sally turned to us. "Oh, cheer up you two," she smiled. "Soon we'll be on the beach, and all our troubles will be gone."
I loved the beach.
We stayed in our usual cabin, walked on the beach, threw Frisbees for Pinkie, ate blue ice cream, blue candy, and blue popcorn.
The blue food was my favorite. Gabe had told Aunt Sally there was no such thing as blue food, so ever since she'd been buying and making blue food whenever possible, just to prove him wrong. Which made me very happy.
The beach was perfect. It made me relax in ways that I was unable to do anywhere else. I could see it with Percy too. His eyes were less angry, he smiled more, and he didn't ask me about Mrs. Dodds.
"Aaaah," I sighed, taking a sip of hot coco. "This is the life." And I meant that, despite the wind and rain raging outside. Somehow or another we had a hurricane warning in New York.
"You kidding?" Percy asked, leaning around his mom to look at me. "We've got no power and there's a hurricane going outside."
"I'll take it," Aunt Sally smiled from where she was sitting between us on the couch. "This place has such special memories for me. It's where I met your father, Percy." We both got very quiet. Even Pinkie stopped panting and seemed to listen.
"We stayed the summer here together," Aunt Sally continued, her eyes a little wistful. "He knew I was expecting a baby, but he had to leave on a voyage. And he never came back. He was…lost at sea."
Percy glowered at the flames in the fireplace. I could tell that he didn't believe that any more than I did. But he also looked a little confused. I remembered him telling me that he had some memories of his father. But according to Aunt Sally's story, that couldn't be true.
Aunt Sally smiled at her son. "I wish he could have seen you, Percy. There's so much of him in you; your hair, your eyes…"
"My D+ report cards?" Percy asked. "Mom, why do you keep sending us to boarding school?"
Aunt Sally hesitated. "I…I have too. They told me it was the only way to keep you two safe. It was either that or the place your father had picked out for you."
"He never knew me, but he picked out a school for me?" Percy asked.
"Not really a school. More like a summer camp," Aunt Sally replied.
"What about her father?" Percy jerked his head towards me. "I suppose he wanted her to go to a summer camp too?"
"Actually, no," she smiled slightly. "He was dead set against her going to that summer camp."
"You met my dad?" I whispered, my throat feeling suddenly very dry. Aunt Sally had never mentioned this before.
She glanced at me. "Yes. And you are just like him in so many ways…quiet but not shy, fearless, intelligent…and you both have those dark eyes…" she sighed, while I blinked away tears. I'd always known that my eyes came from my father. They were the one part of me that didn't look just like my mother, who looked just like her older sister. In fact, sometimes people assumed that I was my Aunt's daughter and Percy the distant relative. It wasn't fair, but there you have it.
"Quinn, your father was…" Aunt Sally paused, apparently searching for the right word "friends…more or less…with Percy's father. And when Percy's father wanted Percy to go to this summer camp, your father refused to let you go." She sighed again.
"But why haven't you sent Percy there?" I asked. "And if it's safe, then who cares what my father thinks? He left me, didn't he? Even when my mother died he did nothing."
Aunt Sally winced. "Don't judge him too harshly. And as for why I haven't sent you both there…It's because it may mean saying goodbye to you. Forever."
Just then, a knock sounded on the door.
"Who the heck could that be?" Percy asked, standing up.
"No! Percy!" Aunt Sally screamed as he walked to the door. "Don't!"
But Percy had already pulled open the door. Standing in the pouring rain, panting, rasta cap askew, was…
"Grover?" Percy and I said at the same time.
"What – were – you – thinking?" he panted. "Been searching all night…"
But I was staring, wide-eyed, at Grover's lower half. It looked as though he were wearing some sort of fuzzy pants, but as I looked closer, I realized that that wasn't the case at all. His legs were completely covered in fur, and where his feet should have been were a pair of cloven hooves.
I'm dreaming, I decided. I pinched my arm. It hurt a lot. Okay, not a dream. Hallucination?
"Dis Imortilis!" Grover yelled, interrupting my thoughts. "It's right on my tail, Ms. Jackson!"
"Percy!" Aunt Sally yelled, standing up and grabbing Percy by the shoulders to make him look at her. "Percy what happened that you didn't tell me?"
"Uh, there was this math teacher that turned into a bat lady, and some grandmas who cut a string…" he muttered.
"Everybody in the car now!" she screamed, letting go of his shoulders. Her eyes were wide and fearful – I decided to do what she said.
"C'mon Pinkie," I cried, jumping up. He barked and followed me as we ran to the car. I jumped into the passenger's seat, while Pinkie sat in the back with Grover and Percy.
"So," Percy said as Aunt Sally started driving as fast as possible. "From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey?"
"Blah-ha-ha-ha!" Grover let out a funny bleating noise. "I'm a goat from the waist down. You're lucky I am your friend; there are some satyrs who would trample you underfoot for such an insult!"
"Yeah, Percy," I snickered, twisting around to face the two boys. "How would you like being told you have the ass of an ass?"
Percy frowned. "Satyrs? Like in Mr. Bruner's myths?"
"Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"Oh, so can we talk about her now?" I asked.
Percy gaped at me. "I knew you were lying!"
"You mean you knew Grover was lying."
"It doesn't matter!" Grover bleated. "We used the Mist - "
"The what?" Percy glanced at me for an explanation. I just shrugged.
"To make everybody forget about her, except for Quinn – I just asked her to lie to you. I still don't know why she listened."
"I don't either," I pointed out.
"We hoped you'd think you'd imagined it all. But what's after us right now is much worse than Mrs. Dodds."
I glanced at Aunt Sally. "Just one more mile," she was whispering to herself. "One more mile, please…"
Suddenly, a loud BOOM sounded in my ears. The car went flying into the air. The last thing I remembered was turning and grabbing Pinkie by the collar – he wasn't wearing a seatbelt…
And then everything went black.