"What? What happened?" My mom replies faintly from her office.
"Good question, what happened? Can you explain to me what is happening?" I ask to Natasha as we walk to the kitchen. The first thing I do is go to the sink and rinse my face. But even that simple action brings back the pain in my shoulders.
I hear a rustling coming from my mother's office and I know she is on her way. A moment later, she comes into view, out of breath.
I slump into one of the kitchen stools, letting my arms rest. "It was bound to happen," my mother says while sitting on a stool next to me. Natasha follows and sits on the other side of me.
"What was bound to happen? Will someone please explain to me what just happened?" I look from my mom to Natasha and back.
"I'll tell you , but you need to listen to me for now. Tell me what happened out there. What you think happened," my mother prompts me. Drops of milk fall from my clothes and make a splat sound on the floor.
"Should I change or something?" I ask and realize these wet, stinky clothes are uncomfortable.
"In a minute, but this is very important," my mom replies. I give her a questioning look, but don't say anything.
"Okay, well I was getting milk, and this small man comes and pushes me. I try to move out of the way but he starts turning into some sort of monster. He flew at me, like flew at me, with wings, but I hit him aside with some milk," I pause because my mom looks confused.
"It was a gallon of milk, in one of those packages," Natasha explains. My mom nods and tells me to go on.
"Well, either it was lactose intolerant or Natasha's arrow hit the right spot, because it blew up into some sort of yellow dust," I leave out some minor details like the man's trench coat, or breaking a glass door,
They both crack a smile at my joke, and I allow myself to smile, too. "Okay, we need to have a talk, but first go take a shower, you stink," my mother says while smiling.
"Oh no, I want a few answers," I begin. "First of all, was that thing real?" I want to know if what I saw actually happened. "I've read enough fantasy books to know that monsters aren't real. They don't exist in real life," I explain.
"That's a good place to start. Everything we are going to tell yours real. And you have to believe us on that," my mother looks me in the eye, her Italian accent kicking in. She does that when she is serious. "Your life is going to turn into one of your fantasy books."
With that, she gets up and walks around me. "Go take a shower, and quickly. We have a lot of talking to do."
I look at her to see if she is kidding, but my mom doesn't kid. I give up trying to argue, so I slide down from the stool and make my way upstairs.
After what seemed like an eternity, I finally walk downstairs, clean. No one would have guessed that I was covered in milk and dust a few minutes before. I make my way to my mother's office, but she isn't there. The next place I go is to the kitchen, after smelling some food being cooked.
"There you are," Natasha says while I sit back down on a stool. They must have cleaned the kitchen, because there is no stain of milk on the floor.
My mom comes up to me with Natasha's backpack; the one she had on when she killed the monster. "Sine this will be very hard to believe, I've gotten some things to help you understand."
I listen intently, wanting to understand what is happening. I'm still very skeptical, but after I was attacked by some morphing monster, I'll probably believe anything.
"This is her magical backpack. You can put anything in it without having to worry if it fits," my mom begins. "All you have to keep in mind is the weight. As long as you can carry it, you're good.
"Are your shoulders still hurting?" She asks, and changes the subject. I nod in return. "Well we can get something for it from the backpack. Look inside, you don't see anything."
She hands me the backpack, a plain, black school backpack, and I look inside. True to her word, I don't see anything inside. I give it back to her and she keeps explaining. "But I'm going to pull something out of it," she sticks her hand in the backpack and says, "Ambrosia."
When she pulls out her hand, she has a small square of what looks like Jell-o in her hand. I give her a puzzled look. She hands it to me and tells me to eat it.
I plop it into my mouth and chew. It tastes like my favorite food in the world, Natasha's homemade ice-cream. "Wow that is good," I say with my mouth full.
"Yea, and don't your shoulders feel much better?" Natasha asks as she cooks something on the stove.
I move my shoulders around, expecting lots of pain, but I feel only mild discomfort. "That's the food of the gods. In small doses it heals mortals, but if you eat too much, you disintegrate."
"Gods? Which gods are we talking about? I thought we are Catholic." I don't consider myself very religious, but my mother has always pushed me to go to church.
"No, we aren't Catholic. That was to cover up your smell, but we're not talking about that," my mom huffs and throws her hands into the air. "This is so difficult to explain!"
Natasha drops some pasta in boiling water and walks to me. We are face-to-face when she says, "The Greek Gods exist. That magical backpack you were playing with? Hephaestus made that for me, and the monster that almost killed you was from the underworld. Your dad is a god, and you are a demigod."