Chapter Two: The First Day
Percy and Annabeth got out of Annabeth's shiny silver car. Annabeth threw Percy's backpack at him. "You thought you could forget your schoolwork?"
Percy blushed. "Whoops," he mumbled sheepishly. Annabeth sniffed and turned her nose up in the air.
"Whatever, let's just go," Annabeth said haughtily. She gasped. "Oh my gods, Piper and Hazel!" Annabeth ran for Piper and Hazel, daughters of Aphrodite and Pluto (Hades).
Percy came up behind her. "Hi Hazel!" He said cheerfully. "Sup, Piper."
"Not much," Piper said. "Dad's still rich, and Coach Hedge is crazy as ever."
Percy laughed. "And did you finish the summer homework packet for geometry?" Annabeth asked.
"Of course, I finished it first thing this summer," Piper said.
"Same," Hael said. "Frank and I did it together."
"Why?" Piper asked. "You're in Calculus, right?"
Annabeth nodded. "Because Percy finished his this morning," she grumbled.
Piper laughed. "Same with Jason. I told him to do it all summer long, and he pretended to have finished it."
Jason shot over. "Did I hear my name?" He pecked Piper on the cheek. Hazel giggled.
"We're talking about the summer packet for geometry," Annabeth explained.
"Boring!" Leo announced. "I didn't even do it, though. Since I'm higher math than you. I'm so much smarter than you! I bet it was easy."
"It was easy," Hazel agreed. "I think I might skip Algebra II."
"You should," Annabeth agreed. "You are way too smart to be stuck in the same class with these dummies." She pointed at Percy and Jason, who rolled their eyes. Percy stuck out his tongue.
"How's Calypso?" Piper asked Leo.
"She's coming to our school," Leo beamed. "Guess who gets to show her around?"
"You," Hazel said, as if the answer were obvious.
"No," Leo sighed, shaking his head. "Luke is."
"Luke?" Annabeth said, perking up. "But he should be in college by now."
"He's teaching here," Percy said matter of factly. "Chiron told me."
Annabeth gasped. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried to this morning, when you were yelling at me," Percy said quickly. But the truth was, he had put it off for as long as possible over the summer, hoping that Annabeth wouldn't need to know. Of course, as he had been told about two months ago, Luke was teaching Latin. Chiron, or , was "retiring". Percy had hoped Annabeth would just be like, "ok, cool," but instead, she automatically whipped out a mirror and started dusting makeup on her face after giving Percy a suspicious glance.
"You should have gotten the darker lipstick," Piper said. "I told you, Annabeth."
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I already explained that I wouldn't really need it anyway."
"So why are you wearing it?" A girl with frizzy, red hair said.
"Rachel!" Percy yelped. He stood up and hugged her.
"Hey, it's so good to see you!" Rachel said, grinning.
Annabeth tucked away her lipstick. She gave Rachel a polite nod. Percy knew that Annabeth wasn't Rachel's biggest fan, since he had used to have a crush on her-it was the same reason that Percy hadn't told Annabeth about Luke.
When the bell rang, all of them headed off to their classes - everyone but Annabeth and Leo had Geometry. Leo was so good at geometry he had just skipped it and gone straight to Algebra II, which he barely struggled in. Or so he said.
"Hello, class," said . "I hope you finished those packets over the summer?"
"Yes," the class chorused halfheartedly.
"Good!" said firmly. "Get it out! We will be checking it."
Percy and Piper were sitting together. They swapped papers and checked.
A Percy checked Piper's paper, he glanced at his own. There were red marks all over it. Annabeth is SO going to kill me.
"Percy, are you sure you should even be in this class?" Piper teased. He grabbed his packet back, blushing.
"Jackson! McLean!" growled. "No talking!"
And all of Percy's classes were pretty much the same - teacher introduces his or herself, the casss checks homework, the teacher yells about talking and assigns seats, blah, blah, blah. The only class that was different was Latin.
Luke had written some Latin words on the board and had a latin name for everyone.
"Hello, class," he said. "My name is . I will be your Latin teacher for this year."
An Asian girl with a face of makeup raised her hand, giggling.
"Can't you teach me every year?" She asked flirtatiously.
Luke made no sign of any notice about her romantic interest.
"If I wanted to, then I could talk to the principal and school board," he said calmly. "But for now, I will teach this class Latin."
"How old are you?" Another girl asked sweetly.
Again, Luke made no flirtatious or romantic gestures. "That's not important," he said. "And it is completely irrelevant. Does anyone have any important questions?"
Drew, the Asian girl, that Percy also recalled Annabeth, Piper, and Jason complaining about, flushed beet red.
"Ok, then," Luke said. "Now, about Latin-"
The door flew open. Annabeth stood there, panting. She was holding her latin homework and Daedalus's laptop, which she used during the school year.
"Sorry, ," she said, tucking a golden blond curl behind her ear. "I had to stay after class in Precalculus for a little bit. I'm so sorry! I have a pass from ."
"You're fine, Annabeth Chase," Luke said, smiling warmly. Percy folded his arms, annoyed at Luke's behavior. "Sit with ."
Annabeth handed him her note and flopped down next to Percy. She squeezed his hand.
"Anyway," Luke said, turning back to the class. "Now, we will- is something wrong, Drew?"
Drew was whispering angrily to the girl next to her, who had platinum blond hair and an assortment of bangles and rings on her arms and fingers, who was nodding in furious agreement.
"No sir," Drew said. "Please, continue the lesson."
Luke snorted. "And have you keep complaining about me trying to keep my job? No thank you. Drew, move next to Jason and Piper. Now."
Drew smiled prettily and slowly applied a layer of shiny lip gloss, and then slowly capped the tube and clipped together her makeup box, placed it carefully in her backpack, which was barely even bigger than the makeup box. She rose to her feet and walked to Jason's table with her high heels clopping loudly. Luke sighed.
"Drew, you are distracting the class. Please move faster next time, and I want you to stay after class for a little bit."
Drew huffed loudly and fluffed her hair. "Yes, sir."
"And you have a detention today. I don't appreciate your attitude."
The class snickered a little bit. Percy glanced at Annabeth. She was smiling slightly, but Percy knew she was jumping for joy. Annabeth and Piper hated Drew with a burning passion, as they liked to say. Often times, Percy could hear Piper say, "I'm going to kill her," and pause, while Annabeth would shriek with laughter and glee, grab her knife, and Piper would add, "with kindness," and Annabeth would sheath her knife grumpily.
Percy found killing with kindness as an effective method with some people, but people like Drew saw it as Piper being weak. That was why, in this case, Percy supported Annabeth's method.
"Percy Jackson!" Luke said.
"Yes?" Percy said quickly.
"Ah, good you're here," Luke said. He smirked a little bit. He obviously knew that Percy had been thinking about something else.
After the little incident with Drew, the class returned back to normal. Latin was their last class of the day, so all the kids shot out of the door at the end of class except for Drew.
"Wait!" Annabeth whispered. She grabbed Percy's arm. "Let's listen."
"Why?" Percy said, baffled.
"Never you mind. Just-you get Piper, and wait for me at my car."
"Ok," Percy said, mystified. After he got Piper to go join Annabeth, he realized what it was. Annabeth wanted to make sure Luke wasn't going to make out with Drew or something. Annabeth still liked Luke.