In about an hour we were out of the city and winding down country roads. Soon we came to a large farm where it looked like all they grew were strawberries. Mr. Underwood parked the car along the side of the road, and we grabbed my bags. We climbed the huge hill in front of us and Mr. Underwood paused at the top by a huge pine tree. Wrapped around its base was- was- was a dragon, blowing smoke as it snored. When I came near it stirred and looked at me. It stared for a while them did the weirdest thing. It came up and nuzzled me; it was practically purring like a cat.
"It can tell you're Annabeth's daughter. You do look a lot like her." Mr. Underwood smiled looking at me. "She used to feed him, his name is Peleus. He's grown since I saw him last, though that was a year ago."
"Oh" was all I could squeak out because I was still staring at the dragon. As we descended down the hill the dragon went back to its nap, sending up smoke signals with his snores.
We went down the hill and walked into another world. Whatever kind of home had a dragon and a sword arena, this was it. At the end of the valley I could see the glittering waters of long island sound. Spread all throughout the valley were numerous buildings. There was a large open air pavilion, a huge arena that looked like one where you might see gladiators fighting, and hundreds of cabins in the center of it all. In front of us though, was a large farm house with a wrap-around porch, surrounded by fields full of strawberries.
We walked through the strawberries and up the porch steps. Sitting in a wheel chair was a guy in his late thirties with thinning hair and a scruffy beard. He was playing some card game but there was no one else sitting at the little table with him. When we approached he turned to face us, laying down his cards. His eyes met mine and I saw eyes that looked like they had seen everything; he held my gaze for a few seconds then turned to Mr. Underwood.
"Nicely done Grover, I expect you didn't have any trouble?" he asked. He was wearing this old tweed jacket and smelled like coffee.
"No ser, it went well. There did seem to be some mon- I mean um mailmen yes mailmen following us though they didn't come near camp" he said, tottering on his feet nervously. The guy in the wheel chair must be his boss; that would explain a lot, I though.
"Hmm, well we'll look into it" he said. I wondered why he would look into some mailmen following us, I mean they have to come here to deliver mail sometime; they just happened to be behind us that was all. He cleared his voice and speaking to me said "Welcome to your new home my name is Chiron. We have much to discus. You may go Grover."
He waved me to sit down in one of the empty chairs at the table. That was when I realized that there were three hands of cards floating in mid air. I took a seat making sure not to disturb the cards nearest to me for fear of something even weirder happening.
"Grab a hand of cards if you play. The game is pinochle by the way." He said motioning at the hand floating directly in front of me.
"Oh um, no I don't play, I've never actually heard of it." I said. Yeah lame but I had to say something right?
"Better not to play anyway" he said, laying his cards face down on the table. As he did, the floating cards copied the act all of them face down as if they were afraid someone was going to cheat and look at them. "We have a lot to talk about."
"Um, ser Chiron, I uh, well you see, I um, uh, I'm very confused." I said sputtering a bit. Now don't think I go around telling people I'm confused because then they just think you're stupid. I remember in English class, whenever I had to read out loud and said I couldn't I got laughed at, because I just couldn't. The counselor said I was dyslexic and that there were lots of others with the exact same problem; but if you tell that to any kid who just thinks your dumb they laugh harder. But I felt like I could trust him, like he was used to dealing with kids with problems and understood.
"That's very understandable; your father was the same way when he arrived here." He said shocking me. My dad had been an orphan too?
"Um yeah, how does it seem like everyone knows my parents but me?" I asked him. I mean first Mr. Underwood then Mrs. Blofis, and now this Chiron guy?
"Ah, because your father went here, the woman you met was his mother, and Grover was his best friend. Your father was very famous here, along with your mother. They saved the world many a time, but about thirteen years ago they disappeared, leaving only one clue behind." He said looking at me with a very serious expression. He made it sound like he had been there like he had been in charge when all that had happened… but that would make him about fifty years old…
"Me. Why'd they leave me? Didn't they want me?" I hadn't wanted to ask it but I had to. It sounded like everyone loved them and that they were great. But then why had they left their daughter all alone?
"They didn't leave; we think they were taken somehow. But that can be discussed later, first you need to know about who your parents were."He said closing the subject. I personally didn't want to talk about it anymore either, it was all very confusing. But I did want to know more about my parents. What kind of people they were, how they saved the world, their favorite types of soda.
"Well… who were they?" I asked. This man obviously knew a lot about my parents and I wanted to know it all too.
"First I need to know if you have studied Greek history yet in your school." He said.
"Well yeah. The gods, the titans, Gaea and Uranus, we finished that a month ago." I said, recalling the lessons. That had been the only subject I'd like so far that year.
"Good, good; so you know how the gods had a habit of having children with mortals?" He asked me, his eyes searching me for any hint of an answer.
"Yeah, and those children had more power than average mortals. They were called demigods right?" I asked.
"Exactly, what would you say if I told you the gods still existed, traveling with the heart of western civilization and are now in America?" He asked smiling. I could tell he'd done this many times before because he knew what to look for in the kid's response. "And they still have kids with mortals." He added.
"Well I'd say that you know more about this then you've told me Chi- Wait. You're Chiron, like THE Chiron, the one who trained all the Heroes!" I replied, getting excited.
"Well, yes, but that is beside the point. Your parents, both of them, were demigods. Percy was a son of Poseidon and Annabeth was a daughter of Athena. You are a dangerous mix that no one has ever encountered before. Most normal demigods don't even live to be eighteen. But your parents made it to twenty five and had a child, very rare." He said looking me stair in the eye. I thought about what he'd just said. My parents had obviously been powerful and had done amazing things, but someone had wanted them out of the picture. Who?
"So… what does that mean for me?" I asked.
"Well you, being somewhat of a half blood, you'll be living here. Now we just have to figure out what cabin you'll stay in, Poseidon or Athena? But first you might like to have a tour." He said turning to look to the stairs of the porch. That was when I noticed that a boy about two years older than me had come to stand there.
"Uh, hi, I'm Fotios." He said nervously, waving. "I'm a son of Poseidon, so I guess that makes me your uh, uncle somehow. But just call me Fotios."
"Well hi, I'm Lareice but just call me Rice. It's spelled R-I-C-E like rice but it's pronounced like you would for R-E-E-C-E." I said waving back.
"Well, why don't you give her the tour, Fotios; meanwhile I need to speak to Mr. Underwood." Chiron said sending us off.
We walked down the porch steps while Chiron found Mr. Underwood, and headed farther into the camp. There were tons of cabins, fountains, statues, flower beds, and even a few basket ball courts. Fotios showed me the thirteen biggest cabins, the ones for the gods who were on the counsel.
He gave me a personal tour of the Poseidon cabin himself, but let one of the Athena kids give me a tour of that cabin. Both were nice but there were way more kids in the Athena cabin. Sarah was the one who gave me the tour as the oldest camper at seventeen, and told me about all twelve of her siblings; six guys and seven girls including her. The Poseidon cabin on the other hand, had only three kids in it, Fotios being the oldest at fifteen, and then his two twin half-sisters, Alaya and Ayana, were both only eleven. Fotios explained that children of the Big Three tended to be very powerful and there for often came to camp at a young age and stay for most of the year.
We walked around and he even showed me some of the minor gods' cabins. There was Janos who only had one son named Nicholas Abram, then there was Hypnos's cabin and there were five there all sleeping soundly, and the Nemesis cabin where there were actually fifteen campers. I got to see the volleyball pit where a bunch of half bloods and satyrs were playing a game. It was nice just walking around and learning all this cool stuff about how the gods were real and actually living in America.
By the time we made it back to the big house, Chiron was nowhere in sight so we went in to find him. He was sitting and talking with some guy with hair so dark it could have been purple. He was wearing a tiger stripe Hawaiian shirt and if he wasn't drunk then I was a wood nymph. When he looked at me I could see a purple fire in his eyes and visions of sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers and their faces elongated into beaks, disbelievers being choked to death by grape vines, and drunken warriors insane with battle lust. I could tell that if this man wanted to, he could plant a disease in my brain that would have me in a strait jacket and a rubber room for the rest of my life.
"Why hello, done with the tour already?" Chiron asked Fotios with a smile. "I'm sorry Mr. D and I were just talking." He added.
"Who's Mr. D?" I asked looking again at the strange plump man in front of me.
"Um Lareice this is Mr. D he's our camp director." Fotios said with a nervous smile on his face. His eyes weren't smiling though, they were telling me to mind my manners or risk incineration.
"Yes Foton Sanderson, it is I, back from Olympus. Pray tell me, who is our new camper?" He asked turning once again to look at me.
"This is Percy and Annabeth's daughter the one I was telling you about." Chiron said smoothly, trying to control the conversation.
"Well hello, Miss. Johnson. I guess I must say it: Welcome to camp half blood. Are you happy?" He said turning to Chiron with a sigh.
"Well um for one my name isn't Miss. Johnson. For two, thank you for the welcome." I said. I looked at him closer trying to figure out who he was.
"Just like her Father with the "who is he?" and the name corrections. And I thought we'd finally gotten rid of him when he had gone to college." He said looking me up and down once again.
"You're Dionysus, that's who!" I said as soon as the thought popped into my head. But I was right. The insanity, the tiger print, the grape vines, and the dolphins were all symbols of Dionysus.
"And with the names!" He shouted. "Chiron you didn't let me do it to the Peter boy, but at least let me turn her into a dolphin! She can go swimming back to her grandfather and save us all quite a lot of trouble that way." He said pleadingly to Chiron.
"No Mr. D then we would have TWO angry gods at our throats." Chiron said sighing as if they'd already had this conversation many times before. "So do you know what cabin you want to stay in?" Chiron asked directing his question to me.
"The Poseidon cabin." I said. I'd been thinking about it and while I like all the kids in the Athena cabin and the awesome library they had, I'd decided on less sisters and I like Fotios, he was nice.
"So it's decided," Chiron nodded. "you will move into the Poseidon cabin. Fotios why don't you help her with her bags and you can have her moved in by dinner."