Chapter 1:

"I am a socially awkward mandork."

"Perseus Jackson! You watch your language!"

Percy sighed at his mother's sharp tone as he stood in their tiny kitchen looking down at the bright Hawaiian shirt. The color and style were bad enough. The fact it was covered in l-a-r-g-e pink, gray, and white trout (or were they salmon?) was even worse. "Mom, I can't wear this to school. It's …"—he pause to think real hard of a word that wouldn't get him grounded for life—"hideous. If anyone sees me in this, I'll be an outcast relegated to the loser corner of the cafeteria."

As always, she scoffed at his protest. "Oh, shush, there's nothing wrong with that shirt. Wanda told me at the Goodwill store that it came in from one of those big mansions down in the Garden District. That shirt belonged to the son of a fine upstanding man and since that's what I'm raising you to be …"

Percy ground his teeth. "I'd rather be a delinquent no one picks on."

She let out a deep sound of aggravation as she paused while flipping bacon. "No one's going to pick on you, Percy. The school has a strict no-bullying policy."

Yeah, right. That wasn't worth the "contract" paper it was written on. Especially since the bullies were illiterate idiots who couldn't read it anyway.

Jeez. Why wouldn't she listen to him? It wasn't like he wasn't the one going into the lion's den every day and having to traverse the brutality of high school land mines. Honestly, he was sick of it and there was nothing he could do.

He was a massive loser dork and no one at school ever let him forget that. Not the teachers, the principal, and especially not the other students.

Why can't I flash forward and bypass this whole high school nightmare?

Because his mom wouldn't let him. Only hoodlums dropped out of school and she didn't work as hard as she did to raise another piece of worthless scum—it was a harped-on litany permanently carved into his brain. It ranked right up there with:

Be a good boy, Percy. Graduate. Go to college. Get a good job. Marry a good girl. Have lots of grandbabies and never miss a holy day of obligation at church." His mom had already road-mapped his entire future with no diversions or pit stops allowed.

But at the end of the day, he loved his mom and appreciated everything she did for him. Except for this whole "Do what I say, Percy. I'm not listening to you because I know better" thing she said all the time.

He wasn't stupid and he wasn't a troublemaker. She had no idea what he went through at school, and every time he tried to explain it, she refused to listen. It was so frustrating.

Gah, can't I catch swine flu or something? Just for the next four years until he was able to graduate and move on to a life that didn't include constant humiliation? After all, the swine flu had killed millions of people in 1918 and several more during outbreaks in the seventies and eighties. Was it too much to ask for another mutant strain of it incapacitate him for a few years?

Maybe a good bout of parvo …

You're not a dog, Percy.

True, no dog would be caught dead wearing this shirt. Whizzing on it would be another matter. …

Sighing in useless angst, he looked down at the crap shirt he wanted desperately to burn. Okay, fine. He'd do what he always did whenever his mom made him look like a flaming moron.

He'd own it.

I don't want to own this. I look epically stupid.

Man up, Perce. You can take it. You've taken a lot worse.

Yeah, all right. Fine. Let them laugh. He couldn't stop that anyway. If it wasn't the shirt, they'd humiliate him over something else. His shoes. His haircut. And if all else failed, they'd insult his name. Perseus the loser, or loser Jackson. Didn't matter what he said or did, those who mocked would mock anything. Some people were just wired wrong and they couldn't live unless they were making other people suffer.

His "Aunt" Aphrodite always said no one could make him feel inferior unless he allowed them to.

Problem was, he allowed it a lot more than he wanted to.

His mom set a chipped blue plate on the side of the rusted-out stove. "Sit down, baby, and eat something. I was reading in a magazine that someone left at the club that kids score much higher on tests and do a lot better in school whenever they have breakfast." She smiled and held the package of bacon for him to see. "And look. It's not expired this time."

He laughed at something that really wasn't funny. One of the guys who came into his mom's club was a local grocer who would give them meat sometimes when it expired since all the guy did was throw it out anyway.

"As long as we eat it quick, it won't make us sick."

Another litany he hated.

Picking up the crispy bacon, he glanced around the tiny condo they called home. It was one of four that had been carved out of an old run-down house. Made up of three small rooms—the kitchen/living room, his mom's bedroom, and the bathroom—it wasn't much, but it was theirs and his mom was proud of it, so he tried to be proud too.

Most days.

He winced as he looked at his corner where his mom had strung up dark blue blankets to make a room for him on his last birthday. His clothes were kept in an old laundry basket on the floor, set next to his mattress that was cover with Star Wars sheets he'd had since he was nine—another present his mom had picked up at a yard sale.

"One day, mom, I'm going to buy us a really nice house." With really nice stuff in it.

She smiled, but her eyes said she didn't believe a word he spoke. "I know you will, baby. Now eat up and get to school. I don't want you dropping out like me." She paused as a hurt look flitted across her face. "You can see exactly what that gets you."

Guilt cut through him. He was the reason his mom had dropped out of school. As soon as her parents had learned she was pregnant, they'd offered her one choice.

Give up the baby or give up her nice home in Kenner, her education, and her family.

For reasons he still didn't understand, she'd chosen him.

It was something Percy never let himself forget. But one day he was going to get all that back for her. She deserved it, and for her, he'd wear this god-awful shirt.

Even if it got him killed. …

And he'd smile through the pain until Matt and his crew kicked his teeth in.

Trying not to think about the butt-whipping to come, Percy ate his bacon in silence. Maybe Matt wouldn't be in school today. He could get malaria or the plague, or rabies or something.

Yeah, may the smarmy freak get a pox on his privates.

That thought actually made him smile as he shoved the grainy powdered eggs into his mouth and swallowed them. He forced himself not to shiver at the taste. But it was all they could afford.

He glanced at the clock on the wall and jerked. "Gotta go. I'm going to be late."

She grabbed him for a bear hug.

Percy grimaced. "Stop sexually harassing me, Mom. I gotta go before I get another tardy."

She popped him on the butt cheek before she released him. "Sexually harassing you. Boy, you have no idea." She ruffled his hair as he bent over to pick up his backpack.

Percy put both arms through the straps and hit the door running. He launched himself from the dilapidated porch and sprinted down the street, past broken-down cars and garbage cans to where the streetcar stopped.

"Please don't be gone.…"

Otherwise he'd be doomed to another "Percy? What are we going to do with you, you white-trash dirt?" lecture from Mr. Dionysus. The old man hated his guts, and the fact that Percy was a scholarship kid at his snotty overprivileged school seriously ticked Mr. D off. He'd like nothing better than to kick him out so that Percy wouldn't "corrupt" the kids from the good families.

Percy's lip curled as he tried not to think about the way those decent people looked at him like he was nothing. More than half their dads were regulars at the club where his mom worked, yet they were called decent while he and his mom were considered trash.

The hypocrisy of that didn't sit well with him. But it was what it was. He couldn't change anyone's mind but his own.

Percy put his head down and ran as he saw the streetcar stopped at his station.

Oh man. …

Percy picked up speed and he broke out into a dead run. He hit the platform and leapt for the streetcar.

He'd caught it just in time.

Panting and sweating from the humid autumn New Orleans air, he shrugged his backpack off as he greeted the driver. "Morning, Charon."

The elderly African-American man smiled at him. He was one of Nick's favorite drivers. "Morning, Mr. Jackson." "Your mom made you late again?"

"You know it." Percy dug his money out of his pocket and quickly paid before taking a seat. Winded and sweating, he leaned back and let out a deep breath, grateful he'd made it in time.

Unfortunately, he was still sweating when he reached school. The beauty of living in a city where even in October it could hit ninety by eight A.M. Man, he was getting tired of this late heat wave they'd been suffering.

Suck it up, Perce. You're not late today. It's all good.

Yeah, let the mocking commence.

He smoothed his hair down, wiped the sweat off his brow, and draped his backpack over his left shoulder.

Holding his head high in spite of the snickers and comments about his shirt and sweaty condition, he walked across the yard and through the doors like he owned them. It was the best he could do.

"Ew! Gross! He's dripping wet. Is he too poor to own a towel? Don't poor people ever bathe?"

"Looks like he went fishing in the Pontchartrain and came up with that hideous shirt instead of a real fish."

"That's `cause he couldn't miss it. I'll bet it even glows in the dark."

"I bet there's a naked hobo somewhere wanting to know who stole his clothes while he was sleeping on a bench. Gah, how long has he owned those shoes, anyway? I think my dad wore a pair like that in the eighties."

Percy turned a deaf ear to them and focused on the fact that they really were stupid. None of them would be here if their parents weren't loaded. He was the scholarship kid. They probably couldn't have even spelled their names on the exam he'd aced to get in.

That was what mattered most. He'd much rather have brains than money.

Though right now, a rocket launcher might be nice too. He just couldn't say that out loud without the faculty calling the cops on his having "inappropriate" thoughts.

His bravado lasted until he reached his locker, where Matt and crew were loitering.

Matt Sloan was the kind of creep who gave jocks a bad name. They weren't all like that and he knew it. Percy had several friends who were on the football team—starters, no less, not seat warmers like Matt.

Still, when you thought of an arrogant jock-rock, Matt was aptly named. It was definitely a self-fulfilling moniker his parents had labeled him with. Guess his mom had known while in the womb that she was going to birth a flaming moron.

Matt snorted as Percy stopped beside his group to open his locker. "Hey, Jackson? I saw your mom naked last night—shaking her butt in my dad's face so that he'd put a dollar in her G-string. He got a good feel of her too. Said she's got a nice set of—"

Before he could think better of it, Percy swiped him upside the head with his backpack as hard as he could.

And then it was on like Donkey Kong.

"Fight!" someone shouted while Percy wrapped Matt in a headlock and pounded him.

A crowd gathered round, chanting, "Fight, fight, fight."

Somehow Matt escaped his hold and hit him so hard in the sternum it took the breath from him. Dang, he was a lot stronger than he looked. He hit like a jackhammer.

Furious, Percy started for him, only to find one of the teachers suddenly between them.

Ms. Alecto

The sight of her petite form calmed him instantly. He wasn't about to hit an innocent person, especially not a woman. She narrowed her eyes at him and pointed down the hall. "To the office, Jackson. Now!"

Cursing under his breath, Percy picked his backpack up from the tiled beige floor and glared at Sloan, who at least had a busted lip.

So much for not getting into trouble.

Here, it is, guys. Thank you for following me. It really makes my day. I've been having a bad and stressful week. It seems like everything bad happens to me, the only guy in my senior class who works harder than any guy in the class.

Well, that's it. If you guys want to PM me about stuff, you can, I'll listen because I know how it is like to not have anyone to talk to about your problems when they don't even understand and only make it worse.

You can also review.

To Guest: I had done the disclaimer on top of the chapter. Go check it again and you'll see.

Disclaimer: I do not own this. Rick Riordan own the characters like Percy and Sherrilyn Kenyon owns the story line.

BYE! (I'm leaving on Sunday for my senior trip, so I won't be able to update. Senior trip landed on the right week)