Aren't you proud of me! I finally finished! I apologize for not publishing sooner... I had a pretty bad fever (40° C/104° F) and I've still got the week long cold. Thanks for supporting/reading! R/R and please make suggestions and ideas!
Chapter 1 - I accidently vaporize my Pre-Algebra teacher
"I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre – Algebra Teacher," Zeus read.
"I'm sure it was an accident," Travis smirked.
"But it's definitely a title Seaweed Brain would choose," Annabeth teased fondly.
"Seaweed Brain?" Athena asked suspiciously.
"Um, mom! His brain is filled with seaweed!"
"Hmm…" Athena said, looking at Poseidon. Poseidon was indifferent. He was sure he was going to claim Percy anyway even if Sally didn't want him to.
Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.
"Yeah, there are a lot of ups and downs being a half-blood." Katie said. "A lot of times we're going either be killed or eaten.
Some of the gods looked guilty or uncomfortable.
"There are some good things though," Annabeth said. "We have another home with another family."
Hera nodded approvingly.
If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:
"You giving advice? The world must have come to an end!" Travis moaned dramatically.
"Oy, I'm not that bad," Percy protested.
Everyone gave him a look.
"Well, sometimes…"
Close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.
"Will that work?" Hermes asked Athena.
"If your heritage isn't that powerful, it'll work sometimes." Athena said.
Being a half-blood is dangerous.
"Yep," Nico said.
It's scary.
"Yes," Will said..
Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.
"Unfortunately," Jake sighed. Beckendorf, he thought fondly.
If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.
"Why would these books be given to mortals to read?" Clarisse asked.
"I don't know," Annabeth said thoughtfully. "But there might be some demigods out there who need the information, or there could be more people like Rachel."
"Rachel?" Zeus asked.
"Our oracle of Delphi. She changed bodies in our time."
"Oh great!" Apollo said. "For some reason the oracle can't now…"
May, Hermes thought sadly. Hades shifted guiltily.
But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.
"That information isn't that bad," Annabeth said. "Though the downside is, you might make them curious and make them read it anyway.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
"You didn't warn me," Nico said.
"I didn't exactly have a choice, Nico." Percy said. "We needed fighters because of the upcoming… eh, war."
"War?" Ares sat up straighter. "Sounds good to me."
"Of course," Dionysus rolled his eyes. "That much is obvious."
"You old drunk," Ares growled.
"Wine dude," Nico muttered to Percy who tried to stifle a laugh.
My name is Percy Jackson.
"No," Hades snickered. "It's Zeus."
Zeus glared at him.
I'm twelve years old.
"More like several millennia years old," Artemis commented.
Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.
"You just called yourself a troubled kid." Drew said.
"All demigod brats are," Hera said lightly, twisting her locks.
Poseidon glared at her.
Am I a troubled kid?
"Yes," Hera muttered.
Yeah. You could say that.
"See, he agrees!" Hera said defensively.
I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.
"That sounds horrible," Apollo shuddered. "Torture!"
"It's our history," Athena rolled her eyes.
"But what kind of person would bring 28 kids with issues with them?" Hermes said.
Chiron would, Percy thought.
I know—it sounds like torture.
"You are awesome Percy!" Apollo said.
"Boys," Artemis muttered.
Most Yancy field trips were.
"There were actually ok ones?" Demeter asked in disbelief.
"Only one of them. I was lucky enough not to be in a group that had anyone hate me but just once." Percy said.
But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.
"That sounds familiar," Athena mumbled thoughtfully.
"It's Chiron," Dionysus yawned.
Athena frowned. "He hasn't made a house call for ages." Athena gave Poseidon a suspicious look.
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair.
"Way off Percy," Jake said.
"I know that now," Percy grumbled.
He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.
"Definitely Chiron," Hephaestus said. "Would he like that description though?"
"Coffee is bad for sleep," Clovis yawned and then curled up.
The demigods snickered.
You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.
"You actually sleep in class?" Athena said disapprovingly.
"It's the dyslexia and ADHD," Percy said. "And I believe that you haven't blessed me Lady Athena."
"Percy…" Annabeth muttered. "You're not going to get on her good side."
"Good point," Athena said. Any son of the sea god wasn't going to be blessed by her at any rate.
I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.
Conner groaned, "You jinxed it!"
Boy, was I wrong.
"Reckless brats," Dionysus muttered.
See, bad things happen to me on field trips.
"What kind of bad things?" Hestia asked. Some of the demigods jumped. They had forgotten about her.
"There's probably going to be some examples," Percy replied.
Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.
Hermes, Apollo and the twins shrieked with laughter.
"You. Are. Awesome Percy!" Apollo yelled.
"Want to go pranking with us Percy?" The twins asked.
"After that last incident where you guys turned the Ares' cabin pink? Despite me dying a lot of times, I do value my life," Percy said drily.
"The cabin was completely hot pink and covered with fluffy bunnies," Clarisse growled. "It took a week to wear off."
"My cabin," Ares scowled.
"Why don't you guys like the pink? You guys are sooo strange," Drew said.
"Moving on," Annabeth rolled her eyes.
And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.
I might have helped on that one, Poseidon thought.
Everyone laughed. The twins were rolling on the floor.
"Percy, you have to come with us," Travis grinned.
"Like us, you have a rare knack for causing trouble." Conner said.
"Nah, besides a certain someone would kill me if I cooperated with you guys." Percy looked at Annabeth. "Besides if I helped you two, the camp probably wouldn't be standing."
"Destroy the camp, destroy the camp." Dionysus hummed.
And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.
"Aww… I wanted to hear some more," Travis whined.
"Shut up Travis," Katie rolled her eyes.
This trip, I was determined to be good.
"Despite your good intentions, I seriously doubt you'll make it," Will said.
"It's already happened but thank you for your support Will," Percy grumbled.
All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,
"Your daughter Hermes?" Hades asked.
"No, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't name my child Nancy if her last name was Bobofit. Besides, she doesn't look like me."
hitting my best friend Grover
"The satyr?" Zeus's face darkened. "Why isn't he dead from getting my daughter killed?"
"I suppose he was given another chance father," Artemis said.
"Hold on," Percy whispered to Annabeth. "Where's Grover?"
Annabeth looked around, "You're right! He isn't here! He must have accidently gotten lost in the time travelling!"
"What should we do?"
"I suppose Apollo will find him… even if it isn't reliable."
in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.
"That is disgusting," Aphrodite wrinkled her perfect nose. "Demeter, which one of your offspring invented that?"
"I think it's just mortals," Demeter said."Mortals are strange."
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.
"If you see someone like that, it's definitely a satyr," Percy said.
"Though, that satyr is going to kill you when he sees this from the camera." Dionysus said.
"Uh oh," Percy muttered. "Grover is going to kill me."
"You better not have made our descriptions as bad as that," Annabeth glared.
Percy hoped he didn't.
He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.
"I should make something better for them," Hephaestus said. "Styrofoam doesn't work very well for long."
He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
"Satyrs," Dionysus said half-fondly.
"Enchiladas," Ares shook his head. "What is wrong with them?"
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation.
Annabeth growled. "Do you know where she is Percy? I'm going to have to go find her and kill her."
"Unfortunately, I don't know."
The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.
"Mildly entertaining?" Katie asked, amused.
"Basically what the Stolls do, but on a milder scale." Percy said.
"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.
"You should have," Jake frowned.
Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."
"In his hair?" Aphrodite asked.
He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "That's it."
"He's probably had a lot of practice, being in middle school for so long," Percy said, frowning.
I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.
"That satyr ruins a good fight," Ares said.
"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."
Poseidon frowned. Percy clearly had many problems regarding in school life.
Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.
"Usually I would disapprove of that, but you really should have Percy," Artemis said.
"Sis isn't defending a maiden! Gasp!" Apollo gasped.
"Don't call me sis!"
In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
"We gathered that," Hera rolled her eyes.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.
"That sounds fun," Annabeth said wistfully.
It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
"Much longer," Zeus interrupted himself.
He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting,
"At least you're listening," Athena said.
but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.
"Mrs. Dodds?" Artemis asked.
"Monster," Percy said.
"Too true, since I've had many encounters with her," said a voice from above.
"Yeah… hold on… why's there a voice up there?" Percy asked.
There were also several bleats and groaning.
"Help me down you guys, I'm SO not good with heights," moaned a spiky haired girl.
"Thalia?" Percy yelled.
"Thalia?" Zeus asked.
"Before we make any introductions, we'd better get them down. I think Grover's up there too, judging by the bleating." Percy said.
"So that's where he was! No wonder I didn't see him when we got here," Travis said.
"Hurry up Percy!" Thalia yelled. "Or anyone! I don't care! Get me down!"
Zeus clicked and a fluffy cloud appeared. It wrapped up Thalia and drifted her down.
"Ah! The sweet ground!" She knelt and bowed on the floor.
"Thalia?" Zeus said, stunned.
"Yes it's me. It's a long story which will probably come up later but we need to get some people up there down. Apollo said he wanted a show, so he gave us such a horrible entrance."
"Remind me to kill him when I get back," the voice up there said.
"That's uncalled for, voice!"
"What about me?" Grover bleated.
"You're half goat; you should be able to get down!" Percy yelled.
"Oh, good point."
Grover jumped from pillar to pillar and landed safely on each arch.
"A goat leaving marks over my walls," Hera grumbled. "I take that that's Grover?"
"Yeah," the voice said.
"Is that everyone?" Percy asked.
"Did you guys forget about me?" The voice from earlier feebly said. "And why am I mentioned as the voice?"
"Verna?" Nico yelled.
"I'm not good with heights either." She feebly said. "Hurry up."
Verna was clinging onto one of the Greek arches with only one hand. Her hand slipped.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" She screamed. Verna didn't really hate heights. If they were safe, ok, but a height that would make her smash into a million pieces? No.
Nico caught her.
"Thanks Nico," She said feebly.
"SO THIS IS THE GIRL!" Aphrodite shrieked. "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"
Nico had already covered her ears (because he knew Aphrodite would do the shrieking and it would make her dizziness better).
"What did Aphrodite say?" Verna asked.
"Um, she asked your name!" Nico said. He carried her and put her on one of the extra sofas that Athena conjured.
"Verna, Verna Everglade," She said.
"Whatever, Nico, have you had practice at that sort of thing? Catching girls?" Conner asked gleefully.
Hestia chuckled as she poked the coals that started to gleam brighter.
"It's a trait of Italians! It's in their blood!" Aphrodite shrieked.
"Hold on, how did you know that I'm half- Italian?" Nico said.
"I can see heritages with love in them! Italians are second to French! Aww!" Aphrodite shrieked.
For a second I thought Aphrodite knew Nico's mother… that was a scary moment, Hades thought. That girl also seems familiar, he rubbed his chin. Who does she resemble?
"Silence!" Zeus rumbled. "Or we will never finish the book!"
"What's new?" Verna asked feebly.
Nico told her a summary of the events.
"You better have beaten up her." She told Percy.
"You know her too?"
"Long story."
"SILENCE!" Zeus shouted. "I WILL READ!"
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.
"She doesn't change much," Verna said from the sofa.
She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
"I wonder what she did to her," Apollo said.
"All I know is that the teacher had to go to a mental institute." Percy said.
From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.
"Honestly Percy, you had it good. I was attacked immediately without explanation," Verna said."
One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."
"Grover!" Thalia groaned. "Way to blow your cover."
"I'm sorry! It was a first for me to be undercover in a school!" Grover said.
Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.
Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"
"So immature," Demeter sighed.
It came out louder than I meant it to.
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
"Smooth, Perce." Travis said. "Keep your voice at a level when pranking! That's the basic rule!"
"I wasn't pranking though."
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"
"Yes," Nico said.
My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."
Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?
I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"
"It had to be that one," Hera groaned. "That had been a horrible experience."
"How ironic," Annabeth thought. "That the war for him would happen in the same era of demigods."
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..." "Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,
"GOD?" Zeus shrieked. "GOD?"
"You are asking to be killed, Percy." Jake said.
"Give me a break, I was eleven!" Percy said.
and—"
"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.
"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.
"I never understood how that happened. Kronos mistaking a rock for a baby? After those times, it's just really strange." Percy said. The demigods shrugged while the Athena was agitated. Did Percy personally know him?
And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"
"As disgusting as it is, I'm grateful for that," Demeter said.
"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.
"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."
"You summarized the Titan war in a few sentences," Athena said. Not bad for a sea spawn, she grudgingly thought.
Some snickers from the group.
"Why?" Hephaestus frowned. "You got it right! But then mortals are unpredictable, unlike my automatons."
Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"
"For demigods, maybe." Will suggested.
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Busted," Apollo muttered.
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"I understand why you are insane, Apollo. You think like a satyr." Artemis said.
"Hey!"
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.
"After centuries of being a teacher, you'd think that his centaur skills would be better than most people." Annabeth said.
I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
"Chiron has a bad sense of humor," Verna said feebly.
"And I can see you hate heights more than I do Verna." Thalia said.
"It's more like that made it worse."
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.
"Guys are idiots," Artemis looked at Apollo. "Here is a prime example."
Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."
I knew that was coming. I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"
Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.
"Why are you always so close but so far?" Annabeth asked.
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."
"How would you have known that then?" Katie asked.
"I have no idea."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."
I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.
I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.
"That sounds good, not that we've been to school anyway," Conner said.
But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life.
"Those do suck," Verna said. "So I was homeschooled."
No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
"But that was a Latin class, wouldn't it have been better?" Drew asked.
"Roman demigods," Clovis mumbled.
"The questions were in English."
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
"He probably was," Artemis said.
He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
"That's a horrible view," Artemis frowned.
"Yeah, no room to grow cereal!" Demeter pouted.
"Would you stop it with the cereal, woman?" Hades muttered. "I won't be able to believe that it'll get worse."
Verna and Nico exchanged glances. Cereal to muffins… they started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Will asked.
"Inside joke," Nico said, and then regretted it as Aphrodite squealed.
Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.
"Why so angry father?" Apollo asked.
Zeus shrugged, "Probably some dispute in the family again."
We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
Everyone looked at Zeus and Poseidon. Poseidon sighed, "Probably the usual thing."
The gods all groaned and nodded knowingly.
Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.
"Have any of you thought that Nancy is Mrs. Dodds' kid?" Travis asked.
"If I didn't know better, probably, but no. Nancy is a hundred percent human, not monster." Verna said.
Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.
"Glad to see you're honest," Annabeth teased.
"I'm in that category too?" Grover protested.
"Yes."
"Detention?" Grover asked.
"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."
"Of course," everyone that knew Percy well said.
"That bad?" Verna asked.
"Yes," Thalia said. "He either messes up really badly or gets us half-killed."
"Hey! I'm still alive."
"That's because of your soul mate—"
"SOUL MATE?" Aphrodite shrieked. "WHO IS IT?"
"You guys are going to break all of our eardrums," Dionysus grumbled. "All because of the Aphrodite trigger."
"It's—" Drew said.
"Moving on," Zeus interrupted hurriedly.
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"
"Sorry," Grover said.
I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.
I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.
"I wouldn't be able to stand it if my dad was about a mile near me, but I couldn't go home," Verna frowned.
She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again.
"How could such a woman choose Poseidon as a lover?" Athena muttered.
I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.
"Aww," the goddesses cooed. Ares rolled his eyes, "No more sappy stuff."
Ares regretted it as all of the goddesses glared at him.
Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.
"Chiron's travelling in style of my invention I see," Hephaestus said gruffly.
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
"Percy, tell me where she is so I can kill her," Annabeth said dangerously.
"If I did, I'd have told you a long time ago," Percy gritted his teeth.
Grover shrugged, "It was peanut butter."
"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.
"I was thinking the same," Grover said dreamily. "Cheetos would have made my lunch perfect… but if there was also enchiladas, it would have been perfect."
I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.
Wave? Athena thought, she was right.
"Wave?" Zeus and Hades glared at Poseidon. Poseidon was perfectly calm.
I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"
"Poseidon…" Hades said dangerously.
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
"One of her killer moves," Verna said helpfully.
Some of the kids were whispering:
"Did you see—"
"—the water—"
"—like it grabbed her—"
"POSEIDON! YOU BROKE THE OATH!" Hades shout shook the palace.
"That was worse than the one in the Underworld," Verna muttered.
"Zeus did too and besides, the note says that we can't fight." Poseidon whistled cheerfully.
"But his kid is right next to me," Verna said. "How does that work?"
"It'll come in Percy's quests." Nico said.
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.
"Part of the fun in pranking," Travis sighed, lost in memories.
"You mean all the times Katie caught you?" Conner sniggered.
Travis ignored him.
As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.
"Even if I know Percy's still alive, you better have not done anything that bad," Poseidon glared.
"Now, honey—"
"She still does that?" Hades asked the demigods.
"Yes," Percy, Nico and Verna said.
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."
"Never guess your punishment Percy!" Hermes said.
That wasn't the right thing to say.
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.
"Literally," Grover grumbled. "Since she's from Hades."
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.
"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.
"But—"
"You—will—stay—here."
Grover looked at me desperately.
"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."
"She wants honey now!" Apollo laughed.
"I don't understand how I'm related to you," Artemis sighed.
Nancy Bobofit smirked.
I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.
"It says stare not glare, punk, you need a lot of help." Clarisse sniggered.
Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
"She wanted to kill you as soon as possible," Will said.
How'd she get there so fast?
"Monster speed," Ares said.
I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.
I wasn't so sure.
I went after Mrs. Dodds.
Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.
"Was he paying attention?" Poseidon started to get a bit nervous.
"He is," Dionysus said, plucking off a ripe grape from the vine.
I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.
Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.
"Did you even have money?" Jake asked.
"No," Gabe… Percy thought.
"Money money money, it's so funny, in a rich man's world~" Clovis sang.
But apparently that wasn't the plan.
I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.
Except for us, the gallery was empty.
Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds.
"Alone," Aphrodite shuddered. "Not that pair."
Drew nodded in agreement.
"Oh gods," Annabeth muttered.
Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"
"If it was us, yes," the twins said.
The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.
She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.
"Epic fail, Percy." Jake snorted.
I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."
"In any sense, it was a wrong response Percy," Annabeth said. "It either meant you'd try harder at getting away with things or getting away with stealing the you know what."
"Whatever," He grumbled.
Thunder shook the building.
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."
"Lord Hades would still have sent me to the fields of Punishment."
I didn't know what she was talking about.
All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.
"Do you still have some?" Travis asked.
"Nah."
Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.
"It's a classic written by one of my sons. I don't understand why you don't like it." Athena said.
"It was in English, not Greek." Percy said. "If it was in Greek, it might have been better."
"I'll send you a Greek copy, Percy."
Uh oh, Percy thought.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't..."
"Your time is up," she hissed.
That is too clique, I guess I need to teach them something new… Nico thought.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.
"Fury!" Poseidon glared at Hades harder.
Then things got even stranger.
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
At least Chiron was paying attention, Poseidon let out his breath.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.
Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.
"Wimp," Clarisse muttered. Ares nodded in agreement.
She snarled, "Die, honey!"
Apollo burst out laughing. "A fury killing a jar of honey! Muahaha!"
Artemis rolled her eyes.
"Do you still think he's hot Thalia?" Percy muttered.
Thalia wacked him on the head even if it didn't do anything.
And she flew straight at me.
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.
"The ADHD," Athena said.
"We know that," Ares rolled his eyes.
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!
Water references, Poseidon… Athena thought.
Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.
"What have you been teaching your furies, Hades?" Demeter demanded. "They need cereal so they can be less dramatic."
Grandmother, Verna thought.
I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.
"Riptide," Percy said fondly.
"By the way, you never told me if you could write with it or not." Nico said.
"I don't know, I never tried."
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.
"Magic mushrooms? Really?" Annabeth said.
"I don't know where they can't from," Percy protested.
"If anyone invented that idea, it would be Hermes," Artemis said. "He invents all the legends that mortals think up."
"Like what?" Katie asked.
"Santa Claus," Artemis said.
Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside.
It had started to rain.
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
I said, "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.
"Thank the gods for the mist," Grover said.
She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.
He said, "Who?"
But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.
"Grover is such a bad liar," Travis groaned. "We'll have to teach you how to lie properly when we go back to camp."
"Travis!" Katie said.
"Juniper will kill you though," Percy said.
"Never mind," Travis said quickly.
"Be afraid of my girlfriend, very afraid." Grover muttered.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead.
"Zeus," Hades rolled his eyes. "As dramatic as usual."
I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.
I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."
"Now Chiron can lie," Conner said approvingly.
"He's had millennia of experience." Grover said. "And I'm just thirty-four!"
"You're older than anyone at camp Grover, except for most of the nymphs and Mr. D"
I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?" He stared at me blankly. "Who?"
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"
"No, he's never alright," Travis said.
"He's the worst, most delusional and dangerous demigod that ever existed," Conner added.
"…I only agree with the last part."
"I think the second one makes some sense, Percy." Annabeth said.
"Hey!"
"Well—"
"This is the end of the chapter!" Zeus boomed. "Who will read next?"
"I will," Hestia smiled. She turned to the next page.
"Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death."
Was it good? I thought it was reasonably ok. R/R... 4 days until The Son of Neptune comes out! Hooray!
