...aaaand we're on chapter three. I know there's supposed to be some kind of uniform for Goode High, but I didn't feel like making Alex wear all that crap, so everyone is more relaxed here.

Disclaimer: I osn nothing except the OCs. They're MINE.

The day I went to school, I died on the inside.

I had heard stories about the place, and was not thrilled to be going. I would much rather start from sixth grade when I left and then go on than start with new material that I didn't know. Add the fact that I live with a police officer and was homeless just last week, and I'd be dead meat if anyone found out.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was very, very nervous. I had never even set foot inside a high school before, much less enrolled in one.

Lawrence drove me to school in his police car. He might as well have slapped a sign on my forehead that said, "Bully Me!"

"Keep your head low," he told me. "Don't draw too much attention to yourself."

I rolled my eyes. "Geez, you act like I'm going into a battle zone or something. Should I take my suit of armor?"

Lawrence stared at the entrance to the school. "Have you ever been to a high school before?"

"No."

"You'll know what I mean by the end of the day."

And with that good omen, I grabbed my messenger bag and got out of the car. I was wearing a clean pair of blue jeans, a dark green t-shirt, and the same black jacket I had bought from the thrift store. My red hair was tied back in a ponytail. I adjusted the messenger strap uncomfortably and looked back at Lawrence in the car. He gave me two thumbs up. I looked back at the school.

Goode was this big brownstone building overlooking the East River. A bunch of BMWs and Lincoln Town Cars were parked out front. Staring up at the fancy stone archway, I wondered how long it would take me to get kicked out of this place and put back on the streets. I sighed loudly and walked up the steps and into the school with the other students pouring out of the buses and cars. The nice thing about a big crowd: nobody notices you. You can blend in and not be seen. The bad thing about a big crowd: I couldn't figure out where the office was.

Lawrence told me that to meet my guide/tutor, I'd have to go to the office. And if I wanted to get to the office, I'd have to be able to see it. Which I couldn't do.

I started to panic. How was I supposed to be able to know where my classes were if I couldn't even find the office? I needed that guide.

So I pushed through the crowd like an olympic swimmer cuts through water and moved towards what looked like an important room. It had a clean, polished oak door and windows that allowed me to look inside. There was a desk where a woman was typing on a computer in front of chairs where students were patiently waiting. There was a hallway that led to the left.

Well, it looked like an office. I turned the doorknob on the oak door and pushed it open. But I pushed it open too hard and ended up stumbling through the door and nearly falling onto the floor. As you can probably guess, I was pretty clumsy. My bag swung around my shoulder and nearly smacked me in the face as I righted myself and looked towards who I guessed was the secretary, a fast blush creeping over my cheeks.

"Sorry," I said. "The door just kinda gave way quick—"

The secretary waved it away with her hand. "It's fine. Everyone does it at some point. I take it you're the new student Officer Clayton sent?"

"Er...yeah," I said. "That's me, I guess."

"Okay, honey. Just take a seat while I look up your schedule."

I looked over at the empty seat between two large kids, and suddenly it felt like I was in the police station again. The boy on the left was maybe eighteen, scary, and looked like he wanted to punch something. The boy on the left was probably a year younger than me and looked like he wanted to steal something from right under somebody's nose. I decided to keep my valuable items close and my face far away from both of them as I sat down. I prayed to the god of teenagers-who-don't-want-to-get-robbed.

"Um...Alexandra Clayton? That's you, right honey?"

"Yeah," I said. Lawrence had lent me his last name for the time being. "Just call me Alex, please."

"Okay," the secretary said. "Your guide and tutor is one...Annabeth Chase. I just called her down. She'll be here in a minute."

I nodded shortly and glanced at the potential murder and thief beside me and hoped that this "Annabeth" girl would get here soon.

x x x

As it turns out, she got there in exactly five minutes. It was probably a good thing she came when she did, because the murderer and the thief were about to rip each other's heads off while I was still in the middle.

"Okay!" I said, standing. "You two can kill each other while I stand a safe distance away."

"Oh, don't worry, they won't," a voice said. "Not while they're in school, at least."

I turned around to find a girl with blond hair and gray eyes standing in the doorway. She walked up to the secretary and grabbed my schedule from her. I almost protested, but then I remembered that she was my guide for the day. She knew where all the classes where.

Idiot, I cursed myself.

"I'm Annabeth," the girl said. "You must be Alex."

I grinned. "That's me."

Annabeth shook my hand and handed me my schedule. "I think you have all the same classes as I do, so I can just take you straight to homeroom." She looked at the secretary. "Is that okay, Mrs. Cesa?"

"Sure, honey," Mrs. Cesa said. "Make sure she doesn't end up in PE on accident. You know what happened last time?"

"W-what happened last time?" I asked, confused, as Annabeth dragged me out of the office.

"Oh, nothing." Annabeth replied. "Just...some new kid walked into gym class on accident and the teacher made him climb the rope twice."

I gulped.

"So, where are you from?" she asked me.

"Ohio," I said. It wasn't a lie; I had been born and raised there for nine months.

"Ohio is cool," Annabeth said. "I hear the weather's kinda weird though."

I laughed. "Well, I wouldn't know." Annabeth looked at me quizzically, so I elaborated. "I was born in Ohio, but raised here."

"Ah," she said.

Annabeth led me down so many hallways that I had a hard time remembering them. Left, right, right, left, right? Or was it left, right, left, right, right? I couldn't remember.

"And here is homeroom!" Annabeth said, gesturing to a door with the title of Mr. Brunner. At least, I think it said that. It also looked like RM NRBUERN. But I had some experience in sorting out my dyslexia, so I was able to decode it.

"Who's Mr. Brunner?" I said.

"Mr. Brunner teaches Greek, so you have him second period and homeroom. He's pretty down to earth, so I think you'll like him."

I shrugged in response as she opened the door to reveal a small classroom full of people, save two seats, which I assumed belonged to Annabeth and I. The teacher was a middle-aged guy in this motorized wheel chair. His brown hair was a little thin and he had a full beard, but he had a kind face. He was wearing a tweed jacket (do they still make those?) and a blanket over his legs.

"Ah, Annabeth," he said. "I take it the touring went well?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Well, she didn't run away, so I'm assuming so."

When Annabeth said "she," Mr. Brunner's eyes focused on me, standing behind her. They sparkled with curiosity, as if he was trying to solve a puzzle and I was the answer.

"Hi," I said nervously. "I'm Alex."

"Alex Clayton. Yes, I know." He seemed to shake off his fascination with me and resumed his role as a teacher. "You can sit next to Ms. Grace."

"Ms. Grace" was a tough-looking girl wearing black punk clothes with electric-blue eyes. Normally, I would have been intimidated, but this girl had a warm smile, and that seemed to bring the intimidation factor down by about 3 notches. I adjusted my bag and crossed the classroom uncomfortably. I have never liked being the center of attention, and at that moment I felt like I would spontaneously combust from the amount of people looking at me.

"Hi," the girl said as I sat in the desk next to her. "I'm Thalia."

"Alex," I said. "But you probably already know that."

"Okay, class." Mr. Brunner said. "Turn to page 347 in your textbooks."

x x x

"Well, that was fun," I said, rubbing my forehead sorely.

"Oh, come on," Annabeth said. "It wasn't that bad."

"That's easy for you to say! The science teacher didn't nail you in the forehead with a physics book!"

"She's got a point, Annabeth," Thalia said, joining us as we walked towards the cafeteria. "That sounds pretty rough."

I nodded feverishly. "I think that guy has it out for me."

"Oh, he has it out for everyone." Thalia said with a wave of her hand. "I don't know why he teaches if he hates the happiness of children."

We laughed. It was nice that I had seemed to make some friends on the first day—I honestly expected to be the kid sitting next to the trashcan with puke on their shoes. Annabeth, Thalia and I steered clear of that guy.

When we reached the cafeteria, my jaw dropped. The place was huge. There were rows and rows of tables made of expensive-looking wood—mahogany, maybe?—and three different lunch lines.

"Woah," was my super-intelligent statement.

"Yeah, all the new kids are like that when they see this place," Thalia said. "Come on, we'll take you to our lunch table."

Their lunch table was far away from the exit, so I got a good look at all of the kids in the school as we walked by. There were the big nerds, who had laptops and phones out while they ate and were talking about minecraft and coding and things I didn't understand. There were the jocks, who were having an arm-wrestling competition and flexing their muscles. There were the preps, I guess you could say, who were chatting and gossiping in nice clothes and snapping selfies. And there were the people like me, who didn't quite fit into just one or any of those. Those were the people that Annabeth and Thalia led me to.

As we approached, I could see a dark-haired boy with sea-green eyes and an athletic build sitting next to a boy with curly hair and crutches.

I stopped. That was the boy that I had seen following me last week. What the hell was going on? Was he stalking me, or something like that?

"What's wrong?" Annabeth said. She followed my gaze and frowned. "Do you know Grover?"

I shook my head. "I saw him following me a couple days back. Scared the crap out of me."

Thalia sighed. "Grover wasn't following you. He was probably trying to figure out where you lived so he could murder you in your sleep."

She said it so seriously that for a moment I almost believed her. Then Annabeth stepped on her foot.

"Thalia!"

"What? It's called a joke."

Annabeth shook her head and then looked back at me. "Where were you when you saw him?"

"I was...at my house near Central Park, then I went to the YMCA, over like, a mile away, and he was there."

"Oh." Annabeth slammed her palm into her forehead. "Grover works at the YMCA and he has physical therapy for his muscular condition in Central Park. I can understand why you thought he was stalking you, though. He does kinda give that impression."

I nodded, but something about that didn't sound right, even if it did make sense. "Okay."

They nodded in response and continued leading me over to the table. When we arrived, both of the boys looked up at us. And both of their eyes widened in surprise. Whether it was because I was there or because I was the new kid, I couldn't tell.

"Guys," Thalia said, "this is Alex. She's the new kid."

They introduced me to the two boys even as more people sat at the table. The guy with the dark hair: Percy Jackson, Swim Team Captain. Grover, the guy with crutches, ate enchiladas as I was introduced to him. I decided he was harmless. Up next was this big burly kid that Annabeth called Beckendorf, but I wasn't sure whether or not that was his real name. He fidgeted with some kind of metal gizmo that I discovered later was a pocket watch, though it didn't look like one.

"So how's Goode High so far?" the boy called Beckendorf asked me as I sat next to Thalia.

I laughed a little to myself. "It's pretty awesome, actually. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it."

The others shared a look that wasn't quite humorous, but not completely serious either. It was almost...mischievous. Annabeth opened her mouth to say something, but another voice cut her off before she could.

"Hey! The newbie is sitting in my seat!"

I turned to find a tall boy looking down on me. He was my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With his slight tan and his brown hair (combed neatly), he was almost exactly what I thought a warrior would look like, except his eyes messed up the picture. They were a striking green, like grass; handsome, but humorous, too, as if he were analyzing the best way to make me laugh. And I realized that I recognized him: he was the boy from the newspaper clipping who had won the sword competition. I almost mentioned it, but I kept my mouth closed.

"Liam, that's not your seat," Percy said.

"But I've sat there since the beginning of the year!"

"Oh, boy. A whopping two months. Yeah, that really makes you the senior here," Thalia said with an eye roll.

Liam opened his mouth to say something, but then he must not have found anything to say, because he closed it and then sat on the other side of the table. "What's your name?" he asked me after a moment.

"Alex," I replied.

Liam held out his hand for me to shake. "Liam. Nice to meet you, Alex."

I observed his hand for a moment before shaking it. "Nice to meet you too."

Only later would I realize that this boy was the very one who turned my life upside down.

UgH. I did not like the way this chapter turned out. I had so much more that I wanted to fit in here without making it too long, but then I realized I could fit it in another chapter.

Anyways, please review.

This chapter has been edited.