Percy & Marisol Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Chapter One
Percy: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher
Marisol: There's Nothing There
Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.
If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal lie.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.
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 none of this ever happened.
But if you see 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.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
There is no such thing as normal, and I'm okay with that.
What I'm not okay with is the world being so much scarier and crazier than I was led to believe it to be. What I'm not okay with is being lied to for almost all of my short life, then being thrust the deadly truth and being left totally unprepared.
If you're reading this because you think you might be one of us, one of the kids who just aren't normal, then you're probably right.
Being a half-blood is insane. Even more insane than you currently think you are for thinking you might be one. It's insane, and scary, and dangerous. Chances are, it'll get you killed. It usually does.
If you're a normal kid who just so happens to be looking for a good read, who thinks this whole story is some work of fiction, I wish I was you. I wish I could pick this story up and laugh at how crazy and unrealistic it seems. I'm sure you think it's crazy and unrealistic.
But if you see yourself in these pages, finish the book. Finish the book, hunt down whatever parent or guardian you've got, and demand answers. Demand to know who you really are, and learn to live with it. Because if you don't, one day, it might give you a nasty surprise you weren't prepared for.
Being unprepared could cost you everything.
I warned you.
My name is Percy Jackson.
I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in Upstate New York.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yeah, you could say that.
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 went on 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.
I know – it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.
But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.
My name is Marisol Clarke.
I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a student at Ashwood Preparatory School, a private school for the best and brightest in Manhattan.
I was not one of the best and brightest (in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, or Long Island).
I was the kid who only got in 'cause her parents had the cash to keep their kid out of public school and away from the delinquents and weirdos they belonged with. And that was cool if I could keep myself out of trouble – but my history proves I could never really do it for long. And I could pick any point in my life's history to prove it. But things really went crashing downhill last May, when a sixth-grade class of troubled kids took a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art – where my mom works – on my school's annual take your child to work day.
I know – spending a day at a museum sounds as bad as spending a day in class. But unlike most kids, I loved the museum.
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. 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.
I hoped this trip would be okay. At least, I hoped for once I wouldn't get in trouble.
Boy, was I wrong.
The museum was always bustling with life – even when it was empty, and for that I could thank my mom. She was the coolest lady out there. She was a giant history nerd, which some kids might find boring, but she didn't look or feel like one to me. She always dressed in nice button ups and pretty, work-type skirts, but gave the image a totally casual look by sporting the navy blue hoodie I'd given her three Christmases ago. And she would walk me around all of the Greek and Roman stuff, telling me stories about different heroes from history and mythology. She made it feel so real that I could walk around the exhibits for hours and watch them all unfold in my head.
I always thought living with history right in my face was better than reading about it from a text book.
Boy, was I wrong.
See, bad things happen to me on field trips. 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. 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. And the time before that . . . Well, you get the idea.
This trip, I was determined to be good.
I woke up feeling fine. I woke up ready for the familiar trips around the museum, helping mom sort out and oversee artifacts and stuff. We were even bringing along my best friend, Will, which was great since I didn't get to see him much outside of school even though he lived a floor above me.
Anyway, I was totally and completely ready for the day. It would be great. But then I started to hear things and see things again, things that weren't there, and I felt the sinking feeling in my gut because I knew something bad was gonna happen.
Something was wrong with me. Ever since I was little, I'd see things and hear things that weren't actually there. My parents dismissed it as an overactive imagination, and doctors couldn't find anything wrong with my brain in the mental health department. But the things I saw and heard always freaked me out, always left me kicking and screaming about something that wasn't real. Like when I was in third grade and started screaming during recess because the lunch aid was a snake lady who wanted to kill me. Or in fourth-grade when my friend and I were at the beach and crabs started talking to me. And that time in fifth grade when I was in the middle of a presentation and the world started shaking like it was cracking in half but I was the only one who felt it.
I could feel it happening now, and I did my best to swallow it down. I was determined to be normal today. If I could do it today, I could do it tomorrow too.
All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back a few 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. 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. 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.
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. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even remotely entertaining happened on this trip.
"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.
Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."
He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.
"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.
"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."
Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
"I just can't shake it," I explained to Will as we walked back to my mother's office with papers from Mr. Yukimora, her boss. I had no idea what was in them, but it was a big stack of papers that clearly needed some sort of review. "Something bad is gonna happen today."
"Bad like what, though? Bad like when you blew up the second floor water fountain at school? Or bad like when you set your final on fire out of nowhere? Bad like when you -"
"Okay!" I exclaimed. "I get it, I get it. Different types of super bad. But it's none of those..."
"Then what?" Will asked, looking down at me with worried blue eyes. He was a good head taller than me, and a bit more than a year older than me. We'd been best friends since I was seven. Mom and I had moved from Jackson Heights to Tribeca and I met Will when I was running down the stairs and slammed into him on the landing, sending us crashing into a wall.
"I just get the feeling ... like ... like I'm standing at the top of the stairs and I have to walk down them, but I'm dizzy and the moment I lift my leg out over the first step I feel weak like my legs are made of jello and if they try to carry me down they'll give out and send me crashing and I'll break my arm again."
"Well if we happen to go down any more stairs I'll be sure to hold your hand," Will muttered. I ducked my head, feeling an embarrassed smile cross my face.
"That wasn't even the point, Solace. It was a metaphor," I pointed out.
"Actually a similie," he shot back. "You made a comparison using 'like'."
I rolled my eyes at him, never fond of his being better than me at English. "Same difference."
"Oxymoron," he pointed out.
"You're-a-moron," I joked. He shrugged, my poor insult-slash-pun having no effect on him.
"Looks like there's a school here today." I turned, watching as a group of kids walked slowly through the Greek and Roman exhibit. I watched a dark-haired boy around my age stare at the cases full of black and orange pottery, the awe apparent on his face.
Pretty cool, huh? I thought with a swell of pride. He whipped around suddenly, briefly meeting my eyes before Will and I turned a corner and he was lost from my sight.
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.
It blew my mind that this stuff survived two thousand, three thousand years.
"Pretty cool, huh?" I heard a girl say. I whipped around, wondering if she was talking to me, only to see nobody but Grover beside me. I caught a flash of movement to my right and saw a dark-haired girl around my age girl watching me before she turned the corner and disappeared.
"Did you hear anyone say anything?" I asked Grover.
"Everyone's saying everything," he pointed out. I shook my head, about to correct him before he dragged me on. "Come on, Brunner's moving."
Brunner 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 tried to listen to what he was saying, because it was kind of interesting, 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 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 had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
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.
One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."
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?"
It came out louder than I meant it to.
"Seriously, though, I can't believe Yukimora denied my mom's request!" I snapped irritably as Will and I went to check on the museum guests. We did routine run-throughs, just because people tend to act differently when there are guards around as opposed to unassuming kids. "I mean, she runs the whole exhibit, all he has is the stupid title, but he has the nerve to -"
"Will you shut up?" I skidded to a stop, whirling on Will, who almost crashed into me.
"What?" I asked him in shock.
"What?" he asked back, equally surprised. "Why'd you stop?"
"Didn't you say something?" I asked back. My stomach was starting to do nervous flips.
"I didn't say a thing," Will said worriedly. "You just kinda tensed up then spun on me..."
"Are you sure?" I persisted.
"Are you okay?"
I shook my head, trying to clear out the voice that seemed to be right in my ear. "I'm fine."
"What did you hear?"
"Nothing. Nothing, I was being weird."
"Mari."
"Will."
We stood there staring at each other, me with my usual defiance and him with his obvious suspicion.
"Come on," he said decisively. He grabbed my arm, turning me in the opposite direction. "We're going to grab you something to eat and head out to the fountain so you can get some air." I sighed, not willing to argue it because he'd simply tell medoctor's orders if I bothered. Will and his stupid health-nut-know-it-all-ness.
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"
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?"
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."
"Well..." I wracked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, 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. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sister -"
"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."
Some snickers from the group.
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.'"
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even redder 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.
Come on, kid, I heard my brain say, you know this. I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir,"
"Why does this matter in real life?" I heard a voice asked as Will and I passed back through the Greek and Roman exhibits. The school kids were gathered around a stele, and the kid from the pottery was being asked the question.
I stopped, putting a hand on Will's chest. "Why does this matter in real life?"
Will looked over in the direction of the old man who'd asked the question.
"Chiron!" he squeaked suddenly. I looked up at him in confusion.
"It matters because Chiron?" I asked him. I shook my head. "I know he was like most important teacher in all of mythology, but I don't think he has much to do with the question the poor kid is trying to answer.
"Come on," Will said, grabbing my hand, "if we don't go now all of the good spots outside will be taken." I shrugged.
"I wanna see what he says," I said firmly. Why did it matter?
Come on, kid. You know this.
The boy shrugged. "I don't know, sir," he said. My shoulders slumped in defeat, and I turned away.
"It matters," I whispered, "because history is everywhere. You can't escape the past."
"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 into 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?"
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.
Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."
I knew what 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.
"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."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will except 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. 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. No - he didn't expect me to be good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
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 told me to go outside and eat my lunch.
"I don't know if we should be out here," I mumbled as Will and I set up on the fountain. "The sky looks mad."
Will looked up at the ominous black clouds rolling in above us and frowned. "We'll be fine," he said. "We just have to be back in before it starts to rain."
I shifted uneasily. I'm not sure why, but the clouds made me feel anxious, like they'd pick me to strike down with lightning. The weather had been all weird since Christmas, and every near catastrophe we'd experienced set my teeth on edge.
"If we're gonna be out here for a while, can I at least go get my math book?" I asked. "You promised to teach me to FOIL." Will shrugged, taking a bite of his hot dog followed by a sip from his water.
"If you hurry sure. My mood for academics is slipping by the second," he joked. I nodded, getting up from my seat on the fountain and beginning my jog back inside.
I was just past the entrance hall when I slammed into someone and sent us crashing into a wall.
"Are you okay?" I asked breathily, looking up at the kid across from me. "Oh hey! It's you!"
"Do I know you?" pottery kid asked, looking at me with confused sea green eyes. They were a lot like my own I realized. I offered him a smile.
"You were the kid admiring the pottery. Amazing how stuff can survive for so long, isn't it?"
"Yeah," he nodded, brushing off his hands before pushing himself off the floor. "I thought so too."
"Great minds think alike, they say," I hummed, accepting the hand up he offered me.
"You okay?" he asked me, looking for any signs of bruising or blood. "You hit me pretty hard."
"I'm fine, I run into things a lot. Sorry about that, by the way. I'm Marisol. Marisol Clarke." I stuck out a hand. He shook it. He was a couple inches taller than me. Same natural looking tan as me.
"I'm Percy. Jackson. Percy Jackson," he said in a tumbling mess of words. I grinned.
"Nice to meet you. You look kinda familiar. Have we met before?" I asked. He shrugged.
"I don't think so," he said, looking at me harder like he might find something he missed. He shook his head. "No, I don't think so." I shrugged.
"We have now," I said simply. "What brings you to my lovely museum?"
He blanched. "Your museum? Doesn't this place belong to, like, New York?"
I laughed, knowing I'd asked questions like that a lot. "Uh, sorry. My mom works here, so I practically live here."
He nodded, understanding. "My school came for a trip. Yancy Academy."
"Never heard of it," I said thoughtfully. I'd look it up later.
"It's upstate, that's probably why," he guessed. I nodded. It made sense.
"Well, if you're not busy, we could, like, have lunch together. That's why your class headed outside right? For lunch?" He nodded. "Cool, so do you wanna eat together, Percy Jackson?" He nodded again.
"I don't see why not, Marisol Clarke." He smirked at me. I liked this kid.
"Cool. I have to run upstairs to grab a math book from my mom's office, but I'll meet you back outside in five minutes, okay? I'm out by the fountain with my friend, Will. Blonde, tallish, easy to spot. I'll be back," I said to him, slowly walking backwards. He nodded at me, giving me my cue to turn and head for the stairs.
I made it to my mom's office in no time, knocking before opening the door. "Hey mom?" I asked, edging back into her office.
"Hm?" she hummed, not looking up from her computer screen. I watched her fingers zoom across the keys at her one-hundred-and-thirty-two-words-per-minute speed. I made my way to her bookshelf, hoping I'd find my math book among the many titles. I was followed by the comforting and ever-present clicks of the keyboard.
"Do we know anyone with the last name Jackson?" I asked off-handedly.
The clicking stopped. "Why do you ask?" The clicking resumed.
"I bumped into some kid by the fountain. He looked sorta familiar," I said, spotting my math book and yanking it free. "Said his name was Percy Jackson."
The clicking stopped. I waited a minute. "No, I can't remember anyone by the name of Percy Jackson." It never resumed.
"Guess I'll just head back outside," I muttered. "Will's waiting for me by the fountain. He promised to teach me how to FOIL."
"Alright, peach. I'll see you when it's time to go home," she said, not quite looking at me. I shrugged, edging back out of her office before making my way back downstairs.
Halfway there, I felt the strangest, most painful, tug in my gut. I doubled over slightly, wrapping my arms around my stomach. I felt like someone was yanking at my belly button with a hook.
Nearby, there was a loud sort of popping sound, making me and several guests flinch back, and water began to pool from the fountain outside the nearest bathroom. A pipe had burst. Guests cried out, startled. Security rushed to inspect the sudden rush of water that began to spread across the floor.
The hook vanished and the pain passed.
I made my way back outside, hoping nobody noticed my little scene in all the sudden madness.
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
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 weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
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.
"I ran into someone inside," I said suddenly, turning to look at Grover. "Well, she ran into me. Anyway, she said she'd meet us by the fountain. Told me to look for her friend Will. Tall, blonde dude. I think that's him over there." I pointed to the fountain, where only one person was sat. Tall, blonde, tan, and with two lunches. One was probably Marisol's.
"I know him!" Grover exclaimed suddenly. "We go to camp together."
"Cool, wanna go over there then?" I asked, glancing back in case Marisol was back. Grover nodded, and we walked up to the fountain, stopping in front of the blonde boy. He looked up at us, a surprised smile spreading over his face.
"Grover! I haven't seen you since last summer," the boy, Will, said brightly. "How've you been, man?"
"Good," Grover replied. "This is my friend Percy. Said your friend Marisol ran right into him and she told him to wait for her here?"
"Sounds like something she'd do," Will chuckled. "Sit down guys."
Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, none of the others nearby. I was glad for that. Maybe this way nobody could tell Grover and I were with Yancy, with that school. The school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.
"Detention?" Grover asked.
"No," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes, I mean - I'm not a genius."
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 you apple?"
Will let out a snort.
I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let Grover take it.
"So, how do you know Marisol?" I asked, turning to Will.
"She lives in my apartment building, a floor below me. I've mentioned her to Grover a few times, wanted him to meet her. I thought he might find a friend in her. She and I met when I was eight, kinda the same way you two met. She slammed into my running down some stairs and sent us crashing into the wall landing. Almost took my sister down with us."
I nodded, not sure what else I could ask him. I didn't really know either of them, but for some reason Marisol seemed really familiar to me. And I wasn't the only one feeling it, she'd asked me if we knew each other. I wondered that was taking her so long to come back with whatever it was she ran off to get.
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. 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 boarding school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand the sad look that she'd give me.
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.
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 tourists - and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
"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 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 waved roared in my ears.
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!"
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"
"-the water-"
"-like it grabbed her-"
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.
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. "Now, honey-"
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."
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.
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."
Nancy Bobofit smirked.
I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she was wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the stairs, gesturing at me to come on.
How'd she get there so fast?
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 piece 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.
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.
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.
God, I thought to myself, if I don't get back soon the guys will think I straight-up ditched them. I moved along at a power walk, noticing the dwindling amount of people between exhibits. Clearly everyone was feeling the hunger in their stomachs and was hitting up the hot dog carts outside.
I was nearly to the Greek and Roman exhibits when I felt something. A twist of apprehension, like something weird and awful was happening that I just couldn't place. I slowed to a cautious walk, glancing behind me and to my sides every few feet. I didn't like the feeling in my gut, like muffled alarm bells.
It was when I came to the Greek and Roman exhibits that the warning bells were uncovered, blasting so loud inside me that I came to a total, and thankfully silent, stop.
Percy was in the exhibit with, who I guessed to be, one of the trip's chaperones. The woman looked like she was in her fifties or sixties, but something about her radiated evil grandma who would hose you down in the worst part of winter just so you'd get out of her yard. I attributed this meanness to the black leather jacket she wore. There was a weird rumbling sound filling the empty gallery, and it took me a moment to realize it was a growling sound.
When I realized she was the one making the noise, staring at a frieze of the Greek gods like she wanted to smash it to dust, I felt my heart pounding in my chest.
Goosebumps bloomed on my skin, the little hairs all up my arms and on the back of my neck standing on end.
I moved to step out, but my brain stopped me. Percy might be in trouble, it said to me. You can't leave him.
So I didn't.
Looking back on it, if I had left, things might have ended better for me that day.
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it ...
"Marisol Jackson," she said suddenly, whipping around. I heard a startled yelp. "How nice of you to join us."
I followed her gaze, seeing Marisol standing there, visibly shaking, with a math book clutched in her left hand. "That's not my name," she said quietly.
"Oh, but it is," Mrs. Dodds said sweetly. "Why don't you join your brother here."
"B-brother?" Marisol asked, looking toward me. "I don't have a brother."
"Why, of course you do. He's standing right here."
I stood frozen, staring between my teacher and the girl I'd only just met. What was Mrs. Dodds on about?
"I've never seen him in my life before today," Marisol said defiantly. She hesitated before walking straight toward me, looking at Mrs. Dodds the entire time."What do you want from Percy?"
"Well you see, honey," Mrs. Dodds began, "your brother here has been giving us problems. In fact, you both have."
"What?" Marisol croaked. "I've never met you in my life. I don't even go the school you teach at!"
Mrs. Dodds tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket."Did you really think you'd get away with it?"
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 us.
I said, "I'll-I'll try harder ma'am."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Marisol said.
Thunder shook the building.
"We are not fools, Percy and Marisol Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and one of you will live."
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. 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.
My mind was spinning at a million rotations per minute, bouncing from how the heck this woman knew my first name, to why she thought Percy and I had the same last name, or why she kept calling us siblings, to the weirdest things like illicit candy and Tom Sawyer, a book I'd never read. My heart was in my throat at this point, making it impossible for me to speak.
"Well?" the demon teacher demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't ..."
"Your time is up," she hissed.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into long, 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 Percy to ribbons. I would be next.
I screamed, and things got weirder.
Marisol let out the most shattering scream I'd ever heard, and the whole room began to shake.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. Marisol screamed again, and I felt her slam into me like when we'd met only twenty minutes ago. I felt talons slash the air next to my ear as we went down. We hit the floor, and Mrs Dodds swooped past us. I stumbled up on the shaking floor, pulling Marisol up and shoving her behind me. If we were going to die, I might as well buy her another minute of life.
Then it got weirder.
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.
With a yelp, I snatched the pen out of the air, but 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 Marisol and me with a murderous look in her eyes.
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. I could feel Marisol's shaking hand when it slid into mine.
Mrs. Dodds snarled, "Die, honey!"
And she flew straight at us.
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!
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.
We were alone.
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but Marisol and me.
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.
Had I imagined the whole thing?
Marisol began to cry.
I couldn't help it. My body was spent after the absolute terror.
I started to cry, and instantly felt stupid. Percy turned toward me, torn between shock and concern.
"Hey," he said to me, taking my hand, "you're okay. We're okay."
I shook my head, folding in on myself and dropping to my knees. My whole body shook, my brain refusing to process things right.
The room was shaking and falling apart. But nothing was damaged and the floor was still.
Percy had a sword. But Percy had a pen.
There had been an old man in a wheelchair, the one who'd asked Percy questions earlier about the mythology. But we were alone.
There had been a demon lady with wings and teeth and claws and murder in her burning red eyes. But we were alone.
My head spun and my lungs tried to get enough air. I felt Percy hesitantly wrap an arm around my shoulder.
"There was nothing there," he said finally. I shook my head.
"That's worse!" I cried. "I'm going crazy!"
"No you're not," he said. "Unless our brains are linked and we saw the same thing. But there's nothing there anymore. There's nothing there."
I shook my head, grabbing at the pen in his hand. "This was a sword. Your teacher had wings. There was an earthquake. But now it's gone. Percy, what's going on?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. My guidance counselor says my brain shuts down sometimes, because of my ADHD, and other times it makes up daydreams in the place of reality."
"You have ADHD?" I asked tearfully. He nodded, looking a bit relieved that I wasn't babbling about the whole thing. "So do I."
He looked surprised, and even moreso when Will ran in and dropped to he knees beside us.
"What happened?" he asked. Percy shook his head.
"She started screaming and then she started crying. We ... we ..."
"I should take her to her mom," Will murmured, turning to look at me. "Mari?"
I made a small sound in the back of my throat, balling my fists up in Percy's sweater. It was blue on the outside, and gray on the inside, and it was soft. It was real.
"Do you want to go lay down in your mom's office and tell her what happened?" Will asked me. I shook my head, looking at Percy fearfully. What if his teacher came back and tried to kill him?
"I think you should go see your mom," Percy said to me quietly. "I know if my mom was here I'd be running to her."
His mom wasn't here. He went to boarding school. He must've missed her like crazy.
"Go ahead," he said to me still. "Go with your friend. I'll be fine."
I shook my head, but Will took my arm and slowly pulled me away from Percy and up from the floor. He offered Percy a hand up and he took it, turning to look at me one more time.
"If I come back here in the summer, will I find you here?" he asked me. I nodded. I spent every day here with my mom during the summers. Percy nodded, giving me one last uncertain and worried look before taking a step back. He lifted a hand in farewell. "I'll see you soon, Marisol." He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned, leaving me and Will alone.
Will took me back up to my mom's office, asking me for details on the way, then telling my mom what Percy had told him. They both asked me what happened, but I refused to speak for the rest of the day.
All I could hear was Percy's voice, telling me we were safe, and that he'd see me again.
I could feel his confusion and worry in the pit of my stomach.
None of it was real, I told myself. It was just another nightmare.
I wasn't so sure.
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.
She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.
He said, "Who?"
But he paused first, and wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead.
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."
I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.
"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?"