Hoops
CHAPTER TWO
Annabeth
"You're acting like a runaway convict!" A voice hissed to her left, effectively preventing her from swiveling her head to the side (again).
Annabeth turned to Rachel with a sheepish expression, "Sorry."
Rachel huffed at her, "You've literally been looking behind you every 5 seconds with wild eyes that rival even my most chaotic paintings! Girl, you need to relax!"
Muttering under her breath, Annabeth glared at her brothers lazily strolling on without an care in the world. "Kinda hard to do when my would-be murderer could be right here."
Rachel rolled her eyes, "Don't exaggerate: I doubt you made Percy-" At Annabeth's frantic shhh, her friend lifted an eyebrow in amusement. "I doubt you made him that mad."
Annabeth shook her head, "You have no idea."
Rachel simply sighed, "Oh, Annabeth. It's going to be fine. You'll see. For now though, let's focus on getting where we need to be." She said, staring pointedly at all the people flooding towards the center of the camp.
Annabeth nodded resignedly before grabbing her brothers by their shoulders and pushing them in front of her. She rearranged her hold on her duffle bag and trudged on forward.
Soon, they arrived at the center, what the map of Camp Half-Blood (the name confused her too) declared as the "arena". After a few minutes of waiting (what felt like eons thanks to the wonderful patience of her brothers), a man riding a horse trotted up towards a small stage.
His grand entrance achieved the purpose of entrapping the attention of about a hundred kids - an accomplishment that was no easy feat.
As he unmounted, a pretty girl with long black hair and bright blue eyes grabbed the reins and guided the horse in another direction, presumably back to the stables.
The man then stepped onto the stage, a microphone in his hand. "Welcome Everybody! Who's ready to have fun?!"
He was answered by a chorus of cheers which he took as his cue to continue. "My name is Chiron and I am the activities director here at Camp-Half Blood. I can assure you these next two weeks will be full of not only Basketball but also many different kinds of activities you can choose from and enjoy. Now, I am sure everyone is tired so I'd like to get straight to business."
He paused, "Now, this is how things are going to work; there are 16 total cabins, 8 for the girls and 8 for the guys." Putting out one of his arms, he instructed, "On this side, I want all the males, campers and counselors alike," he put out his other arm, "And on this side, the females, same thing as well."
It took a bit of a struggle, but soon there were two distinguishable groups. Annabeth did her best to shake off the jitters that always appeared when she was separated from her brothers.
A pretty woman with golden locks stepped up on the stage beside Chiron and waved at the crowd with a warm smile. Putting her own microphone to her lips, she said, "Hello all l! I am Hestia and I'll be showing all the ladies to their cabins while Chiron shows all the gentlemen to theirs."
As both moved off the stage and went in opposite directions, so did the two divided groups on the ground.
Beside Annabeth, Rachel kept on making little comments to herself about everything they passed, how the strawberry fields were so breathtaking, how the forest smelled luscious and looked so healthy, how she could envision the creek they could vaguely hear, on and on. She was an artist who loved nature so Annabeth supposed she'd be seeing some paintings this place in the near future.
Annabeth for her part looked at the architecture - that was breathtaking. Everything seemed to scream greek, the mess hall, the actual armory (Hestia had taken it upon herself to be a tour guide and pointed out the different attractions they saw) and especially the Amphitheater.
But of course, Annabeth already knew this camp would probably have a recurring Greek theme considering the names of it gave its cabins.
As they finally arrived in the clearing where said cabins were, Annabeth had to smirk when she knew for sure which goddess the first cabin represented. Engraved with peacocks and with graceful looking columns, there stood the Hera cabin.
"Here we are," Hestia began, "I understand all of you know which of these seven cabins you will reside in? We'll go by each one at a time and when you hear yours called, step towards it. If by any chance, you don't know your cabin, come see me when we're done and we'll get things sorted out, okay?"
Pointing at the first cabin, she began. "Hera?"
Annabeth felt a corner of her mouth turn up with pride. Yep, she was right.
A couple of girls stepped forward as well as two older looking girls. Counselors, probably. One had midnight hair and authoritative almond eyes. The other was petite with amber hair and shy light green eyes.
To them, Hestia smiled. "These girls are now under your charge. Be responsible but don't forget to balance it out with a little fun!" She winked. "Good luck!"
The process continued for two more cabins (Aphrodite and Demeter) and since Rachel had left as a counselor for Demeter, it was just Annabeth as they approached the forth cabin.
She knew it was hers as soon as she saw it.
"Athena?"
As Hestia called the cabin forward, Annabeth looked for her partner in crime. When she laid eyes on her, she thought she was an actual partner in crime.
Dressed in all black and sporting punk hair, Annabeth beheld the second counselor with a curious gaze.
Opening the cabin, Annabeth motioned all the girls inside.
After choosing a bunk, she approached the other counselor.
She'd learned the hard way not to judge people for how they looked. The very hard way.
Now, she waved with a friendly smile. "Hey, I'm Annabeth."
The girl turned her electric blue eyes on Annabeth who held her ground firmly with her own stormy gray eyes. Breaking into a smirk, the girl answered. "Thalia."
Thalia. Okay, she could remember that.
"I assume you're here for the Camp-duty position?" She had to be since Annabeth had signed up for the Group Counselor position.
The girl smiled ruefully. "You assume correct. I could never be in charge of a group of kids for an entire day."
Cocking her head to the side, Annabeth asked, "Really?"
"Yep. I actually only came because my brother convinced me to."
"And your brother would be…"
"Jason Grace, you might've heard of him."
"I have." Yeah, this morning. "Well…" Annabeth gestured towards the girls around them. "I'm gonna try and get them under control" she said as Thalia laughed.
"Hello?"
A few girls paid attention to her but the rest kept right on talking.
Suddenly, "HELLO EVERYONE?"
Everyone turned to look at Thalia who grinned, "That's better. I'm Thalia and I'll be the counselor you can bother from 10pm to 8am."
Annabeth couldn't help but laugh as she followed the brash girl's lead, "And I'm Annabeth. I'll be the counselor you'll be primarily with."
Clapping her hands together, Annabeth grinned, "How about some more introductions?"
About an hour later, when introductions were done and Annabeth was trying to get to know her fellow counselor better, her phone chimed.
So did Thalia's. Bringing out her phone, Thalia lifted her eyebrows, "It's my schedule"
Annabeth nodded as she read it through, "Same here." As she scrolled through her phone a little more, she suddenly squinted. "It also says here that I'll be partnered up with another cabin - a cabin with the boys."
Thalia nodded, "Oh, so that's what the little diagrams at the bottom mean."
"So we're spot 4 so I'll meet up with spot 4 from the boy's tomorrow"
"Seems like it."
"Where are you reporting to?"
"Rock climbing."
"Fun. Oh and I was wondering, what are we supposed to wear anyway?"
Thalia grinned mischievously, "I think it's those orange shirts that over there on the couch and jeans or shorts."
At her words, Annabeth turned her attention to the shirts.
Thalia wasn't done yet however, "You know I'll be adding my own little thing to it though."
Chuckling, Annabeth turned back to her, "Of course you will."
Thalia nodded importantly, "If you add something to your outfit, I'll boost you up from okay to cool."
"As tempting as that sounds," Annabeth said like she was giving it serious thought. "I'll have to decline."
Thalia rolled her eyes and was about to respond when a little girl came out of nowhere. "Miss. Annabeth, can you braid my hair?" She sweetly asked.
Annabeth smiled tenderly, "Of course!"
Taking the brush, she quickly braided the girl's wet, recently out of the shower, hair.
"There, all done."
"Thank you!"
As she left, Thalia nodded in approval. "Wow, you do have a way with kids."
Annabeth shook her head, "Trust me, I don't think so. I'm like a responsible mom. You're like a fun older sister"
"That I am. Except you also need responsibility to handle them."
"So I guess we balance each other out."
Thalia thought that over, "I guess we do."
Annabeth stood up from the bunk bed where they were sitting on, "Well, I'm going to start handing out the t-shirts."
"Anything you're going to add?" Thalia teased.
"Sure." Her lips curving up secretly, Annabeth brought out her blue hair tie. "I'll tie my hair with this tomorrow."
Thalia just stared at her before announcing, "I'm boosting you down."
Annabeth laughed as she made her way over to the couch. While she distributed the t-shirts (Thalia eventually came over to help), she couldn't help but feel her entire mood brighten as she considered how things had turned out.
She had eight energetic girls looking forward to the next two weeks and a new friend who Annabeth was looking forward to getting to know better.
All things considered, this camp thing was seeming a lot more like fun and less stress.
The next day, Annabeth got out of bed with a bright smile on her face. Everybody got ready and Thalia, true to her word, added a couple of thick bracelets to her wrists.
Soon, Annabeth was leading the Athena cabin towards the mess hall, Bella right behind her and Josey bringing up the rear.
They arrived in front of the mess hall a few minutes later and stood in front of a bold 4 as they waited for the other cabin.
She began talking to Bella, trying to learn as much as she could about each of the girls she was responsible for.
Just as she was moving onto the next girl in line, somebody tapped her on the shoulder,
"Um, excuse me?"
Still smiling she started to turn around, "Yes?"
Her smile slipped off her face faster than butter.
No. No.
His eyes widened as he recognized her.
No no no!
It was Percy Jackson.
AN: Yeah, I just left you people with a cliffhanger. I am so excited! Eeeeek!
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
Reviews and appreciated
~LB