CHAPTER SEVEN

My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke

I don't own Percy Jackson.

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth and Will, who were still pretty much dripping wet. Annabeth, after showing me the metal shop (where kids had actually been forging their own swords, which I hoped to never do, because my arts-and-crafts skills were out of this world, in a bad way, of course), declared that she had to take a shower and that the smell was overpowering.

"I've got to shower," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

She left, and Will had to finish the tour, but I thought he felt a bit awkward after she had stomped off.

He showed me the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man, and I hoped to never walk in there), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

"Er," I said uncertainly, "has, anybody, like, ever died?"

Will shook his head. "Nah, but we've come pretty close. I, personally, think too close for comfort. I think Chiron wanted to take out the lava for those who were just starting, but Mr. D thought that keeping it would help them train better."

He didn't add it, but I was sure he was thinking, besides, Mr. D wouldn't care if we died.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. I was grateful for the fact that Will didn't treat me like an outsider. I mean, Annabeth treated me like I was the gum under her shoe, but Will...

"Will," I asked slowly as a sudden thought occurred to me, "names have power, right?"

"The first thing that's been drilled into everybody's heads, yeah?"

"Why does Mr. D insist we call him that, then?"

He frowned. "Because names have power?" He sounded slightly lost.

"No!" I slapped his arm lightly. "I mean, if I were an all-powerful being, I would have all these kids saying my name and just being my outlet. Like, yes guys, please mega-charge me and make me cool."

He chuckled. "Remind me to never let you become a god."

"Hey!"

He gestured for me to follow him towards the lake, and, a bit confused, I followed him. He sat down, patted the spot next to him, and I took a seat, raising an eyebrow.

"You're not gonna kill me where nobody can see or hear, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "There are naiads in the water, obviously. They're not gonna let me kill you."

I stared at the lake, but even though Will told me about people, or something, in the lake, I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Will warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Will frowned. "Don't you get it, Jenny? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Will nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Jenny. He's one of the Olympians."

"That's ... crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"Um, didn't Chiron say it was a bad idea to insult gods?" I asked.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"Uh, that didn't really count as an insult, right? Because I would hate to have the only person that doesn't hate me to be like, incinerated or something. Didn't Mr. D mention, like, self-combustion?"

He laughed. "I don't think they've taken it as an insult, seeing as I'm breathing and whole."

I shrugged. "You never know, they might've zapped off a finger."

He studied me carefully, like I was a map he had prepared for battle, and he was making sure it was flawless. I shifted uncomfortably.

"You're taking all of this rather well," he said at last.

I grinned. "Yeah, because I have my reasons that I will not state out loud because that would definitely get me killed."

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

I nodded seriously. "Like you wouldn't believe."

He laughed again, the sound bringing a smile onto my face.

"So, are all of the kids here half-god?" I asked.

"Demigods," Will said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

He sighed. "Apollo, god of archery, medicine, music, poems, to name a few."

I blinked. "I never understood why he was the god of so many things."

He shrugged. "I don't know either, but what I do know is that that means there's a wider variety of things that his kids are good at, and so some of his kids, like one of my sisters, is better at healing but cannot make a haiku to save her life."

I nodded, before asking, "whose your mom?"

He pursed his lips. "My mom... god, I haven't seen her in years."

I frowned. "How long have you been at Camp Half-Blood for?"

"Four years," he said.

"And, you haven't seen her ever since you were..."

"Eight," he supplied helpfully. "Yeah. She's always asking me to go back home, but I can't. I just don't wanna risk her life, you know? Being a demigod is dangerous enough, but I don't wanna put her in danger."

"That's sweet," I murmured, "but she must miss you."

"I write to her at least once every two weeks, so hopefully, not too much."

"What about Annabeth's dad?" I said, getting curious.

Will looked nervous, looking around before leaning in. "If Annabeth knew that I was telling you this, she would have my head on a stick. She and her dad, well, they don't really see eye to eye. Her dad is a professor at West Point. All I know about him is that he teaches American history, and she hasn't seen him since she was very small. Last time someone asked, she nearly took their eye out."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Will snickered. "After she had told him a very sensitive topic, the conversation went something like, 'he's human.' and then she said, 'What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?' before he stuttered and ran off after her hand had tightened on knife."

"Whose her mom, then?" I asked, curious.

"Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"And nobody has a clue as to who my dad is," I said.

Will sighed heavily. "I have an idea, but, gods, I hope I'm wrong. Last time this happened, the tree incident took place."

"The tree incident?"

"Don't mention it in front of Annabeth or Luke," he advised. "They're quite sensitive about the tree incident."

"Annabeth has a lot of sensitive topics."

"You can't blame her. She, well, her stepmother isn't the best."

I was pretty sure that Gabe was worse than whatever her stepmother ever did to her, but I didn't want any pity, and I didn't want anybody to think that I wasn't happy at home.

"Do you seriously have no idea?" Will asked. "Like, nothing strange has ever happened?"

"I think I do," I said slowly, "but I, too, hope that I'm wrong."

Everything was falling into place. The bathroom, the fountain, the ocean—what did they all have in common? But I still wasn't too sure.

"My mom knew," I murmured. "My dad would've told her. He loved her."

"I really hope so Jenny," Will sighed. "But even if I have my suspicions, I can't do anything about it. You have to be claimed. You father has to send a sign claiming you as his daughter. It happens sometimes."

I stilled at that word. "What do you mean, sometimes?"

"The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Jenny. They ignore us."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But god's should behave better.

"Then what's the point of having kids if you don't even care about them?" I asked, growing angry. "I mean," I practically yelled the last words to the sky, "maybe it would be easier to keep it in your pants instead!"

Thunder boomed, and Will sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"Jenny," he said lowly, "that was probably the worst insult that anyone could ever insult the gods with. You have to give them some credit. They want to help their kids, but ancient laws restrict them from doing so."

"Or maybe it's just blatant favoritism! If they want to jump at any opportunity to help their kids, claiming them is a start. If that's one of the only things they can do, it's kinda hard to forget, right?"

Will looked at me in awe and fear. "I have never seen someone insult the gods lie that and live. But, well, nobody has ever dared to insult them like that, so, yeah."

"So I'm stuck here," I said, my anger receding. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," Will said, still looking up at the sky warily. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here?"

Will shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"My first reaction as well. Anyways, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So ... I'm guessing you're a year rounder if you haven't seen you mom in four years?"

Will nodded. From under the collar of his T-shirt he pulled a leather necklace with four clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Will's had one less bead, and also had a pendent on it—a small diamond. I decided not to question it.

"I've been here since I was eight, as I already told you," he said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college, except for Luke and Annabeth, of course."

"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time ..."

His voice trailed off. I could tell from his tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"

"That reminds me!" he cried, slapping a hand to his forehead. "I brought you here for further inspection, but I totally forgot! Is there any pain? Dizzyness? Nausea? Does it hurt when I poke here, or here, or here, or—"

"Will," I said loudly, grabbing his hand. "I can't answer you fast enough."

"Fair enough." He sighed, letting his hands fall, before his head snapped up again, looking at me excitedly.

"You've been out of camp until now, right? Is there anything you know about the summer solstice?"

"The... what? I'm so confused."

"Annabeth has been bugging me about it since, well, forever. I don't think I can take much more of it. Maybe, if you knew something, and I could tell her, it might get her off my case for a while."

"Well... not much. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. That's everything I know."

Will frowned, leaning forward. "I'm kind of worried, too. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But... how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor."

"I... thought that there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building," I said in confusion.

He laughed. "I did say special elevator to the six hundredth floor."

"Right. Continue."

"Right after we visited, the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, Annabeth was hoping ... I mean—Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But she thought that you two could work together. She thought you might've know something."

I shook my head. I wished I could help him, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

"Annabeth wants a quest more than anything," he explained, "but everybody thinks she too young. Personally, I think the freedom would be quite nice too, but," he shrugged, "I don't think I'm going to be able to experience it."

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Will must've heard my stomach growl. He told me to go on, he'd catch me later. I left him on the pier, tracing his finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't... I was just told my father was a god. I don't even believe in gods, to be honest."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. When you actually start believe though? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easy going guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Jenny. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day, except for maybe Will's kindness.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."

"That's what Will told me, but he never mention the... somebody special part."

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Will sat at table seven with a bunch of blonde kids, some wearing lab coats, others with empty quivers slung over their backs, and some just had medical equipment hanging from their belts. I hopes it wasn't because they brought it in case someone died from dinner. I don't know what I would do if there was an incident before where someone died from eating. Then not a single place here would be safe.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey blonde hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...

"Here you go, Jenny," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

I had a clue as to who I was suppose to day, but I didn't dare voice my thoughts out loud. Maybe I was wrong, but I would rather the other kids believe I'm undetermined than think I was a big-head who wanted an all-powerful father.

Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag, to my surprise.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

After thinking about it, I tossed in an apple for Hermes in thanks for letting me stay in his cabin.

Everybody returned to their seats and began eating their meals, me happily digging in as I had a whole three days, including today's, worth of food to make up.

"Aren't you eating a little too much?" Travis Stoll asked warily.

His brother Connor nodded.

I had learned that they weren't twins, but, at this point, they looked so similar that it didn't matter anyways. Travis was just taller than Connor, and both had taken an immediate liking to me after they found out I had doused Clarisse in toilet water. They told me that I was their hero. When I found out about their last names, I had cracked up, making a joke about them being the sons of Hermes and having the last name Stoll, but they just looked at me blankly, and, sighing, as I knew that explaining would take out all of the humor, I waved off possibly the best joke I've ever come up with in my life.

"I was out for two-and-a-half-days, Travis, Connor. I need to make it up. Calories might equal carbs, but, seriously, at this point, I don't care. That's Future Jenny's problem if she can't run away from a horde of monsters."

Connor looked a like he was about to smash my plate on the floor, but decided against it and turned so he was facing his plate again.

After everybody had finished their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Jean Johnson."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Jenny Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a singalong. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

I must love you guys or something to be updating again so quickly. That, and also the fact that I had more planned for this chapter than the last. And also that this is Thanksgiving break for me, and I'm going to do my best to get another two chapters up. Hey, you guys and I might get insanely lucky and and I'll manage to update everyday.

As to the person who told me that Jenny has too many of Percy's lines... I don't know how to answer that. Do you mean that I took too many lines from the book? I did mention I got lazy. Or did you mean that she's too much like Percy? She... is Percy. It's a fem!Percy fan fiction. Please, if I didn't answer your question well enough, ask again.

Thank you guys so much for the review! Yeah, being lazy isn't exactly amazing, but I really wanted to stick in chapter six.

As for the Will suggestion, I'm planning on it, but they're not that great friends yet. It's going to happen, most definitely, sometime in the later chapters, but wouldn't it be weird to you if like, someone you met that day just slung an arm around you? I'm building up to that moment though.

If there's anything you guys want added in the books, just tell me! I'll do my best. If you guys couldn't tell, the quest is going to be Jenny, Grover, and Will, but the scene at the waterpark is going to be hard to write out. If you guys have any suggestions as to what I should make Will afraid of, or even not afraid at all, please, tell me! I love having more time to plan stuff out.

Do you guys like Jenny? She's kinda a reflection of myself, except that I would never have a godly father, or go to Camp Half-Blood, and I'm glad. I wouldn't have to worry about dying before reaching the age of adulthood. I know she's not exactly like Percy, so if she's too dislikable, please tell me. I don't want to write a horrible person.

~usernamesarehardtochoose

P.S. WE'RE ALMOST AT 2,000 VIEWS GUYS! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! EVEN TO THOSE HATERS!