My Dinner Gets Burnt

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO, Rick Riordon does. I don't own anything.

The bathroom incident spread across camp immediately; wherever I went, people pointed to me and muttered something about toilet water, or maybe they were pointing to Anthony, who was still soaked.

Anthony showed me a couple of other places: the metal shop (where kids forged their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (some satyrs were sandblasting a huge marble statue of some goat-man), and a climbing wall. The climbing wall involved of two opposite walls that shook violently, released boulders, squirted lava, and clashed together if you didn't make it to the top quick enough.

At last, we returned to the canoeing lake, where the path directed back to the cabins.

"I got training to do," Anthony said flatly. "Dinner is at seven thirty; follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Hey, Anthony, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

He looked at me doubtful. Okay, so maybe it was my fault. I didn't know that would happen. I didn't know how I did that. It was weird, the toilets answered to me. I had become one with the plumbing. Gross.

"You need to talk with the Oracle," Anthony said.

"Who?"

"No who. What."

"What?"

"The Oracle's a what. I'll ask Chiron."

I stared into the lake. Why can't someone give me a straight answer for once?

I wasn't expecting anyone to look back at me from the bottom of the lake (Who does?), so I was surprised when I saw two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier. They had blue jeans, gleaming 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 was their long lost friend.

I had no idea what to do, so I waved back.

"That's weird, naiads usually don't wave to girls," Anthony observed.

"Naiads," I repeated, completely overwhelmed. I took a deep breath, but it didn't help. "Okay, that's it. I want to go home."

Anthony frowned, "Don't you get it, Pelagia? You are home; this is the only safe place on Earth for kids like us."

"Mentally disturbed kids?"

"No, I mean not human. Well, not fully human anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"You know."

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

"God," I replied. "Half-human…and half-god."

Anthony nodded, "Your father isn't dead, Pelagia, he's one of the Olympians."

"That's insane!"

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

"But those are just—" I wanted to say myths, but I remembered Chiron's warning about me being a myth two thousand years into the future. "But if all these kids are half-gods—"

"Demigods," Anthony interrupted, "that's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"—Who's your dad?"

Anthony's grip on the railing tightened so much that his knuckles turned white. Uh-oh, sensitive subject.

"My father is a professor at West Point," he replied. "I haven't seen him since I was little. He teaches American history."

"Oh, so who's your mom?"

"Cabin six."

"I don't know the cabins. That's who?"

Anthony straightened, "Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle."

Okay, why not?

"And my dad?"

"Undetermined," Anthony answered, "like I said before, nobody knows who your father is."

"Except my mom, she knew."

"Maybe she didn't, Pelagia. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would, he loved her."

Anthony looked at me cautiously, like he didn't want to burst my bubble. He softened a bit, "Maybe your right. He might send a sign. That's the only way you'll know for sure; if your father sends a sign."

"Might? You mean sometimes it doesn't happen?"

Anthony ran his hand along the railing, "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and…well…sometimes they don't care about us. They ignore us, Pelagia."

My mind wandered to some of the kids in the Hermes cabin, sullen and depressed, waiting for a sign that would never come. There were some kids I met like that at Yancy Academy, shipped off to boarding school because rich parents didn't have the time to deal with them. But these were the gods, they should behave better.

"So…I'm stuck here?" I asked. "For the rest of my life?"

"Depends," Anthony replied. "If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're likely not to be a real powerful force. The monsters might overlook you, so you could come here for the summer for a few months of training and then live in the mortal world for the rest of the year. But some of us, it's too perilous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us, and then challenge us. They usually leave you alone until you're ten or eleven, old enough to cause trouble. After that, though, most demigods make it here, or die along the way. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you their names, you'd know them. Some might not even realize they're demigods, but very, very few are like that."

"Oh, so monsters can't get in here?"

Anthony shook his head, "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or someone summoned one."

"Why would someone summon a monster?"

"Practice fights or pranks."

"Pranks?"

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep monsters and mortals out. When a mortal looks at the valley from the outside of the borders, they see nothing unusual, just a strawberry field."

"Oh. So…you're a year-rounder?"

Anthony nodded, "Yep." He pulled out a leather necklace from under his shirt; the necklace had five different colored beads, just like Lucy's, but there was also a gold ring on it.

"Been here since I was seven," 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 counselors, and they're all in collage."

"Why'd you come so young?"

Anthony spun the ring on his necklace, "Mind your own business!"

"Oh, sorry." We stood in an uncomfortable silence. "So, I can just walk out here right now if I wanted to?"

"That would be suicide, but you could, with Chiron or Mr. D's permission. But, they wouldn't give permission until summer ends…unless…"

"Unless what?"

"You were granted a quest, but that rarely happens. Last time…"

His voice trailed off, and I could guess from his tone, last time didn't end well.

"Back in the sick room," I said. "When you were giving me that stuff—"

"Ambrosia."

"Yeah—you questioned me something about the summer solstice."

Anthony tensed, "So you do know something?"

"Well, no, but back at my old school, I heard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned something about a deadline, and they didn't have enough time. What did they mean?"

Anthony ran his hand though his hair and sighed exasperatedly, "I wish I knew. Chiron and satyrs know, but they won't tell me. Something's wrong on Olympus, and something major. Last time I've been there, everything seemed so normal."

"Whoa! You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders—Lucy, Clark, a few others, and I—have been. We took a field there for the winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"How'd you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, obviously. You get off at Penn Station, to the Empire State Building, and take the special elevator to the six hundredth floor." He looked at me like he was sure I should know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Yeah," I replied. There were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, though.

"Right after I visited," Anthony continued. "The weather had gotten weird, like some of the gods were fighting. I overheard the satyrs talking a couple of times, saying something about an object being stolen, a really major object, and if it wasn't returned by the Summer Solstice, there was going to be issues. When you came…I mean—Athena can get along with about everybody, except for Ares and, of course, she has an old rivalry with Poseidon. Aside from that, however, I thought maybe we can work together. Thought you might know something?"

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

"I've got to get a quest," Anthony muttered to himself. "I'm not too young!"

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Anthony might've heard my stomach growl, or maybe that was his; I wasn't sure, because he told me to head back to the Hermes Cabin. I left him on the pier, drawing on his palm as if he was making a battle plan.

Back at the Hermes Cabin, everyone was chatting and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I realized several of the campers had similar features; sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, and mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids teachers would peg as mischief-makers. Luckily, nobody paid me any real attention as I walked over to my place on the floor and put down my shoe box.

Lucy, the counselor, came over. She had the family resemblance, too. It was tainted by the scar on her right cheek, but her smile was undamaged.

"I found you a sleeping bag," she said. "And, here, I stole you some toiletries."

I doubted she was kidding about the stealing part.

"Thanks," I replied.

"No prob," Lucy replied. She sat down next to me, her back against the wall, "Rough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't believe in gods."

"Yeah," she said. "That's how most of us started. And once you start believing it doesn't get any better."

The bitterness in her voice surprised me; she seemed like a pretty nice person. She looked like she could handle anything.

"So," I said, "your dad's Hermes?"

Lucy pulled a switchblade out of her pocket and, for a moment, I thought she was going to hurt me, but she just started filing her nails with it, "Yep, Hermes."

"The winged-footed messenger dude?"

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

I figured Lucy didn't mean to call me a nobody; she just had a lot on her mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked her.

"Once."

I waited, if she wanted to tell me, she would. Apparently, she didn't. I pondered if the story had anything to do if how she got her scar.

Lucy looked up and managed a smile, "Don't worry about it, Pelagia. The campers here, they're mostly good people. We're extended family, after all. Right? We take care of each other."

She seemed to fathom how lost I felt. I was thankful for that, because an older kid like her—even if she was a counselor—should've stayed clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. She had even stolen me some toiletries, which was the kindest thing anyone had done for me all day.

After a mental debate, I decided to ask her my big question, the one that has been unsettling and consuming my thoughts all day, "Clark, from the Ares cabin, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. And then—twice—Anthony said I might be 'the one' and I should talk to the Oracle…what was all that about?"

Lucy folded her knife, "I hate prophecies."

"Why? What do you mean?'

She, probably subconsciously, ran a finger along her scar, "We can just say that I kind of messed things up for everybody. Ever since my trip to the Garden of Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed anymore quests. Anthony's wanted to get out into the world so badly. He even pestered Chiron so much that Chiron said he already knew Anthony's fate. Anthony had to wait until somebody…somebody special came to camp."

"Somebody special?"

"Look, don't worry about it, kid," Lucy said. "Anthony likes to think every new kid that comes to camp is that person. Now, come on, it's dinner time."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. A conch horn. Though I wasn't sure how I knew it, I've never heard a conch horn before.

The whole cabin of us, about twenty of us, filed into the common 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 cabins at the end and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun set.

We went up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined from the meadow, naiads arose from the lake. A few other girls came from the woods. And when I say woods, I mean woods. I saw a girl about nine or ten melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

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

At the pavilion, torches shined around marble columns. A central fire burned with a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, with white cloth trimmed in purple, but four of the tables were empty. This wasn't the case for cabin eleven's table; it was way overcrowded; I had to squeeze on the edge of the bench, hanging half off.

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

Anthony sat at table six with a bunch of other serious looking athletic kids, all with the same grey eyes and honey-blond hair.

Clark sat behind me at Ares' table. He had, apparently, gotten over being doused in toilet water because he laughing and belching along with his friends.

At last, Chiron pounded his hoof along the marble floor and everybody fell silent. He then raised his glass, "To the gods!"

Everybody raised their glasses, "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food. There were grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue.

I looked at my glass, it was empty, but Lucy said to me, "Tell it what you want. Whatever you want. But, of course, non-alcoholic."

I followed her advice, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled itself with sparkling, caramel colored liquid.

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

The soda turned a violet shade of cobalt.

I took a sip. Perfect.

To my mom, who isn't gone. Well, not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld and if that's a real place, the someday…

"Here you go, Pelagia," Lucy said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

"Thanks," I replied. I loaded my plate and was about to take a bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates towards the fire at the center of the pavilion. Were they going for dessert?

"Come on," Lucy told me.

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

"Burnt offerings for the gods," Lucy muttered to me. "They like the smell."

"You're joking."

Her look warned me not to take this lightly, but why would an immortal, all powerful god like the smell of burnt food?

Lucy approached the fire, bowed her head, and tossed in a cluster of fat grapes, "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew which god's name to say, but I didn't.

Finally, I made a silent plead. Whoever you are, please tell me.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the fire.

When I caught the scent of the smoke, I didn't gag, as I expected.

It didn't smell like burning food, it smelt like hot chocolate, fresh baked brownies, wildflowers, hamburgers on a grill, and a hundred of other goods stuff that shouldn't have gone well together, but they did. I could almost believe the gods could live off of that smoke.

When everybody had returned towards their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof on the ground again.

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

A bunch of loud, ugly cheering resounded from the Ares table.

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

Chiron muttered something.

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

Everybody cheered a head towards the amphitheater, where the Apollo Cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about gods, ate s'mores, and joked around. The funny thing was, I didn't feel as if people we're staring at me anymore. I felt I was at home.

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

With my hand on my shoe box for safe keeping, I thought about my mom. But the good things. Her smile, the bedtime story she would read me as a little girl, when she would say, "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

When I closed my eyes, I fell immediately asleep.

That's was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I had known how briefly I would enjoy my new home.

Oh my gods, I am so sorry; I haven't updated in forever. Siriusly, I apologize. My laptop had been taken away from me. Well, enough of my babbling, though I am sorry.

I hoped you liked the chapter! The next will be up sooner.

-Fae51