Chapter 7: Tour of New York
On Saturday morning, Frank woke up with a cold, wet nose in his ear. He shot up from his place on the floor immediately and tried to reorient himself to his surroundings. emOh, right. /emhe thought, emI'm in Percy's apartment./em Then he tried to figure out what exactly had woken him up. Nearby was Percy's dog, Mrs. O'Leary licking Nico's face while Nico tried to get her off him.
"Stop it, Mrs. O'Leary! I'm all ready up, so get off!"
Someone started chuckling from the entrance of the living room. Frank turned to see Percy grinning at his cousin. "Aw, come on Neeks, you know you love it when she does that. Besides, you're her favorite." he said, smirking.
"No I'm not! Animals hate me! Your crazy mut is no exception! Now get her off me before I tell Thals that you're the one who broke her guitar last year!"
Percy paled. "You wouldn't."
"Try me and let's see." came the retort.
Frank had no idea why Percy's cousin would still be upset about something that happened a year ago but decided not to ask. That girl terrified him and he didn't want to know about anything that might make her mad. Evidently Percy felt the same way, because he pulled Mrs. O'Leary off of Nico and held her at bay as the younger boy got up and headed to the kitchen to get himself breakfast.
"And I replaced it, so stop using that as blackmail! It's not fair!" Percy complained before turning to Frank. "Morning, Frank. Hope you had a good night's sleep. Sorry if Mrs. O'Leary woke you up, she thinks it's her job to get people up in the morning."
"Yeah she did, but I probably should of got up anyway. Where is everyone?" he asked.
"They're all in the kitchen getting breakfast. You want anything?"
"Yeah, thanks."
The two went into the kitchen and Frank was immediately assaulted by a fork flying through the air straight at his head. Percy caught it before Frank could react, sending it straight back at the person who had originally thrown it. She caught it and sighed gloomily.
"Someday I'm going to throw something at you and you won't catch it. Because, damnit Jackson, that's annoying." Thalia complained.
Frank looked at Percy, startled. How had he even caught that?! Percy seemed completely unfazed though, as did everyone else.
"You'd better hope Sally didn't hear you say that, Thals. You know how much she dislikes swearing." Nico said, not even looking up from his bowl of cornflakes.
Jason saw Frank's confused expression and decided to explain. "Thalia and Percy have a kind of competition where she throws something and he catches it. None of us really know how it started and they won't tell."
Not sure that that actually explained anything, but deciding to let it go since nothing about Percy or his friends really made sense, he looked around. Paul and Sally both still seemed to be in bed but everyone else was seated around the table eating various foods for their breakfasts. Nico and Hazel were both eating cornflakes, Annabeth was eating a bagel while reading a book, Jason was buttering a stack of freshly fried pancakes, and Thalia was stabbing at her own stack of pancakes, looking annoyed. Percy sniggered at her, getting his own plate of them and sitting down next to Annabeth. Frank got himself some cornflakes before sitting next to Hazel, as far away from Thalia as he could manage. He didn't want her stabbing him with that fork.
Percy munched away happily at his food, ignoring the glares sent his way, and grinning happily at his girlfriend. Occasionally, Frank saw him slipping bits of pancake to Mrs. O'Leary under the table.
Jason finished his pancakes and decided to break the cheerful silence that seemed to fill the kitchen. "So, what are you guys all doing today?" he asked.
"Me and Annabeth are going to Montauk and bringing Thals with us for 'adult supervision'." Percy said cheerfully, making airquotes around the words 'adult supervision'. "Is Luke coming with us?" he asked looking at Thalia.
"Yeah. As soon as he's done grading papers he'll meet us there."
"I take it his new job is doing well." Annabeth said, finally looking up from her book.
"Yup. It's doing great. For some reason he really likes teaching. Why though I have no idea."
"Well, he's always been good at it, and unlike you, he actually likes kids." Percy said, just to annoy her more.
Thalia scowed at him, which just caused his smirk to widen further.
"Who's Luke?" Frank asked, hoping Thalia wouldn't turn her glare on him instead. Luckily Nico answered him while Thalia turned her attention back to her food.
"He's Thalia's fiancé. He teaches history at Newberry Middleschool in Brooklyn."
For the first time, Frank noticed a slim band of gold with diamond on Thalia's ring finger. It looked expensive.
At the mention of her fiancé, Thalia smiled and stopped stabbing at her food.
"What about you, Nico? What are you doing today?" Jason asked.
"Dad wants me to help him with the company. Apparently, some of the workers are demanding a pay raise, without earning it, and the security system needs updating. You?"
"The same. I wanted to go on a date with Piper, but he said I could have all day with her tomorrow."
"Makes you wish you were emancipated like me, doesn't it, little brother?" Thalia said.
"No. It just makes me treasure my free time all the more."
Thalia shook her head at him as e turned to Hazel. "You doing anything today, Hazel?"
"Well, I haven't planned anything, but-"
"So you can show Frank around, right? No one's given you thee official tour yet have they?" Percy interrupted her with glee.
"No, but it's fine. I can find my way around."
"Nope! You need the official tour! It's tradition! So, can you do it Hazel?"
"Yeah, sure. There was a store I wanted to check out anyway."
"Great! Now that that's settled, we have to get going." Annabeth said.
The teenagers all cleaned up the kitchen and gathered up their suff while Thalia sat and threw random things at Percy, all of which he caught.
Sally and Paul came downstairs and said goodbye to everyone as the prepared to leave. Jason and Nico went first, Nico sending a glare at Frank that said 'Hurt her and die.' Then Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia left after stealing a large bag of blue cookies from behind Sally's back. Finally, Frank and Hazel left after thanking the Blofises for having them over. They stopped at Hazel's house first (it was more of a mansion) so that she could get changed and then she began showing him around. She took him to all of her favorite places, including the skating rink and the park, and then took him through all the tourist stops. Finally at dinner time, she showed him her favorite restaurant, the Smoked Pepper Grill. They went in and ordered their food before waiting in companionable silence. Then Frank decided to ask something that had been bothering him for a while.
"Hey, Hazel? Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"Kayla tod me that pretty much everyone in the group is troubled. Sorry if that sounded offensive! I didn't mean it like that!"
"No, it's okay. I get what you're saying. You want to know how it works. I know that we can be really confusing, I didn't understand how it worked at first either."
"Yeah. So can you explain it?" asked an extremely relieved Frank. He'd thought she would get upset.
"I'll try. It still confuses me even now, despite knowing the guys for almost a year. Well, I guess it works because we're all so strange and confusing. We're all kind of social outcasts despite having pretty much exactly what it takes to be popular. We're all rich to some extent, most of us have dyslexia or ADHD, and we all only really have one parent. Normally we'd just be the kids everyone ignores, but then Percy comes along and suddenly we're all like one big, happy, kind of disfunctional family. It wouldn't work without Percy, that much I can tell you for sure. People just... gravitate to him. He makes friends and he never leaves them behind. He's always looking out for everyone. As a matter of fact, from what I heard, that's the only reason he was ever unpopular before. He'd find the kids he thought could use some help and stick by them no matter what."
"Okay, that makes sense because of how the school bullies act around him. But how do you guys all know him anyway? You said you'd be the ones people ignored, so how does he find you?"
"Well, I'm not really sure. None of us really know how exactly he finds us, he just... does. It's strange, but that's how it works. For instance, Annabeth. You wouldn't think that she has a lot of problems would you? But he met her one summer and kept bothering her until she gave in and told him what was wrong. As it turned out, she ran away from home when she was seven because of her stepmother and brothers, she only met her birth mother when she was ten, and she still didn't get along well with anyone in her family. It was the same year he met his biological father and he convinced her that he could give his dad a second chance, so could she. And she did. She gets along a lot better with them now and Percy and Annabeth became friends."
"When did they start dating, anyway? Jason said they've been dating for over a year, but that's not the full story is it?"
"Yeah, but I don't really know all that much about it. It has something to do with Thalia and Luke, I know that, but if you really want to know you need to ask them yourself. It's not really my place to say."
"Thanks for helping me understand it all better."
She smiled and nodded. "Any other questions you need answered?"
"Yeah. What's Montauk? Is it some kind of park near here that I've never heard of or something?"
"No. It's a beach." seeing his extremely confused face she hurried to explain. "It's really pretty there in winter and there's a cabin. Percy loves the place so he and Annabeth go there all the time. It's not like they'll be staying for the night or going swimming or anything, they'll just spend a nice romantic day at the beach with Thalia and Luke. They'll probably light a bonfire and roast marshmallows and things."
" Oh. That actually sounds like fun."
"It is. Every year we go up there for a beach party for Percy's birthday and it's great." she assured him.
Their food arrived and they spent the rest of the meal talking about their favorite foods and movies they'd seen that year. Afterwards Hazel went home and so did Frank. All in all he'd had a great day.
