Well, I've still got no snow, but watch that stop me from singing! I still sing Christmas carols in July! So take that Mother Freaking Nature! Take that!

Disclaimer: Rick Riordan would not be mad about no snow. He'd be happy, for snow in Texas is not usually good.


7

Carol of the Drums

"Knock harder Aggie," Packrat said. Aggie knocked on the door of cabin 7 harder than she had before (which was equivalent to Travis giving the door a tap). The door creaked open to a confused looking Will Solace and Josh yelled 'GO!'

"Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Prospero Ano y Felicidad." They all sung.

"What are you guys doing?" Will asked.

"Caroling. Now shut up, it took us forever to master this song." Travis said as the 8 others went on with;
"Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Prospero Ano y Felicidad."

"Jen, are you listening to Justin Bieber again?" Someone yelled. "'Cause something sounds messed."

"I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!" They bellowed.

"That's not Bieber, Carmen, that's… I don't know." Will said.

"I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!"

"Carolling!" Connor yelled out. A few people came to the door just to check it out. Most people might find it ridiculous to be singing in Spanish and bobbing in front of a door. This was regular activity for them, except usually it wasn't in the cold.

"I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
From the bottom- of my heart!" The finished. Poppy and Max on either side spread out their arms like 'ta-dah!'

"You guys are totally off key," a blond girl with earphones around her neck said. Mariah jerked her head towards Aggie.

"Oh… I mean, off key like- off the awesome scale." The girl corrected. "Good job!"

"We're collecting money for the poor people." Aggie said. Travis frowned. Hun? Who gave her that line?

Then he noticed Connor smirking in the back. He smacked his brother behind the head.

"Umm, really? Wow, okay… Umm… Who's got change for..? Poor people…" Will said like a deer in the headlight.

A few people gave Aggie some change.

"She's little, I'll carry it." Connor offered. They didn't like it, but they dropped a mix of drachmas and cents in Connor's hand.

The pack of 9 was heading towards Cabin 9, skipping cabin 8 because the Hunters weren't even at Camp yet, while Connor counted coins.

"That's… 5, 82$ Aggie, good job!" Connor said. Travis smacked Connor again.

"This is a little kid thing, don't use it to make money!" He said.

"It's multitasking!" Connor said.

"You owe the food bank 5,82$." Travis repeated.

"Why would I do that?" Connor said.

"Because you have to be good," Aggie said. It was the most sincere thing a child of Hermes had ever said. "Because Santa is coming, but only to the good kids."

"There- because you have to be good," Travis said, making it sound like, 'beat that'.

"Aggie?" Mariah said. "I think that was a lot of money for the poor. We don't have to ask again, okay?"

Travis stepped on Connor's foot because he could say something.

"Okay," Aggie agreed. She took Travis' hand as they walked up to Cabin 9 and knocked on the door.

That was the only time when someone actually sung, and that was probably because Leo could actually speak Spanish.


Sticking to the god wing, they moved on to Cabin 12 after remembering that everyone from 11 was outside.

Pollux clapped for Aggie's benefit and actually joined them for the rest.

"I'm bored and alone and it sucks," he said, closing his door behind him. "So I stalk you."


Nico di Angelo was probably spending Christmas in a Russian sewer or the Underworld (Travis wasn't sure which one was better) so they skipped number 13.


They knocked for 10 minutes before figuring that nobody was going to come and answer the door of cabin 15, Hypnos.


After finishing the remaining cabins on the wing, they weaved their way through the maze of snow angels. One of them was glowing in the dark and Travis wasn't really sure why. They started at the end of the line, and knocked on Cabin 20, Hecate. It started off with a 'HIT THE DECK IF YOU LIKE YOUR HEADS!', and everyone liking their heads and hitting the deck, as a spell shot over them and zapped some poor night bird into fried chicken.

"What are you all doing here?" Lou Ellen asked peering at the children of Hermes (plus Pollux).

"Feliz Navidad," Aggie started.

"Feliz Navidad!" Everyone shouted out the second lyric.


The children of Iris in Cabin fourteen were clapping kindly and giving shout-outs. A girl called Maisie offered them hot chocolate which nobody could say no to (until they realised it was sugar-free low calorie hot chocolate and then dumped it in the snow).

At Cabin 10, Aphrodite, they were half-way through Feliz Navidad when they were all either gagging on the perfume or trying too hard not to laugh to sing when they stopped, except for Aggie, who kept singing Spanish on her own. The Aphrodite kids clapped for them.

"Good job," Piper congratulated them, giving Aggie a high-five.

"This is so cute," Lacy said.

"Can you do it again, and we'll find a camera? I'm betting a million hits on YouTube." Mitchell said. "Fame in under 12 minutes."

"Sorry folks- we've got other cabins to go see, and all that before 8:30 for junior's sake or Katie's gonna kill me." Travis said. They giggled again.

"You and Katie are so cute together." Lacy said.

"Yeah Travis, you and Katie are so cute together," Poppy said in a girly fashion. Travis shot her a look and they moved on to Cabin 6.


The kids there gave a nice response because they realised that there was only one reason that they were doing this and she was 3''2. So they just clapped and gave them the origins of the song used by settlers or something that Travis had just nodded and said 'ah' to.


Miranda Gardner opened the door for the night's last cabin, number four, Demeter.

They immediately huddled up at the door and listened with a smile. Katie must've told them about the whole carolling idea.

"Wow, that was great!" Katie said. "Come in for a second, it's still cold outside. We've got cookies and hot chocolate."

"The real kind, right? Not the 90% real cocoa bean and calorie reduced sugar-free junk, right?" Coco checked. Katie raised an eyebrow.

"We're the natural cabin- and that is not natural for hot chocolate." Katie said as Miranda and a kid called Daisy started handing out mugs.

"Thanks Kates," Travis said, standing with Katie in a corner of the warm and cozy cabin, his fingers unmelting at the mug's contact.

Cabin four was pretty rustic- with wooden paneling on the walls, a fireplace, wooden beds, and heavy, comfy sheets they only used in the cold. It smelt heavily of cloves and pine. But Travis had spent enough time in here to know that it was also a total flower house the rest of the year. The fireplace switched to a solarium, grass grew on the ground, the wall trellises were full of beautiful blossoms and healthy vines, and the sheets were thin and smelled like lavender. The cabin changed with the season, like the earth.

Thanks to numerous Travis-and-Katie-imposed times, the children of Demeter and Hermes had learnt to get along. Or at least not kill each other- which was really pretty good by demigod standards. Plus there was an unspoken yet solid strict no-violence-in-front-of-Aggie-yet rule throughout camp. So everything was going pretty smoothly right now.

"No problem," Katie said. "You should go carolling more often. You're cute when you're trying not to confuse a song with a parody."

"Oh ha, ha. And I did screw up at cabin 17."

"Really? What were you singing?"

Travis made a face.

"Let's just say it's a good thing that Aggie was concentrated on her own singing. The video I showed you when we were, like, eleven?"

Katie closed her eyes as if recalling an old trauma and shook her head.

"You're impossible," she said. Travis laughed.

"I can't believe you remember that!" Travis laughed. "Yes Katie!"

She gave him a smack on the arm. Travis laughed and she dropped her head on his shoulder.
"I love Christmas," she said. Travis kissed the top of her head.

"Nearly as much as I love you." He said. he heard the sound of cracking wood above him and looked up to see a bundle of green mistletoe.

"What can I say?" Katie said with a glint in her eyes. "We're the natural cabin."

"Three cheers for nature," Travis said, lowering his face towards hers.