Chapter 9:

Percy, Thalia and I walked back to the Big House just as a whole bunch of other campers showed up. Annabeth was already there, directing traffic, but then she spotted Percy. She ran up to him and they started making out.

"Gross, guys, Jeeze, get a room." Thalia said.

"THALIA!" Annabeth exclaimed excitedly, and gave her a big hug. Then she turned to me.

"Who is this?" She asked, curiously

"This…is… kind of a long story." Percy said. I grinned, and he smiled back. Annabeth narrowed her eyes, and I knew what she was thinking.

"Why don't we go over to the eating area and I'll explain everything." Percy said, slipping his hand into Annabeth's. Her eyes softened.

"Okay." She replied with a sigh, and we walked over and sat at the Poseidon table. Thunder rumbled as we all sat down. Percy rolled his eyes and I made a face.

Percy began his explanation. "So, I arrived here pretty early so I could hang out with Grover and talk to Chiron about the prophecy. Then Grover started acting really weird." "Weirder than normal?" Thalia teased "Hey!" Grover said defensively

"Oh shut up. Continue, please, Percy." Annabeth ordered

"So anyway. Grover was acting weird and said he had to get over to the Big House. He told me to stay put and ran to the Big House. He was there for about 5 or so minutes and I started getting curious. And impatient. So I went over to the Big House and heard voices coming from the meeting room. So I opened the door and walked in just in time to hear Payton say "I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about if he will love me after I tell him I'm his twin and his parents lied to him his whole life." After that, she told me the whole story and ran out of the room. I followed her to the beach and we talked and now everything is hunky-dory." Percy finished.

"Wow. So you guys are twins?" Annabeth asked

"Seems like it." Percy said

"My name's Payton, by the way." I introduced. "

"Well, you already know that I'm Annabeth." She said, actually smiling for real now.

"Well this is great I'm glad everything got settled out." Grover exclaimed hurriedly, for a bunch of his satyrs just arrived with more campers. "I have to go; I'll see you guys at dinner."

We said our goodbyes and Grover went over to the newest arrivals to give directions.

"Well, I think I should go settle in. I really want to unpack." I said, and stood up. " I'll come with." Thalia said

"I'll see you at dinner." Percy replied, and he and Annabeth got up. "Want to go down to the beach?" He asked

"Sure. Sounds great. I'll race you!" Annabeth replied, and started to run.

"Hey, not fair! Head start!" Percy called after her, and ran away

"Let's go. You can show me where my cabin is." I said, and Thalia put her arm around me. "Hey, do they know about you yet? I mean…not being a Hunter?" I asked curiously

"I think Grover knows. He's good at sensing that sort of stuff. Which means Percy and Annabeth will know soon." She said

"Okay" I replied "As long as I'm not the only one who knows. Not that I wouldn't keep your secret, but it would just…be sort of hard."

"I understand completely, considering that's how I felt about you." She said "Ah…here it is…the cabin of Poseidon."

"Wow! This is so cool!" I exclaimed, walking inside. Inside, we also found Tyson, sitting on his bed, building some sort of metal thing or another.

"Hey Tyson, big guy" Thalia said, patting his back.

"THALIA!" Tyson said excitedly, giving her a huge hug.

"Tyson…Tyson, ribs. Ouch. Ribs…" Thalia said

Tyson let go. "Who's that?" he asked

"Tyson, this is your half sister Payton. Payton is Percy's twin sister." Thalia explained gently

"Sister!" Tyson exclaimed excitedly, and rushed over to give me a big, bone-crushing hug. Finally, he let go.

"Yeah…" I said awkwardly.

"Sister take this bed" he said, pointing to one of the empty bunks in the cabin.

"Okay." I agreed, and I put all of my bags down on the bed.

"Well, Tyson, it was really nice meeting you. I'm going to go sort some things out with Chiron, but I'll see you at dinner, okay?" I said.

"Okay." Tyson replied, and we left the cabin.

"So what did you think?" Thalia asked, throwing her arm over my shoulder

"He seems pretty cool. It's interesting that he's a Cyclops." I commented, as we walked around

"Well, let me show you my cabin." Thalia said

Zeus's cabin was pretty neat. It smelled like the sky, like a storm was coming or something. I secretly liked mine better, but that's just because I'm a child of Poseidon.

We hung out in Thalia's cabin for the rest of the afternoon, because she was an only child. We talked a lot about Percy and Annabeth, and I came to the conclusion that as long as Percy was happy, I was pretty much okay with it. Plus Annabeth seemed pretty cool anyway, or at least once you got her off of my brother.

All of a sudden, we heard the conch signal that it was time for dinner. Percy rounded me and Tyson up and we marched over the Dining Hall. Thalia just walked over by herself. As usual, there was the long line of Herme's kids. I rolled my eyes, thinking about Uncle Hermes and his inability to resist mortal women.

Chiron pounded his hoof on the table to silence us. He raised his goblet and shouted "To the Gods!"

"To the Gods!" We all chorused. Then, we went up with our plates to the fire and scrapped of some food into it. When it was my turn, I thought "Thanks, dad. Thanks for letting me come. And thanks for letting things work out between me and Percy. I love you." I felt the breeze of sea air blow through and knew that my dad was with me.

Percy, Tyson and I sat at our table and ate dinner. Percy kept looking longingly over at the Athena table, at Annabeth. There were some tables that had only one kid at it, like Zeus's table, and Hade's table, with just Thalia and some kid named Nico who had helped save camp. Tyson just ate his dinner. I was also staring intently at the Athena table, but obviously not at Annabeth. There was a boy at that table who was really, really hot and I just couldn't look away. But I forced myself to look away to make faces at Thalia, who I knew would get suspicious if she saw me staring at the guy.

After dinner, Thalia and I walked around for a while. I really wanted to ask her who the guy was, but I just couldn't get the courage to. After a while, Thalia and I came to the sword-fighting arena. We lay down flat on our backs on the floor just to talk.

"So. What do you think of being in the mortal world so far?" she asked, running her fingers through my hair.

"Well, I like camp. But considering it's a camp for half bloods, I can't really say I've been in the mortal world, at least not really." I said.

"See any guys that you might like?" she asked

"How the heck did you know?" I asked, not even bothering to deny it. With Thalia, there were no secrets.

"Aw… so did you?" she asked impatiently

"Well, there was one guy at the Athena table who looked promising.

"The really, really hot one?" She asked

"Yeah." I said

"If I'm right, I believe you are talking about Malcolm." She explained "I could introduce you if you wanted." She said smiling

"No…not yet. I need to figure out my feelings first. I also want to take it slow when it comes to guys." I replied

"Well, if it makes you feel better, he attends school with Percy." She said

"Oh…well I guess that's comforting. Sort of." I replied

"Cool." She said

We stayed there talking until bedtime. Then we walked over to the cabins and said goodnight, departing into our separate cabins.

I changed into my Camp Half-Blood T-shirt and shorts and, saying goodnight to Percy and Tyson, fell asleep. It was the best night's sleep I'd had in a long time.

A/N: Wow, that was a long chapter. Hope you enjoyed it! I really like writing it. Oh, and I know Malcolm probably really doesn't go to Percy's school, but I just made it that way. Please REVIEW!!