***********************PEOPLE, PEOPLE!!!! VERY IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE, READ PLEASE!!! I DECIDED TO CHANGE MEGAN TO A DAUGHTER OF HERMES!!!! NOW SHE IS A DAUGHTER OF HERMES!!!!
Also, in the voting, keeping the characters won.
BUT I'M PUTTING MY SPECIAL SPIN ON THINGS! FOR THE FIRST PART OF THIS CHAPTER, THEY WILL ALL BE HERE. BUT THEN WHAT…? READ TO FIND OUT!!!!!!*******************
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Or Cheetos. Or McDonald's. Heck, I don't even own an RV.
"One more time!"
"99 bottles of pop on the wall, 99 bottles of pop, take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall…"
I groaned and banged my head against the dashboard in time to the song. For the tenth (literally) time, Nico and Grover—N n' G bros, I mean—had started their horrible rendition of 99 bottles of beer on the wall. A while back in Missouri, Nico and Grover had formed a group and decided to sing 99 bottles—a 'child safe' version. Meaning they changed 'beer' to 'pop'.
"WILL YOU GUYS SHUT THE FRICK UP?" yelled Megan from the backseat.
"Probably not anytime this century," I muttered. Megan caught it and smiled. Annabeth was in the shower and Juniper was cooking breakfast. After all, she did help make the meals at camp, so she and I would take turns.
"Grover, turn onto that exit," I said, staring into Annabeth's laptop. I was on Yahoo Maps, and I was telling Grover how to get to this one old building with a parking lot.
Last night we found an abandoned psychiatric hospital with a very wide, open, and empty parking lot. We parked the car/RV (A/N From now on, I'll refer to it as the car ) across three parking spots.
***
"How do we sleep tonight?" I asked.
"Hmm…there are six of us and four beds. I say Percy sleeps on the floor, Juniper, Annabeth, and Grover each take a bed, and Megan and I share," said Nico wickedly. Megan whacked him.
"No. No, Nico. No."
"I don't wanna sleep on the floor," I whined, completely missing the point. Everyone laughed.
In the end, Nico and I slept on the floor, and the others took the beds.
***
"Percy, where do I go now?" questioned Grover.
"Ummm, take a left. Yeah. Now go right, and we should be…here!" Grover cut the engine. All four of us stepped out of the car and walked into the trailer.
Juniper and Annabeth were laughing. "…and then he ate the apple! The entire thing, core, stem, and all!" Annabeth said.
"You're kidding! He really ate the whole thing?" Juniper asked. Annabeth nodded and they exploded into laughter again.
"Are you guys talking about me?" teased Grover.
Annabeth and Juniper looked at each other and said in unison, "Yes."
Grover looked hurt. "Hey!"
"I was telling Juniper about the time Percy, you and I were playing Hacky Sack, and you ate the apple."
Before they started yelling at each other, I died. (no, sorry, I meant DECIDED) to intervene. "What's for breakfast?" I asked.
"Froot Loops," said Juniper.
"That's the gourmet meal you promised?" I asked.
"Yes. Be glad it's not, like, frog legs."
"Fine, fine, but you're cooking lunch to make up for this," I said.
"No, you said that we'd eat at McDonalds for lunch today," objected Annabeth.
"When did I say we're gonna eat a McDonald's?" I yelled.
"Now."
"That is so old."
"It still works, and you know it."
"Percy, go shower," interrupted Grover.
"Unless you guys don't want hot water, sure," I said.
***
"What are we gonna have for dinner?"
Everybody started talking at once.
"I ain't cooking."
"I say we have pizza."
"Enchiladas!"
"I'll cook if you don't want to."
"I can cook, ask Annabeth!"
"I swear I didn't put anything in the food!"
Eventually, we had Cheetos. They were pretty good, too.
***
Eventually, we all got ready. By that time it was 11:00.
"Hey, can everybody come over here?" I asked. Nobody listened. Juniper and Megan were on the computer, designing clothes or something. Annabeth was watching the news, and Nico and Grover were wrestling about a Mexican man with a dog named Fred (don't even ask, I don't know either).
"WILL YOU ALL GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE!?" I yelled.
Well, that got their attention.
"What, Percy?" Annabeth asked in this tone she gets when she's seriously mad.
"We need to get to the West Coast in four days," I said. And that started the pandemonium all over again.
"SHUT UP!!" My throat was killing me. "Will you guys listen? We don't know where we're going. We need to IM Chiron and ask him for advice."
"Before we do that, we need to eat," said Annabeth. "Let me drive now."
"How old are you?" Juniper asked.
"I'm fifteen, why?"
"No reason."
"Come on. I'll take us to some fast food restaurant."
***
"Annabeth," I said.
"What?"
"Speed up!"
Nico, Megan, Grover, and Juniper were in the RV, and I was in the passenger seat of the car, giving Annabeth directions.
"Turn left. Turn left. ANNABETH, TURN LEFT!!!" She swerved to the left at the last second, making me fall into the little ditch thing between the dashboard and seat.
"What the Hades?" I yelled.
"Serves you right," she grinned.
***
Thanks to her madcap driving, we got to a 30 mile away McDonalds in about five minutes.
All of us walked into the store. An old-ish lady was standing behind the counter.
"Yes, dears, what would you like?" she asked. We gave her our orders, pushed together a couple of tables, and sat down.
"We need to IM Chiron or Dr. Heale," I said.
"Here? We can't Iris Message here," said Megan.
"No," I admitted, "but as soon as we're done eating."
"Children, your food is ready," called the lady. I pushed my chair back, but Annabeth put her hand on my arm, holding me back.
"Why isn't there anybody else here?" she asked quietly. We all looked around. Annabeth was right. There was nobody else in the restaurant.
"You don't think that…" I never finished my sentence, mainly because the nice lady behind the counter became a dracaena.
"So, Percy Jackson, we meet again, yes?" she cackled evilly.
"Why is it that monsters always hang out in places with good food?" I muttered. And then I dove.
The dracaena pulled out two wicked, sharp hunting knives, similar to the ones the Hunters had. They weren't the same, though; these looked like they could carve through steel as easily as butter.
I saw Megan and Annabeth run behind the monster. Nico came up from the left, Juniper (carrying a wooden, splintered piece of the door) sneaked from the right, and Grover and I faced the dracaena. Really, though, it wasn't such a big deal. A dracaena—
Just then the door to the kitchen fell over and five others stormed out. One monster we could take. But six? It was doubtful.
"Grover, we need to split up. You, Megan, and Juniper take the first one. Nico, you and Annabeth take the second," I whispered. Nico, Megan, Juniper, and Grover nodded and did as I asked. Annabeth stayed.
"Which one are you going to take?" asked Annabeth. I gave her a grim smile in response. "You'll take the rest of them? That's insane!" she hissed.
"Go!" I said, and before she could argue, ugly number three approached her. She raised her dagger and charged.
I spun around and charged monster number four. This one was pretty dumb. She just stood there. I slashed and she disappeared.
I could see the rest of the battle. Nico and Grover were fighting the first monster, Megan was fighting number two—wait, she just disintegrated that one, and helped Juniper with number five. Annabeth was still parrying with number three, so I decided to take number six.
Now here was a smart monster. She started pushing back with her knives, never letting me get on the offensive. I fought back using my best tricks, but it wasn't going all that well. I needed to spend more time practicing. Just then, I found a chink in her armor—she left her neck unguarded for a minute. I reached up and swiped.
Everyone else was done as well. During the battle, we'd gotten into the kitchen and the stove had gotten knocked over. Fire was running up the walls and the fire alarm was beeping at the top of its nonexistent lungs.
"We need to get out of here before this place explodes!" Megan yelled.
"Why would it explode?" I asked.
"Vlacas," Annabeth insulted me in Greek. "Look!" She pointed at the floor, where the fire was spreading quickly towards the gas oven and stove.
I cussed under my breath. Why do these things always happen to me? "Come on!" I said. "Let's go!"
***
In a few minutes, we were all inside the car. Well, we were in the trailer part. Nico and Grover were stretched across the beds (non-Crusty version), Juniper was sitting on a chair, and Annabeth and Megan were on the floor. I was standing right in front of the door. Before anybody said anything, the air directly in front of me started shimmering; an Iris-Message.
Chiron's face appeared in the mist. And he did not look happy at all. "Percy. Are Nico, Megan, and Juniper there?" he asked.
Megan caught my eye and started motioning wildly with her hands, signaling 'no!'
"Uh, no?" I said weakly. It came out sounding like a question.
"Percy."
"Fine." I walked over to Nico and the rest of them so Chiron could see them, too.
"Nico. Juniper. Megan. What are you doing out of Camp?" Chiron asked. He looked pretty mad.
Nico was about to say something, but Megan interrupted him. "Aphrodite sent us."
All of a sudden, the IM split into two, and we could see Aphrodite filing her nails, like some sort of conference IM. Apparently Chiron could see her too.
"Lady Aphrodite, why did you send these three there?" he asked.
"Oh, just to make things interesting," she sang.
"Well, the ancient laws—" Chiron started. Aphrodite cut him off.
"Oh, blah blah blah. I could care less." Thunder shook the room she was in.
"Lady Aphrodite, you need to send at least two of these children home!" said Chiron.
Aphrodite pouted. "Do I have to?" Chiron didn't say anything. "Fine," she muttered, like a sulky little kid. "You heroes, you decide amongst yourselves who will stay and who will go." And with that, she slashed through the mist.
Chiron sighed. "You all heard her. When you've decided who is going to come and who is going to stay, IM and tell Aphrodite. I'm assuming she'll transport them home." He ran his hand through the mist, and he was gone, too.
***
"So."
"I'll go," said Juniper. "It's not like I do anything to help, anyway," she said sarcastically, but her voice quivered. I guess she didn't want to leave Grover.
"No. I'll go," said Grover. "You're the heroes. I'm the goat."
A whole round of "I'll leaves" sounded. Annabeth kept getting more and more annoyed, I could tell. She kept scrunching up her nose.
"Wait!" she yelled. "Let's just flip a coin. We'll all get into sets of two, and then whoever wins will stay. I'm going to stay no matter what; this quest is for me. I'm not going—"
I interrupted her. "I'm not leaving either. This is my quest, I can't just walk off."
Eventually they decided on the coin flipping idea. I fished a nickel out of my pocket. "Here." I handed it to the first set: Megan and Juniper.
Megan said, "Tails." Juniper nodded and they flipped the coin. Juniper caught it.
"Heads," she said. Megan nodded, and said, "Guess that means I'm not on the quest anymore."
I moved onto Nico and Grover.
Grover said, "Heads." I handed the coin to Nico, and he flipped it. I shot my hand out and caught it this time.
"Heads," I showed it to them both. Nico nodded and said, "Okay. We should IM Aphrodite now."
***
When we IM'd Aphrodite, she was brushing her hair. "Yes?"
"We've decided," I announced.
"Alright. Who's staying?"
"Grover, Juniper, Annabeth, and I," I said. Aphrodite nodded.
"Close your eyes, all of you," she said. We did that. I felt heat and saw bright yellow light through my eyelids. When I opened them, Nico and Megan were gone.
"Well, there you go," said Aphrodite. "But before you start again on your quest, I can aid you in one other way. I can tell you where you need to go, or I can tell you what Vuretole is. Which one would you like to know?"
"Where we need to go," said Annabeth. I would have said vuretole, but I was sure Annabeth had some reason for saying what she did.
"Okay, you need to go to a city named Florence in Washington," Aphrodite said. "Must dash, dears, I have a…um…appointment! Good luck on your quest!" she exclaimed. With that, she was gone.
Well, I overcame my Writer's Block. Finally! BTW, Accident is close to being completed! I'm thinking maybe two more chapters! But it would be really awesome if this story could reach 200 reviews by then! *hint hint*
Thanks!
~Anne Blythe (virtual cookies to whoever figures it out first!)
P.S. Hint about the name: Classic Canadian!
