Hey, guys! A quick update for you. Again, nothing too exciting, but I really just wanted a chapter about Percy in school, interacting with normal kids because I just can't imagine him as one of those guys who's only friend is his girlfriend... That's just not him.

So anyway, hope you like it. And hopefully the conversation is okay and stuff. I, a teenage girl, do not, probably will never, and will not pretend to understand how teenage boys work or how their conversations with each other sound, but I tried my best. I think it's enjoyable, at least. Hope you do too. :)

Percy

Goode's cafeteria at lunchtime was, in a word, chaotic. A few hundred kids shuffling around, meeting up with friends, carrying trays of food, and just generally making a lot of noise.

My friend, Nate, and I sat at one of the tables near the corner of the room, where it was less crowded and only slightly quieter. Nate was a senior, like me, with light brown hair and the kind of genuine smile that automatically made him seem like a nice guy. We'd become friends towards the end of freshmen year when we'd been assigned by our biology teacher to work together on this awful project on cell division. Neither of us had had any clue what we were doing, but we'd managed to scrape by and get a C on it. Obviously, as far as he knew, I was a totally normal guy with a totally normal life, and I'd moved across the country during winter break last year to live with distant relatives who had no internet connection, which, along with my not owning a cell phone, was the reason I hadn't been able to keep in touch.

We had a few classes together again this year, including Government, which we had a test in next period. Nate had his notes spread out before him on the table, next to a tray of questionable-looking school food he picked half-heartedly at while he crammed, having forgotten about the test the night before. "Which amendment was women's suffrage?" he asked, flipping through the pages, "Eighteen?"

"Nineteen," I answered automatically, watching him in amusement and also a bit of sympathy, "Eighteen was prohibition."

He looked up, dubious. "How do you- wait, never mind," he said, waving his hand dismissively as he turned back to his notes, "You're dating a genius. Almost forgot."

I laughed and gave a shrug he probably didn't see. He wasn't completely wrong, and honestly, watching him now, I was kind of grateful for it. Annabeth had spent an impressive amount of time over the past couple of days tutoring and quizzing me in order to ensure that I was ready for today. I was pretty sure I'd learned more about the Constitution and all its parts from her in two days than I had actually sitting in class for a week, but that was Annabeth for you.

"It has its advantages," I agreed. Really, Nate had no idea.

"You know," he said, looking away from the papers again to scoop some macaroni and cheese, which didn't look particularly appetizing, off his tray with his fork, "Out of the two of us, I used to be the one who got better grades."

I grinned. "A lot has changed since then." Again, no idea.

"Speaking of your genius girlfriend," Nate said, swallowing another mouthful of food, "Homecoming is in a few weeks. Are you taking her to the dance?"

"No," I answered, "Annabeth's not really the Homecoming dance type of girl. Why?"

He shrugged. "Just wondering. My mom asked me yesterday if I was going."

"Are you?"

"What, by myself? No."

I shrugged, taking a bite of my own food-a sandwich from home that my mom may or may not have made for me. "I'm sure you could find someone to go with you if you really wanted to go."

"Well, I don't. None of my friends are going or anything, so there's really no point."

I smirked. "Fine by me, man. You could come over my place instead. We can hang out."

"Won't Annabeth want to do something with you? I mean, she might not like dances, but Homecoming's still, like, some kind of required date night, isn't it?"

"Says who?" I asked.

"I don't know, common knowledge? Knowledge you, by the way, should probably acquire, being you're in a relationship and all."

I shook my head. "Annabeth's not like that. You know her."

"Well, not really. I only know her because she's your girlfriend, and even then, not that well."

"It's fine. Seriously. And anyway, she sees so much of me; I'm surprised she isn't sick of me already. She won't care. She probably won't even be home. She and my mom go out a lot. You can come over and we can play Call of Duty or something."

Nate raised his eyebrows, "Call of Duty? As in the video game you, for some reason beyond my comprehension, don't really like, even though you are killer at it? That Call of Duty?"

I picked up his pen off the table and threw it at him, smiling. "Shut up."

Nate dodged it easily, laughing. "Just checking." He opened his carton of milk and drank some before adding, "Careful though. I might take you up on that offer."

I grinned and he went back to reviewing his Government notes. I took a few more bites of my food before I spoke up again. "That looks disgusting, you know," I informed him, nodding at his tray of food that only vaguely resembled chicken tenders, mac n cheese, and a side of green beans. Big emphasis on 'vaguely.'

"Yeah," he replied absently, not looking up as he attempted to commit the Bill of Rights to memory, "It doesn't taste much better." I snorted, unscrewing the cap of my water bottle and taking a drink.

Nate's cram session only lasted another minute or so before he apparently lost patience, putting the paper down and pushing it to the side with a sigh. "Forget it. At this point, I either know the stuff or I don't. If I fail, I fail."

I studied him for a second, chewing on a bite of one of my mom's blue chocolate chip cookies, "You know, you could try studying," I told him, mock seriously, fighting to keep a straight face, "Like, at home. Before the day of the test."

Nate, trying-and failing-to look unamused, smirked. "Funny," he said, "You're really funny."

"I try."

A few tables over, a bunch of burly athletes sat together, sporting Goode sports jerseys. The kids there, half of them on their feet, exploded in loud laughter and cheering for no apparent reason. They reminded me a lot of the Ares cabin, though on a much less intimidating and even more stupid-looking scale. Nate looked over, along with most of the cafeteria, and stared for a second, looking unimpressed at the display as they continued to laugh and heckle each other, completely unaware of the attention they were drawing. He looked away, snorted, and shook his head.

I had to agree. For every time Annabeth made fun of me for being an idiot, I had absolutely nothing on those guys.

The kids were still being pretty obnoxious, but on a slightly quieter scale. Having lost interest in the free entertainment, Nate pulled out his phone and lit up the display, checking the time himself before he showed it to me. Lunch was just about over; the bell would be ringing soon. Nate slipped the phone back in his pocket and began getting his stuff together. He collected all of his notes and replaced them in their binder before standing up to throw his trash away. I followed suit.

"So," he said, sitting back down again, "Did I tell you about my mom's brilliant plan to throw Ellie a birthday party next weekend and have it at our house?" Ellie was Nate's niece, the daughter of his older sister. I'd met her once. She was a cutie. He continued unhappily, "So now I get to spend next Saturday chasing after a bunch of three year olds."

"I thought you liked Ellie," I said, just as the bell rang and we, along with everyone else in the room, got up and began making our way toward the cafeteria's exits.

"I do like Ellie," he defended, "She's adorable. But ten other kids her age, under one roof, all at the same time? My mom literally asked me to help. Even she expects them to be a handful."

"Then I guess it's a good thing you'll be there to help," I teased.

"No, see, this is where you're supposed to tell me that we already have plans that day or something so I can have an excuse to not have to be there."

"No way," I countered as we walked through the crowded halls, "Your mom and your niece totally come first, man." We turned into the hallway where my locker was so I could pick up the necessary books for Government, not already having them with me like Nate did. Annabeth was just closing the door of her own, having stopped to drop her Calculus stuff off before heading to lunch herself. She smiled at me as we walked past. "And anyway, I actually do have plans that day," I continued, "Just, unfortunately for you, with somebody else." We were heading to camp that day to visit, but Nate obviously couldn't know that.

"Gee," he replied sarcastically, "I wonder who they could possibly be with then."

I laughed and shook my head as we stopped at my own locker. Nate just rolled his eyes good-naturedly and leaned against the locker beside mine while I turned the combination. "I do have other friends aside from you, you know," I pointed out, pulling out the binder for class, "How do you know my plans aren't with them?"

"Are they?" he asked, amused, as I closed the locker again and relocked it.

They kind of were, actually, since we would be seeing some of them at camp when we went, but saying so could potentially lead to questions I couldn't answer, so I just played it safe and said, "Well, no."

Nate smirked, taking the win. "Exactly." We'd started walking again and were nearing Mrs. Hart's classroom, where she taught twelfth grade American Government sixth period. As we approached, his smile vanished, replaced by a look of dread. "God, I am so not ready for this test," he complained, "I'm gonna fail and my mom's gonna kill me."

"You'll be fine," I reassured him, hoping it was true. Nate was an average student, but his mom did get on him pretty badly if his grades slipped.

"Yeah…" He didn't sound particularly convinced.

We walked into the room, where about half the class was already there, some milling around, talking and laughing with each other, while most had their notebooks open and were studiously scrutinizing their notes before class started. "Hey, good luck," I told Nate before heading toward my assigned seat on the other side of the room from his-Mrs. Hart was the only teacher I had this year who still assigned seats.

"Thanks," he said, rather glumly, heading toward his own.

I figured we had maybe thirty seconds before the bell rang but I sat down and opened up to my own notes anyway, to skim through them myself. Annabeth had rubbed off on me, possibly worse than she knew, but it was probably a good thing. My mom, at least, was ecstatic at the B's I was now able to bring home in some subjects, and I figured that in itself was a good enough reason to keep it up.

And I might have been a bit happy about it myself too.

Thanks for reading!