Hell no!

Chapter 25. Art Class (Nico)

We, being Katie, Piper, Will and me, walked towards the art classroom after lunch.

''Hey, can I sit with you guy in arts?'' Will asked, ''Much more interesting than those girls I sat with last week, who were mostly just talking about themselves and girl stuff.''

''Sure!'' Piper answered for us, me not knowing what to say and Katie a little embarrassed for earlier forgetting he is in our art class. ''But weren't you sitting with Calypso? She's not that bad, she's very nice. I once talked with her for half an hour and all she wanted to talk about was plants and how you could use plants to heal people.'' Now Katie was interested.

''Really?'' she asked Piper with curiosity. ''Calypso? She doesn't strike me as a girl who likes to work in the garden. But looks don't say everything…'' I can remember her. She had been at our place a couple of times, I think.

''Yeah, look at Pipes, you'd never say she –'' I jokingly started.

''Shut up, Nico!'' Piper said quickly, elbowing me. I jumped to the side a little. We laughed at that comment. We know how Piper doesn't like to talk about her father and that she got most of her looks, except her skin tone and hair colour, got from her mother. Will just looked confused at us, which made us laugh even harder. His confused look is quite cute… Wait, what?

In art class the four of us sat in the back. Miss A. walked in and she told us she'd given one 9 in the entire class, and that she was proud of all of us, but that everyone else had a 8 or 7 (The school gives grades in out of 10. Wow, useful, right?). She also said some people had a comment with their drawing and then started handing them back and I saw I had the only 9 of the entire class. I was stunned, I've never had the highest mark for anything in my entire life, except for running at gym, but I'm not counting that. I then saw Miss A.'s comment on the grade note, which stunned me even more, if that was possible. This is a beautiful drawing, with very much emotion. You can draw really realistic, Nico, and I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I saw that the others were getting interested in my drawing, but they couldn't see. Then Piper jerked it out of my hands and looked at it. She looked at it dumbfounded, and then Katie, who sat on the other side of the table, right across from Piper, took my drawing and looked at it with Will, who was sitting next to her, across from me.

''Wow, Nico, you… you can draw really well!'' Katie said. I didn't know how to react to that complement.

''So you can now start with this exercise, class!'' Miss A. loudly. Oops, we weren't paying attention. I saw Will raised his hand and Miss A. nodded that he could speak.

''Miss, could you tell us again what the exercise is, we weren't paying attention, sorry.'' he said.

''What were you doing then?'' she asked us, while the entire class was now watching us with interest.

''Uhm,'' Piper said, looking at me. I nodded at her, that she could tell. ''We were looking at Nico's drawing, Miss.''

''Ah, yes. Would you care to share?'' I got red and stood up and walked to the front of the class. I held up my drawing of Bianca and showed the class.

''Uhm, they were looking at the drawing I made of my sister Bianca.'' I said. Calypso, who sat in the front, and had been on good terms with Bianca, sometimes working on projects with her, spoke up.

''That's a really good drawing, Nico. It's just like that picture of the two of you she had on her phone. She showed me one time when we were working on a Science project. She told me you were the best at drawing, but I thought she was just exaggerating, being a proud big sister, though now I see she wasn't exaggerating one bit. Geez!'' I got red again.

''Thanks Calypso,'' I muttered to her. The girl next to her, looked closely at the drawing, then at me. It was giving me the creeps.

''Never knew her that well, but she was always nice to everyone.'' she said. Her name is Miranda, if I'm correct. But her comment got the attention from the rest of the class. They looked at me weirdly and I didn't really like it. Then a guy in the back raised his hand.

''Yes, Lee, what do you want to say?'' Miss A. asked. Lee, well, he didn't go to my school, so he doesn't know…

''What does Miranda mean with 'she was always nice'?''

''My-my sister,'' I stuttered, ''Bianca d-died a couple of weeks a-ago.'' I took a deep breath.

''Oh, sorry, dude. I didn't know. If I had, I wouldn't have asked.'' Lee said. I quickly sat back down next to Piper, who nodded at me to encourage me. Then Miss A. came to us and told us the exercise.

''You have to sketch a portrait of the person in front of you. So you, Piper, sketch Katie and vice versa, and Nico sketches Will and vice versa. If you need help, just call me over, okay?'' We nodded at her and she started walking around through the class. I started sketching Will, which was quite hard, seeing as he couldn't sit still for even a single second. I have no idea how he can even concentrate enough to draw. So I sketched him by what I'd seen already, what was in my head. That fortunately made it easier and I closed my eyes quite a lot to remember, without having to look at the moving guy in front of me. I was nearly finished with my sketch of Will from memory, when I looked up.

''Hey, switch? I show you my sketch, you show me yours?'' I asked Will. He nodded and we switched sketches. The sketch he was making was me sitting with my sketchbook in front of me with my eyes closed.

''Why are you sitting with your eyes closed all the time, Nico?'' he asked.

''Partially photographic memory, and you were moving too much, I couldn't draw you when you keep moving all the time.'' I said.

''Oh…'' I gave him back his sketch and he gave me back mine. ''That must be handy, because I can't remember shit at any time, which kinda sucks.'' The bell rang and we started packing our stuff.

''Yeah, it's pretty useful. It can also suck though.''

''What do you… oh…'' then realisation hit him. The shooting. I remember every single detail of that day, and those details come back very accurately in my nightmares. I quickly changed the subject.

''So, need stuff from your locker before going to your home?'' I asked. He shook his head. I got to my locker and he followed me. I switched my books and looked up at him. Why was he staring? O well.

''So which bus?''

''Oh, yeah, sorry, forgot. You can take Percy's place by the way, he has swim practise.'' Will said. ''Jason will be with us in the bus though.'' At that Annabeth and Piper giggled. Wow girls, need to make your crushes any more obvious? Me and Will walked out of the school. We got in one of the busses and Will walked to the back, where Jason was sitting. I just followed him and sat down next to him. Then I got out my phone to text mom.

Me: Mom, I'll be at Will's this afternoon, working on our English project about JFK. No need to worry, be back before 9. :*)

Mom: Okay, but be back well before nine.

Me: Yes mom, I'll be home early…

I scrolled through some chats and saw that I had a couple of messages in the group with the girls. The two next to me were talking about Piper and not paying me much attention. Wow Jason, very subtle, talking about Piper in front of me!

Annabeth: Hey Neeks, what was that at lunch?

Piper: Yeah, you and Hazel mad each other?

Me: Yes, I'm mad at Hazel. No, I'm not going to tell you guys everything. It's about yesterday.

Annabeth: Oh, OK, got it.

Me: By the way, Pipes, I'm in the bus with Will and Jason and Jason is rather obviously talking about you. As in: 'I want to ask her out but I don't know how'…

Piper: OMG, really? U think hes going to ask me out?

Annabeth: Yes, we all think that, and it's quite obvious he likes you. I heard from Katie that he hasn't had a girlfriend because he hasn't found anyone he really likes, like, like a lot!

Me: Yeah, I thought something like that. When Lou said they never had girlfriends, I thought that they might be waiting for a girl they really like instead of just some girl.

Piper: OMG OMG OMG!

Me: Sorry, bus stopped, need to get out. Text you guys later!

Piper: And we want the details!

Little sis: Me too!

Me: Sure Pipes!

I ignored Hazel again. We left the bus and went to Will's house, where his mother was baking cookies.

AN: Sorry for the late update, my laptop was 'updating and reviewing' everything, which took over 24 hours. WHY?!

And to the Guest that came with all those idea's, though about of their parents making up, that's exactely what I had in mind. Those other ideas are great! Thank you so much. I will include some new things, how about I do an extra curricular activity or something that gets Will to play the guitar (I do too, I love playing the guitar).

I also got a random idea when I was in town a couple of days before when I was doing groceries for mom. More of the annoying person being Drew Tanaka!

So what do you guys think about my new ideas? And more ideas are still welcome. I like it if you guys give me good ideas, they help with the writers block and just the writing in general.

AN2: Corrected: done!