Author's Note: And we are finally here! Chapter fifty, half of a hundred. This is amazing, I never thought when I first started fanfiction that I would get this far with so much support. Thanks to everyone who supported me for all these chapter and months. Also, I encourage all of you to read chapter thirty-five. It has the least number of views out of all my chapters. Also, I do not wish to offend anyone with things that I make up in this chapter. Everything about the Maori people is made up by me. It is not made to offend anyone who might be one of them. That's all I have to say. Let's continue on.
Disclaimer: I really shouldn't have to say this fifty times. But I'll remind you again. I'll credit goes to Rick Riordan, whom I base my work off of.
Koati's Point of view
I hate this. At the moment, I hate my life. This curse, it, it makes me feel, so, so helpless. Helpless should not be a word to describe me. I'm a daughter of Athena, first ever princess from the Hauora tribe. The tribe of brains, whose patron is Atua Mohio. Atua Mohio was the goddess of wisdom and war. She was sort of like the Maori version of Athena. Anyway, helpless is not a word to describe me. In fact, I'm independent and can survive by myself. I proved that, seeing as I abandoned CHB and survived on my own when the tribe was destroyed.
Casus glanced at me, as if he could read my thoughts. I hate this too, he signed. You have it worse. I agreed with what he said, nodding my head. I hated this, he hated this, anyone seriously affected hated this. There was nothing else you could say about it. The curse was terrible.
For the first half of science, the four of us got by, being completely ignored. Then, a couple of kids wanted to mix things up. "Ms. Doctrina?" Aivota called. Ms. Doctrina turned away from the board and faced her.
"Aivota, next time, please raise your hand and wait till I'm finished. But since I have already been interrupted, could you tell me what you want." Ms. Doctrina directed this at her, with a sweet smile and high pitched voice. She sounded like she was talking to a baby. Either way, she did a great job of insulting Aivota.
Under his breath, Percy muttered, "That was amazing. She dished out an amazing insult to Aivota, without even making it sound like an insult. Ms. Doctrina is amazing." I shot a gesture meaning 'I agree' at him. The rest of our group did the same, all agreeing with what Percy said. Aivota deserved it.
"You seem to be ignoring Percy, Grover, Casus, and Koati," she observed, sending a sly smirk in our direction. "Since they were out, shouldn't you make sure to include them in order to be certain that they understand the material. It feels like you are favoriting them. That isn't good teaching." Wow, she was really laying it on thick. Aivota had been raised to be in charge of a company since birth, so how she was able to do that made perfect sense. She was raised that way, and her parents attempted to change me into that way as well. It failed, miserably.
"I'm afraid it isn't your job to point that out, Ms. Rahat. They seem to be doing perfectly fine, all of them are taking notes. Grover is even taking notes on what I am saying now." I stole a glance at Grover. His eyes were glazed and he wasn't paying attention. He just continued to move his pencil across the page, in order to make the illusion that he is doing work. That is reasonable though, seeing that he has most likely heard this lecture about five times before. "Would you like me to ask them a question though?" Aivota looked horrified, not thinking that she would be put on the spot like that. Quickly though, she composed herself.
"Yes, thank you for taking my opinions into account," she answered, giving the teacher a big smile, attempting to look like a perfect angel. To me, all she looked like was a spoiled brat. The second Ms. Doctrina looked away from her, she sneered at the four of us, as if we ruined her plans.
"Now, Koati, what is three parts of a plant cell that is not in an animal cell?" Ms. Doctrina asked, smirking. Aivota glared at us, knowing that I knew the answer.
I signed at Percy the answer. Now, hopefully, Ms. Doctrina had a good excuse for why Casus and I couldn't talk and Percy would have to translate. "Koati tells me that she believes that plant cells have cell walls, a large central vacuole an, chloroplasts, while animals do not." Good, he answered correctly, though he paraphrased my answer a bit. It was fine though, he got the main points across.
"Why did Percy answer for Koati?" Aivota asked, smirking. She probably thought she had cornered us here. I think Ms. Doctrina had prepared for this though. If not, Percy was good at lying. He could do it, if she was not prepared.
"Aivota, that is a little personal," she scolded. "Now, if all of you must know, Koati and Casus are both not able to speak at the moment. But, both them and Percy know sign language, so he will be translating for them until they get better." A couple of kids began to pull out their phones. "All of you, put your phones back, you should not even have them. I would like this not to get on the rumor mill for as long as possible. If I could, I would like to have you sign forms that make it so you can not tell others. Alas, I am not allowed to do that." She did very well with that, I think that Ms. Doctrina would be a good addition to our side. Actually, I think she already allied with us, while not officially, and against the bullies, such as Aivota. "Now, I would like to continue my lesson on cells. Also, as you all know, we hadn't learned that yet. So, we really should not be questioning their intelligence." She turned back to the board, ignoring the raising hands. "So, we continue on..."
Ms. Doctrina droned on for the rest of the period, occasionally asking questions. She made a point to distribute the questions equally among the table, attempting to avoid the chance of someone accusing her of being unfair again. That could get her kicked out, especially if the person was rich and their family was paying a lot. Sadly, the school was very capitalist, leading to there being favoritism and special treatment to those whose parent paid a lot of money. Thankfully, everything worked out and there were no interruptions for the rest of the class. No one ever spoke up about Percy translating. In truth, sometimes we would give him the answers when he was called on, in order to establish our authority among the students, not wanting them to think any of us were dumb. Grover and Pupa could do it by themselves. Percy, on the other hand, was always ignored and never taught anything due to his dyslexia. So the two of us helped him.
Now that I'm thinking about this, we have problems. Nancy, Ala, Aivota, Ritchi, and Barske all are rich and have a lot of influence in the school. Percy was a charity case, he and his mom could barely pay, even with financial aid. The school didn't care about him, only the publicity they could get if they "fixed" him. Grover and Casus both paid the minimum amount, no donations or anything. Grover paid a tiny bit less than Casus. The school wouldn't care about Grover but might care a little about Casus since his aunt works here. I have the same advantages as Aivota, seeing that I live with her. Then again, Aivota's parents are likely to side with her over me, so that could bring me down to Percy's level. Pupa's dad and stepmom both like her and have a lot of money. The school might want to keep her around, more than any of the rest of us. In the end, we are likely to lose in a battle of debate and money. The bullies have an advantage.
The bell rang and we were off towards social studies. While Mrs. Sphera was soft spoken and didn't teach much, she still was a pretty good teacher. Also, we can meet up with Pupa again in class.
