A/N: Hiya! Sorry this has taken so shamefully long. I've had a lot of stuff confusing me and literally no inspiration for writing for the past near month – it's been a little bit unpleasant. However, I'm back!
As a note: I have no idea how the Camp Half Blood kitchens work. So I'm making this up as I go along, considering that all the information we have gotten in regards to the food at CHBwere just Percy's thoughts about the meals. We've never seen the preparation or even how the food really works. So, I'm going to play around with things. Hope no one minds!
I love you all so much, and I appreciate every review SO incredible much. THANK YOU.
Waking up on Saturday morning was stressful to say the least. I'd set my watch alarm clock to an hour before the rest of the camp had to wake up. Seven in the morning was not a pleasant time for me.
I stumbled out of bed and clumsily pulled on whatever clothing I could reach and headed to the kitchens, where I met Percy.
"Food ready?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. He pulled me to him and gave me a quick hug.
"Yep," he responded. "Looks like the kitchens are planning on doing various kinds of cereal. And toast. And I think it's doing eggs? Do you have any idea how this works?"
I shook my head. "I figured you'd know."
"You've been here longer than me," he said, nudging me with his elbow. "You're miss 'I need to know everything' so I expected you to have found out ages ago."
"Fine," I said with a laugh, "touché."
"I mean, I'm assuming Chiron left us with what we needed."
"He probably just figured the kitchen would work on its own, right?"
"Right. He probably just knew that all that was taken care of."
I winced. "You have no idea what's happening either, do you."
He sighed and leaned against the table. "No idea."
I stood next to him. "You'd think he would have given us at least a little bit more information before leaving us in charge of about a million adolescents. Alas, we are not given this benefit."
"You speak weirdly," said Percy into the top of my hair. "It's like you were born in another time."
"Or, you know," I said, stepping away from him and rolling my eyes deliberately, "it's like I'm the daughter of the Greek goddess of wisdom and therefore I'm just naturally of higher intelligence."
"That too, nerd."
We finished making sure that there was enough food for breakfast set up to – hopefully – be put on the table, and then walked outside.
"Everyone!" I called through the megaphone. "Wakey time! Breakfast in half an hour! And, um…Good morning!"
Percy raised his eyebrow.
"Hey, I gather that I should at least try to be nice. Think about it: if we're the nice ones then we'll get the kids on our side instead of Nico, Rachel, Leo and Piper's."
Breakfast, a little surprisingly, went by without a hitch. The Scheming Four, on the other hand, were huddled together discussing something or another, which worried Percy and I.
"What are they doing?" I muttered. "Should we be worried?"
Percy shook his head and took my hand. "Nah, it'll be fine. Come with me."
He took me to the dock where we first kissed, and then off to the side behind some trees, our usual special place to go when we want to avoid all the hullabaloo of camp.
"I'm a little bit disappointed," whispered Percy into my hair. "We were supposed to get at least a little bit of alone time this year."
"I know," I said, planting a light kiss to the side of his jaw. "But we can get little tiny moments like this every once in a while."
I leaned away from him to see a soft smile on his lips. "Yeah," he murmured, leaning his chin in my hair, "yeah, this is really –"
"IT'S THE LOVEBIRDS!" screamed Piper from the other side of the tree. "GET THEM!"
"I WILL PEE ON EVERYTHING YOU LOVE," I shrieked as Piper and Leo doused me with water and chucked…What even was that? Not important.
"I'M GOING TO THROW ALL OF YOU INTO HADES," I yelled, chasing after them. Percy was hot on my heels, and we were gaining on the two of them,
Unfortunately, we forgot who they had on their side. Nico used his powers over the earth to cause the ground to bubble up underneath our feet, causing us to trip and land on our faces. The four other teens seemed to run away cackling as I rolled onto my feet and extended my hand to help Percy up. On a second thought, I withdrew it as I stared in horror at what he was covered in
"What'd they just throw on you?" I asked Percy.
He wrinkled his nose. "Tyson would be happy."
"They didn't."
"They did."
"You are covered in peanut butter!"
"I am covered in peanut butter."
Percy stood up and shoved some of it off of his shirt. "It's like…Oh, god, I think they mixed it with milk to make it runnier."
I screwed up my face in disgust, and Percy laughed. "You're cute when you make that face."
I ignored him. "But why didn't they just use water?"
"Son of the sea god," Percy said nonchalantly. "Probably they thought it would have made it impossible for it to get to me."
"Is that true? Anything with water you have control over?"
Percy snorted. "Yeah, right. If that was the case I'd pretty much be able to control people. No, it's usually just pure water or bodies of water. If it's mixed with something else it kind of doesn't work. Like I can't control jelly or applesauce or things like that."
I laughed. "You've tried?"
He shrugged and began waddling towards the Poseidon cabin. "I wanted to see if I could make weird things happen to people's food."
"THAT'S why you were staring at my pudding that day you visited my school in junior year!"
He shrugged and shot me his signature "ain't I a riot" grin. "Guilty as charged."
"That's actually really good to know, Perce," said a voice from somewhere above us. I looked straight up to see Leo perched in the branches of the tree above us, grinning down. "Now we really know what to do next."
"What are you – LEO I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
"Why would you drop a peanut butter balloon on me?" I yelled. "I'm affected by water!"
"It's fun to see you angry!"
Percy and I just glared at him as he sprinted away laughing.
"I'm going to kill Rachel."
"I'm going to kill Nico."
"What'd Nico do?"
"Filled the swimming pool with jello."
I raised my eyebrows. "Wow," I said, mildly impressed. "That's actually really creative."
"I know. And now, since it isn't really water anymore, I have minimal control over it."
"All it does is jiggle threateningly in your prescence, doesn't it."
Percy shot me a glare as I grinned. "Okay, come on, you don't have to tease me about it."
I gave him a campy smile. "Just don't stare too hard at the jello pool."
"I won't. What did Rachel do?"
I folded my arms over my chest and glared at the fiery red hair in the distance. "Ginger snap over there decided to replace all the arrows in archery with straws."
"With straw? Like hay?"
I shook my head. "No. Like, actual straws. That you drink from. She must have gone to Burger King and gotten Piper to sweet talk the manager into giving her upwards of four hundred of them."
"Did you cancel archery?"
I sighed. "I had no choice. We have a full Saturday with nearly half of the typical activities out of commission since Chiron told us the climbing wall was out of bounds until he got back."
"Hey, King and Queen of camp!" said Nico with a smirk as he sauntered over to us.
"Put a sock in it, jello boy," I muttered. "I've got enough to handle without you mocking me."
"Mocking you?" said Rachel, coming up behind him. "Whoever would do such a thing?"
"I hate both of you," grumbled Percy. "I really honestly do."
Rachel and Nico were looking mighty cozy now that they had a cause they could both stand against on the same side. "Hey, what can we say," said Rachel, throwing an arm around Nico. He didn't even flinch. "we're just a few steps ahead of the game."
"Yeah right. We've got this pretty much under control."
"Oh have you?" said Rachel, tapping her finger on her chin. "Tell me, Annabeth, what were you thinking of doing for lunch?"
I thought back to what else had been in the kitchen when Percy and I had been in there earlier"Oh, just – oh crap."
"It seems the peanut butter y and the jello has been used!" She placed her hands over her cheeks, looking rather like Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone, in fake surprise.
"Oh no!" said Piper, pretending to swoon. Leo caught her.
"What on earth will you do!"
"Doesn't the table, I don't know…" I looked over at Percy for some help. "It…It just…Makes the food, right?"
"No, of course not. The food is stored, then used. You now have only jelly, bread, water and applesauce for lunch. For shame."
I narrowed my eyes at them. "You realize this screws you four over too, right? You guys have no food to eat either."
The look they all exchanged worried me. "Oh, Annabeth, of course we have food. We saved some for ourselves."
Percy and I exchanged a look.
"Do we kill them NOW?" I exclaimed.
Percy shook his head. "No, we'll…we'll figure something out. Ish. Hopefully."
The four other kids laughed hysterically. "Sure you will. Sureeee you will," said Piper. "Hey, doesn't it seem like it's getting dark out?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.
"Oh look – it's about to rain."
Percy stared at them. "And what's that to us?"
"It looks like all the cabin doors are sealed shut with, oh, what was it, Nico?"
"Silly putty," he responded.
If I ever got a moment to breathe, I would force feed them all toads.
