"Why is everyone lying to Percy?" Harry asked. He had been lied to all summer, and it hadn't felt good. It made him angry that people were doing the same to Percy.

Kingsley suggested, "Maybe it's for his own safety."

"Not knowing anything never helps," Harry stated. "It only makes people less prepared."

"I doubt Percy's going to be fighting anyway," Molly said. "After all, he's only a child."

Lisa frowned. "Mrs Weasley, Percy's not a normal child, and Harry, Kingsley's right. The less Percy knows, the safer he is. I sure wish people had kept the truth from me when I was his age."

"What truth?" Sirius asked.

"What do you mean Percy's not a normal child?" the twins asked.

"It'll say."

Hermione cleared her throat. "Who wants to read next?"

"I will," Remus volunteered.

Hermione handed him the book, and he began, "Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death."

"Wait- what?" Lisa asked, slightly panicking. 'Three old ladies? Could that be…?'

"That's what it says," Remus said.

"Keep reading, Lupin," Snape sneered. "I don't want to be here longer than absolutely necessary.

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucina-tion was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

"Freaky," Ron muttered.

Fred said cheerfully, "Well, at least she sounds much nicer than Mrs Dodds was!"

"Right you are, dear brother," George confirmed, grinning.

"Boys," Molly scolded, "this isn't a joking matter. It's not funny. Please continue, Remus."

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

"That would get annoying," Harry said. He hoped Grover wasn't in on it, because Grover had seemed like a good friend, but a good friend wouldn't be lying to him. That's not what friends did.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

"Grover!" Lisa groaned.

"What?" Harry asked. "Do you want Percy to stay confused? It isn't right that he's being lied to! He deserves to know what's going on!

"You don't get it," Lisa said. "Do you have any idea how much I wish people had lied to me? Wish people had kept me out of the loop for as long as possible?"

No one responded, still trying to figure out just what she was talking about.

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

Lisa shivered. 'Demigod dreams.'

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

"That's odd," Hermione remarked. She didn't know much about weather patterns in America, but it seemed that they were becoming irregular. More importantly, why were the weather patterns even being mentioned?

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Sirius grinned. "I knew I liked this kid."

"What are Ds and Fs?" Ron asked.

"They're grades," Hermione said. "In the muggle world, their letters don't stand for anything. A is the best, then B, then C, then D. There's no E, for some reason, and the worst you can get is an F."

"My grades were almost always Ds and Fs, maybe a C if I was lucky," Lisa said.

"Ms Black," McGonagall said, "I'm sure if you applied yourself a little-"

Lisa interrupted, "It's got nothing to do with applying myself! I have dyslexia, so I can't spell, and my ADHD makes it impossible to pay attention for very long. Then, I get in trouble for not sitting still, and it barely takes a week for teachers to just give up and decide that I'm not worth the effort."

No one had anything to say to that.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

Lisa snickered, "It means old drunk."

Sirius was glad to see his daughter back to her usual self after her sudden outburst, but he was still concerned. Was it really that bad for her?

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

Lisa scowled. She had never met Gabe, but she had heard stories, and she had seen him on the TV, too. Percy never specifically said what had happened to him, but she got the sense that it was something she would greatly approve of.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

"He sounds like an awesome teacher," Ginny said.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "How come we can't have a teacher like that?"

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I stud-ied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

"Why?" Hermione asked. "I mean, they're just myths. They didn't actually happen!"

Remus shrugged. "I'm sure it will be explained."

Meanwhile, Lisa bit back a sigh. It would be hard to convince Hermione. She was stubborn, and, as much as Lisa hated to admit it, her friend could be very narrow minded when introduced to new concepts. How McGonagall had managed to convince her of the existence of the Wizarding World, Lisa would never know.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw theCambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,

Lisa barked out a laugh, remembering their first encounter with Charon. Those days were so much easier, before the war really started and when they were perfectly ignorant of Luke's betrayal. The thought made her sad, but also a bit happy to know that there was a time before all of the prophecy mania.

or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

"I doubt he'd think that," Ginny said. "It seems pretty obvious that Percy's trying."

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."

Harry snapped, "What? So now Grover's talking about Percy behind his back? Some friend he is."

"Don't," Lisa said. "You don't understand what's going on. You don't understand how much danger Percy is in."

"If Percy's in danger, then shouldn't he know?" Ron asked.

Lisa shook her head. "This is a kind of danger that you can never completely escape from, the kind that keeps coming back. The best you can do is stay out of it for as long as possible."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

"It's still rude!" Molly said. "You shouldn't eavesdrop on conversations. They might say something you're not meant to hear."

I inched closer.

Molly tutted disapprovingly, but she said nothing.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"

"Know what?" Tonks asked.

"I'm sure we will find out if you would stop talking," Snape said, glaring.

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

Lisa snorted. "Fat chance of that happening."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line— "

"The what deadline?" Ron asked.

Hermione answered, "The summer solstice, the longest day of the year though I'm not quite sure what that means."

"Hermione doesn't know something?" Fred asked.

George shouted, "Take cover!"

Molly sighed, "Boys…"

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her..."

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"The mist?" Arthur asked. "What's the mist?"

Remus glanced at the next few lines. "It doesn't say."

"Sir, I... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

Lisa sighed. Now, Grover didn't blame himself, after much assurance from Thalia, Annabeth, and herself, but back then, he still thought what had happened was his fault, despite the fact that he had still saved three half-bloods, which was no small feat.

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"

"What could possibly be so adamant about attacking a twelve-year-old boy?" Molly asked. "Honestly, he shouldn't be getting involved in things like this, and neither should Grover, for that matter."

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

"No!" Fred and George cried. "Never give away your position!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, honestly. If they find him, maybe they'll explain, and we - along with Percy - will finally get some answers."

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

Fred nodded approvingly, and George said, "Good, good. Never leave any evidence."

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

Tonks sighed in relief. "That was close."

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

"Constant vigilance!" Mad-Eye barked, causing everyone to jump. They had forgotten he was there.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Same," Lisa muttered.

"What's the winter solstice?"

Hermione, once again, explained, "It's the opposite of the summer solstice, the shortest day of the year, though I'm not quite sure of the significance in this case."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

"I hope he confronts Grover about it," Harry said. "He shouldn't be left in the dark, regardless of the reason."

Lisa sighed. Harry didn't get what half-bloods went through (how could he?) or how much danger they were put in simply by knowing the truth. Not just the risk of more information leaks, but it also put the demigods themselves in even more danger than they were already in. Even if it was unlikely, they deserved at least a shot at a normal life.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just… tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression,

"Not going to help," Lisa muttered, gaining some confused glances in the process.

and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three hour Latin exam,

"Three hours?!" Fred, George, Lisa, Ron, and Ginny cried. Harry's eyes had gone wide, but Hermione rolled her eyes, like they were over-reacting.

"Honestly," she said, "it's not that bad."

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

Lisa grimaced. One thing that hadn't come with thousands of years worth of wisdom was, apparently, the ability to comfort a twelve-year-old.

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

Harry scowled. He had been bullied back in muggle school, and he hated bullies.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

"I don't think he's helping," Tonks stated.

"You think?" Remus asked jokingly.

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"

"I don't think this is going the way he planned," Sirius remarked.

Lisa nodded. "He's not the best at pep-talks, that's for sure."

Ron looked at her questioningly. "You know him?"

Lisa smiled softly. "He's my teacher."

"He's not a teacher at Hogwarts," Hermione stated.

"At my summer camp," Lisa said. "I'm sure it'll explain."

"Percy—"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a sum-mer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"He's twelve!" Molly exclaimed. "He shouldn't have to get a job!"

"Percy's family didn't have a lot of money," Lisa explained. "Plus, with Percy's old step-father… well, you'll see."

"Oh," said one of the guys. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

"Well, that's nice," Tonks said sarcastically.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Lisa snickered. "Bet that scared him."

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "What—what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the museum.

"No!" the twins cried. "Never confess!"

Molly gave them a sharp look, and the two sobered up immediately.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh… not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

"Oh… not much," Tonks mimicked, "just everything."

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

Lisa sighed fondly. "Oh, Goat Boy. Just quit now. You know you can't lie to save your life."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood
Keeper
Half-Blood Hill
Long Island, New York
(800)009-009

"What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um… summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

"Not a mansion." Lisa grinned. She missed camp, and her friends, and Chiron. She'd only come back a few days ago, and she loved the wizarding world and her friends there, but Camp Half-Blood was and always would be her home, just like the campers were her family.

"What is it, then?" Arthur asked.

"A summer camp. The best one in existence."

He nodded. "Or… or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

"That's horrible!" Molly exclaimed.

Lisa simply raised an eyebrow. "Would you like your answer alphabetically or chronologically?"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Grover's saved our asses more times than I can count, so, yes, we most certainly do need him," Lisa said, before adding, "Not to say that we haven't saved him just as many times, of course."

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

"I'm going to take a wild guess here and say it's nothing good," Ron said uneasily.

The twins grinned. "Right you are, dear brother—"

"—would you like a gold star?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Charming."

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine com-partment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from pass-ing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice .There were no cus-tomers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

Lisa stifled a gasp. 'The Fates.'

"Are they making socks for Hagrid?" Fred snickered.

George opened his mouth to respond, but Lisa cut him off, "It's not funny. This is serious!"

Sirius grinned. "No, I—"

Lisa glared. "Don't. It's not a laughing matter!" She turned to Remus. "Continue."

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

"Luke…" Lisa muttered. After the Titan War, Percy had mentioned it, but, with the Giant War and the Romans and everything else that came with it, she had completely forgotten. The string was Luke's, not Percy's. 'Thank the Gods.'

"What?" Ron asked.

Lisa shook her head. "Nothing. I just realized something."

"What?" he asked.

Lisa simply gestured for Remus to continue.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"What's up with him?" Tonks asked.

"Patience, Tonks," Sirius chided.

Tonks scoffed. "Like you're one to talk."

Remus glanced up. "Are you two done?"

Sirius grinned. "Sorry, Moony."

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they aren't looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What's so frightening about three old ladies?" Sirius asked no one.

"Patience, Sirius," Tonks said, smirking, causing Sirius to scowl at her.

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.

"What are Sasquatch and Godzilla?" Arthur asked.

"Muggle things," Lisa said dismissively. "I can tell you about 'em later, if you want."

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

Lisa scowled. "Now it works." She knew that it wasn't Percy's string, but it was still stressful, especially given that she had been friends, once upon a time.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Honestly, why are they so worried about those three old ladies?" Hermione asked.

Ron shrugged. "Maybe they're witches, and that string is connected to their magic or something."

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Mad-Eye grunted.

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like… Mrs Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"I think Grover should explain," Harry said. "Percy doesn't even understand what's going on!"

"The one in the middle took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.

Lisa closed her eyes and made the same gesture.

"What does it mean?" Sirius asked.

"It repels evil," Lisa explained.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He was chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What happened the last time?" Molly asked. How many children had gone through such experiences?

"Nothing good," Lisa said, looking down. "I'm sure they'll mention it. They have to, at least by the end of the second book."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

Lisa shook her head. "Right on the money, Percy. Right on the money."

"Who's going to die?" Tonks asked.

Lisa paused, choosing her words carefully. "An old friend."

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best at my coffin.