Robar23- You sort of get your wish in this chapter;).
The Lightning Thief: Chapter 5: Avery is the supreme lord of the bathroom
Sunday, May 8th, 2005
Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had walked back around the porch and back inside. When we had the tour, I was going to be careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front. Inside, Argus was helping Avery sit up in bed. Chiron clopped over, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"My dear girl, how are you feeling?."
"My head still hurts a little, but I'm feeling a lot better than I was." Avery got up from the bed with Chiron's help, and the two started conversing in something that didn't even sound like English. While they talked, I studied Avery. She showed no sign of almost being choked to death, and now that I was able to get a better look, Avery seemed about my age. She was maybe a few inches taller and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and dark hair, she seemed... foreign almost.
Then there were her eyes. They were startling green, like emeralds; pretty, but intimidating too. When she locked eyes with me, they were analyzing, like she was sorting out the best way to take me down in a fight. She glanced at the shoebox in my hand, then back at me.
"Thanks for uh... saving me." The words seemed forced though, as if me saving her had offended her somehow. I bit back a retort and held out the box for her to take.
"Don't mention it. I thought you'd want this." I thought she was going to grab it, but her eyebrows scrunched up.
"It's not mine to take. You killed it; you get to keep the horn." Chiron picked up on my confusion.
"Grayson, when a hero fells creatures of the Underworld, occasionally an aspect is left behind... a trophy for the hero." I stared down at the horn, my brain working on overdrive.
"The horn is yours to do with as you like. Avery, if you think you're well enough, my dear, could you go check on Grayson's bunk?. We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now." Avery stood up straighter.
"Sure, Chiron." After Avery left the lodge, Chiron told me to follow him so the tour could start. Once outside, I looked back at the lodge, seeing now it was a farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized- four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on the top when something caught my eye... a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct feeling I was being watched.
"What's up there?," I asked Chiron. He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded.
"Just the attic."
"Somebody lives there?."
"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing." I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.
"Come along, Grayson," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see." We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe. Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus.
"It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort." He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead. I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Morgan could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.
"Morgan won't get in too much trouble, will he?," I asked Chiron. "I mean... he was a good protector. Really." Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse half's back like a saddle.
"Morgan has big dreams, Grayson. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him or her safely to Half-Blood Hill."
"But he did that!."
"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Morgan lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate... ah... encounter with the hellhound in your apartment. To which Avery dealt with. And there's the fact that Morgan didn't aid you in killing the Minotaur, almost costing us Avery. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Morgan's part." I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Morgan's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Morgan the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble at all.
"He'll get a second chance, won't he?." Chiron winced.
"I'm afraid that was Morgan's second chance, Grayson. The council was not anxious to give him another, not after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows; I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."
"How old is he?."
"Oh, twenty-eight."
"What!. And he's in sixth grade?."
"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Grayson. Morgan has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."
"That's horrible."
"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Morgan is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."
"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time?. Was it really so bad?." Chiron looked away quickly.
"Let's move along, shall we?." But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Chiron had other plans to avoid the topic, however.
"Come, Grayson. Let's see the woods." As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.
"The woods are stocked; if you care to try your luck, but go armed," Chiron said.
"Stocked with what?," I asked. "Armed with what?."
"You'll see. Capture the flag is this Friday night. You'll need your own sword and shield."
"My own-?.
"Yes," Chiron said. "I suppose you do still have the owl necklace. And I think a size five will do as well. I'll visit the armory later." I reached my hand to my shirt collar, having forgotten I had it. I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables, (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.
"Sword and spear fights?," I asked.
"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal... Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall." Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.
"What do you do when it rains?," I asked. Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.
"We still have to eat, don't we?. Besides, we have Avery." Chiron said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I decided to then drop the subject. Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were, without doubt, the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.
Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door, (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of natural grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops, (which were more my speed).
In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. 'I feel she shouldn't be doing that.' The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve.
Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram so that from different angles, lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
"Zeus and Hera?," I guessed.
"Correct," Chiron said.
"Their cabins look empty."
"Several of the cabins are, that's true. No one ever stays in one or two." Okay, so each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?. I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three. It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway, curious to what was inside.
Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!. This cabin is someone else's." Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore of a beach. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there were signs that only one person had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely; I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said,
"Come along, Grayson." Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers. Number five was bright red, a real nasty paint job as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen.
She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long, stringy, and brown instead of red. I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves.
"I haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.
"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."
"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really..." He smiled down at me.
"The Chiron from the stories?. Trainer of Hercules and all that?. Yes, Grayson, I am."
"But... shouldn't you be dead?." Chiron paused as if the question intrigued him.
"I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago, the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed." I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.
"Doesn't it ever get boring?."
"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."
"Why depressing?." Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.
"Oh, look," he said. "Avery is waiting for us." Avery sat on the ground, reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven. When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how to take me down. I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.
"Avery," Chiron said, "I have a masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Grayson from here?."
"Yes, sir."
"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home." Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. May told me once it was called a caduceus. Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds.
Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center. Chiron didn't go in, the door being too low for him. But when the campers saw him, they all stood and bowed respectfully.
"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Grayson. I'll see you at dinner." He galloped away toward the archery range. I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.
"Well?," Avery prompted. "Go on." So naturally, I tripped, coming in the door, and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything. Avery announced, "Grayson Clarke, meet cabin eleven.
"Regular or undetermined?," somebody asked. I didn't know what to say, but Avery did.
"Undetermined." Everybody groaned in response. A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.
"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Grayson. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there." The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.
"This is Luke," Avery said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again.
"He's your counselor for now."
"For now?," I asked.
"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in yet, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers." I looked at the tiny section of the floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves. I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.
"How long will I be here?," I asked.
"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."
"How long will that take?." The campers all laughed, like it was some huge inside joke.
"Come on," Avery told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."
"I've already seen it."
"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me. When we were a few feet away, Avery whirled on me.
"Clarke, you have to do better than that."
"What?." She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I came to bring you to camp."
"What's your problem?." I was getting angry now.
"All I know is, I kill some bull guy-."
"Don't talk like that!," Avery told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?."
"To get killed!?."
"To fight the Minotaur!. What do you think we train for?." I shook my head.
"Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories..."
"Yes."
"Then there's only one."
"Yes."
"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right?. Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So..."
"Monsters don't die, Grayson. They can be killed. But they don't die."
"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."
"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they reform." I thought about Mrs. Dodds.
"You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword..."
"The Fur... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."
"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?."
"Morgan and Chiron mentioned it."
"You almost called her something. A Fury... they're Hades' torturers, right?." Avery glanced nervously at the ground as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.
"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones if we have to speak of them at all."
"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?." I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then, I didn't care.
"Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway?. Why is everybody so crowded together?. There are plenty of empty bunks right over there." I pointed to the first few cabins, and Avery turned pale.
"You don't just choose a cabin, Grayson. It depends on who your parents are. Or... your parent." She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.
"My dad left me alone when I was 6."
"I'm sorry about what happened with your dad, Grayson. But I'm talking about your other parent. Your mom."
"My dad said she left. I didn't know her, and she never came to claim me as hers."
Avery sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.
"Your mother's still around, Grayson."
"How can you say that?. You know her?."
"No, of course not."
"Then how can you say-."
"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."
"You don't know anything about me."
"No?." She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."
"How do you-"
"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too." I tried to swallow my embarrassment.
"What does that have to do with anything?."
"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right?. That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD, you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Grayson, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course, the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."
"You sound like... you went through the same thing?."
"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."
"Ambrosia and nectar?."
"The food and drink they were giving us to help us heal. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand, and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood." A half-blood. I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.
Then a husky voice yelled, "Well!. A newbie!." I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean-looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.
"Clarisse," Avery sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?."
"Sure, Princess Fish," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."
"Erre es korakas!," Avery said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!', though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.
"You don't stand a chance." Avery stood her ground despite being much smaller than Clarisse.
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. From what I've seen from Avery, she probably couldn't. Clarisse turned toward me.
"Who's this little runt."
"Grayson Clarke," Avery said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares." I blinked.
"Like... the war god?." Clarisse sneered.
"You got a problem with that?."
"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad attitude and terrible smell." Clarisse growled.
"We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prick."
"Actually, my name is Grayson."
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."
"Clarisse-," Avery tried to say.
"Stay out of it, Fish Breath." Avery looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep. I handed Avery my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom. I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but Clarisse had hands like iron.
She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking... as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out... that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier facilities. Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.
"Like he's real demi-god material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing; he was so stupid looking." Her friends snickered. Avery stood in the corner, her fingers fiddling with her jean pockets. Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like crap. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't. Then something happened.
I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shuddering. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me. I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall. She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.
But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away. As soon as they were out the door, I stood, completely soaked, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded. Avery was standing in exactly the same place and was dry as a bone. I looked down and realized she was standing in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around her. I stood up, my legs shaky.
"How did you-." Avery waved her hand dismissively, "Come on." We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping, and she smelled like sewage. She gave Avery a look of absolute hatred.
"You are dead, Kelp Head. You're both totally dead." I wanted to say something, but Avery beat me to it.
"You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse?. Close your mouth." Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five while the other campers got out of the way to avoid her flailing feet. I stared over at Avery. Now Morgan's question to her in the van made so much more sense. I couldn't tell whether she was mad at me or not for picking that fight.
"What?," I demanded. "What are you thinking?."
"I'm thinking," she said, "that if you want to make it your first few weeks, you should ask to be on my team for capture the flag."