The flames danced and leapt in the air, reaching hungrily for anything that they can consume to fuel their wrath.
"Pez."
The plastic recoiled like it can feel the heat, wrinkling into a ruche around the burn. She watched with motionless eyes and brings the flame in again. This time she held it on until a black wisp of smoke curled upwards, eddying in the late fall air like the perfect strokes of an artist.
"Pez."
In seconds a yellow flame had consumed it entirely. She flew to open the window as the acridness of the fumes stung her eyes into motion and made her cough. When she turned back it is simply black and fragile, its flexibility lost. Then her face cracked into a sly grin. Already her mind was searching her 'home' and school for more things to burn. With one strike of her match they would never be the same again, it was a similar thrill to the one she had when she made her first maze in woodwork, but so very much easier.
"Pez, stop day-dreaming about burning Bobofit's stuff." A voice whispered in her ear. "No violence today, remember?"
The slightly manic grin faded from 'Pez's' face as her mind came out of its pyromanic fantasy, now forced to once again endure the inescapable screaming and shouting of the snot-nosed children of Yancy Prep. Now scowling fiercely, her ire directed at everyone and thing in general, Pez wondered for the millionth time what kind of shit-for-brains ninny thought it would be a good idea to shove 40 or so 'trouble' kids onto the one bus, and send them on a field trip to a museum. A museum, of all places.
A flash of red in the corner of her vision brought her attention back on track, and Pez was reminded of the true source of her irritation and violent intention.
"I'm going to kill her." The boy next to her muttered, the same one that had broken her reverie with his whispered warning. She raised a dark eyebrow at his mumbled threat, briefly feeling a flash of amusement.
"No violence today, remember?" She mocked sardonically, slightly miffed she had been called out for merely thinking about setting the girl aflame, whereas he could make death threats.
Sea-green eyes peaked out somewhat sheepishly from underneath jet black hair, only the slightest hint of apology present in the softening of his clenched jaw. But all the same, he shrugged his shoulders in a 'what-can-you-do' sort of way and Pez rolled her eyes.
All the way into the city, the two had put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting his friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
As Nancy Bobofit continued throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, Pez knew and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.
Not that she particularly cared about the scrawny boy, but seeing the afore-mentioned chunks fly over her own head distracted Pez from fantasising all the different ways she could get of the trip – the more, explosive the better.
"It's okay guys. I like peanut butter."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Grover Underwood, the biggest push-over prissy there ever was.
"That's it." The boy started to get up, but Underwood reached through the seats pushed him back into his seat.
"You're already on probation, Percy" Underwood reminded him. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."
Another sandwich chunk flew and landed in his hair, followed by ugly snickering and giggling from behind.
Underwood looked at Percy reassuringly.
Percy glanced at Pez in desperate frustration.
Bobofit chortled disgustingly.
And Pez sighed.
"Stand down, Jackson." What had she become? "I'll take care of it." Some sort of do-gooder?
Underwood's face paled tremendously and it was Percy's turn to sigh.
"No setting her on fire." He warned, stern sea eyes boring into her own.
A wicked grin flickered across her face, manic, like an innocent flame about to spark a wild fire. "No promises."
And she turned her deadly gaze upon the now – quite rightfully – terrified kleptomaniac.
Looking back on it, Pez wished she had set the bitch on fire right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess she and Percy were about to get themselves into.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.
| 0.1 |
To be completely honest, Pez couldn't remember most of the tour. Admittedly, she had been excited when she learned they would pass the weaponry section, but Mr. Brunner had just rolled on past it and called the group to keep up. She had scowled heavily when, after she had lingered longingly, the crippled man had turned a knowing and stern eye on her, forcing her to trudge dejectedly behind an obedient Percy. He then rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.
It blew her mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
Honestly, what kind of moron dedicates their life to keeping this shit intact?
It just made her want to break it all.
As Pez lost herself in her imaginary world of vandalism, Percy almost reflectively caught her arm and forced her twitching fingers away from the thousand-year-old pottery.
"Pez, no."
"Pez, yes."
"No. Bad Pez."
"Yes. Good Pez."
After a brief stare off, Percy rolled his eyes and merely dragged her back to the rest of the group, where Mr. Brunner gathered them around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started jabbering on about how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age and blah blah blah. She wasn't really paying attention, especially when he started on the carvings, but she stayed silent for Percy – who had , in her opinion, an unnatural interest in the stuff. Not like it made a difference though, Pez pondered, as the rest of the class were nattering to each other in none too quiet tones, and every time Jackson told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give him the evil eye.
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when their last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
Which was by no fault of Pez's, she assures you.
. . . well, maybe a little bit.
From day one she had figured Percy to be the devil-spawn. She would point her crooked finger at him and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and everyone knew he was going to get after-school detention for a month. It also helped that no matter how hard the old bat tried, she could never catch Pez in the act of mischief. But, while that was cool and all, her aforementioned redeeming qualities were overshadowed by her love of Nancy Bobofit, and . . . well, Pez's feelings have already been made clear for that particular brat.
One time Jackson had been blamed for one of Pez's pranks and after Dodds had made him erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, he'd told his two friends that he didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. Underwood had looked at him, for some reason serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."
Mr. Brunner was still talking about Greek funeral art.
Pez wondered if they made stone burial alters her size.
Stifled snickering guffaws sounded from behind.
Her eye twitched.
Pez wondered if the Greeks ever considered mass burnings.
You know, to save time and effort.
Apparently, Jackson's last straw had been snatched by an angry short guy, because when Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, he turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"
Pez imagined it came out louder than he meant it to.
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.
Thank Satan for that.
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"
Pez could practically feel the heat of Jackson's red face from where she was standing. He said, "No, sir."
Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"
Looking at the carving, the young pyromaniac had no idea why Jackson would suddenly seem so relieved, but each to their own.
"That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, for some reason not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."
"Well..." Percy racked his brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"
"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.
"Titan," he corrected himself. Pez couldn't see the difference. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"
"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind them.
Wimps.
"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," Jackson continued, "and the gods won."
Someone snickered from the group.
Behind them, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.
At least Nancy got packed, too. One thing Pez appreciated about Mr. Brunner – when it didn't hinder her plans – was the only one who ever caught Bobofit saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.
Percy thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed, and a hot wired treaded itself through Pez. It started in her throat, winding itself into her vocal box, then travelled down, wrapping painfully tight around each rib. She felt the heat of it start to overheat the rest of her body, reaching her fingers and toes. She only half payed attention to the crippled man's explanation of gods and titans and cannibalism. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo-fuses.
Pez, Jackson and Underwood were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."
He knew that was coming.
He told Grover to keep going. He didn't bother trying to convince Pez.
Neither did Mr. Brunner.
"Sir?"
Percy often complained to his friends that Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. Personally, Pez just thought the boy was way to easy to guilt trip.
She would know, she's done it enough.
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told him quite seriously.
The hot wire hadn't receded. If anything, at the old man's words, it grew hotter and coiled tighter, almost painfully ripping apart her insides.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."
Percy wanted to get angry, so very wanted to, as the guy pushed him so hard. But it was so hard to get truly pissed, as the guy – for some reason – really believed in him. Pez, however, had no such reservations.
She glared at him.
Yeah, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged them, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman per-son who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected him to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that he had dyslexia and an attention deficit disorder and he had never made above a C- in his life. No – he didn't expect him to be as good; he expected him to be better. And, Jackson had lamented to Pez, he just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
Jackson mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
He told the two to go outside and eat their lunch.
Percy left.
Pez stayed rooted.
The little pyromaniac wasn't one for having an abundant amount of friends. She wasn't one for having a few friends either. She wasn't really one for friends – or people – in general. She finds them irritating and hopeless, and wished at least twice a day that something would just come and wipe out the entire human race. But she tolerated Jackson. In fact, she would admit to no one but herself, she liked to tolerate him. One would even call them 'acquaintances'.
"Yes, Miss Chernov?"
Everyone at Yancy knew not to fuck with Pez. Though she may not quite reach 5ft in height, people had learned to fear the sight of her. Never did she have to worry about elbowing her way through a crowd to get to class – people would usually elbow others in a scrambled effort to get out of her way. A single hooded glance from her dark eyes would send even the most hardened of adults nervously shuffling away. And, lord help the perpetrator, should the young girl for some reason be antagonised, personal items and clothing mysteriously tended to go up in flames.
Nobody wanted to get on her bad side. And so, there were three simple rules.
Don't talk to her.
"Hello? Miss Chernov?"
Don't irritate her.
"Miss Chernov?"
And don't, mess with anyone she called an 'acquaintance'.
"Petra, was there something you needed?"
Her eye twitched imperceptibly.
She smiled sweetly.
"No sir." Her eyes hardened and her lips stretched wider, a feral look that caused the temperature to drop. "Nothing at all."
And she turned on her heel, a sharp move that whipped her hair out with her, leaving a faint scent trail as she left.
There was a fourth, unspoken rule.
One that, if broken, was liable to get you signed up for an eternity of pain and suffering.
Don't, under any circumstance, call her 'Petra'.
Mr. Brunner watched the small girl leave, loosening his tight grip from his arm rest and releasing a shaky breath.
He hadn't even realised he'd been holding it in.
|0.2|
The class had gathered on the front steps of the museum by the time Pez had joined them, where they could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
She briefly payed attention to the huge storm brewing above her, with clouds blacker than she'd ever seen over the city. At first, she figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. They'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. She wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
But no.
There was something else. Something that made the hairs on her arms stand up. Something that wasn't right.
Unsurprisingly, nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.
Hag.
Percy and Underwood had learnt well from previous experience and were sitting on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. They all agreed, a rare occurrence on Pez's part, that maybe if they did that, everybody wouldn't know they were from that school – the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.
"Detention?" Pez heard Grover ask.
"Nah," Percy sighed. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean – I'm not a genius."
"Ain't those the truest words to have been spoken."
Jackson merely rolled his eyes as Pez lazily sat on his other side. rover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when Pez thought he was going to give Jackson some deep philosophical comment to make him feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"
Percy didn't have much of an appetite, so he let him take it.
Pez watched Mr. Brunner out of the corner of her eyes, parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorised cafe table.
"What did you want with ?"
Pez blinked. "Mm?"
He repeated his question.
She stared at him for a moment, contemplating how much she actually wanted to say.
Does she want to admit she had been about to chew out Jackson's favourite teacher for being unfairly disappointed in him and making him feel like shit? . . . Nah, that makes it sound like she cares.
"None of your business, Jackson." She told him airily, swivelling her body around so that she could lie down on the fountain edge and swing her legs onto Jackson's lap. "Not like it concerns you."
Nailed it.
Percy rolled his eyes as Pez threw her arms over her eyes, not bothering to try and remove her legs from his lap. That would just be a wasted effort. Besides, he thought as her breathing evened out almost immediately, he had seen the bags under her eyes. With one last fond look at his friend's covered and sleeping face, Percy turned back to his lunch, pointedly ignoring Grover's gaze and his own red tipped ears. He was about to unwrap his sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of him with her ugly friends - she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
"Oops." She grinned at him with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. Her eyes flickered fearfully as she saw Pez was lying next to him, but soon became confident as she realised the girl was sleeping.
He tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told him a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." Besides, he didn't want to be the one that woke the sleeping beast. But he was so mad his mind went blank. A wave roared in his ears.
Even in years to come, Percy doesn't remember touching her, but the next thing he knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"
Mrs. Dodds materialised next to them.
Some of the kids were whispering:
"Did you see-"
"-the water-"
"-like it grabbed her-"
He didn't know what they were talking about. All he knew was that he was in trouble again.
Pez stirred groggily, her legs finally lifting of Percy's lap as she turned over and curled into herself.
Miraculously, she didn't wake.
As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on him. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if he'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"
"I know," he grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."
That wasn't the right thing to say.
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."
Percy stared at him, stunned. He couldn't believe he was trying to cover for him. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.
"But-"
"You. Will. Stay. Here."
Grover looked at Percy desperately.
"It's okay, man," he told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at the green-eyed boy. "Now."
Nancy Bobofit smirked.
He gave her his deluxe, Pez approved, I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then he turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at him to come on.
How'd she get there so fast?
One of the things that both Percy and Pez share in common, is that they both have moments like that. It happened a lot, when their brains falls asleep or something, and the next thing they know they've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left them staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor had told them that it was part of the ADHD, their brains misinterpreting things.
Percy wasn't so sure.
Pez just doesn't like the guy.
She doesn't like anyone, really.
Percy went after Mrs. Dodds.
Halfway up the steps, he glanced back at Grover and Pez. Grover was looking pale, cutting his eyes between Percy and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.
Pez was still sleeping.
Percy looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.
Okay, he thought. She's going to make him buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan.
He followed her deeper into the museum. When he finally caught up to her, they were back in the Greek and Roman section.
Except for them, the gallery was empty.
Back outside, a singular, pale eyelid slid open to reveal a dark eye.
It watched as the curly haired boy desperately motioned to the man in the wheelchair, both wearing similar expressions of apprehension and worry.
It watched as the man quickly packed up umbrella and wheeled himself into the museum entrance.
And it watched as the surrounding students all suddenly stopped, expressions slack and gazes vacant and misty. All except the curly haired boy.
It saw the crippled man return.
It saw the arrival of the perky blonde woman, who had a short and serious conversation with the the permanently seated man.
It saw everything.
It knew.
And when all was said and done
|0.3|
Absolute terror ran through Percy's body. He did the only thing that came naturally: he swung the sword.
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.
Hisss!
Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporised on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching him.
Percy was alone.
There was a ballpoint pen in his hand.
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Neither was Mrs. Dodds or the monster. Nobody was there but Percy.
His hands were still trembling. His lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.
Had he imagined the whole thing? He went back outside.
It had started to rain.
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. He had taken the leather jacket Pez had been wearing earlier and draped it over face. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw Percy, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
He said, "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
He blinked. They had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. He asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
The bewildered boy asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.
He said, "Who?"
But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at Percy, so he thought the curly haired boy was messing with him.
"Not funny, man," Percy told him. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead.
Percy saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.
He went over to him.
The man looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."
Percy handed Mr. Brunner his pen. The boy hadn't even realised he was still holding it. "Sir," He said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"
Mr. Brunner stared at him blankly. "Who?"
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"
Faintly, all the way back at the fountain, Percy heard a yell.
"Who the fuck put my jacket over my face? Are you trying suffocate me!"