Disclaimer: Use your brian.
Cont. from last chapter.
Chester's POV
Me and my cabin were supposed to give CHB's Cabins 7 and 13 a tour of Wavecrest. As it turns out, we got the cabin with all the smiley kids and the cabin with the moody emo boy that I'd met earlier in the year. Turns out he was a head counselor. Go figure. CHB was weird, all right, because that kid didn't even look close to 16.
As our group walked into the camp, I found out that the head counselor of Cabin 7's name was Will SOlace. The Cabin 13 head counselor's name was Nico di Angelo. Like the rest of the campers, they were wearing necklaces with beds on them. Both had 3 beads on their necklaces. Of course I asked what they were for.
"Surviving summer." Nico replied dryly. A few of the Cabin 7 snickered.
"We get one bead each year, and that bead shows the biggest event that happened. Like this one-we had a field trip to the Empire State Building." Will pointed to one bead on his necklace.
"If you want to see more, ask Annabeth. She's got, what, 11 now? It's the most of any one of us, anyways." A ginger-haired girl spoke up from behind us.
"She's the blond girl that shut up Damien and Arnold earlier." another camper added.
"Cool, maybe I will." I shrugged. I really didn't want to mess with her, she seemed like the kind to hit you over the head with a brick for saying something stupid, but the campers of CHB seemed to hold her in high regard.
We reached the cabin area. "Here's our cabins. Odd on the left, even on the right. Odd are the guys, even are the girls." GLancing backwards at the goup behind me, I added, "GUess you guys don't do that at your camp?"
"Nope. We get sorted based on who we are. For example all the kids who have connections with the ocean go to Cabin 3. Which is kindof scary, since Percy's head counselor and he's a complete slob when it comes to his cabin. I kind of feel sorry for his brother who's the only one keeping them from pulling kitchen duty." Will laughed.
"And each cabin represents something, too. In Nico's case, that's death. Or wealth. Depending on which way you look at it. But mostly death." the ginger-haired grinned.
"Oh shut up, Kayla, you try sleeping in a coffin sometime. Evver done that? It ain't fun, and Leo always says he doesn't have time quite yet to help me get rid of the whole lot." Nico grumbled. "No thanks to Will either."
"Your own fault for overdoing it last summer." Wil shrugged.
A dark-skinned boy peered into Cabin 5. "How do you tell the cabins apart? They all look the same."
"Uh, what?" I asked, confused.
"At our camp, the cabins are all different. They aso sort of represent who we are. Ours is a bright gold when the sun hits it just right. And Cabin 10, where Barbie dolls golls go to die, is pretty much a dollhouse that reeks of perfume and hair product."
"Gross." I wirnkled my nose.
"Agreed. It's so unhealhty for you." Will grimaced.
Me and my cabin continued taking the group around Camp Wavecrest. Kayla seemed to et really excited at the archery range, and before Will could stop her, she was practicing her archery=and boy, was she good! Will was much more interested in our infirmary then I thought he would be. Nico stayed far back inthe group when we went to the lake (Will explained that he had a bad relation with Percy's dad, who was a sailor or something like that, and with Jason Grace's (counselor of Cabin 1) dad, who dealt with aerial stuff, so Nico wasn't thrilled with water or flying).
Finally it was dinnertime, and we headed to the mess hall.
The air was filled with chatter of all kinds. As we walked to the Cabin 5 table, I overheard snippits of conversation.
At the Cabin 1 table, a blond-haired boy and a Brazilian were trying to calm down a pair of twins her were arguing full-force about who was born first. (Will rolled his eyes at that one).
At Cabin 3, the blonde girl (Annabeth? Was that her name?) and a whole group of other blonds were sitting with my best friend, Alex, who was the head counselor there. Alex and his cabin looked very surprised and shocked by the fact that all the blonds were using huge words and sounded really smart. Annabeth waved at Nico and Will as we passed. Wiill waved back, but Nico just shrugged.
We sat down at our table, and immediately the black-haired, green-eyed boy left Cabin 2's table and came up to ours. "Hey Will, d'you know where Prankster Duo #2 went? I don't see them, and I'm getting worried, with their rep and all...plus Conner looks a little too pleased with himself."
Nico's head fell on the table. "No. I'm not going along with whatever idea you have to find last great idea made us run all the way here. I hate running more then CLovis and his lot does."
Wil rolled his eyes at NIco. "He didn't even say anything about a plan. And no, I haven't seen Julia and Alicia., Percy. Sorry." he frowned.
"He doesn't need to say it for me to know it." Nico replied.
"Well, yeah. I did have a plan..sort of...I mean, I came up with it but Annabeth hasn't fine tuned it-"
Just then, Mr. Brunner wheeled himself in. Fizzy-haired Girl was following him, looking mad. The man wheeled himself to Cabin 9's table, where CHB's Cabin 11 was sitting.
"Conner, where are Julia and Alicia?" Mr. Brunner asked.
"Bathroom. Why?" The guy, presumably Conner, asked, an innocent look on his face.
Mr. Brunner rasied his eyebrows at Frizzy-Haired Girl. "They stole my phone. And my wallet. And the keys to my car, which I need because I left Ms. Sally's cookies at camp and I'm too tired to run all the way back toting all those boxes.."
Conner's eyes widened. "Styx!" he yelped. "Be right back! Wait, where'd you leave the cookies?"
"Oh no. Not you. You'll just eat them all. And anyways, there's too many for you on your own. Now give me the keys. Now."
"Ack, ok fine! Gimme a sec!" Conner ran out of the building, and came back a few minutes later with two girls, who gave Frizzy-Haired her keys. The older girl glajerd at the group, before leaving camp.
Mr. Brunner gave them a look. "We'll talk later. Same time, same place."
"Yes, Mr. Brunner." All three nodded.
I stared at them as the chatter rose up again. "How come you guys allow stuff like this and the guy's still a head counselor?" I quietly asked Will.
"Because it was worse when Conner and his brother were here. And also because everyone in that cabin is like that." Will shrugged.
Now that was definitely crazy, I thought to myself, as Mr. Brunner and Dad went up to the platform.
"Attention, campers!" Mr. Brunner called out. Everyone's attention went towards him immediately, except for 3 kids snoozing on the table of Cabin 10, which didn't seem to be noticed by Mr. Brunner.
Dad raised his eyebrows at this but dind't push it. "We would, once again, like to extend out warmest welcomes to Camp Half-Blood," cheering from everyone, "and I hope that you've all gotten to know each other better. Today's dinner willl be hot dogs, veggiedogs, and salad, and tonight at the campfire, Camp Half-Blood is brining homemade cookies for everyone to share, as well as our normal marshmallows."
The CHB kids started whooping. A chant of, "Sally Jackson!" started up. Percy had gone back to his table and was grinning for ear to ear.
Mr. Brunner quickly quieted everyone. "Don't forget that tomorow CHB will be writing Mrs. Jackson-Blofis thank-you letters for all her hard , CHB campers, Leo and Cabin 9 have brought along a protable firepit so you can do what you need to do. Now, let us eat!"
A Latino elf-guy stood up and he and several from his cabin brought out a large case that turned out to be a firepit. The guy lit a fire and set it on the platform while the rest of the campers in both camps got food. Then, the CHB kids did something really weird: they each got up in order of cabin and, going to the fire, dropped the best parts in. All sorts of smells floated through the air, from a deep sea breeze to gentle puffs of wind.
When they'd finished doing htat, then they only started eating.
"Dude, what the heck?" one of my campers asked through a mouthful of hot dog.
Nico turned towards him. "Traditions. Welcome to our life."
"Don't be rude, Nico." Will warned. Nico just ignored him and picked at his salad.
I deided to end the awkward silence between the three of us (our cabins' campers were all talking with each other, alread getting on quite well). "So...What's it like at your camp?"
Will's face brightened up. "Oh, it's great! The deal is, if we don't have living family or we don't have place to stay, we're allowed to stay year-round, which is what I do. There's a camp van that shuttles us between camp and school, too. In the summer, when everyone's here, we do normal camp activites and stuff ,and we even have an exchange program with our sister camp in California."
"Oh, that must be why when Dad wanted to "twin" our camps, your director turned the offer down." I realized.
Will nodded. "Yep. Sorry 'bout that. It's just that we already twin ourselves with Camp Jupiter since...well, forever, I guess, but we didn't really know much about each other until recently. We had a pretty intense rivalry going on and the directors...well, they didn't want more fighting then what was already happening. But that's over now, and unless the next generation of campers change that, that's how we plan on keeping it."
The end-of-dinner bell rang. "We have campfire next, we do it early so we can get to the cabins by 9, espeically the younger campers." I explained.
"Oh, cool. We do our campfire kind of late, but that's only because dinners at CHB can get pretty filling and Mr. Brunner doesn't want anyone falling asleep during the campfire. Unless they're from Cabin 15. They get a pass for that because of...stuff." WIll said, as we led our cabins to the 5 was right in the middle of the ampitheatre, on the right side looking up from the stage. To my right, Cabin 6 (who was playing host to a group of very buff, very scary-looking tennagers) was sitting down on the benches. I could hear a CHB camper complaining about our "lousy little fire". I wondered how big theirs was, since ours was pretty good.
Behind us was Cabin 7. A large group of brown-haired kids (what was it with people in certain cabins looking so much alike?) and one boy who seemed to stand out. I remembered he was the Cabin 12 counselor for CHB. Will noticed me staring, and whispered, "Pollux's dad is the camp director. The official one. Mr. Brunner's the activities director, but does most of the actual work."
In front of us, Cabin 4 had gotten a bunch of CHB campers that looked way too perfect and charming to be at a camp for ADHD kids. Except one girl, with choppy hair and crazy-colored eyes.
"That's Piper McLean, daughter of Tristen McLean. Don't ask her to get you an autograph and don't tell her she looks amazing. She hates that. Her cabin's the one where supermodels go to die, and she's only counselor bcause...well, she's Piper. Most people listen to Piper." Will told me.
I nodded, stunned. Tristen McLean's daughter went to CHB, a camp for ADHD and dyslexic kids? Now that was wack.
Dad and Mr. Brunner finally came out to the stage. "Alright, everyone, today's program is going to be a little different. Camp Half-Blood will be sharing with us Wavecrest campers two of their favorite camp tunes, and then we'll do our normal campfire 'll pas out the snacks before we sing. Sound good?"
"YES!" came a chorusing cheer.
"Yo Mr. Brunner, I don't have my sax!" one of Will's campers yeled out when the cheering died down. Some of the other kids in the cabin added their own calls as well. "I don't have my guitar either!" "I left my harmonica in the cabin!"
Mr. Brunner held up his hands. "Don't worry, Cabin 7. I had Rachel pick up your instruments when she went to get the cookies." The girl from earlier, Rachel, brought out a wagon, which was filled with cases of all kinds. "Go ahead and set up how you normally do.'
About 5 or 6 kids from Will's cabin got up and ran down to the stage. Will was the only one to stay back. "I can't sing to save my life and I suck at music." he explained to me.
"No kidding." Nico muttered.
The one named Austin went up to the microphone that had been set up earlier. "Hello, Camp Half-Blood and Camp Wavecrest! Are you ready to sing?" Cheers from everyone. "Great! We're starting out with the camp classic, "This Land is Minos's Land"! Ifyou don't knwo the words, they're up on the screen bheind us." Another CHB camper started strumming a guitar and the campers burst into song, to the tune of "This Land is Your Land",albeit with very different lyrics.
The song after that was even weirder, "Down By the Aegean". This one I didn't even know the tune it was based on, and the words...well, they were a whole different level of wierd.
After all of that, our normal singalong team took over and we sang much more normal songs. Which I was more then thankful for.
But even if thier songs were weird, their snacks were great. They'd brought homemade cookies, and they were delicious beyond belief. The only complaint I heard was that they were blue.
The campfire ended around 8, like it always did. Before dismissal, Dad stood up for one last announcement.
"We would once again like to thank Camp Half-Blood for joining us this evening," cuet the applause, "and we wish them a safe trip back to their camp."
Mr. Brunner wheeled himself forward. "And we, of Camp Half-Blood, in turn would like to thank Camp Wavecrest for hosting us." clapping from the CHB campers. "Now, instructions. Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, please lead the camp back. Clarisse La Rue, Conner Stoll, Miranda Gardener, take the back line. Make sure Cabin 15 does not fall behind again. All other head counselors, spread yourselves between the front and back lines. Nyssa, you can assist me instead of Rachel, yes? Good. Be at the parking lot in the next 10 minutes." Mr. Brunner instructed before leaving the area with my dad.
Everyone started leaving towards the parking lot. "So...when can we visit your camp?" I asked Will.
Will shrugged. "Probably not for a while. We're hosting a group from Camp Jupiter next week and after that there's a feminist group coming, and then...well, who knows. The last few summers were kind of crazy and all." he said as we reached the parking lot.
"Got a cell number? You're a cool dude, we should totally hang sometime." I asked.
Will shook his head. "Don't have a phone. Just call the Delphi Strawberry Farm phone number and ask for Will. I might be busy though. I usually am."
"Yo Will, get over here so yo ucan drag your boyfriend instead of him collapsing in the woods or something!" Piper yelled at us.
"Shut up, Piper, I can walk on my own!"
"Actually, you almost collasped on the way here..." Percy joined the argument.
"I'm going to kill you."
"Not if I can strangle you first!"
"Oh Styx..." Will groaned. "Well, I gotta go. See you 'round, Chester." He hurried off to where Nico and Percy were starting to fight, with Piper trying to break them up.
A few minutes later, when they'd all calmed down, Percy and the guy that was presumably Jason, as well as Annabeth, started leading the CHB campers out of the parking lot. Shouts of "goodbye" and "se you later" rang through the air. I simply waved.
Once they were out on the open road, someone started up a chorus of, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", except it sounded more like, "When Percy Comes Swimming Home". Percy's complainig voice could be heard over the dim.
CHB was one weird camp of ADHD kids.
I wanna do parodies of songs for CHB...should I?
Reviews, please. :)