Welcome to Chapter 1! Thank you for choosing to read my book so let's get on with it!

I do not own Percy Jackson. I only own my characters.

Athena opened up the book and began to read. Every one fell silent watching her intently. "Chapter One; I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher."

"Sounds like something mom would do." Harper said simply.

"How do you accidentally vaporize someone?" Apollo asked his daughter. He couldn't get the fact that this really was his child.

"Mom is capable of many things." Was all she said.

Before Athena could start reading Ares asked Helios; "Is your Mom and Apollo married or was it just a fling?"

His son looked taken aback. "They got married after Harper was born, I came nine months later."

"LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE SEALED THE KNOT!" Ares yelled, Apollo was too surprised to respond.

"Shut up and let me read." Athena growled.

"Look, I didn't want to be a halfblood."

"No one ever does honey." Aphrodite sighed.

"If you are reading this because you think you may be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your parents told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life."

"That never works for long." Hermes murmured.

"Being a halfblood is dangerous. It's scary. And most of the time, it gets you killed in very nasty ways."

"Amen to that sister!" Tori called out, earning nods and laughs from the others.

"If you are a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction. Great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever really happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages- if you feel something stirring inside- stop reading immediately. You may be one of us And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Wow. Congrats Mom! You made us sound like a cult." Harper said, shutting up under a glare from Athena. Artemis stared at the girl, then at the girl's brother, then at her brother, seeing the family connection but surprised all the same.

"My name is Percia Jackson. I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York."

"Is she a troubled kid?" Zeus watched Apollo ask worriedly.

"Yes." Harper answered, laughs erupted from Poseidon and Apollo gulped.

"Yeah you could say that."

"Told you." Harper said.

"I could start at any point in my short, miserable life to prove it , but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of art to look at Greek and Roman stuff."

"Sounds Amazing!" Athena said happily.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Auntie ABut that sounds like torture." Percy said.

"I know- it sounds like torture."

"Point Proven."

"But , our Latin teacher, was leading this trip so I had hopes."

" ?" Hera asked, confused.

"You know, Chiron." Ashley said.

"Chiron?"

"Yeah."

"Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep."

"She slept in class?" Athena yelled!

"I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. Boy, was I wrong."

Apollo flinched visibly at those words.

"See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon…"

Ares smiled "Sounds like my kind of kid!"

"I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea."

Ares burst out in mad laughter. Poseidon smiled wryly.

"This trip, I was determined to be good. All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich."

"That does not sound like my Mom." Harper said.

"People change Harps." Hunter replied. "Besides you heard her, she was determined to be good."

"I know but… poor Grover!" Ashley sighed.

"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~"

"Lucky!" Tori cried.

"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."

"That does sound like Grover." Dionysus said fondly.

"Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, 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."

"Party pooper." Chuck murmured, earning laughs from his friends and some of the Olympians.

""I'm going to kill her," I mumbled."

"KILL HER! KILL HER!" Ares yelled.

"Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat."

"Party pooper." Ares growled.

""You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens." Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into."

Both Apollo and Poseidon visibly paled. The two Jackson children just looked at each other and shrugged.

"Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He 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 my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years."

"Longer." Was all that Athena said before continuing.

"He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye."

"Mrs. Dodds?" Ashly asked.

"I don't know. Mom never talked about her past that much." Harper said. "Did she say anything to you?"

"Nope." Helios said popping the 'p'.

"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."

Ares grinned broadly, Harper and Helios however just stared at each other.

"You don't think?" Helios asked.

"No way." Harper confirmed.

"But~"

"Mom would have told us!"

"I don't know…"

Silence. "Let's just keep reading. It's probably some random monster."

"Hmf." Helios sighed unbelieving.

"She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown."

"Yeah right." Artemis said. "It was most likely the mist."

"From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month."

Poseidon scowled at the book, Triton's face however, remained impassive.

"One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

"TACT! Where is your tact boy?" Dionysus yelled.

"Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to."

"It always does my friend. It always does." Percy nodded.

"Dude." Hunter said.

"Sush and let her read! I swear the monster is…." Harper trailed off.

"I told you Harps there's no way." Helios insisted.

"The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Miss. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

"Five bucks says she doesn't." Hunter whispered in Harper's ear across Ashleys body. Harper just rolled her eyes but nodded anyway.

"I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Pay up lover-boy." Harper whispered in return.

""Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—""

"GOD?" Zeus roared, outraged.

"I'm sure Chiron will correct her brother." Poseidon replied coolly

""God?" Mr. Brunner asked."

"See?" Said a smug sea God.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "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—"

"Ewww!" Aphrodite interrupted, face a delicate shade of green.
""Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me."

Aphrodite grinned sheepishly, green being replaced by red.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

. "That's one way to put it," Hades mumbled. "It took a whole lot longer in real life though."

"Some snickers from the group. Behind me, 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.'"

"That is a question here isn't it?" Hermes asked.

"I think so." Apollo answered, pulling his gaze away from his children.

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted." Ares called.

"Busted," Grover muttered.

Ares looked horrified.

""Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"Come on Mom!" Harper yelled. "Are you a half-blood or what? That stuff IS our lives!"

"You are talking to a book Harps." Tori deadpanned.

"So?"

""I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "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?"

"How is that a happy note?" Aphrodite asked, her face dark green and cheeks puffed out as if she was going to barf. The gods who had been in the situation themselves looked slightly green as well.

"The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson." I knew that was coming."

"Care to share or are you just going to leave us guessing?" Hermes asked.

"Again. You are talking to. A. Book." Tori repeated, leaving Hermes flushed and embarrassed.

"I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" 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."

"Not everything… but pretty close." Zeus added.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"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."

"At least he didn't say her full name." Hunter mumbled. "Things would have gotten ugly."

"I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C– in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly."

"Now that is just sad." Athena scolded.

"I 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 probably was." Ares called out.

"He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city."

Zeus stared at the walls as he received a glare from his wife.

"I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in."

Now both Poseidon and Zeus were rubbing the backs of their necks with uncomfortable expressions on their faces. Hades was holding back laughter while Hunter, Jackie, Ashley and Tori were all doing so openly.

"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. Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked."

"Not from Chiron." Helios said confidently. "If Chiron did give out detentions Harper would be stuck there for life."

"No! Only for a little~"

"Ahh, nope. Even if you were immortal you wouldn't leave until you faded away." Hunter said, backing Helios up, who in return gave him a fistbump.

"Whose side are you on?" Harper asked accusingly.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

"Hah." Harper snorted, sticking her tongue out.

"Very mature Harps, very mature." Hunter responded.

"Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

"So he hasn't changed much then?" Ashley asked.

"Nope." Chuck smiled.

"I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me."

"I'm sorry. Are we still talking about Mom?" Harper asked.

"Come on Harper. It's Gramma Sally."

"True…"

Poseidon smiled. "Sally was amazing." He said wistfully.

"Mr. Brunner 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 motorized cafe table."

Hephaestus grinned.

"I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap."

The seven growled simultaneously and Dionysus rose halfway out of his seat.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos."

Aphrodites retreating green colour returned full force at that comment.

"I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

"FISHY POWERS!" Chuck yelled. Triton smiled along with his father.

"Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

"FISHY POWERS!" The seven yelled simultaneously. Poseidon face palmed.

"I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. 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 me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

"Wrong move." Hermes, Apollo and Harper all said at the same time.

"That wasn't the right thing to say."

"No shit." Artemis and Tori commented.

""Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her." I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death."

"If you think about it, that's not very hard to do." Percy said.

"Shut up! I need to see what kind of monster she is."

"Since when did the book say it was a monster?" Hunter asked.

"What else would she be?" Ashley asked.

"QUIET!" Harper yelled.

"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 me desperately. "It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now." Nancy Bobofit smirked."

"Don't follow her, don't follow her." Hermes muttered under his breath.

"I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I 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 me to come on. How'd she get there so fast?"

"Super speed." Hades said flatly.

"I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things."

"Nope." Demeter said.

"Don't follow her, don't follow her." Hermes continued.

"I wasn't so sure."

"Don't follow her, don't follow her."

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!" Hera yelled.

"What?" Hermes asked. "Do you want her to follow the Dodds woman?"

"Just. Shut. Up."

"I went after Mrs. Dodds."

"NOOO!" Hermes yelled. "Well, who's going to make the funeral arrangements?"

"Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel."

"Dude. Not cool." Percy accused. "My namesake is about to walk right into certain doom and you are reading your library book?" A series of nods were shared between the demi-gods and a few of the gods themselves.

"I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section."

"The irony." Athena mumbled before continuing.

Except for us, the gallery was empty. Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

"Do the safe thing Percy." Hermes mumbled.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

Brief glares were directed at Zeus -who blushed softly- before everyone returned to their eyes to the book in Athena's hand, all sitting on the ends of their seats and the two Jackson twins looking like if Athena didn't keep reading they would personally burn all her temples on the ground and laugh.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain." I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"This is my kind of kid." Hermes smiled, shutting up under the double glares of both Harper and Helios.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed. Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

"No way…." Helios murmured.

"It is her. I told you but do you listen? Noooo…" Harper accused.

"But~ but why wouldn't mom tell us? It makes no sense."

"Helios, we obviously don't know much about her past. I mean the stuff in the history books sure but since when has she ever gone into actual detail about her life as a demigod?" Harper asked.

"Ummmm well… ummmm... "
"Exactly. So next question. What is a Fury doing at mom's school when she was twelve." She turned her head and glared at Hades. The other Half Bloods and dGods catching on turned their heads as well.

"To my defense, it's the future so it hasn't happened yet." He testified feebly.

Then things got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

"That's what comes naturally? Not run away in terror or try to hide?" Demeter asked bemused.

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, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside. It had started to rain. Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?" Chuck asked.

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me 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 YancyAcademy. Are you feeling alright?"

"Now that is a good lie." Hunter complemented. Hermes nodded in agreement.

"Soooooooooooooo, next chapter?"

Sooooooooooooo, What do you think? I know it took me a while to update but these chapters are long.

I am going up to Ottawa for five days to see my Uncle who lives up there. Because of this I will not update for an extra long period of time. I am sorry and as soon as I get back I will start working on it. Thank you for understanding.

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