Chapter 18: Grover Creeps Into The Girl's Bathroom

(Andi)

I stared sadly at my reflection in the full-length bathroom mirror inside the SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM. There were actually a bunch of mirrors in this bathroom. There was one above every sink, plus the bathroom stall doors which were made of metal, but this full-length mirror was the best one. Only it captured what a beautiful disaster I was.

My eyes were not sky blue like usual. Instead, they were winter blue to match the weather outside. My skin was flushed from the cold DC air. The pink blush on my body highlighted all my freckles and clashed with my orange camp shirt. My usually sun-kissed hair looked duller and was mussed from the long boring car ride.

"Andi!" an annoying voice that should be minding its own business instead of lollygagging outside of the girls' bathroom called.

I ignored it.

The car ride had been so long and so boring.

Zoë and Bianca had played nature sounds instead of pop music. Grover had kept trying to talk to me about my feelings and his feelings and how feelings sometimes were other feelings but how we shouldn't let those feelings cover other feelings because feeling feelings was how you felt things or something. I don't know. I had mostly stared out the window at my reflection and slowly moved the window up and down until Bianca shouted at me to stop because it was too windy and cold.

"Andi, there's—"

I had stopped the wind to get Bianca to stop howling, but that had not stopped my thoughts.

What was I doing on this daft quest anyway?

Bianca was one of my un-favorite demi-gods. Grover was only better by a measly third. Nico was gone. Zoë was a girl, friends with Bianca, and she talked funny, so I doubted we were going to get along. And Peter…

"Andi, please—"

I didn't want to think about Peter! He was a total weirdo dumb-dumb turkey jerk and I had wasted too much time thinking about him when I could be thinking of non-foul things.[1][2] Like Luke.

"Seriously Andi—"

Gods, if only Luke was here and it was like before. I could almost see him standing next to me in the mirror. I wanted to turn to him, have us hold hands, have him tell me that everything was going to be cherries and chocolate, have us gaze into each other's eyes, have him realize once and for all that Annabeth was a prissy chatterbox mantrap, and then just as the sun peaked through the high window, turning all the reflective surfaces in the bathroom into a rainbow of gold and silver, I'd get on my tip-toes and…

"Andi!" The door was flung open.

I groaned, turning around to face Grover.[3] Just because he claimed I was feeling things like loneliness did not mean he should barge into the girl's bathroom. "Grover," I said very impatiently. "This is the girl's bathroom!"

"But Andi, there's a monster outside!" he said, frantically.

Oh.

"Why didn't you say so?" I asked, confusedly.

"I did but—"

"Come on," I said quickly, as I ran out the exit and past him. Grover should know better. This was no time for idle chit-chat.

I ran back to the lobby of the SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM with Grover right behind me. The whole place was in chaos. People were running out the front doors, and yelling hornets and bees![4] Meanwhile, Zoë and Bianca were standing on one of the hanging planes in the lobby, using their bows and arrows to attack the real cause of all the fuss:

A giant golden lion, the size of a hummer, with silver claws and gold bedazzling fur.

The lion was on two legs batting away the hunters' arrows like they were nothing and reaching for the hunters, like a cat playing with one of those cat toys that is supposed to look like a bird but is really just a bunch of brightly colored feathers and maybe a tiny silver bell.

"See!" Grover said unhelpfully.

"I got it," I told him, affirmingly before moving towards the center of the lobby.

"Andi! Be careful!" he cried, nervously.

"HERE, KITTY KITTY!" I shouted when I reached the center of the lobby.

The lion turned and snarled at me.

"Come on, pussy-cat. Don't be a scaredy-cat too," I taunted, mockingly.

"ANN-DYE, what are you doing!" Bianca shouted.

The lion turned its head back to the hunters.

"It's Andi, Bianca!" I corrected loudly. Would she ever get it right?

The lion turned back to me.

"ANDI!" I repeated. "We've been over this like a bazillion times. The 'I' is at the end of my name so that means it makes an 'ee' sound not a 'ai' sound," I shouted, remindingly.

"I don't care ANN-DYE!" she said, unfeelingly.

The lion turned back to her.

"You can't be afraid to try!" I argued loudly.

The lion turned back to me.

"Nico thinks you're smart," I continued, convincingly. "You don't want to crush his dreams by being a dumb-dumb, do you?"

"At least, I don't use insults like dumb-dumb!" she shot back, injured.

The lion turned to her.

I felt bad. I was in a thistle mood, but that was no excuse for rudeness.[5] As much as I hadn't wanted her to come, Bianca was my quest-mate now. I was about to apologize, when Bianca continued, hurtedly, "What are you? 5?"

"I'm fifteen," I said, loudly.

The lion turned to me.

Poor forgetful needy Bianca couldn't even do basic math. She couldn't help being a dumb-dumb any more than Grover could help being creepy. Or I could stop being spectacularly awe-inspiringly peachy. It was just our nature. I should have pity for her and be the bigger person. Maybe some of my niceness would rub off. Grover had become a lot less stalkerish because of me so it was possible.[6]

"After you learn my name, we can work on your arithmetic!" I offered loudly and nicely. "And manners!" It would be hard work with Bianca's obvious learning disability, but every boy and girl should be able to count to 20 and know when it was best to be seen and not heard.

"You're always such a—! Ow!" Bianca cried. The lion turned to her and Bianca turned to the other hunter. "Zoë! You pinched me!"

"Shut thy mouth Bianca," Zoë said, commandingly in her normal weird voice.

"Yeah!" I agreed, loudly. Now was one of those times to hush.

The lion turned to me.

I put my fingers together in the universal symbol for quiet:

The quiet coyote.[7]

As expected, there was silence. Zoë had covered Bianca's mouth with one of her hands. Bianca looked upset, but Zoë held firm. The hunter nodded to me. She understood the importance of the quiet coyote.

Goody! Now, onto business.

"COME ON!" I shouted, tauntingly again at the lion.

The lion had been curious to see if Bianca was done being a smarts-challenged person, but now the lion turned back to me again.

"That's right, Kitty-Cat," I said loudly, backing slowly towards the main entrance of the SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM lobby.

The lion got down on all fours and started to stalk toward me.

"It's you and me," I told the lion, loudly.

The lion growled like an old truck.

When I reached the doors of the lobby entrance, I opened my arms wide and called, rivally, "Bring! It! On!"

As I hoped, the lion let out a great roar and pounced.

I jumped into the air, summoned my mini bolt, and threw it at the lion while it was still in mid-air and mid-roar.

The second my bolt touched the lion's fur, the beastie shone like a collapsing star, fastly shrinking in size and growing in luminosity as it shot past me through the doors and out into the street.

Yay!

I won!

I called back my mini bolt and sucked it back into my locket. When I turned back to Grover and the hunters, I was smiling with all my teeth. "Everyone, alright?" I asked happily.

Grover ran over to me. "Andi, you were amazing!" he said accurately.

But I focused on Zoë. She said sagely, "Because of your superior battle skills, we are well, Andromeda."

Despite her silly accent, being a girl, and having Bianca as a friend, maybe Zoë wasn't part of the problem, but actually part of the solution. She had been pretty couthy just now. If she kept it up, she might even teach Bianca a bit about being less of a sillybill so that she could be worthy of a man's love. Nico deserved a worthy sister who wasn't such a space cadet, doing things like getting my name wrong, not knowing math, and being forced to squint at me because she hadn't thought to blink when I hit the lion with my mini bolt.[8] So that was a sparkle in the sky.[9]

Yup, yuppie! It was heart balm all around.[10] I had just won another scrumptious fight. Everyone was safe and I was feeling peachy keen again. I stayed pink even when Grover got out his reed pipes to play a victory tune.[11] The shrill notes brought back ambrosian memories of my first quest.

I was smiling happily as Zoë spoke over the noise. "If you would be quiet satyr, we might—"

"Zoë!" Bianca hissed, loudly.[12]

"Bianca," Zoë began, warningly, because taming Bianca was really demanding, like a full-time job.

Maybe that's why Bianca had been invited?

Oh!

Maybe Bianca was like Zoë's Grover!

If that was the case, Zoë definitely needed my help too! I knew all about taming people so I was sure that together we'd manage Bianca's Cinderella-fication.

"You need—" Zoë continued to begin warningly.

"Look!" Bianca said rudely in a loud whisper as she pointed at a spot above my head.

"What?" I asked questioningly as we looked up and over at the spot.

The ceiling of the SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM was covered in model airplanes and space crafts that hung in the air with strings. Zoë and Bianca were standing on one right now.

But it looked like some of the planes were not really planes because several planes were getting blurry and starting to change color. Then the demistifying planes began cawing like a murder of crows.

I got out my mini bolt again and even readied my heart shield.

It looked like the fight wasn't over.[13]

Footnotes

[1] Did you know turkey is a word for an idiot? Having met many a turkey in my life, I can confirm that they are indeed idiotic, but still smarter than deer and squirrels.

[2] I wasn't sure whether to keep the spelling of foul as in bad thing or change it to fowl as in bird…I kept the original to be safe.

[3] I find this extra funny because Luke isn't even here and Grover is still cockblocking.

[4] Despite the way it sounds, I don't think this is an Andi-ism. I think this is really what people believe is happening.

[5] A thistle is a spiky plant, so she could mean she is feeling prickly. Thistle is also an under-saturated shade of purple, so it could be related to that. Like a black mood, except it is a light purple mood. I am honestly not sure which it is.

[6] In the Lightning Thief fic, Grover had been stalking Andi before she and him officially met and he also had a habit of showing up "unexpectantly" to cock-block Luke and Andi.

[7] Unless you're in Austria or France where it's an illegal gang sign. No, I am not joking. Look it up.

[8] I think we can all agree that this is not the reason Bianca is squinting.

[9] A star in the night sky…I guess.

[10] I swear the further we get in this fic, the harder it is to translate Andi to English. I will not give up! So, for this one, I assume she means good news, but the definition for heart balm is compensation for breach of promise to marry, so I'm not exactly sure.

[11] The Lightning Thief fic described the tune as something that sounded like it belonged to an old video game. As such, I imagine that Grover is playing the Final Fantasy victory fanfare song.

[12] I guess Zoë stopped covering Bianca's mouth.

[13] Despite what the inspirational quotes tell you.