Percy POV:
At this point it was taking all my self control to not go back and THROTTLE Nancy Bobofit. However I should probably back up. Currently I was on a bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff as a field trip for Latin. Melody was dead to the world a few seats in front of me, listening to her music and texting her BFF Sabrina. How did I know she was texting Sabrina? Easy. The only time she laughs as evilly as that is when they are planning another prank. Uugghh. What was it going to be this time and when would it end?! April fools was even worse than it usually was back home, in that Melody now had a partner in crime.
The field trip was likely to be exciting this time because Melody had brought her extra bag that she used to store supplies for pranking people. But even if she hadn't brought that I still had some hope that this wouldn't be absolute torture. Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading the trip so I thought it couldn't be THAT bad. I realize now how wrong I was. 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 (also making it easier for Melody to prank people but she'd been caught quite a few times) He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher who's class didn't put me to sleep.
Melody and I were already on probation, for different reasons, and I was determined to be good on this one. I for one, did NOT want in school suspension as the headmaster had threatened if ANYTHING out of the ordinary happened. All the way to the city, I put up with the bane of both mine and Melody's existence, 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.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. he cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back a few grades as well, and to top it off he was crippled. He had a note excusing him form 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 when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
Anyway, Nancy 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. "I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.
Grover tried to calm me down. "Its okay. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "Thats it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. Melody had also sensed my frustration and anger through our tele/empathic bond and briefly turned around to give me a warning look like, "Don't do anything stupid or I'll personally make you miserable." Then after I nodded she turned back around and continued texting. You see, when I did something to Nancy, a lot of the time Melody ended up getting punished as well and a mad Melody is NOT something you want to be on the receiving end of. Unfortunately we can only take revenge on Nancy in little doses.
After we arrived Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. As we were walking through the museum, it blew my mind that all this stuff had lasted for two thousand, three thousand years. We had some family relics at home from around the same time but those were relatively small compared to this stuff. We had some combs and pots, a picture here or there, but nothing the size of some of this stuff. I was trying to listen as Mr. Brunner explained the artifacts in the halls but it was really hard with everyone around me talking, some of it actually sounded pretty interesting. It was cool to get another perspective on history than the dragon's version. A lot of this stuff was stuff I never knew, as dragons had pretty much cut themselves off after the great betrayal and it was only recently we started integrating in again with human civilization. Dragons were also mortals as we didn't live forever.
In any case, every time I tried to tell the other kids to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me 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 our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown (I personally thought it was Melody's fault somehow even though she denies anything, it happened during her class period) From the first day, mrs. Dodds loved nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil's spawn (which wasn't too far from the truth if anyone saw me with my dragon side revealed) She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey", real sweet, and I knew I was going to to get an after school detention for a month. She seemed to target Melody and I with equal hatred. Hers was the only class Melody didn't prank people in anymore.
One time, after she'd make me and Melody erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Melody and Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. Grover looked at me, real seriously and said, "You're absolutely right." It set Melody off on another one of her suspicious fazes of Grover, which made him super uncomfortable every time. Like I said, you really don't want to be on Melody's bad side.
Finally, Nancy made a crude comment on some of the art and all her friends started snickering that I decided it was the last straw. "Will you shut up?!" It came out a lot louder than I had intended and the whole group laughed and Mr. Brunner stopped his story. Melody gave me a sympathetic look.
"Mr. Jackson," Mr Brunner said, "did you have a comment?" My face was bright red. I said, "No, sir." Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the side of the stele he had been explaining. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"
I looked at the picture and felt a flush of relief, because I recognized the scene.
"Thats Kronos eating his kids, right?" Mr. Brunner nodded "Yes," clearly not satisfied with my answer, "and he did this because…"
This was easy, mom and dad had taught Melody and me about this a thousand times at home. I just had to leave out the parts about dragons. "Kronos had been given a prophesy that one of his kids was going to eventually overthrow him so he ate his kids so the prophesy couldn't happen but it backfired on him when his wife Rhea got mad and saved Zeus," It took some effort to keep the contempt out of my voice, I couldn't help it. It had been ground into me for years that Zeus was not to be liked, "and gave Kronos a rock wrapped in cloth to eat instead and hid Zeus away until he was big enough to trick his dad by giving him a concoction of some potion given to him by the titan goddess Metis to make him throw up his fully grown siblings and they then waged war on the titans and won. The time was known as the titanomachy." I finished to the stunned looks on my classmates faces and Melody smirking at Nancy. Mr. Brunner also seemed pretty surprised at my through answer. In order to not attract too much attention both Melody and I had to hide just how much we knew about class, but I couldn't help showing off just this once.
Behind me Nancy whispered to one of her friends, "Like we're ever going to use this in real life." Maybe she won't but I certainly could. You never know with greek mythology.
"And why, mr Jackson," Mr. Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofits's excellent question, does it matter in real life?"
"Busted," Grover muttered. Another reason I loved Mr. Brunner. He always caught Nancy, and only mostly caught Melody, but Melody was sneaky and clever, unlike Nancy. Obviously I knew the answer, so I don't get killed out in the world for ignorance, but I couldn't tell him that so I just said, "I don't know, sir."
"I see," He said, looking disappointed, "Well, 75% credit, for your excellent answer to the first part of my question." He then dismissed the class for lunch but before I could go he cornered me. "You must learn the answer to my question, it is vitally important and I need you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you Percy Cadence." He said before wheeling away. I met up with Melody and Grover who had waited for me down the hall a ways. "Man. I wish he'd let up on me a bit," I said, feigning frustration and annoyance for Grover's sake. We sat down outside and pulled out our lunches and began eating. We were eating in silence but Melody and I were having a tele/empathetic conversation. It works like this, we can send mental pictures and emotions to of with them, that was all we could do with our skill level however we could send a bunch of emotions at once which took a while to work up to. That and it only works if we're within about a mile of each other. Our conversation went something like this:
Mel: Did you really have to show off? (Annoyance and a trophy image)
Me: Yes, it was just one time. (Thumbs up and a number 1)
Mel: Oh sure, until one turns into more! Same thing with you and the blueberry muffins I make. You need to stop stealing them all by the way. Its really annoying when I don't get to eat the muffins I work hard to make. (This was conveyed through pictures of her muffins, me, and the empty muffin basket with feelings of extreme annoyance and tiredness at the end)
Me: Hey! You should feel flattered I like them so much! (At least I oped that was what I said)
Mel: Excuse me?! You did NOT make any! You just eat them! (clearly didn't understand) But back to the topic at hand (shacking her head and taking a deep breath) now you have to pretend even more. How are you going to explain how you know all that? We only skimmed it in class. You numbskull! (More annoyance a question mark a though of anger and a glaring emoji, (I still cannot work up the mental strength to send emojis and its kind of embarrassing))
Me: I'll figure it out later I'm hungry now.
And with that I cut off our mental conversation. Melody gave me a look that told me we would resume this conversation later. It went down in the span of a few seconds so Grover didn't notice anything although his hair stood up a bit form the energy disturbance it tends to cause at super close range. I looked around and spotted Nancy trying to pick pocket some lady's purse and of course Mrs. Dodds doesn't notice, or if she does she turns a blind eye. Mr. Brunner had 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 the chair, making it look like a motorized cafe.
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy ad her ugly friends appeared in front of me, apparently having gotten bored with stealing from tourists, and dumped her half eaten lunch in Grover's lap. "Oops" She said. 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!" Instantly, Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
I could hear some nearby kids whispering, "Did you see?!" "Ya! The water like, GRABBED her" and I realized what I had done. Shoot, I had accidentally revealed my powers in front of everyone. I could sense Melody panicking next to me. All I could hope for was that the Mist disguised it, at least somewhat. Mrs. Dodds was comforting Nancy, promising to buy her a new shirt, etc. etc. etc. then she turned on me. "Now, honey —" she started "I know," I interrupted, "A month erasing workbooks"
That was NOT the right thing to say.
"Come with me" She said coldly.
Melody jumped up "Wait! It was me! I pushed her!" She tried to defend me, I was touched. "Now Ms. Cadence, there's no need to lie, I saw everything." As Mrs. Dodds turned away Melody looked at me with fear. The way the way she had said everything put me on high alert. As I followed after Mrs. Dodds I sent Melody a feeling of gratitude. She sent wariness back and then I focused on where I was going as I did a double take as Mrs. Dodds had somehow already gotten to the museum entrance and was gesturing at me impatiently to hurry up. How'd she get there so fast. 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 a blank space behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. Essentially my version of Melody's freeze. I wasn't so sure this time.
My hand reflectively went to the place where my imperial gold and blessed silver knife rested on my hip. The blessed silver purified things, but when used on monsters it made them take longer to reform. I've only used it in actual battle once against a monster, but I knew how to use it from hours of practice against Melody and our parents. However, it wasn't much good against bigger opponents. I went ofter Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover and Melody. Grover looked pale, his eyes were flicking from Mr. Brunner and me as though he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was happening, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his book and Melody looked troubled, as though she were trying to remember something on the tip of her tongue.
I looked back up and Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. I assumed she was just going to make me buy Nancy a new shirt from the gift shop, but that apparently wasn't the plan as she continued deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. The gallery was empty besides me and her. Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in from top 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. I decided to play it safe, "Yes ma'am." She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you think really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. That was when I decided to play it EXTRA safe. I put my hand on my knife handle before answering, "I'll—I'll try harder ma'am." Thunder suddenly shook the building. "We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Wait, how did she know my old last name? "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess and you will suffer less pain." At first I panicked. Raw unbridled panic until I remembered that she had used my last name Jackson, which meant she had outdated information. If she didn't know I was a dragon then what was she talking about?
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't…"
"Your time is up," she hissed. Literally. She then transformed in a manner that sort of resembled what happened when I let my dragon side show, except the transformation was much different and much slower. Her eyes began glowing and her fingers stretched into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. It turns out I was right all those months ago. 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. I wasn't going to go down without a fight. Just before I drew my knife and before I even had time to send a distress signal to Melody, the strangest thing happened.
AN: OKAY! DONE! Man this took a while to write to my satisfaction. I'm going to be trying my best to keep to the book while also inserting my own plot, which I am finding is pretty tricky, so updates may come slower. I was planning to make this longer but I figured you guys just wanted me to update already. I'll finish chapter one(in TLT) and do chapter 2in the next chapter. But, there totally weren't any reviews that influenced me to update this earlier than planned ;P Also, to guest reviewer Nyla, yes you can use my dragons, but you could also make up your own. This is just my personal interpretation of dragons. However, if you do use them A) Just give me credit in the description or something please and B) Tell me! I would love to read it! Thank you guys again for all your wonderful support, I really appreciate it! Have an absolutely fantabulous day! ~ FictionGirl11
P.S. We may not get much Melody POV after about Chapter 12, so I'm going to do a bunch in her POV in the mean time.
