"Stop!" I yelled. "Stop the music!" Will looked at me quizzically, so I added, "What's that scratching noise?"
Mr. Gilbert wheezed, "Just because you're Jasmine doesn't mean that you're the director. Cue music!"
"But Mr. Gilbert-"
"Ignore the scratching!"
I sighed as I tried to listen to the music above the ever-growing-in-loudness scratching.
"I can show show you the world," sang Will.
"Shining, shimmering, splendid.
Tell me, princess, now when did you last
let your heart decide?
I can open your eyes,
Take you wonder by wonder.
Over, sideways, and under
On a magic carpet ride!
A whole new world!
A new fantastic point of view!
No one to tell us no,
or where to go,
or say we're only dreaming!"
Throughout the song, I had been focusing on anything but Will, the fact that his breath smelled like garlic, and the scratching. But by the time my cue came on to sing, I couldn't even hear the music.
"Ella! Sing!" commanded Mr. Gilbert.
But I couldn't. I couldn't hear the music, or the beat. I could be singing it at the exact wrong time.
"I can't, Mr. Gilbert! I can't hear the music!" I shouted over the noise.
"What?"
"I can't hear the music!"
"What?"
"I CAN'T HEAR THE MUSIC!"
The scratching stopped at the moment I shouted. Everyone started cracking up, and I blushed. Then the scratching picked right up where it had left off.
Will paled. "No! They can't be coming for us! I thought I was safe here!"
"You're never safe, son of Hermes!" cackled Mr. Gilbert. "Now they'll come and get you."
"Hold on a second!" I shouted, throwing my hands in the air. "Son of what?"
"Hermes," said Will. "You know, like the Greek god?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Yeah, I'm half Greek god. And so are you. We need to get out of here!"
The scratching got worse. Will looked nervously at the ceiling, like it might collapse at any second.
I laughed out loud. "Okay, I admit you had me for a second. Late April fool's day joke, eh?"
"Ella. I am completely serious. We need to get to Camp Half-Blood."
"As opposed to what? Pureblood?" I kept up to date on my Harry Potter reading, having been compared to Hermione more times than necessary.
"Listen to me!" I looked in his bright, lollipop-green eyes, sensing the fear and anxiety. Against my better judgment, I believed what he was saying. Mostly. "We need to get out of here before they come!"
I would bet everything I had that my eyes mirrored the same fear as in Will's eyes. "Okay. I guess we should go. How?"
He pulled a big bronze sword out of no where and grabbed my hand. Then we bolted for the exit.
"What do we do now, your Highness?" I asked sarcastically once we were out of the building. I would never, ever lose a chance to be sarcastic.
"Ah, well, I haven't thought about this part." Will looked uncomfortable.
"WHAT?!" I shrieked. "And what about all of those poor people in there? What'll happen to them?!"
"I'll explain later, I promise. Once I find a way to get to Camp. Hey, how far away are we from New York City?"
I was always good at math and geography, so it took me about half a second to respond. "About an eight hour drive."
"Crap!" he said, pacing. "Crap, crap, crap!"
"Cool it, will you?"
"This is no time for jokes, Ella." For some unknown reason, I got a shiver down my spine when he said my name. "We need to get to New York City, and fast."
"We could take an airplane," I suggested weakly.
"No, Zeus would shoot us out of the sky." I thought he was joking, so I laughed. He looked at me like I was crazy. "Wait! I know a way! Quick, do you know how to make a rainbow?" I looked at the sky. It was bright and sunny. Perfect. I took off my glasses and put them directly in the sun's glare. Mini rainbows reflected throughout the area we were standing in. Will took a small gold coin out of his pocket. What was that supposed to be, a dollar coin? He dropped it into one of the mini rainbows and said, "O goddess, accept my offering! Camp Half-Blood, Lord Dionysus!"
What happened next was utterly beyond me. Instead of clattering noisily to the ground, the coin vanished. Just as it touched the rainbow. And a big picture of a fat guy in a Hawaiian T-shirt sipping Diet Coke on a porch of a farmhouse appeared. I could feel my mouth hanging open.
"Lord Dionysus!" said Will hastily. "I found her, the half-blood you sent me after?" He gestured to me. "Yeah, so she just basically found out a little of what she really is, and now the monsters are after us. Can you, by any chance, send one of the pegasi to pick us up and get us out of here?" I realized that all of that was probably coded. But why was he calling the fat man Dionysus? Wasn't Dionysus the Greek god of wine?
The fat guy sighed theatrically. "Sure, why not? I'll just get up and walk all the way to the stables and tell a pegasus to fly over and get you two worthless heroes. Are you out of your mind?"
A half-horse, half-middle aged man appeared next to "Dionysus."
"Whoa, a centaur!" I said. This was way out of line. No summer camp would have code names, and that cool of special effects. The picture of the guy in the air was something like you only saw in sci-fi movies. Why did they keep talking about "Half-Bloods?"
The centaur-allusion said in a scholarly tone, "I will go and fetch one for them, Lord Dionysus."
"Whatever," said the fat guy. He turned to Will and me. "Do you want anything else? Or can you leave and stop wasting my time?"
Will waved through the picture, dissolving it like colored mist. I put my glasses back on.
"What's with all the code names and special effects?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
"I told you, I'll explain later. The pegasus should be here in about three and a half minutes, so we just have to survive until then."
Mr. Gilbert charge out of the auditorium, but he wasn't the short, grizzled director anymore. It looked like he was growing into a big green snake...
"He's Python!" I shrieked to Will.
I had always had an unhealthy obsession with Greek mythology, and had even taught myself how to speak and write in Greek. So, I knew who Python was.
"He was slain by Apollo, right?" Will yelled.
"Uh-huh!" I yelled back.
Will drew another bronze-colored sword from nowhere and threw it to me.
"Catch, Ella! Try to kill it!"
"But I've never even held a-" I tried to shout. But a certain sword came whizzing by me, so I followed my instincts- I caught it. A sudden sense of power overwhelmed me. But even that power couldn't take away my incredible fear.
Mr. Gilbert/Python came running towards me. I jumped out of the way just in time. (I'd always been good at dodging.) He slithered up to me, looking more like the Basilisk from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets than I could have ever imagined. Except this Python was real.
"Swing, already!" Will commanded.
"I'm trying!" I shot back. "I don't even know how to use this thing!"
I lifted my arm to show my frustration, but I forgot that was my sword arm. I accidentally severed the head of Python.
"How'd you do that?" Will said, sounding astonished.
"Always the tone of surprise," I grumbled. But behind that whining, I was shocked too. I was still trying to wrap my mind around it. I unintentionally killed Python. Me. Ella. Killed. Python. Wow.
"Can I have my sword back?" Will asked.
"Sure," I said in a daze, throwing it to him like a javelin. He barely caught it.
A cream colored, brown speckled horse with wings flew down from the sky and landed a few feet from us.
"I must be hallucinating," I said in a frightened tone. "First the director turning into a giant snake, and now this. Maybe they were right. Maybe I do belong in a mental institute."
Will groaned like he was used to people saying that they were crazy and said, "Just get on the Pegasus."
"How?" I had only ridden a horse once, and that had been one of those little kid pony rides. How different could riding a flying horse be?
Will swung onto the horse and said, "Just sit behind me, and hang on. Like people do on motorcycles."
I clambered up on the Pegasus behind Will and sat there with my arms crossed. It was bad enough that I would have to kiss him in front of an audience, but this was way out of line.
"You're going to fall off if you don't hold on," he smirked. I moaned, put on my best martyred face, and put my arms around his torso. I immediately did not like it.
The Pegasus took off. I saw the world going by beneath us about as quickly as on an airplane, except for the fact that we were a lot lower.
"Are you going to explain now?" I asked, putting my chin on his shoulder. If I had to sit like that, I might as well make myself comfortable.
Will replied, "Sure. The short story is that the Greek gods and goddesses exist. And you're the daughter of one of them. We're going to a camp for people like us, demigods. We learn how to survive the monsters there. That Python thing we just faced was an example. You'll learn more at camp."
"Ooo-kay," I said. "You really expect me to believe that? I take mostly Honors classes, I'll have you know. If you think I'm going to be fooled by that, then you're wrong."
"Actually, I know you're in Honors classes. I was sent to your school to keep an eye on you and bring you to camp, since the satyrs are all busy."
That news took me by surprise. "You. Were sent to watch me. Why?"
"To make sure you were still alive, for one thing. And we need more demigods to fight for our cause. Again, you'll learn more at camp."
"When are we going to get to this mysterious camp, anyway?" I was getting annoyed at Will. First he grabs the part of Aladdin, obviously because he knew I would get the part of Jasmine. Then he tries to tell me that the Greeks were right, and that their mythology does exist. Then somehow Mr. Gilbert turns into a giant snake and I accidentally kill it. Him. Whatever. Now he thinks he can order me around while we're flying on a horse. Oh, puh-leez.
"Right about now, actually," he said. the horse began to land amidst a huge Greek-style strawberry farm with tons of huge buildings. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood."