Here's Chapter 4. They've arrived at Camp Half-Blood! Please R&R. :-)
Chapter 4
Hark, hark! The God does play!
And as he leads the way
Through heaven to the very spheres
As men, turn all to ears!
Hestia led the way up the hill, with Lucy running behind her, her face flushed with excitement.
"So what is this place?" asked Alex, shading her eyes as she plodded up the slope.
"Camp Half-Blood, where all half-bloods get trained up for fighting monsters and going on quests! It's got cabins for children of each God to sleep in, and it's not too far from Olympus. Do you know where Olympus is?" asked Lucy happily.
"Er... Greece?" Alex answered, looking around in expectation.
"No, it's in Manhattan! Floor 300 of the Empire State Building." Lucy told her with satisfaction.
"W-what?" Alex stuttered. She hadn't really wrapped her mind around what was happening. The Greek Gods in America! And apparently, she was the daughter of some God. It seemed impossible, but somehow it was plausible, with everything that had happened to her. She had some bad distant memories she'd never been sure were real or not. Mostly she'd assumed they were nightmares. But perhaps they were real...
They reached the tree at the crest of the hill. Draped over one of its branches was some thick golden material, shimmering in the afternoon sun.
"What's that?" asked Helen.
"The golden fleece, the magic of which protects Camp Half-Blood," Hestia replied, walking over the invisible magical barriers.
Suddenly a large shape crawled up towards them on reptile legs. A long tail dragged gently on the ground behind it, and there were grey folded wings on the slim scaled body. Lucy grinned.
"Peleus the dragon!" she stroked it under the chin carefully. Helen watched him warily, and Alex stared, horrified.
"It's a dragon?!" she asked in shock, not knowing what to think of the long serpentine creature, settling down around the pine tree.
"He's here to keep everything safe. He wouldn't harm you," Hestia assured her, smiling. Alex nodded, trying to keep calm. She looked down at the camp.
The view down into the valley was beautiful. Alex could see the cabins, the big farmhouse, the woods, the lake, the strawberry fields, and not too far away the beach. There were amphitheatres and great Greek-style buildings, along with equipment you'd expect to see in some kind of adventure-park. It all had a somehow different feel to it. As far as the eye could see in both directions there were farms, but they just looked ordinary, with greyish green grass and worn little farmhouses. Camp Half-Blood seemed fresher, better-kept.
Down near the forest, there were children and teenagers running around, shouting, and there was the sound of metal banging and clanging, but Alex couldn't make out what they were doing. She kept going down the hill.
"Hello!" said a cheery voice from behind. Alex turned in surprise and almost fell over when she saw where the voice came from. It was a brown haired man, with a longish greying beard and hairy muscular arms. But from the waist down, he was a horse! He had a dark brown horse's behind, tail, legs and hooves!
He trotted over to the large porch at the front of the house where a small but slightly plump man was sitting eating grapes. He had curly coal-black hair, bloodshot eyes and a red nose. There was a huge bunch grapes on the table, next to the cards the man was shuffling.
"You must be Helen and Lucy," said the horse-man. It sounded as if he'd been expecting them. "Welcome at last! So you are Alex," he guessed. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. The campers were just playing Capture-the-Flag." He looked over to the groups of chatting campers, who had just finished.
"I am Chiron, the Activities Director. Mr D." he nodded to the grape-eating guy, "is the Camp Director. If you like Jonathon here will give you a quick tour. Dinner will be in half an hour."
Mr D. smiled unconvincingly at the girls, and then at Hestia, before turning back to his cards. "Want to play pinochle, Chiron?"
Jonathon led Lucy, Helen and Alex away. Hestia kissed her daughters, and then wandered off across the camp.
"Hi," Jonathon grinned, leading the way towards the cabins they'd seen from the hill. "I'm Jon. You two," he looked at Helen and Lucy, "will sleep in the Hestia cabin, here. You're the only ones right now. Alex will sleep in cabin 11, the Hermes cabin, until you know your parent. That's where all the undetermined kids go." He pointed to it, and then quickly helped Helen with her things, chatting as he opened the door for her and Lucy, leaving Alex alone outside the cabins with her bag. They were arranged just next to the lake, about 30 of them in all, in different colours and designs with varying amounts of lived-in ness. There were a couple that looked empty.
Opening the Hermes cabin door, Alex was surprised to find it full with people already. Laughing, shouting and talking hit her when she walked in, and her head hurt, she was so tired.
She looked around, wondering what to do. "Hey, are you new?" called an amused voice. Alex found it came from a grinning teenager with a pointed nose and long black hair loose down her back. She was holding a note book full of what Alex presumed was ancient Greek. "I'm Kate. Welcome to the Hermes Cabin!" She was lounging on a sleeping bag, on the carpet right by the door. The cabin was so packed beds were rolled out all over the floor.
Kate helped Alex lay out a bed, glancing nosily in the suitcase as she put it down.
"Thanks," Alex muttered, plonking herself down. It wasn't very comfortable.
"Are you English?" Kate asked, curious.
"Um, yeah. I've come here with Helen and Lucy, they're English too." Alex rubbed her eyes; exhausted from the journey and all the things she'd been told. Greek Gods in 21st century New York!
Kate laughed. "We've got this French guy here, but nobody English!"
There was a knock on the door. "Alex?" called Jonathon, poking his head round the door. "I've got to take you on the tour." Alex stood up and looked at her cabin. At the back there were people messing around and fighting over what looked like a pillow, and closer to the door they were sitting down, chatting loudly.
"Ooh, I'll come!" Kate offered, eager to get to know the new English campers.
So Helen, Lucy and Alex were shown around by the two more experienced campers, both joking and telling stories about some of the things that have happened at Camp.
"Here's the armoury, and the arena where we hold sword and spear fights." Jonathon explained. In the fighting arena there were four people wearing orangeCAMP HALF BLOOD t-shirts, practising sword fighting skills. There was a girl with long curly blonde hair fighting a guy with sandy coloured hair and green eyes. They looked about 17. The other fighters were a scrawny 17 year old with messy black hair and sea green eyes, and an older muscular girl smacking her heavy sword so fast against her opponent's you could barely see it.
"Wow..." Lucy breathed, watching in awe.
"That's Percy and Clarisse, and Annabeth and Kai," Kate said, pointing. "Percy and Kai are sons of Poseidon, Annabeth's a child of Athena, and Clarisse is a daughter of Ares. They've been at Camp Half-Blood for ages, longer than nearly everyone else."
"Really? Ares... That's why she's so good at fighting," Alex decided. She thought about who her parent could be, but then told herself it wasn't possible to have a Greek God as a parent.
"Has anyone explained it all to you?" Kate asked as the fighters finished. Clarisse had won her battle easily, and Kai had won just about his.
"Yes but... My mum was a painter, I think, but she died in a car crash just after she had me. And my dad just left after that. I don't have any other family, but they don't sound like Gods, do they?" said Alex. She was watching the campers putting their swords and shields away, taking off their light armour and cooling off. She was sure she'd never be able to fight with something as big as the swords they had been using.
"Well," Kate muttered. "That's what happened to me. I didn't know about Hermes being my father till 6 months ago. But you must be a half-blood – you got over the magical barriers, you fought monsters. And I bet you're ADHD, dyslexic, have some trouble in school. You're demigod, and there's nothing you can do about it." She grinned. "Come on, it's almost dinner. Let's go to the mess hall!" She laughed as a tall boy of about 13 ran over and babbled to her about something to do with the Capture-the-Flag thing they'd done. Alex felt a little left out. "That was Toby," Kate explained. "He's in our cabin."
They walked over to an open air pavilion over looking the sea. It was filled with picnic tables.
"Er... this is where we eat?" Alex asked. Kate nodded, grinning. "Even in winter?" There was another nod. Suddenly a horn blew in the distance – a conch shell to call everyone to dinner.
"Where're you sitting?" Alex whispered.
"We have to sit in our cabins. You're sticking with me for now!"
A loud voice interrupted them. "Cabin eleven, over here!" A Hermes kid, around 19, was yelling at them. He had longish brown hair that almost covered his eyes, and wore a bright orange camp top and blue jeans with pockets full of paper, toys, food and other weird things but Alex had no idea what they were.
Kate dragged her into line. "He's Josh. The oldest guy in our cabin, he's basically the boss."
They sat down at the table, about 20 of them, with Alex hanging off an end next to Kate. She seemed to be friends with everyone.
"You can't trust her though, Alex. You never know when she's being honest!" a ginger boy from the Athena table joked. Kate shrugged as if it was true. Alex's mouth dropped open.
"What is it?" Kate asked, looking behind her. Some of the strangest things Alex had ever seen were coming towards the eating pavilion. People with the legs and hooves of goats, people that seemed to come out of the trunks of trees and up from the grass, people that hopped out of the lake, all were walking towards them.
"What are they?" she muttered.
Kate scratched her head. "Naiads, satyrs and wood nymphs, mostly. They're all campers too."
There were approximately 180 campers all in all, not including others like Mr D, Chiron and Hestia. Each had a table to themselves; some overcrowded, like the Hermes table, some only with a couple of campers.
"What does Mr D. stand for?" Alex whispered. The pavilion had started to go quiet, and Chiron trotted to the front and stamped his hooves. Kate put a finger to her lips.
Chiron raised a glass. "To the Gods of Olympus!"
"To the Gods of Olympus!" everyone chorused, raising their glasses in a toast. Food was brought forward by the wood nymphs and naiads, who would drop a few plates off on one table and then go to the next. The Hermes' table had a plate extra.
"There aren't too many extra people in our cabin, since the Gods made an oath to claim all their kids. It won't last too long, though. There's Jaycie, over there, who's 16 and still undetermined. But oh well, let's eat!" Kate said, eagerly grabbing sausages and chips. Alex laughed. "I'm having salad as well!" Kate protested.
"Come on," she said, getting up and taking her plate towards the fire in the middle of the amphitheatre. Most of the campers were doing the same. Alex watched as each person scraped a portion of their meal into the fire, bowing and saying a God's name. Now it was her turn, and she didn't know what to say. She blushed.
"The Gods," she said, pushing some chicken into the flames. The smoke smelled wonderful. Even when she sat down again, the smell was wafting around the table.
"So, we've got a new camper, have we?" said a voice at her ear. Alex turned around in surprise to see a girl with long blonde hair and pink make up scrutinizing her. A daughter of Aphrodite, Alex guessed. She was starting to get to grips with everything. A bit.
"Yes Louise, we have," Kate said, staring irritably at her. It seemed as if Louise was one of Kate's few enemies.
Another Aphrodite girl, with pretty curled hair, long eyelashes and a doll-like face swivelled round. "Ooh, what's your name?" Her voice was high-pitched and girly. She wore her own design of the CAMP HALF BLOOD t-shirt, like many of the other Aphrodite campers.
"Um, I'm Alex..." she started nervously, giving up her attempts to eat her dinner.
"You're English!" she exclaimed, smiling sweetly. "Where exactly are you from?"
Alex looked down, going red. "South London." The girl, called Susie, smiled again and went back to her food.
Yawning Alex started on her own meal and looked around the crowded table for a jug to fill her glass.
"You just say whatever you want to drink and the glass fills with it," a helpful camper nearby explained.
She thought for a moment. "Lemonade." Immediately the cup filled with the fizzy liquid. Raising her eyebrows, she tasted it.
"Kate," Alex said. The camper looked up. "Is Chiron like the Chiron from mythology?"
"Oh yes," she grinned mischievously. "He's very old." Just then the centaur stamped his hooves to get attention. "Speak of the devil," Kate muttered. A few people giggled.
Mr D stood up. "Chiron told me to stand up and say "Good Evening"." he sighed. "So, children, good evening. The Capture-the-Flag game was won, quite irrelevantly, by the Nemesis Cabin. Also, as I'm sure most of you know, we have three new campers, Helen, Lucy and Alex. And one more thing: the Capture-the-Flag will be held in ten days. A week later it will be Chariot Racing. Ah well." He sat down at his table, where a few similar-looking campers – presumably his children – were eating.
Alex finished her dinner, with plenty of chocolate cake for dessert. After that everyone gathered round a camp fire, toasting marshmallows and singing strange songs Alex had never heard before.
"This is quite cool really," she murmured, munching on marshmallows as Kate danced around the campfire.
"You bet." Kate grinned, throwing a marshmallow at her. Then she gasped. "Whoa!" The other campers all stared at Alex.
"What?" She was glowing yellow, and glancing up, she saw, shimmering in the air above her head, a fading yellow sun.
"The sign of Apollo," someone breathed.
So, did I get the characters right? Didn't I? Review and tell me! You know you want to...