Chapter Five
Rain lashed down hard on the small helpless form
Deadly waves dragged it to the shore of the sea
An icy laugh rang out in the angry storm
And fierce lightning bolts struck the tall pine tree
When dawn arrived, Alex woke and stared at the pale yellow ceiling, heart pounding as she listened to the breathing of everyone around her. Someone snored.
She was the only one awake in the Apollo cabin, and it was almost 7am.
"Uh..." she sighed, wishing she could have stayed in cabin 11. Yes, it was crowded, but Alex at least had a friend in there. Kate. Jonathon was a son of Apollo, but she barely knew him; when he'd shown her around, he had been talking to Helen and Lucy, not her.
Suddenly she remembered why she had been moved – because her father Apollo, God of the sun, had acknowledged her. She was the daughter of a Greek God! She didn't know if she should be happy, scared or confused. To be honest she felt a little bit of all three.
Someone yawned underneath her. Alex was on the top of a bunk bed – that was one good thing, not being on the floor – and a camper named Carla (her half sister!) was sleeping on the bottom.
Within minutes everybody else was waking up. There were about a dozen children of Apollo, and now they were all getting changed, yawning and chatting quietly. One by one, they left the cabin.
"You okay, British Girl?" asked Carla as she left. Alex nodded, lying back down. She was tired.
-----
After breakfast Kate showed Alex to the armoury. From the outside it looked like any old wooden farm hut, but inside the walls were lined with weaponry. The morning sunshine streamed in through a window, lighting up a large box labelled "Chain mail". It was a long hut, with so many different types of weapons Alex didn't know where to start.
"Okay, you need a sword and a shield. That'll do for now," Kate said, picking up a celestial bronze sword and handing it over.
Alex took it carefully, surprised of its weight. "Um... this is too heavy. Do you have a sword?" She put that one back and tried out some others.
Kate passed across a black handled sword with a serrated edge. "Look at this one! And yeah, I have a blue shield, a bronze sword and this thing that looks like an iPod, but when you press a button a blade pops out. It's quite cool; I use it as a dagger."
"Wow," said Alex, while looking worriedly at a particularly sharp sword. "Where'd you get it from?"
Kate blushed. "Well, I found it," she said, innocently examining a rusting sword.
"Found it?" Alex asked sceptically, and Kate grinned mischievously.
"I found it somewhere," she explained, and held up another sword. "What do you think about this?"
"I think you stole it!" Alex answered, smiling ruefully.
"Daughter of Hermes!" Kate protested. "It's my nature!"
"So, um, Kate," Alex began after a moment's silence. "Why do I need a sword?"
Kate picked up a sword and started fighting an imaginary opponent. "You need to learn to fight, to defend yourself. Our scent attracts monsters, and they can't get you here, but if you go on a quest you'll be attacked. So, Chiron and Percy and Josh and people like that have to teach you. But, anyways. Tell me about yourself!" She put down her sword and sat on the edge of a box of armour.
Alex blinked. "This is so weird! Monsters can smell us? Oh great... Um, well, anyway, I'm Alexandra Cheshire, but please don't call me that! Everyone calls me Alex. As you know, I'm 5 foot 4 with long red hair and blue eyes, and I'm 14 years old. I come from South London and I was brought up by my foster parents - Julie and Ben. My real father is Apollo, and that's pretty much it really. I'm not very interesting."
Kate laughed. "You're not very interesting? Anyways, about me. I'm Kate Nicole Barker and I'm 5 foot 1 - shorter than practically everyone! I come from LA, used to live with my mum, her boyfriend Dave and my half-brother Tony. He thinks I'm at some boarding school, 'cause my mum isn't telling him about me. She knows of course. I've been at Camp Half-Blood since Ash, the satyr, who was at my school, took me here six months ago. I'll be 15 on 1st September and my favourite camp activity is Capture-the-Flag. It's really fun, you'll love it... Oh wow, look at this sword!" She gave a large bronze sword with a jewelled handle to Alex.
"Whoa!" Alex almost dropped it. "Much too heavy."
"This is lighter," Kate held up another one. The blade was thinner, but deadly sharp. Alex passed it from hand to hand, weighing it out. It had a gold hilt - gold like the sun.
She smiled. "Yeah."
Kate grinned. "Finally! Okay, now we need to get you a shield. Shouldn't be difficult! Here, look at this..."
In the practise arena, Alex was challenged first by Kate and then Josh. He was 19, a tall, muscular camper with a mop of brown hair covering his blue eyes and large mouth. He looked like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to cross, and Alex thought he looked like he would be good as a wrestler.
"No, you're holding it wrong!" he shouted, walking over to Alex and adjusting her hands on the sword. Alex noticed a long white scar on one of his tanned arms. "Okay, that's alright now. If you block like this..." He took her though a series of different movements, showing her how she should attack, disarm, parry and thrust. He talked quickly and with authority, and Alex walked away hoping she would manage to actually beat someone now.
"Are you one of the new campers?" asked a boy a little taller than her. He had sand-coloured hair and sea-green eyes, and she recognised him from the previous day's tour. "I'm Kai," he said.
"Um, yes, I'm Alex," she answered, nervously avoiding his penetrating green eyes.
"And you're British?" he asked, starting to smile.
Alex blushed. "Obviously," she muttered. Why does everyone find that funny? she thought irritatedly.
He laughed, dragging his sword up and getting his shield. "Would you like to fight?"
Alex rolled her eyes. "Okay then."
Kai went easy on her at first, but soon she was struggling to stop each blow and within a minute he had won.
"Not bad," he told Alex as she retrieved her sword. She went red.
Kate walked towards her, leading along an older Hermes camper. Alex remembered him from when she had sat on the Hermes table; a loud, talkative teenager with kleptomaniac tendencies.
"Okay dearie, this is my half brother Travis Stoll. Travis, Alex. Alex, Travis. There you go. Have a nice little fight, and don't hurt her! I'm going to get a drink. See you in a minute!" Kate left them, and Travis laughed. He unsheathed his sword and smiled.
"Apparently you're British," he said. Alex scowled and attacked, and Travis knocked her sword away after a few seconds. "Don't take it personally!" he said as he walked away.
Next Alex was approached by an Ares girl called Lucy. She quickly defeated Alex and left her with a bruised leg.
"She gets teased for being called "Lucy" by her brothers and sisters," Kate mentioned when Lucy had gone.
Alex frowned. "Why?"
"Well it's not exactly a warlike name, is it?" Kate rolled her eyes. "You're okay at fighting, though. Just need practise." Alex smiled gratefully as she wiped dirt off her sword, silently cursing how useless she was.
"Now there's two Lucy's," she noted, nodding at the little Lucy fighting her sister with a bronze dagger. Alex wandered over to the Hestia sisters as Helen knocked the knife out of Lucy's hands.
"Oh!" Lucy moaned.
"Don't worry," one of the spectators said. "You're quite good really!" Most of the Aphrodite girls thought Lucy was really cute, and had taken to calling her "English Lucy". To avoid confusion with "the Ares one", Susie had said.
Carrying her sword and shield, Alex limped over to Helen. She'd bruised her leg fighting the Ares Lucy.
"You were quite good," Alex said to her, leaning against the wall of the armoury.
Helen looked up from her bronze sword. "Thanks," she smiled at the compliment. "It's not a natural skill, being a child of Hestia. She's a peacemaker, really. Did you know she gave up her Olympian throne for Mr D to avoid argument?"
Alex raised her eyebrows. "Mr D is Dionysus? I learnt about it at school, but I didn't realise that was Mr D!" Helen nodded. Alex leaned backwards, tired, and wishing she had taken up fencing at her old school. Maybe then she would be a little bit better at sword fighting.
"Anyone wanna fight?" a deep rough voice yelled, interrupting Alex's thoughts.
She stood up. "Erm, I will!"
"I'm Greg," he told her, spitting aggressively on the ground. "Wanna be smashed to a pulp?" Alex scowled, wishing she hadn't offered to fight.
"My name's Alex," she said calmly, circling him. She hoped this wouldn't be yet another defeat, but looking at Greg, her chances weren't too high. He started attacking straight away, throwing insults at her. Her arm shook with pain as she held the shield, stopping each blow.
"My name's Alex!" he taunted, imitating her accent. "And I can't fight 'cause I'm English!" Alex bit her lip, sweating hard but ignoring him as she concentrated, slashing with her sword like Josh had done. "Limey! Stupid, ugly Brit! Apollo's not gonna save you now girlie! Not that he could. No wonder you can't fight to save your life!" Greg was out of breath but still brushing her stabs away with no visible effort. He grinned and showed missing teeth.
Alex lunged furiously, the sun on her back. She smacked her sword against his, knocking it violently out of his hand. It spun dangerously on the ground, the blade scratched. "You sure about that?" she asked. The son of Ares grabbed his sword and headed for a shower angrily. Alex watched, panting. She wondered how she had managed that.
"That was good," said a voice. Alex turned in surprise. The voice came from a tall blonde girl she remembered from yesterday.
"I'm Annabeth," the girl told her. Alex nodded, trying not to pant. "This is Percy," Annabeth looked expectantly at the boy Alex had heard so much about, who smiled awkwardly. "This is Ash." The satyr grinned, revealing large white teeth.
"And I'm Nico di Angelo," a lean, pale camper with black hair and dark eyes nodded at her. His skin was pale yellow and he had dark rings under his eyes.
"A-Alex," she replied nervously, still out of breath. Kate had been telling her about Percy and Annabeth's adventures, with Kronos and the titans. Her Greek history was quite good but she still was not entirely sure what had happened in the year before she came.
"Put your sword down, British Girl. You're climbing the wall!" Carla said, breezing in and taking Alex by the arm.
Ash saluted her. "Well - see you around," he smiled and trotted away.
"Brace yourself," muttered Annabeth. Alex took one more look at the fighting arena, where English Lucy was surrounded by a group of girls listening to her stories. Then she took a deep breath and headed for the climbing wall.
-----
After lunch they had free time so Alex took her notebook and sat alone by the lake. It was quiet and peaceful as she sketched the blue water, the birds and the flowers. A naiad came up to talk to her.
A few minutes later she was writing when a gruff voice behind her made her jump.
"What have we here?" said Greg, sniggering with the camper next to him. The two of them stood between two trees, looking almost identical with their nasty expressions. Suddenly Greg grabbed Alex's notebook from her hands.
"Give it back!" she snapped, jumping up.
"Ooh, give it back!" he mimicked. His companion laughed. "Now what does this say?" He squinted at a page in the notebook.
"Stop it!" Alex demanded, trying to snatch the notebook back. Greg held it out of her reach.
"The air was cold and the night was, er, dark. What kind of person writes this in their..."
Alex kicked him in the knee. "Just give it back!"
Greg turned round furiously. "Don't kick me!" he shouted. He threw the notebook on the ground and stamped on it. "Useless, stupid, stinkin' Brit!" The other camper was giggling helplessly while Greg picked the notebook up and made to throw it.
"Stop it!" ordered Kai, stepping out of the trees. Alex looked at him in surprise.
"Ooh Kai, what you gonna do? Splash us?" Greg mocked, laughing bitterly .
Kai closed his eyes. "If you insist," he muttered, and a wave splashed up from the lake and drenched the Ares boys. Alex watched in awe.
"Ugh!" shouted one of them, and Greg threw the notebook back at Alex before running out, rather undignified.
Alex picked her damp notebook up, not sure what to say. "Uh, thanks," she said. "How did you do that?"
Kai looked down, embarrassed. "I'm son of the Sea God. I can do things like that. But, um, anyways, you should probably go back now. It's 2.00." Alex nodded and he went red. They walked back to the cabins in an uncomfortable silence.
For the rest of the day Alex found herself blushing whenever she saw Kai. When she saw Greg, however, she tried not to look at him. He gave her evil looks from the other side of camp.
I wish I never came here, she thought to herself. Or why can't there be a Camp Half Blood in Britain? she reasoned, miserably avoiding Greg's eye.
-----
"So, how'd you like your first full day at Camp Half-Blood?" asked Kate at the sing-a-long that evening. Once again they were toasting marshmallows, after an eventful day getting humiliated sword fighting, singed on the climbing wall, and embarrassed attempting Pegasus riding. She had also tried her hand at archery, and to her surprise managed several bulls' eyes. The excursion with Greg and Kai was almost forgotten.
"Oh, it was okay, despite the fact the only thing I'm any good at is archery!" Alex said, happily munching a hot dog and staring into the flames. She wondered where Hestia was; she had not seen her since dinner the night before.
"Yeah! It was so funny when you fell off the Pegasus!" Kate laughed. Alex threw a marshmallow at her. "Oy! You did manage to beat Greg, though. That was cool. The look on his face!"
The two girls laughed as they started singing a camp song, a round, with different parts about different Gods. It got faster and faster until Alex decided to give up and just listen, cracking up at Kate changing all the words.
When she went to bed Alex was still smiling. Camp Half-Blood wasn't so bad really, she thought.
Thank you for reading! Please tell me what you think of my OCs, and also Rick Riordan's characters. If you like it, please tell me! If you don't, tell me how to improve! :^)