Once I got over the fact that our Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour. I made sure to walk beside Chiron, as opposed to behind him because I had seen what horses could do out of their back ends on TV and I did not want to experience it first hand. We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn Percy was carrying. Another said, "That's him." I just looked at the kids for a minute, wondering why they were talking about Percy, and in the moment I was staring at them, their attention turned to me and they started whispering things that I couldn't make out. I frowned and trotted to keep up with Chiron (uh, no pun intended).
Most of the campers were older than us. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at us made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting us to do flips or something, like we were a carnival sideshow of freaks there for their amusement. Plus, knowing the fact that all the satyrs were pretty much teenage boys and they weren't wearing any pantswasn't exactly the most comfortable feeling in the world.
I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. There was a brass eagle weather vane on top that caught the light and blinded me for a second, but I could've sworn I saw a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable.
Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.
"What's up there?" I asked Chiron, hesitating a little. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know. This day had been weird enough without strange attic-monster-alien-god-whatevers staring at me from their nice little perch inside the attic. Percy glanced at me and then looked up to where I was pointing.
Chiron looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."
"Somebody lives there?"
"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."
I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain. Great. There was an attic-monster-alien-god-whatever. That just made my day a whole lot better. Note sarcasm.
"Come along, Percy, Jess," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."
We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a on a reed pipe. Chiron told us the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."
He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.
I watched the campers picking the strawberries and couldn't help but wonder what had possessed them, teenagers, to actually do physical labor. It was unheard of!
Meanwhile, Percy was staring at the satyr playing and I rolled my eyes once I found this out. No use worrying about spilt milk, right?
"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" Percy asked Chiron. "I mean...he was a good protector. Really."
Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle.
"Grover has big dreams. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."
"But he did that!"
"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate...ah...fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."
I wanted to protest, now, seeing Percy's behavior as not-so-worrisome as I had before. I mean, none of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If we hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble. Oops. "He'll get a second chance, won't he?" I finally spoke up.
Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Jess. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."
"How old is he?"
"Oh, twenty-eight."
"What! And he's in sixth grade?"
"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."
"That's kind of horrible." I shuddered at the thought of staying in middle school for six years.
"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."
"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? It can't have been that bad."
Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"
I got lost in my thoughts of all the swords and bows and arrows and shiny and sharp things after a bit, though, and wasn't paying much attention to Percy or Chiron anymore. I nearly wandered off when Chiron grabbed me by the collar and yanked me back out of the way as some campers threw their javelins at the targets that I had wandered in front of in my daze about pointy stuff. That snapped me back to my senses.
Then, suddenly, I heard Percy start talking out of nowhere. "Chiron," Percy said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real..."
"Yes, child?"
"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?" I looked at Percy, wide-eyed as he looked at Chiron expectantly.
Chiron's expression darkened.
"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully.
No way.
"There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now...until we know more...I would urge both of you to put that out of your minds."
"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"
"Come, you two. Let's see the woods." As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans or Vikings or whatever. I wasn't good at history, okay?
Then Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."
"Stocked with what?" Percy asked suspiciously.
"Armed with what?" I asked, more than a little excited at the prospect of shiny, pointy things that I could hurt things with.
"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own swords and shields?"
"Our own—?" Percy started.
"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do for you Percy, and maybe a size one for you, Jessicah. I'll visit the armory later to make the arrangements."
I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory because that's freaking AWESOME, but there was too much else to think about-like the range of weapons I was actually allowed to use and how Percy wasn't happy about the prospect of me having a sword in my hand (which he could get over because this was happening)-so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.
"Sword and spear fights?" I asked. I had begun thinking that this was my kind of camp when he had first mentioned weapons, and these fights were exactly my kind of thing. Maybe I got scared around monsters, but sharp objects? Shiny, metallic objects? Hurting people? This is my territory we're getting into now.
"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."
It was all I could do to suppress a wave of disappointment at the non-lethal thing.
Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.
Percy and I shared a quick glance. "What do you do when it rains?" he asked for the both of us.
Chiron looked at him as if he'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?"
I stifled a laugh at Percy's expression, though I was feeling the same way on the inside. However, I wasn't going to show it in a camp full of people that I didn't know.
Finally, he showed us the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen, except for maybe-maybe-some of the houses I'd seen in upper Manhattan because some people were just weird.
Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops. I figured Percy would be happy that there was at least one normal thing to do here, but I knew that I would not be participating with that. I was quite happy with handling lethal weapons, thank you very much. Basketball was a little beyond my comprehension.
In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. I barely spared a glance for her, thinking she was just another camper and I'd meet her eventually, probably.
The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.
"Correct," Chiron said.
"Their cabins look empty," Percy observed.
"Thank you for that sharp observation, Captain Obvious," I couldn't help by say to him.
"Why, you're welcome, Lieutenant Sarcasm," he shot back. We just glared at each other for a moment before Chiron clearing his throat broke the silence.
"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two," he said, getting back to the earlier question/observation.
Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty? I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three, along with Percy.
It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!" Percy tried to peek inside with me, but we were standing too close together, with the doorway too small for both of us to look, and I would fall down and take him with me if he tried to lean on me anymore.
Before Chiron could pull me back, though, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Jessicah." He had already grabbed Percy away from the place. I'd have to tell him about it later. It seemed important, for some odd reason.
Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.
Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red. However, she had just as bad of an attitude and I got a sudden ache to smack this camper that I did not know, but Chiron was still steering me slightly so I couldn't do anything for the moment.
I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed. "Don't they live here?"
"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."
"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really..." Percy trailed off
He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Jessicah, I am."
"But, shouldn't you be dead?"
Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish...and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."
I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list. I decided then and there that I would never become a teacher; Chiron did enough 'teaching' in his lifetime than I could ever do so I might as well scratch it off my list.
"Doesn't it ever get boring?" Percy asked.
"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."
"Why depressing?"
Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again. I frowned at him.
"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."
The blonde girl we'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.
When we reached her, she looked us over critically. I got the feeling that she wasn't too terribly pleased with either me nor Percy and for some reason that disturbed me.
I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek, as in the ancient variety. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book. I blinked at it, willing myself to read it, but I simply couldn't and my brain was hurting from the strain now.
"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy and Jessicah from here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Cabin eleven," Chiron told us, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."
Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it...? A caduceus.
Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center. I couldn't help myself from thinking, Where's the flood?
Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.
I raised my brows at him. "Impressive," was all I said.
"Well, then," Chiron said, ignoring my probably remarkably inappropriate comment. "Good luck, Percy, Jessicah. I'll see you at dinner."
He galloped away toward the archery range.
I stood behind Perce in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at us, mainly Percy since he was in front of me, sizing us up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools with Percy. He made sure to keep in front of me, as per usual, trying to shield me from the worst of the glares and ravenous looks. Somehow, though, this time it annoyed me. This was a new start and he was being overprotective again, which is normally fine, but this time I could protect myself. I frowned at Percy's back, silently willing him to move, though I did not dare say it out loud.
"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on. Both of you make nice with everyone instead of standing there like a bunch of feral dogs."
So Percy started forward, finally, with me right after him. Of course, he tripped coming in the door and I couldn't catch myself in time so I went down with him. Great. It was the first day and he was already ruining things for me. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything. I hissed at Percy about how clumsy he was as I stood up slowly
Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson and Jessicah Angelos, meet cabin eleven.
"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.
I didn't know what to say and Percy looked blank as well, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."
Everybody groaned.
A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy and Jessicah. You two can share that spot on the floor, right over there. Sorry, it's not exactly the Ritz."
I smiled in thanks at the guy, trying not to blush.
The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool...and cute. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash, but it was becoming of him. He was actually a little more than cute, he was quite handsome. I quickly pushed the thought form my head.
"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. I looked at Percy to see if he had noticed, but he was staring at Luke with a hard look. "He's your counselor for now."
"For now?" I asked.
"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently, now engaged in a staring competition with Percy. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."
I tugged Percy away from his competition with Like and looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given us. Neither of us had anything to put there to mark it as our own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn that Percy had won. I thought about making him set that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves and thought better of it.
I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.
Percy and I shared a look. We were obviously thinking the same thing. "How long will we be here?" I asked.
"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."
"How long will that take?"
The campers all laughed.
I frowned. "What? I don't get the joke.."
That seemed to make whatever they were laughing at even funnier.
"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you two the volleyball court."
"I've already seen it," Percy protested.
"So have I," I added, since Perce seemed to have forgotten about me, which was strange.
"Come on." She grabbed our wrists and dragged us outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind us and frowned again.
When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that. You, too, Angelos."
"What?"
She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."
"What's your problem?" Percy said, an angry tone to his voice. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"
"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told him. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"
"To get killed?"
"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"
He shook his head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories..."
"Yes."
"Then there's only one."
"Yes."
"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So..."
"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."
"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."
"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."
"You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"
"The Fur...I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."
"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"
"You talk in your sleep."
"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"
Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.
"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."
I rolled my eyes. I was feeling particularly left out of this conversation, so I started off on my own, leaving the two quarreling behind me. Not even Perce seemed to notice my absence.
Eventually, I found the forge, this huge white building with marble columns and soot-lined walls and chimneys on the roof that pumped smoke over a gable with carvings of gods and monsters. I saw a bronze-colored wheel turning in the river next to the building and figured that that's what powered it. Huh. So demigods are conservatives.
I walked in without stopping to think about the idiocy of my actions first. My jaw dropped open. There was all sorts of machinery and gears going, people making sharp objects that were meant to impale people with, armor being forged, and so many other things I couldn't identify. The heat was intense and the sounds of hammers on metal and fires crackling was overpowering. I was vaguely aware that I was gaping into a room fool of sweaty guys and girls working hard, then I was being yelled at by a large guy who someone called Jake and was run out of there.
"Okay, that was pretty cool," I said to myself. I couldn't help but wonder what else would happen at this crazy camp.
I sat down by the stream a ways away from the forge, using some of the water to wash some of the sweat off of my face. I loved the feel of the water on my skin, but that was normal. What wasn't normal was the girls that I saw in the stream, swimming and playing and doing whatever the heck they were doing. I just kept blinking at them over and over, trying to figure out what I knew about what they were supposed to be, but I couldn't pull up the information in my mind. I shrugged. "Oh well." I tended to have a nasty habit of talking to myself.
A little while later, I found that I wasn't alone anymore. I was just sitting back, enjoying the view, when I heard a voice near my ear. "You new here?"
I spun toward the guy who had whispered in my ear. I could still feel his breath on my neck and I was all tingly from it, though I didn't know why. "Yeah. My name's Jessicah Angelos. What's yours?"
He sat next to me and stretched out his legs, then smiled at me. "Mitchell. You know, you have a pretty name."
"Um, thanks," I said, not used to being complimented, much less on my name. Mitchell had dark, shaggy hair and gray-blue eyes. I really liked his eyes...
"No problem. So, have you been claimed yet?"
"Nope. Just got in a few days ago, though I was unconscious for most of it, so today is my first day out of the hospital."
"Oh, you're that girl who came with that boy who killed the minotaur?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess I am, if you're talking about Percy." I was starting to play with the grass around me, pulling it out blade by blade.
"That's cool. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?" he asked suddenly.
I raised my eyebrows, but didn't say anything negative, since I didn't know if this was a camp thing or something. "I guess, if you tell me how old you are."
"Thirteen," he said, flashing brilliantly white teeth. "Now you."
"Twelve," I answered. "So why did you need to know that...?"
"Oh, just a cabin thing. I'm a son of Aphrodite, and my cabin does polls and things like that."
Well that explains why he's so gorgeous, I thought, but didn't dare say. "Oh. Right." I managed a tiny smile. Something in the back of my mind was warning me about Aphrodite kids, but I kept pushing it back because how could anything be wrong with a boy this sweet and well-mannered and good-looking?
"So, you're not in a relationship with that Perry guy you came here with, are you?"
I instantly made a disgusted face and fake-wretched. "Ew. No. He's practically my brother."
"So, you're in no romantic relationship right now?"
"Nooo, I'm only twelve... I'm kind of young for a relationship."
His beautiful eyes narrowed slightly, but I didn't know why. "You are not. Twelve is a perfectly acceptable age to have a boyfriend. Especially if the boyfriend is thirteen."
That nagging voice was back, warning me about Aphrodite and her kids, but it wouldn't go away this time. I frowned. Wait. I read about something like this... IS HE TRYING TO SEDUCE ME?! I'M ONLY FREAKING TWELVE! My eyes widened and I glanced at Mitchell quickly before looking at the ground, the stream, the trees in the distance, anything but him. "Well, I must be going now, so.." I stood up quickly, wiping my pants off, and ran off, leaving him there.
Once I was gone from there, I could think clearly again. "Well, I'm definitely staying away from the Aphrodite cabin," I said to myself. "That was more than a little creepy. I forgot that they can manipulate lust. Sometimes puberty can be a curse." She shuddered, thinking about how that's one of the most evil things a person can do, manipulate their lust and/or love.
Eventually, I found a reliable guy to ask stuff about the camp. He was in Athena, so I didn't have to worry about him trying to manipulate my lust or love or whatever.
After a while, the line of questioning got to where I really wanted it to be. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks in the first few cabins."
The guy turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin. It depends on who your parents are. Or...your parent."
"They're both dead. I never knew them. I've lived in an orphanage since forever."
He sighed. Clearly, he'd had this conversation before with other kids. "At least one of your parents isn't dead, Jessicah."
I swallowed. "How can you say that?"
"Because you're here. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."
I just looked at him, expectant.
"Right. So, you've been kicked out of a bunch of schools, moved around from school to school, right?
"How—"
"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."
I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."
"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"
"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."
"Um. I didn't survive the Minotaur, I passed out while Percy killed it."
"Still."
"Wait. What's ambrosia and nectar?"
"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."
A half-blood.
I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start, but the guy said he had to go and wouldn't let me ask anything else. I sighed and went to find Percy and Annabeth, thinking that maybe she had some answers.
I finally found them outside a...bathroom? There was a crowd of campers, and I had to push my way through to see what was going on. Annabeth and another girl (who looked really, really pissed) were both soaking wet, but Perce was dry. I was pondering what was going on here when I heard Percy say, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."
Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.
I ran over to Annabeth and Percy. "What the hell happened?" I demanded of Percy, but he was ignoring me in favor of Annabeth again.
Annabeth was staring at him. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry, but whaever it was, it wasn't good. I frowned and looked at Percy.
"What?" he demanded. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."
"Will someone please tell me what's going on here?!"