If you haven't looked at my profile (although honestly, I doubt any of you have, and I don't really blame you on that one) then I'll say it here, too: I will be updating Grade School Misadventures every Friday, at least until I start school again. So, after today, that takes us to five more chapters before I go back to school. And that's if I don't suddenly go on a writing binge and type so hard I wear the letters off my keyboard.
Shout outs to creamtherabbit77, The Minun, and Wise-Girl 826 for reviewing chapter 2, My Quiet Riot for reviewing chapter 3, and ultimate awesomesauceness to Mandi2341 and violleet for reviewing BOTH chapters! Well, I think I've run out of important matters to address, so I'll let you get on to reading the chapter, which is a direct continuation from the last one, so go back and read that if you forgot what happened!
I sat on the curb in the snow for a while, because I felt really bad. Kind of like I felt all week, like crying and throwing up, but this time I just felt like I wanted to go sleep somewhere and wake up in a week. Or maybe when second grade could be over.
Maybe it was depression. I think that's what you call it when someone gets really, really sad about something. Then they never want to leave their house and they like to be in the dark. It's true, I saw a History Channel show about it.
I was still holding my box of brownies that had a fancy ribbon tied around it. I was kind of hungry. If I hadn't ran for it, I would probably be having snack time right now. So I untied the ribbon, and right away it slipped off and fell into a rain gutter. I looked down after it, but it was already out of sight.
The brownies were good. I ate three of them. Then I started feeling sick all over again. What was I going to do now? I wasn't going back. Would I have to live on the run like in the movies?
What was it they called people who were on the run and couldn't let anyone find them? Fudge something. Right? Oh! Yeah. Fugitive. I was a fugitive!
I had watched enough movies to know the rules of being on the run. You can't look back, you can't look suspicious, you can't go back to a place you've already been. In the movies that's always where the guy gets caught.
I hadn't brought my backpack, that was still at school, but I couldn't go back to school, so I took the plastic bag of brownies out of the box and stuffed it in my coat pocket. Then I threw the box across the street as far as I could. That was called a false trail, and it was in every detective show I ever watched. The people chasing me, like my mom who would be mad that I hadn't used the money to buy stuff for Ryan, my teacher who wants to have a serious talk about me, and Smelly Gabe, well I don't know why but he probably wants to beat me up or something, would think I went to a different place than I really did, because I did a false trail.
Then I didn't know what to do. Money would probably be a good thing to have, so I dug around in my pockets looking for anything. I pulled out two quarters and a few nickels. Not even enough to buy a pack of gum, I knew from checking the vending machines at school for extra coins.
So I walked some more, and after a few minutes I realized I couldn't even see school anymore. That made me kind of scared, because I only knew a few streets that were close to my house, and where I was, was not any of them. There was a place I knew that I saw across the street, though.
It was the sandwich shop where I met Smelly Gabe. I never wanted to go in there again, and it still didn't help me know how far away I was from my house. I hadn't seen the place since last spring, and that was almost a year ago. That's forever, if you didn't know. So I didn't remember how Mom drove home then, because it was forever ago. Make sense?
There was a McDonald's next to the sandwich shop, though. I wanted to go in there, because I like french fries, and I also want a milkshake. I haven't had one in a long time, though, because there was always never enough time when Mom picked me up from school or drove me places. She always said there wasn't enough time, but I didn't think that was really true, because one time when she said that, we stopped at the grocery store to get stuff so she could make bean dip. I never told her I thought she was lying, because she said I shouldn't do that unless I was absolutely sure they were. And to be sure, I had to have proof.
One time I asked her what proof was, just so I could make sure. She said it was kind of like the same thing as the clues in Scooby-Doo.
But I couldn't go into McDonald's because I might be seen. If no one there knew me then I don't think it would be really bad, but in the movies no one who's on the run wants to be seen. So I kept walking, past the sandwich shop, past the McDonald's, down a few other streets I didn't know, when I thought I should try and find the candy store Mom worked at. It was called Sweet on America, and I'd been there after school a lot, so I knew what it looked like. I still couldn't be seen, because then I would get caught, but at least if I got there then I could know where I was.
But where was it? After walking down a few more streets, I sat down on a bench and thought about what else worked in detective movies about being on the run. I didn't let myself be seen, and I didn't stay in one place, and I did a false trail. What else? I still wasn't getting anywhere, and I was thinking that I was a really bad fudge - er, fugitive.
That was when I saw the alley. It was right across from the bench where I was sitting, and it looked like it popped straight out of a detective movie! The people on the run were always taking shortcuts through alleys, and when they came out of the alley, they were usually at a place where they wanted to be. A safe place. Where Ryan, and my teacher, and Smelly Gabe can't get me.
I was kind of scared of the dark. There, I said it, and I'll never say it again, but I was kind of scared of the dark. Wait a minute, I said it again! I'm stupid. I didn't want to go in the alley, but I felt really bad and I needed to get to somewhere I couldn't be found.
I also kind of needed to go to the bathroom.
So I walked across the street, being really careful so I wouldn't get run over, and started walking through the alley. I was in the dark in a few seconds, and I was kind of scared (but if anyone asks, I totally wasn't) and I still needed to go to the bathroom. But I would get through the alley soon! Then I could find a Porta-Potty and maybe even Mom's store!
Something closed over my mouth, and I couldn't tell what it was. Then I was pulled back and I realized that it was a person's hand. Someone had grabbed me and put a hand over my mouth! Were they kidnapping me? Whenever I got the milk from the refrigerator there was one of those pictures of a kid who got kidnapped. Would my picture be on the milk carton? This wasn't supposed to happen, I was supposed to go through the alley, and find Mom's store, and find a bathroom, and run away, and never be seen again!
"Shouldn't you be in school, kiddie?" a voice asked. It was a mean voice, like Smelly Gabe's, but this one sounded more dangerous. Gabe's voice sounded like "I'm a lazy bum but I can still beat you up" but this guy sounded like "I'm going to rip your throat out and eat you for breakfast!" There was a guy on the news who had a voice like that, and when I told Mom that his voice sounded like that, she told me I was watching too many scary movies. Now it was like I lived in a scary movie! NOT COOOOOL!
I couldn't even scream, because there was a hand over my mouth! It was a sweaty hand, too, and it felt really gross. The guy with the bad voice talked again.
"Okay, now you're gonna come with me, and you're gonna be good about it, too. Then we'll all have fun together." I tried to kick and punch him, but he had two other guys standing in front of me. One was holding a wooden baseball bat and the other one had something, and it looked like it was made of metal, and it was big, and I think it could probably kill me.
It was official, I was never, ever, ever, ever, ever going in an alley again, I don't care if I couldn't be seen, I didn't care if I had to hold going to the bathroom for two hours, I didn't care, I didn't care. What if I never even got a chance to choose if I was going in an alley again? What if the guy with the bad voice and his friends killed me? Or sold me as a slave?
The bad-voice guy started dragging be down the alley in the same direction as I had been going before he grabbed me, and something cold was against my throat. I tried to look down at it, so I would know what it was, but then it kind of twisted against my throat and I felt a warm liquid start to slide down my neck. I started to feel dizzy and sick. Was that blood? Was that a knife? I was going to die, I was going to die, I was going to die...
Then the guy's hand wasn't on me anymore. There was no knife. There was still blood, but I was shoved away from bad-voice guy so hard that I fell on the ground and scraped my hands and knees. I was wearing jeans, but it still hurt my knees. I felt like I was going to throw up, and the world was spinning. What happened? Were they just going to kill me now? I was grabbed again and dragged through the alley, only this time whoever was dragging me wasn't cutting my throat and he was running. I kept tripping over my shoes because he was going too fast and I felt sick.
And there was light. I was back in the street, and it was snowing, and I still felt bad. The guy who dragged me out wasn't bad-voice guy or either of his friends. He looked a little younger than my mom, and he had brown hair, a short beard, and green eyes. He had a nice face, I thought, and I decided I liked him. Anyone who got me away from the guy with the bad voice and the sweaty gross hands was someone I liked.
"I don't know what you think you were doing, going in there," the guy said. He sounded kind of mad, but not like he wanted to hurt me, like the other guys did.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"That's not important, you could have gotten yourself killed in there. You need to come with me, you're hurt."
I touched my neck where the knife was, and when I pulled my hand back there was a little blood on it. When I saw my blood I got kind of dizzy again, and I couldn't see straight. It lasted a few seconds, and when I could finally look up without feeling like hurling, I saw I was at Mom's store. I didn't think about being seen, I didn't think about running, I was just happy to see a place I knew, where I wasn't going to get attacked in the dark.
"Go inside, find your mom," the guy who rescued me said. "Forget running away."
He knew I was running away? "How did you-"
"Go." He turned away, but I wasn't done talking to him.
"But what's your name? Can't you tell me that?"
He hesitated. "My name's... Hank. Hank Brown." He turned to leave again, but I grabbed the sleeve of his coat.
"Why did you save me?"
He looked down at me, and I felt like he was really smart, like he could tell me everything in the world, that he was... somehow different.
"Because it was not your time to die, Perseus Jackson. You have a destiny far greater than that."
Did he mean I couldn't die? He knew my name? I had a destiny? What even was a destiny? I was kind of getting a headache from all the questions I had, but before I could ask any more, he was gone. Just like that. Gone. I didn't even see him leave. He just wasn't there.
"Percy?" a familiar voice asked. Mom. "Percy, why aren't you at school? Is that - is that blood on your neck? What have you been doing?"
Yeah. I had a lot of explaining to do.
A middle-aged man with brown hair and bright green eyes stepped onto the elevator of the Empire State Building, where the Beatles were playing.
"Mmmm... not my choice of music," the man mused softly, and snapped his fingers. Immediately the music changed to AC/DC's Back in Black. "Six hundredth floor, please," he said out loud, and the elevator began to move up. The man, who was at the moment going under the alias of Hank Brown, sighed and rubbed his forehead. That Jackson boy was too unpredictable for his own good. He would have to be watched more carefully. If he hadn't been saved when he was... well, how about we say bad things would happen. The boy may be the future of Olympus, for Zeus's sake!
Finally the elevator rumbled to a halt, and opened on Mount Olympus itself.
"Poseidon!" Zeus rumbled, sitting on his throne. "What brings you out of the briny deep, brother?"
Poseidon - aka Hank Brown - cast a look of dismay on the king of the gods. "Zeus, I think we need to talk."
"What about?" Zeus inquired, observing his master bolt with casual interest.
"I daresay you remember that oath we made years ago, regarding our having children?"
Violleet, your suggestion. I wasn't originally going to do it, but then I was attacked by the infamous Plot Bunny and Poseidon made a little visit to his son! See y'all next Friday, if all goes as planned! I love looking at my traffic graph and seeing big numbers on the days I update :) Oooh, do you think we can get up to 100 views this time? Last week we were in the 90s!
