Well, I told myself I'd update one of my other stories today... and I end up updating this one. That sure makes sense. (Read that in a tone dripping with sarcasm for full effect.)

Thanks to osnapitzsofia and Mandi2341 for reviewing the last chapter!

Oh! Also, I don't share Percy's opinion of summer and winter in the first paragraph. I LOVE winter. It's a good thing I live in a place where we get snow. In fact, it was snowing while I was writing the majority of this chapter. AND CHRISTMAS! I HAVE ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL UNTIL CHRISTMAS YAYYYY! If for whatever reason you don't celebrate Christmas, then you may disregard the last sentence!

RANDOM QUESTION: Has anyone ever had to do a pantomime to a song? Because I have to do one for my drama class. LUCKILY FOR ME WE FINISH DEALING WITH PANTOMIME NEXT WEEK AND THEN WE CAN MAYBE GET TO MY FAVORITE PART OF DRAMA - THE PART THAT ACTUALLY INVOLVES SCRIPTS! XD


Summer is sure my favorite time of the year. I don't freeze my feet off while I'm trying to fall asleep, there's no yucky snow that makes my shoes and socks all wet, and no one looks at me funny when I'm not in school during the middle of the day.

Yeah, that happened. One time, maybe a month ago, I was outside playing and some guy in a nice suit who was holding a briefcase stopped and looked at me weird. It was only for a couple seconds, though; he kept moving. I think he was late for work.

That was on one of Mom's days off, and those didn't happen a lot. Since she didn't want me staying home by myself for longer than two hours, I had to come with her to work. I stayed in the back room of the candy store, so the customers wouldn't see me and think I was… um, I think Mom used the word "loitering." She told me that basically meant sitting around doing nothing in a place you shouldn't be at.

So I sat in the back room. Sometimes I drew, even though I wasn't very good at it, and sometimes I tried to read, but I couldn't do more than two pages. And there were days when I sat around and did nothing or slept. Those were the best because they went the fastest. Being at Mom's work all day was boring. She had to be there at eight in the morning, and she was done at five in the afternoon, and that meant I had to be there for all that time too.

And the other people at Sweet on America didn't like me. They didn't say it to my face, or Mom's, but I knew. They looked at me like I didn't belong, but I guess I didn't. They called me the problem kid when they thought I couldn't hear. I know that because one time I was coming back from the bathroom and some of them were in the break room drinking coffee and someone asked why I was never at school. Someone else told her that I was expelled for killing someone, which was totally not true. All I did was turn off the lights, which is a pretty dumb reason to get expelled if you ask me.

I didn't tell them, because then they'd think I was spying. But I wasn't. Only they would never believe me.

Sometimes, though, like when I went to the bathroom, a random customer would see me and they would look at me like I was an alien. When I was coming back, I heard someone asking Mom, who was working at the counter, if the company was run by child labor, but I don't know what that means. I thought labor was when you were really close to having a baby. That's why I don't understand Labor Day. I guess it's a day where lots of babies are born.

Anyway, in June, when school let out, I was happy because people didn't think it was strange for me to be somewhere that wasn't school. Through all of that month, I was at the candy store every day except Sundays, which was Mom's day off. For a while, the air conditioning was broken and it got super hot and sticky, which was bad because it made me really hot and more fidgety than usual. Also, it sorta ruined some of the candy. When Mom gave me a piece of blue taffy, I couldn't take off the wax paper because it had melted all over it.

So they got that fixed real fast.

A day Mom did have off, though, was the Fourth of July. Because that was a holiday. On that day, Gabe was having a poker game and watching baseball with his weird friends, and I think Mom wanted to get away from him, so she took me to the pool.

I hadn't been to the pool in a long time, so I was a little excited. I kind of forgot how crowded it was, though. Or maybe it was only crowded because it was the Fourth of July. I don't know. But I could hardly do any swimming because there were so many people packed in the pool. The really little kids were screaming and splashing and running around, and I saw one who spilled his ice cream and he was crying so loud his face was bright red.

I was so hungry I think I might have just picked it up off the ground and ate it myself, but I wasn't that gross, and besides, it landed right next to the water and it would've tasted like chlorine. And who knows how many babies have peed in the pool? Ew.

Mom and me stayed there all day, even when it got really hot in the afternoon, but Mom put extra sunscreen on me then. Sometime late in the afternoon, I got out of the pool to go get a drink from the drinking fountain over by the snack bar, and I was about to go over there when I heard a loud wail.

I turned around, and there was a little kid and a lot of blood. The kid looked maybe six or seven, and he was laying on the ground holding his knee, which was bleeding. I kind of wanted him to shut up, because his crying was a little annoying, so I went over there and asked him, "What's wrong?"

"I tripped and I fell and I hurt myself on the ground!" he said, or at least that's what I think he said, he was kind of sobbing through the whole thing so I couldn't hear him really well.

"Do you need a Band-Aid, then?" That's what I do when I'm bleeding. And when I take it off later, it's not bleeding anymore! Band-Aids work!

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his knee, only that just made the blood spread around more.

"Don't do that," I told him. "Just wait." I ran over to Mom and said, "Can I have a Band-Aid?"

"Are you hurt, Percy?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, that kid is." I pointed at where he was still sitting on the ground, watching me.

Mom looked at him, kind of worried. "Where's his mom?"

"I don't know! But she's not there, and he needs a Band-Aid 'cause there's blood."

She reached into her purse and took out a Band-Aid. "All right, you can go and give that to him." I took it and ran back.

"Here! Put this on! You know how, right?"

He nodded and ripped the paper off the back of the Band-Aid, then stuck it right over the spot where it was bleeding. He wasn't sobbing anymore, and he looked up at me and smiled. His eyes were still red from the tears, I noticed. "Thanks."

I shrugged. "I was just trying to help. What's your name? I'm Percy."

"I'm Johnny," he replied.

After that, I didn't know what to say. "…Cool."

"Are you staying for the fireworks tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I like fireworks. I like fire. A lot of people are scared of it but I think it's cool."

"Okay," I said. I didn't know why he was talking to me so much. I hardly knew him.

"I don't have a dad." I didn't expect that.

"Neither do I." I scratched my head. "He was lost at sea."

"Mine died in an accident at a factory," Johnny said. "Well, he got crippled and died in the hospital. That's what my mom told me."

I wanted to tell him I didn't care, but I didn't feel like it. "I have to go."

"But you said you were staying for the fireworks!"

"My mom wants to put more sunscreen on me," I lied, and I ran away from him as fast as I could. He made me feel really awkward, the way he looked at me like I was a hero or something. I guess I said I wanted to be a hero before, but I don't think I really thought about what it would be like. Maybe I don't want to be one. But I'm pretty sure I still do.

Later that night, at the fireworks show, Mom said, "You have a shadow," then looked over her shoulder. There was Johnny, sitting with his back against a tree, and watching us. Watching me. "Is that the kid you helped?"

"Yeah," I said.

"It looks like he really admires you," Mom told me.

So he admires me. Admires is a good thing, right? Or does that even matter? I helped that kid, because he needed help. And that's good enough for me.


Think what you like about Johnny. In my mind, he's a child of Hephaestus.