Raindrop is back!

*crickets chirping*

Dang, tough crowd. So… I don't own anything… let's get on with this before it gets too awkward…

(SPOV)

I can't believe they had agreed to make me do this… I hate crowds so much…. I gave both girls my deluxe "I'll Kill You Later" glare. I was pissed and terrified, but I couldn't help the smile that crossed my face as the song started.

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut.

My weakness is that I care too much.

And my scars remind me that the past is real

I tear my heart open, just to feel.

I'm drunk and I'm feeling down

And I just wanna be alone

I'm pissed because you came around

Why don't' you just go home?

Cause you channeled all your pain,

And I can't help you fix yourself

You're making me insane

All I can say is

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut

My weakness is that I care too much

And our scars remind me that the past is real

I tear my heart open just to feel

I tried to help you once

Against my own advice

I saw you going down

But you never realized

That you're drowning in the water

So I offered you my hand

Compassion's in my nature

Tonight is our last stand.

I'm drunk and I'm feeling down

And I just wanna be alone

You should've never come around

Why don't you just go home?

Cause you're drowning in the water

And I offered you my hand

I left my heart open

But you didn't understand

But you didn't understand

Go fix yourself

I can't help you fix yourself

But at least I can say I tried.

I'm sorry but I gotta get on with my own life

I can't help you fix yourself

But at least I can say I tried

I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life

"Thank you!" we chorused. Then Erin tossed me her iPod.

"Track fifteen," she ordered. I nodded and plugged it into the dock. Michaela and I watched curiously as Erin got a stool and her guitar.

"Ok guys, I'm going to sing a song by the late great Johnny Cash!" she called as she gave me my cue. I played the track.

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything

What have I become

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know goes away

In the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns

Upon my liar's chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I am still right here

What have I become

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know goes away

In the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way.

She was crying along with us by the time she finished. When she got off the stage, Michaela and I bombed her with hugs and sobs. I didn't know she felt that way. At all! Then she left to go talk to Travis.

"She has an amazing voice," Mac trailed off.

"I didn't even know she could sing," I admitted.

"Tana, we need to talk," an oily voice said from behind me, I turned around to meet the eyes of my stepbrother. I glanced at Mac. She nodded encouragingly. I sighed, but went with him anyway.

"Why did you try to kill yourself?" he asked, not having forgotten the mere moments before we went to the underworld.

"I felt like I didn't deserve to live," I answered bluntly.

"Why would you feel that way?" he wondered, leading me towards the cabin.

"When you've been bullied and neglected all your life you end up getting depression. And depression left untreated can cause thoughts and actions of suicidal tendancy," I deadpanned, changing into my pj's without a care. I turned around, facing the now blushing Nico.

"So, what do you want to do?" I wondered, suddenly extremely bored.

"I dunno… why don't we gather everyone up and read about all of Percy's adventures?" he wondered. I smiled and whipped out my phone. I hit the number on my speed dial.

"What?" Michaela answered annoyed.

"Get Connor, Travis, Katie, Erin, Annabeth and Malcolm then come to the Hades cabin," I said with a smirk.

"Nico wants to read it?" she wondered.

"Oh yeah," I replied smugly.

"Who're you getting?" she asked.

"Rachel, Percy, Thalia, Krystal, and Bianca," I announced with a grin shutting the phone. Nico, seeing my grin, groaned.

"So, where to?" he wondered.

"You're gonna help!?" I questioned happily. He grimaced, but nodded.

"Well, to Rach's cave I suppose," I replied. Soon enough, we were outside her cave.

"Rachel!" I called. Soon, said oracle came out, wearing her usual ratty jeans.

"Who're you?" she wondered.

"Name's Tana, now, come with us, I have a surprise for you," I grinned, and Nico groaned.

"It's too late to turn back now," he sighed. Then I drug them both over to the cabins. I walked without knocking into Percy's and drug him and his invincible self by his ear before waltzing over to the Hades cabin.

"Percy, make a rainbow," I commanded him. He glared, but did as I asked.

"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Thalia Grace, huntress of Artemis!" I requested, soon enough, Thalia's face appeared in the rainbow.

"Hello, who're you?" she wondered, seeing the IM.

"Hi! I'm Santana Castillo! And I need you to come to Camp Half Blood." I announced.

"Why?" she questioned suspiciously.

"So you can hear all about Percy's adventures. From inside his head," I said. Her eyebrows raised, and she gave a smirk.

"Give me ten minutes," she told me, swiping her hand across the connection.

"Can we go get Bianca and Krys now?" I begged Nico, giving him my best "kicked puppy" look. He sighed.

"Why don't I go? You need to make sure everyone else gets here," he amended. I nodded and just as he shadow traveled away, everyone else walked in. I grinned.

"Welcome to the reading party everyone, take a seat on the floor!" I exclaimed grabbing the eight books.

"Hey!" Thalia called, popping into the room.

"Have a seat," I motioned to her. Now all we were missing were Nico, Bianca, and Krys. Soon enough they were in the room.

"We're reading these books with ghosts?" Erin deadpanned. I shot her a glare.

"Yes, Crap! We forgot Juniper and Grover!" I exclaimed quickly.

"What did you forget us about?" Grover wondered, poking his head into the room. "Please, come in, sit down," I announced. Everyone sat down.

"Let's lay down some ground rules," I suggested.

"What're the rules?" the Stolls pouted.

"Keep quiet, don't interrupt, and no questions," I said finally. Everyone sighed but agreed.

"OK," was the unified reply.

"So, let's all introduce ourselves!" I started "I'm Tana Castillo, daughter of Persephone."

"Nico di Angelo, son of Hades," Nico grumbled.

"Santana (Krystal) Jones, daughter of Thanatos, and yes, I'm dead," Krys said.

"Bianca di Angelo, daughter of Hades huntress of Artemis," Bianca declared softly.

"Erin Goldstein, daughter of Apollo," Erin announced.

"Michaela Hart, daughter of Dionysus," Mac smiled.

"I'm pretty sure the rest of us know each other," Rachel interrupted. I frowned.

"Fine, this is the first book!" I squealed, my inner fan girl finding her way out.

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," I said dramatically. I opened the front cover, then had a brilliant idea!

"Guys…" I trailed off.

"What is it Tana?" Annabeth asked me. I shook my head. It was a stupid idea.

"No, tell us," Percy pushed. I sighed.

"I was wondering if when each of you were mentioned, if you could sign the book?" I asked shyly. Everyone laughed and I looked away. Then due to Grover's satyr emotions, he stopped them, realizing I was serious.

"I knew it was a stupid idea," I muttered, turning the page.

"Chapter One!

I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER" I started, and everyone chuckled.

"That's so Percy," Annabeth smiled fondly at her boyfriend. I rolled my eyes and continued reading.

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

"What's wrong with being a half blood?" Thalia questioned the Percy sitting in the room with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing, it's just really dangerous sometimes," he tried to justify himself. There was a unified agreement, then I decided to start again.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

"You didn't warn me," Nico grumbled from my left.

"It was kinda too late to warn you," Percy said apologetically. I rolled my eyes and continued reading. This was going to take a while.

My name is Percy Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

"Yeah," most in the group who knew Percy chorused.

Percy hmphed.

Yeah. You could say that.

"See, even you agree," Annabeth laughed.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know—it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

"That's what you called Chiron, right?" Annabeth wanted to clarify.

"Yes," Percy and I nodded at the same time.

"It's so weird that you know everything…" he grumbled.

"Well, it's not my fault your story's intriguing!" I complained.

"Nice vocabulary," Annabeth approved my word choice. I smiled at her.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

Everyone laughed at that thought.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

"Eeeew," most of the girls chorused. Grover, Percy and I nodded.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

"Nice to see what you really think," Grover grumbled, causing everyone to laugh.

"You all get your turn!" he reminded them. I smiled, knowing he was right.

"You better not have said anything bad about me Seaweed Brain," Annabeth grumbled from her spot beside Percy. Percy was looking like he really hoped he hadn't. I giggled and continued.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

"You would've hit a girl?" Rachel asked Percy curiously.

"No, but I really wanted to," he admitted, looking down. Rachel nodded, satisfied with this answer.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

"I wonder what she did to him…" Grover trailed off with a shudder. Percy, Nico, Krys, Bianca and I shuddered as well, knowing who she really was.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

"I'm guessing she's a monster then?" Erin asked uncertainly.

"Correct," I answered before Percy could open his mouth.

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Everyone laughed, looking at the now red-faced Percy in the room.

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"God?" Annabeth looked at her boyfriend incredulously.

"I didn't know it was real then!" he justified.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. "—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

"Why are they snickering? He was right…" Michaela was confused. I just shrugged, going on with the book.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," the entire group chorused, causing me to chuckle. They looked at me curiously, except Percy, who figured what the next line in the book was.

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?" "About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life.

No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

"Probably was," Thalia said softly. Annabeth nodded in agreement, as the rest of us sighed.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

"That's weird, even for New York," Thalia commented.

"Honey, that's weird even for TEXAS!" Michaela corrected her. I rolled my eyes at Mac's childishness… yes the weather in Texas was very unpredictable.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Failing miserably I presume?" Connor snickered with his brother.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius." Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

"You missed her a lot?" Rachel wondered.

"Yeah, tons," Percy sighed, probably remembering what happened to his mom before this adventure. I sighed. I had cried, and I probably was going to cry.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

Grover snorted in agreement with that statement.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

"Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

"Impatient indeed. She must've forgotten to go human speed…" Annabeth trailed off, causing many of us to chuckle.

How'd she get there so fast? I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr.

Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

"I don't think so…" Travis smiled lightly. I had to admit… I could see why Michaela and Katie liked the Stolls. They're handsome. But they are not my type.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"Dad's mad at you…" Thalia stated the obvious.

"Yeah, I think we've gathered…" Percy announced.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

"She can quit with the "honey" bit now," Rachel grimaced.

"Not gonna happen," Nico, Percy and I answered simultaneously.

"You need to quit that," Percy told me with a weirded out face.

"Not gonna happen," I repeated with a smirk before reading once more.

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss! Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

"I can't believe you let the mist affect you after that!" Thalia chided Percy. He shrugged.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

"I hope you don't have anything to base that hypothesis off of," Annabeth frowned at him.

"Of course not," Percy and I answered grinning. His immediately turned into a grimace, causing mine to change into a smirk. I laughed at his pained look, knowing that I would find this amusing for a while.

Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?" everyone but Percy, Me, and Grover wondered. I laughed, seeing the next line.

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

Everyone laughed at how easily Chiron lied. It really was pretty amusing.

"So, that was that! Clockwise or counterclockwise?" I wondered, finishing the chapter.

"Clockwise," Nico announced, snatching the book from me.

"Chapter two,

THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH" Nico read, with a groan.

"Are all the titles like this?" Annabeth grimaced.

"Yep!" I giggled, causing Percy, and Annabeth to groan.

"I like these chapters!" both Stolls argued, causing Katie to face palm.

"I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

Everyone laughed at this, especially Michaela and Erin, because now they finally understood the weird teacher references I made to people all the time. I smiled at them finally being able to get the joke.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost. But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

"You're a terrible liar," Thalia told the satyr. I laughed.

"We need to teach you how to lie," Connor stated, Travis nodded in agreement.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

"That sounds like an excuse," Annabeth chided her boyfriend, and he rolled his eyes.

"It was," I announced, before he could open his mouth.

"Stop answering for me!" he ordered me.

"Nope," I smiled popping the "p".

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr.

Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

"Those are easy though," Rachel commented.

"Yeah, if they're written," Percy frowned, causing all the demigods to murmur in agreement.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr.

Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."

I froze.

"So that's how you started eavesdropping," Annabeth grinned. I nodded.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more." "But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline— "

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her... ."

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"What happened at the winter solstice?" everyone who either wasn't there, or hadn't read the books wondered.

"You'll see," I sing-songed.

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me." The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back.

They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

Annabeth's hands clenched into fists.

"Ugh," Thalia complained.

"Tell me about it," Percy grimaced. Grover nodded, and Rachel frowned.

"Maybe you should've punched her…" she trailed off. I nodded. He really should've punched that chick.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say.

"This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

Percy sighed at his own behavior. Annabeth smiled at him sympathetically.

"It's ok Perce, you didn't know what he meant," she took his hand. I rolled my eyes.

"Percy's just too much of a softy for his own good," I teased, causing said softy to growl in my direction. I huffed.

"No need to bring out the claws kitty cat," I sneered.

"Tana," Erin and Michaela warned, and I just grimaced at them. Yeah, I had a little tendancy to use a bit too much sarcasm. So what?

"Percy—"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

"I wouldn't say nobody, but my dad's definitely cooler," Thalia smirked.

"No, my dad's cooler," Percy argued.

"No, no, no, my dad's definitely better," Michaela jutted in causing me to giggle.

"No, our dad is way better!" the Stolls put in.

"My dad's usually a jerk… but he can be helpful," Nico allowed, causing Bianca to grin at him.

"My dad's an ass," Krys's ghostly form cursed. We all sighed.

"Now, instead of doing the whole "My dad is better" thing, why don't we read?" I suggested, and Nico continued reading. His voice was weirdly captivating… I was going to officially hire him as my bedtime story reader. Yup. That's what's gonna happen.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

"What a coincidence!" Travis laughed, and Katie groaned. I was going to have to talk to her… I want to know what's going on. I feel out of the loop.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?" Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.

"You have a business card?" Thalia asked the satyr incredulously. He winced, but nodded anyway.

"Why?" Katie finally spoke. Her voice was just how I had imagined, soft, but firm. Just like you'd think seeing her in person.

"I dunno… I guess I wanted to feel important," Grover grumbled, motioning for Nico to continue. Nico rolled his eyes, but did anyway.

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like: Grover Underwood Keeper Half-Blood Hill Long Island, New York (800) 009-0009 "What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

"And what is wrong with being rich?" Rachel cocked an eyebrow. Percy noticeably gulped.

"Nothing," his voice had risen an octave or two. I giggled at his misfortune, because, well… I did that while reading the books too.

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"You lost sleep over me?" the satyr wondered, genuinely touched. Percy flushed, but nodded. Nico rolled his eyes at their moment.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there.

On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Are those…?" Annabeth wondered.

"Yep," I grinned, trying to lighten the mood.

"Tana, they are not a smiling matter," Annabeth said quickly, and cooly.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?" He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin." Nico finished.

Well that's all for now, Expect Michaela's POV next.

~Raindrop