Chapter 2- Erin, Danny, Josie, and Morgan

We walked up to the party. The city sparkled as we walked past on the twisted path up the mountain. The throne room was as large and grand as ever. There was a scorch mark on the floor were Apollo had attempted to break dance earlier. It was packed with people (well, they weren't actually people if you know what I mean)

Percy and I walked over to Nico (who had been leaning in the corner being depressed).

"Hey guys." He said. He winced as he said this. I noticed a thin cut from the edge of his mouth, down his neck, all the way down to his hand.

"Ugh, Nico, How did you get that?" I asked

"From that new camper, Josie Anderson. I was in the forest, and it was dark. Lets just say I thought she was a monster and she turned around and scratched me."

"Oh, I heard about that. But, wait, didn't you like stab her in the foot or something?" Percy said

"Like I said, I thought she was a monster. She can transform into different animals. Anyway, she's fine. I missed her foot, but she got freaked out and turned around and gave me this." He pointed at his long scratches.

I wondered whose daughter she was in order to do that. I'd never heard of a demigod having that ability. While I thought about it, Percy and Nico were talking about boy stuff; video games, sports, and I don't really know what much else boys talk about.

The rousing conversation ended only when some girls pulled Nico onto the dance floor to see if they could make him dance. I backed up a little only to find myself tripping over someone and toppling to the cold, marble floor.

Percy helped me up. The girl I tripped over stood up and brushed herself off. She was dark skinned and fairly short. Her black hair was styled in a pixie cut. Her large eyes were an unusual shade of violet. She looked only about 13 years old, but her expression seemed much older. She wore a knee length silk dress that matched her eyes exactly. The strangest thing of her appearance, though, was a large purple stone that hung around her neck on a gold chain. The stone pulsed unusually with power.

"Oh, sorry." said the girl and I at the same time.

"It's okay" the girl said, "Cool party"

"Um, I don't want to be rude or anything, but who are you?" I implied of the girl.

"Morgan L. Terease, daughter of Hecate, at your service. I'm here with my friend Josie. Who is supposed to be up there somewhere." She gestured to the high ceiling.

Just then the Aphrodite pack pushed by, leaving the reeking smells of designer perfume behind them. At the head of the group was Danielle Robinson (aka, Danny), the head of the cabin since Silena, well, you know. Anyway Danielle was like the rich cheerleader of the whole camp. She had everything from the looks to the snobbieness. She had turned the entire cabin from some chatty, makeup-loving, gossipers into a mean pack of drama-loving freaks.

"Oh my gosh, that's perfect! Caw, Caw!" Morgan yelled; when she saw our confused faces, she explained, "We're trying to scare Danny and her copy cat crew. That was the signal. "Caw Caw!" she cried again.

This time a voice responded from somewhere above us, "You're supposed to say it like a native New York pigeon!"

" Well excuse me, I'm not half bird!" Morgan replied to the parrot-like voice, (which I supposed was Josie in bird form.)

"You know I'm not half bird, I-"

But, she was cut short by Morgan saying, " Just get over there bird brain, we'll talked about your wacked out genealogy later!"

A brown blur flew down from the ceiling and landed amongst the targets; right next to Danny. The next thing I heard was,

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, SNAKE! Get it off of me!"

Sure enough, there was a bright, blue, snake sitting on top of her bleached-blonde ringlets. Then, one of Danielle's many admirers, Sawyer, a son of Iris; got up the nerve to grab the snake out of her hair and throw it out of the throne room.

This left the girls screaming and running for the bathroom and the boys ashamed that they hadn't been brave enough to face a stupid snake.

"Ugh, why is it that every time she turns into a snake, she brakes a rib, I gotta go make sure she's okay. It was nice meeting you two."

"Nice meeting you too" I said. Then I elbowed Percy, who had been staring into space, deep in thought (which you know, if you've read his books, doesn't happen very often.)

"What? Oh yeah, nice."

Morgan walked away when my favorite song came on- Fireflies by Owl City. I mean, not only is the song awesome; but the name of the band is just downright cool.

Percy knew it was my favorite song, so he said "Would you like to dance?" he held out his hand and I took it.

The only bad thing about that song is that you can't really dance to it. Percy can't really dance anyway; so I tried to start up a conversation to make things a little less awkward. "So, what was on your mind earlier and why were you late?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking about why I was late, it's sort of confusing." I knew by the look on his face that he was serious, something strange and important had happened to him. "Well, maybe I can straighten it out for you." I said

"Okay, well, I was just about to leave my apartment when my mom and Paul came in. Paul was all excited and said that mom was going to have a baby. It's due this September by the way. So, I was really happy for her, but she looked strange. She looked happy, sad, frightened, confused, shocked, and stressed out all at the same time. I asked her what was wrong and all she said was 'go, tell Chiron.' I knew she was very serious; that it was something he HAD to know.

"So I was fishing around for a drachma and she said 'no, in person.' She was pleading with me now. I figured if I took a Pegasus, I would be here in plenty of time. So I called Blackjack, and he flew me to camp.

When I got there; Chiron wasn't there; but I told Rachel about it and she could tell that there would be something different with my mom's baby. And that settled that, there's no use arguing with an oracle.

I was just about to leave when the whole Aphrodite cabin tackled me, changed all my clothes, put stuff in my hair and then they took all the Pegasus and camp vans. So I thought everyone was at your party and there was no way back to the city. Then I remembered the Hippocampus. I was at the beach when I ran into Erin."

Erin was the head of all the demigod children of Eris, the goddess of discord. Not the friendliest bunch, I can tell you that.

Percy continued with his story. "And she was like, 'I wasn't invited to your girlfriend's party.' And I said that everyone was invited and then she said 'I wasn't invited.' Really firm. I was like ooooookaaay. Then she said, 'Take this to the party with you.' And she gave me this."

He then pulled something out of his jacket and held it out for me. It was a golden apple. Carved in the solid gold, were the words To the Bravest.

"Wait!" I said," doesn't this sound familiar? Eris, the apple, big party, to the bravest?"

That was when the apple fell out of Percy's hand; or should have fallen. It hovered about 4 feet off the ground and began mysteriously gliding to the center of the room.