'CAUSE WE'RE OLDER AND WISER
Heard about the quiz.
Meet me in the library as soon as break starts.
~Annabeth
Percy stared at the yellow post it that had sealed his fate with unadulterated loathing.
This proved to be a mistake.
"Percy, what are you doing?"
"Fourteen," he replied.
Grey eyes narrowed in irritation and as Percy peeled the sticky note off his book cover and chucked it into a waste basket. "Fourteen?"
"You've said 'Percy, what are you doing'," the teen started (in what was a scarily good impersonation). "Fourteen times."
"You counted?" Annabeth seethed.
He shrugged. "I was bored."
"You were—ARGH," she groaned, rubbing at her temples. "I think I feel a headache coming on...You're incorrigible, you know that?"
"Inporridgable?" Percy parroted as best he could. "So that's...what? Being un-porridge-like?"
Her mouth dropped open into a perfect 'o' then turned into a very pretty color of purple. Percy didn't know it was humanly possible to turn purple.
"Just go," she ordered in flat monotone.
"Go?"
Percy couldn't help but sigh in relief at her nod. Annabeth was nice and all, but she got way too into English. So he gathered his books and left the fuming bookworm with a cheery 'see ya!' and hoped she'd learn to relax a bit more.
Annabeth rested her head on the cool surface of the library desk and reflected on the past twenty minutes (which had felt like an hour). After around ten seconds she found that she couldn't get past the wall of irritation that had rooted itself in her mind. It wasn't like Percy was annoying...at first. He was fine when they'd started, but as time dragged on, he just grew more irritable and snappy; until finally, frustration had cornered him and turned him into a total jackass.
Sighing, her hand reached out to a worksheet her tutee had been writing on. She raised her head to rest just her chin on the table so she could read whatever ridiculous answer he'd coughed up.
Several multicoloured smiley faces stared back at her.
Another groan rumbled in her throat as he stared at those smug little faces, mocking her with their colourful grins. She stretched her arms upwards, titling her chair backwards, and sighed. Getting Percy's marks up would be hard enough without the attitude. As she swung her chair back on its four legs, something caught her eye: actual intellectual answers on the back of the smiley sheet. The gears started clicking away in her head as she read through them...
Interesting, she thought to herself, processing Percy's written work. Maybe he isn't completely hopeless after all.
She needed to find a way to get them back on civil ground, just friendly enough that they'd be able to work without glaring each other to death. The fastest solution would be to apologize, but there was NO way in hell she was going to do that.
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"There's no way in hell-
-you're going to apologize."
"And I should take your advice because?" Percy asked in between huffs.
"Because we're older than you-
-and therefore, much, much wiser!"
"STOLLS, JACKSON, KEEP RUNNING!" called the coach's booming voice.
"You heard the man Percy," the Stoll brothers chorused, racing ahead.
Damn track and field kids, Percy thought to himself as he attempted to pump his legs faster. Why exactly couldn't he say sorry to Annabeth? It was obviously the right thing to do. He'd acted like a complete jerk and she was just trying to help—
"We sincerely hope-"
-that the constipated looking face you have on-"
"-doesn't mean that you're thinking about apologizing again."
"How the heck did you two lap me so fast?" Percy screeched in exasperation as Travis and Connor flashed their signature sarcastic smiles.
"Percy, Percy, Percy," Connor started.
"You are a specimen of what we here at CHB would call," Travis droned.
"A noodle!" his brother chirped.
"A-a noodle?" Percy panted as they neared the finish line. He teetered over to the wire fence that bordered their track and leaned heavily against it, his rapid breaths fogging as he exhaled. "What's that supposed to mean."
"It means that you're as athletic as a noodle," Connor supplied as the two brothers stared in mock pity at their breathless friend.
An irate Percy glared back. Today just wasn't his day. He'd woken up later than usual because his mom was sick and needed taking care of. That resulted in him missing his bus, a bus that only came every twenty minutes. After getting through the horrible start, he'd gotten his quiz back and somehow Annabeth had found out how low his mark was. He did not need these two playing their usual pranks on him today.
"HEY JACKSON! Maybe you need a gym tutor now too!"
Then again, the Stolls were a million times better than that.
Tall, haughty, and smug, Clarisse La Rue marched purposely past them, with two of her loyal cronies trotting along behind her. She and her group of merry delinquents were the highest-profile bullies Percy had ever met. And of course, following the mystical laws of CHB, they all had their 'family' similarities: quick tempers, unrivalled arrogance and enough muscle to crush a rock barehanded. Ok not really, but human bones are a lot softer than rocks.
"Keep walking La Rue!" Travis yelled as Connor pointed a very rude gesture her way.
Clarisse mirrored the action and stalked off to wherever she was headed, her lackeys following suit. This left the Stolls with deep-set frowns on their faces, their customary expression whenever they came in contact with Her Royal Bitchiness.
"Come on guys," Percy beckoned, pushing off the fence and walking towards school building. The red-brown-gold autumn foliage crunched under his feet as he forged his way through. "Don't let her get to you."
They followed him slowly, their expressions unchanging. The Red Hogs, as Percy had heard Clarisse's gang called, had deep rooted animosity with the Track Kids.
"We're not worried about her," Connor muttered as they entered the building and headed to their gym lockers.
"The Hogs are always target new kids," Travis informed him, kicking the swinging locker room door open. "Nothing's happened to you yet but I'll bet my whoopi cushion that she's up to something."
"But you two are always up to something," Percy countered, wondering not for the first time as to why the two groups had so much enmity between them.
"That's different," they said in perfect sync. The two turned to their adjacent lockers and fiddled with their lock combinations in silence.
Percy turned to his own locker, knowing that the brothers would get over their moping eventually, and froze.
There, tacked up neatly onto the center of his locker, was a neatly written note in very recognizable cursive scrawl.
Meet me again at lunch today.
Library, 12:40pm
~Annabeth
"How'd she even know which one was mine?" Percy asked himself as he gazed haplessly at the rows of grey identical metal.
And of course, who was there to swoop into his pathetic misery?
"You look like you've seen a ghost," one of them commented. Percy was too busy being gobsmacked to register which one. They must have spied the post it (yellow pops out marvellously from grey you see), because unsuppressed snickers followed soon after.
"Guys, just don't," Percy pleaded, yanking his lock open and peeling his bright orange PE shirt off. He stuffed it into his locker, pulled a plain white shirt on, and swapped his gym shorts for a pair of uniformed light tan slacks. Thankful that the Stolls seemed to be backing off on the Annabeth issue, Percy grabbed his orange CHB tie and made his way out of the change room.
"Just remember Perce," Connor began.
"DON'T apologize," Travis reminded. "Girls are tricky things, and apologies just make everything worse."
Percy tried to make sense of that statement and found that he couldn't. But just before the Stolls could launch into one of their 'girl guru' speeches, an antagonized shout echoed through the halls.
"TRAVIS STOLL I WILL KILL YOU!"
For the first time ever, Percy saw two different expressions on the Stoll brothers. Travis seemed oddly proud of himself, while Connor had confusion slapped into his face. But slowly, ever so slowly, the confusion turned into realization, then horror, then annoyance.
"Bro, tell me you didn't," Connor said in an almost whisper.
Travis didn't reply as a muted sound crept closer.
STOMP STOMP STOMP
Something was coming...
"TRAVIS!"
...and that something was NOT happy.
Katie Gardner rounded the corner, eyes blazing and...purple hair trailing whimsically behind her.
"Wasn't Katie's hair brown?" Percy asked, flinching as she stomped towards them.
"Auburn brown," Travis corrected. His Cheshire grin softened a bit as he added. "Kinda like the color of all the trees in the middle of fall."
"Um Travis," Connor said. "Maybe we should start running...like now."
"That'd be a smart idea dear brother of mine," Travis agreed. Turning to Percy he repeated, "Remember Percy, NEVER apologize!"
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"Did you eat lunch?"
"Yeah, but I wa—"
"Are you ready for English next block?"
"I guess so, but Annabeth I want to say tha—"
"We don't have time for chit chat Percy," the blonde interrupted. "We've got work to do."
"Work? But Ms. Nia didn't assign anything," the dark haired teen stated.
"Oh she didn't assign anything," Annabeth confirmed, taking a certain sheet of paper out. "We're going to show some incentive and have you write her an essay to make up for that quiz."
"An essay? But we only have twenty minutes until lunch ends!"
"That's why I said we have to focus," she repeated. Sliding the paper across the table towards him, she added, "And we'll be using these."
"...my smileys?"
"NO, your annotations."
"You mean the scribbles I made on the back of the smileys?"
Annabeth shot him a funny look before nodding, "Yes the scribbles. If we look hard enough and squint, they're actually really good points about the text. With enough help we can make a good enough essay to pull up your grades in twenty minutes."
"Why do I have to do this?" Percy whined as Annabeth booted up a library laptop.
She set the computer in front of him, opened her copy of 'A Compilation of Shakespeare' and fixed him with the most intense, stormy gaze he'd ever seen. "Because I said so."
And so began the most hellish twenty minutes that Percy had ever lived through.
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A happy Annabeth strolled jauntily through the halls by the end of the school day. Ms. Nia had accepted the essay and congratulated them both for it; Percy's average had been bumped up by at least 3% (which wasn't much, but it was a start); and best of all, she'd gotten through that cram session without having to apologize. This was turning out to be a pretty good day.
Something caught her eye as she reached her locker. A tiny square of sea green paper was taped up to the metal door. Blue, printed letters were written out on its faint wavy pattern.
I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.
-Twelfth Night (Act 3, Scene 3)
~Percy J.
And suddenly, for some reason Annabeth just couldn't understand, the day just got better.
Next chapter: We get to see Percy's rather complicated family situation...get ready for some drama people!
Also, next week's chapter might be a BIT late (not really that likely because I'm excited about writing it) because I'm working on some Thalico (the third songfic in a trilogy :D drop by my profile if you're piqued).