Grover's Pants is Gone

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or anything that has to do with this. Rick Riordan owns PJO.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or anything that has to do with this. Rick Riordan owns PJO

I did two disclaimers because I forgot to do one on the previous chapter. Thank you to everyone who reads this.

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. I know, it was rude, and I'm sorry, but Grover kept freaking me out muttering, "Why is it always 6th Grade?" and "I hope it isn't like the last time."

Whenever Grover got upset, is bladder started acting up. So while Grover made a beeline for the restroom, I took my suit case, went outside, and hailed a cab.

"East One-hundred-and-forth and First," I told the cab driver.

So, I word about my mom, before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson, and she is one of the best people in the world, and that just proves my theory of the best people have the worst luck. Her parents died in a plane crash when she was five, which led to her being raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a collage with a good writing program. Then, though, her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school, in her senior year, to take care of him. When he died, she was left with no family, no money, and no diploma.

The really only good break she had got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him. The closest thing I have would probably be a barest trace of a smile, a warm glow. And my mom doesn't like to talk about it because it makes her sad. See, my mom and dad weren't married. She had told me he was rich and important and their relationship had been a secret. Then, one day, he had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and never came back.

No dead, my mom had told me. Not dead, just lost at sea.

She worked weird jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and managed me on her own. She never complained or got mad, not even once. It was surprising because I know I'm wasn't an easy kid.

Eventually, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice like the first thirty seconds we knew him. No, maybe not the first thirty seconds, like twenty. No! Ten, yeah ten. After those ten seconds, he showed his true colors as a topnotch jerk. When I was a little girl, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, no I'm not, but the guy reeked like moldy pizza wrapped in sweaty gym socks.

Between Gabe and I, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, and the way we got along…Well, when I got home from Yancy is a great example.

I walked into my apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Lucky for me, Smelly Gabe was there, playing poker with his buddies. There were beer cans and chips all over the carpet, and the television blasted ESPN. The place was a mess, and gross.

Not looking up, he said around his cigar, "You're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working, got any cash?"

There it was: the Got any cash? No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the past six months? Every time I got home, he would ask me for money. He called it 'Our Bond,' meaning if I told my mom, he would punch the lights out of me.

Gabe had put on a lot of weight. He reminded me of a tusk less walrus who went thrift-shopping. He was bald except for three hairs on his head that were combed to the side, as if that made him handsome or whatnot.

His job was that he managed the Electronic Mega-Mart in Queens, but he barely went to work. Don't ask me why he hadn't been fired long ago; I'm still trying to figure it out. All he did was collect paychecks, spend the money on beer and cigars, which made me nauseous.

"I don't have any cash," I replied.

He raised a greasy eyebrow questioningly. He could sniff out cash like a bloodhound; the weird thing is that his stench should've covered everything else up.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he growled. "Paid with a twenty, got six, seven bucks in change. If somebody expects to live under this roof, she ought to pay her own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Pay their weight? I don't think Gabe has that much money.

Eddie, the superintendent of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of pity, "Come on, Gabe. She just got home."

"Am I right?" Gabe growled.

Eddie glared into the bowl of pretzels while Gabe's other two poker cronies passed gas in harmony. Gross.

"Whatever," I dug into my pocket, pulled out the change from the cab, and threw it onto the table. "Have fun losing!" I stomped away.

"Your report card came, garbage girl," he yelled after me. "Wouldn't act so disrespectful."

I slammed the door to my room. Well, actually it wasn't really my room, during the school months it became Gabe's 'study.' He didn't study anything except ancient car magazines, but he loved shoving all my stuff into the closet and making the room smell as horrific as his cologne, stale beer, and cigars. Jerk.

I threw my bag to the corner and flopped down onto the bed. Home sweet home.

Gabe's stink was almost as bad as the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of those huge shears the lady used to snip the yarn. As soon as I thought about that, I remembered Grover's look of panic, making me promise to let him walk me home. I felt a bit guilty, I hope he isn't freaking out and knows I got home alright. Suddenly, I felt a chill, as if someone—something—was looking for me. With claws and teeth and ruby red eyes.

"Pelagia?" A voice then said. I sat up, it was my mom's. She opened the door. Her hair was brown with a few streaks of grey but I never think of her as old. Her eyes changed color in the light.

"Oh, Pelagia, you've grown since Christmas!" She gave me a tight hug. Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America shirt smelled like delicious candies and sweets. She had brought me a huge bag of 'free samples' like she always did when I got home. We sat on my bed; I was devouring a strip of blueberry sour strings while my mom played with my hair.

"Tell me about everything you couldn't put in your letters," she said.

She didn't mention anything about me getting expelled. Did her daughter have a great time? Was I alright?

I said to her that she was babying me and to calm down, but really, I was glad to see her.

"Sally, how 'bout some bean dip?" Gabe yelled from the living room.

I gritted my teeth, my mom should've been married to some sweet, nice guy, not some jerk like Gabe.

For my mom's sake, I tried to sound happy about my last days at Yancy. I told her I wasn't too upset about the expulsion, I almost made it the whole year, I made a new friend, and the fights weren't as bad as the headmaster said. I actually liked Yancy. I put such a good spin on it I actually convinced myself. I felt pretty sad, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nick Bobofit didn't seem as bad.

Until the trip to the Met…

"What happened? Is something wrong?" my mom asked, her eyes trying to pull out the secrets.

"Nope," I felt a bit bad lying to her. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the fruit stand knitting ladies, but it would probably sound stupid and insignificant.

She pursed her lips, but she didn't question me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to Montauk!"

"Really?"

"Yep, three nights—same cabin."

"When?"

"As soon as I get changed."

Yes! My mom and I haven't been to Montauk for two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Gabe then appeared in the doorway, "Didn't you hear me, Sally? Bean dip."

I wanted to slap him, but I caught my mother's eyes and she proposed a deal: be nice to Gabe until we leave, then we would be ready for to get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," my mom said to Gabe, "Just talking with Pelagia about the trip."

Gabe's eyes narrowed, "The trip to Montauk? You were serious?"

"Of course," I said. "He won't let us go!"

"Of course, your step-father is just worried about the money," my mom replied. "Besides, Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip, I'll make him a seven-layer dip, enough for the whole weekend."

Gabe's eyes softened, "The money for the trip….It comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mom said.

"My car won't be taken anywhere except there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

"Well, maybe if you hurry with that bean dip. And the girl apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe I could kick you hard in the soft spot, and make you sing soprano for a week.

My mom's eyes, however, warned me not to enrage him.

Why did she put up with this jerk? Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm sorry for interrupting your incredibly, awfully, important amazing poker game. Please go back to that awesome poker game right now."

The pig narrowed his eyes, his miniscule brain probably trying to detect sarcasm in my reply.

"Yeah, whatever," Gabe decided. He left and probably went back to his game.

"Thank you, Pelagia," my mom told me. "When we get to Montauk, we can talk more…about everything you forget or didn't get to."

For a moment, my mom looked like she had the same anxiety as Grover, the same chill in the air. But then her smile returned. It probably was my imagination. Then she left to go make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later, my mom and I were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me to heave my mom's bags to the car. He kept complaining about losing her cooking and more important, his '78 Camaro for three whole days. That poor, poor man. (Note the sarcasm)

"Don't let one scratch get on that car, garbage girl," he told me as I loaded the last bag into the car. "Not on scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving, I'm not even twelve yet. That didn't matter to Gabe, though. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he would find some idiotic, ridiculous way to blame me.

Watching him walk back toward the apartment building got me so mad that I did something I can't even explain. As Gabe reached the door to the apartment building, I put the three finger claw gesture Grover made on the bus and made a shoving motion towards the pig. The screen door slammed shut so hard that when it hit him he went flying up the staircase. Maybe it was the wind, or a freak accident, I didn't stay long enough to find out.

I got in the car and told my mom to hit the gas hard.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It had faded curtains and half sunken in the dunes. Sand was always in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and the sea was, most of the time, too cold to swim in.

I loved the place!

We've been going there since I was a baby and my mom had been going before I was even born. This place was special to her, she never said exactly why, but I knew. It was the place where she met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, my mom's eyes turned the color of the sea and she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work evaporating off her face.

By the time we arrived at the cabin, it was sunset. We opened all the windows and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, munched on blue jelly beans, gnawed blue saltwater taffy, and all lot of other free samples from my mom's work.

Okay, so I should probably explain all the blue food.

So, you see, one day Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing as blue food. And they had gotten into a fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes, mixed blueberry smoothies, bought blue-corn tortilla chips, and brought home blue candies from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than being called 'Mrs. Ugliano'—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have somewhat of a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on sticks, eating s'mores. My mom told me some stories that she could remember from before her parents died and some funny ones while she was in school when she was younger. She also told me about all the books she wanted to write, how when she got enough money she would quit the candy store.

After a while, I got up the nerve to ask her about the thing that was always on my mind when we go to Montauk: my dad. My mom's eyes went all misty and I figured she would tell me what she always told, but I never got tired of hearing it.

"He was sweet, Pelagia," she said, "Tall, handsome, and powerful, but sweet and gentle, too. You have his black hair, and his green eyes."

She popped a blue jellybean in her mouth, "I wish he could see you, Pelagia. He would be so proud!"

Proud? As if! What's so great about me? I'm a hyperactive, dyslexic girl who never made in above a C- in her life. Been kicked out of every school I have ever been to.

"How old was I when he left?" I asked her.

She stared at the flames, "We were only together for a summer, Pelagia. We stayed here, at this beach. In this cabin."

"No…but he knew me as a baby, right?"

"Sorry, honey, but no. He knew I was expecting a baby, a little girl, but he never knew or saw you. He had to go to sea before you were born."

No, I had this smile, and I know it's from him. Some type of warm glow.

Okay, I always presumed my dad knew me as a baby. My mother never said anything about that. But now, being told that he never knew or even saw me, it was…it was….

I felt angry at my dad. So it might be stupid, but I resented him for going on that long voyage, leaving us alone, not marrying my mom. Now we're stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked her. "Send me off to another boarding school?"

She ate a s'more, and said in a heavily sad voice, "I don't know, Pelagia. I think…I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" Oh no, I didn't mean that.

My mom's eyes got tears, she pulled me in a tight embrace, "No, Pelagia. I…I have to send you away. It's for your own good, honey."

Her words reminded me of Mr. Brunner's. Don't be melancholy about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best.

"Because I'm not normal?" I asked, looking down.

"You say that like it's a bad thing, Pelagia. You don't understand how important you are, sweetie. I thought Yancy would be far enough, far enough away to keep you safe."

"Safe? Safe from…from what?"

She met my eyes, and all the scary things that have ever happened to me came flooding back, a lot of which I tried to forget.

In third grade, a huge man in a black trench coat kept stalking me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling. The weirdest thing, though, was that he had one eye, one eye in the middle of his head.

Before that, a really early memory, I was in preschool and the teacher accidentally put me down in a cot a snake had slipped into. My mom had let out a shrill scream when she came to pick me up and saw me playing with a brownish green, scaly rope I had somehow managed to strangle with my toddler hands.

Every school I have ever been to, something creepy had happened. Something dangerous and I was forced to move to a different school.

I should tell my mom about Mrs. Dodds and the old fruit ladies, but I couldn't. The weird hallucination I had sliced my demon math teacher with a bronze sword, but it would end our trip to Montauk, I just know it, and I didn't want that.

"I'm sorry; I've tried to keep you as close to me as you could, they told me it was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Pelagia: the place your father wanted you to go to. And I just…I just can't do that."

"My dad wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school, sweetie. A summer camp."

Why would my dad who didn't even stay long enough to see me be born talk to my mom about a summer camp? If it was so important, why hadn't she mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Pelagia," my mom said, interrupting my thoughts. "I…I can't do that, it might mean sending you away for good."

"For good? It's only a summer camp."

Her gaze turned back towards the flames, her eyes threatening to cry if I keep questioning her.

That night I had a vivid dream. There was a storm on the beach and two beautiful animals were fighting, a horse and an eagle. They were trying to kill each other. The eagle flew down and swiped the horse on it's muzzle. The horse reared up and kicked the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled and a voice could be heard. The horrendous voice cackled and goaded the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them. They couldn't kill each other, they just couldn't. I was running in slow motion, though. I wouldn't make it in time. The eagle dived down, it's pointed beak aimed at the horse's right wide eye.

"NO!"

I woke with a start.

Outside, there really was a storm, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no eagle or horse, though. Only lightning that pounded the ground and 20 foot waves that slammed against the dunes.

The next thunderclap sounded and my mother woke, her eyes wide, and she sat up, "Hurricane."

Long Island never see's hurricanes this early in the summer, but the ocean seemed to have forgotten. The wind was roaring loudly, but in the distance I heard this tortured, angry sound that made me get goose bumps.

I then heard a much closer sound, like mallets in sand. And a voice, a desperate voice, yelling and pounding on the door of the cabin.

My mother, in her nightgown, sprang out of bed, unlocked the door and opened it.

Grover stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, soaked in rain. But he wasn't…he wasn't exactly Grover.

"I was searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mom stared at me in terror, apparently not afraid of Grover, but why he had come, "Pelagia, what happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, however. What the heck was wrong with Grover?

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I didn't even register that he had cursed in Ancient Greek and I understood him perfectly, how Grover had gotten here in the middle of the night. Because where Grover's legs should be…his legs….

My mom looked at me sternly, and in a tone she never used before, "Pelagia, tell me now!"

I stammered something about Mrs. Dodds and the knitting ladies at the fruit stand. When I had finished, my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car! Both of you!"

Grover ran to the Camaro, but he wasn't exactly running. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters…. That's why. That's why he limps when he walks but could be so fast when he wanted to.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were only cloven hooves.

Hope you guys enjoyed! Just to let you know, the next chapter won't be as quick as this one. Thanks again for reading!

-Fae51