Chapter 9. Just want you to know that I'm going Philippines for three weeks next week, so if the updates are slow (you're probably already used to them by now since I'm totally crap about updates) it's because I'm in Philippines, there's a typhoon, the power is out, and my laptop is dead. Sorry.
Chapter 9
Posy's POV
I slept in. I woke up, drool on my pillow, and it was almost 10 in the morning and it was broad daylight. I've slept in before, but not all the way until 10 AM! I kicked the blanket off of me in a hurry and then fled down the stairs, nearly stumbling as I went.
"Well well well," said my brother, Frankie, when he saw me enter the kitchen. He stood in the doorway and kept his elbow propped up on the door frame, preventing me from coming in. "Sleeping Beauty finally decides to grace us with her presence at this fine hour on a Saturday morning."
I pushed his arm down and off the door frame and let myself in. Peter wasn't in, but my dad was standing at the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee and a pile of mail.
"Posy," he said when he looked up from an envelope he was holding. He checked his watch. "It's almost 10, hon, what have you been doing all this time? Late night?"
"Just couldn't sleep, that's all. Where's Mom?"
"Upstairs with the baby. You eat yet?"
"No, Dad, I just woke, remember? I haven't eaten anything at all. What about Peter?"
"You're so inquisitive this morning," he said with a slight tilt of his head. I tilted mine to match the angle of his.
"Peter, Dad. Where'd he go?"
"Work, I think. He's quit and applied so many jobs, I don't even remember what his current job is."
"He works at that coffee place, Dad," Frankie said as he took a seat neat to him.
"There you go, the coffee place," Dad took a sip from his mug and picked up another envelope. I went over to the cupboard to get some cereal, milk, and a bowl. Then I sat down across from Frankie.
"By the way, Posy," Dad said, placing the envelopes and his mug down on the table. "Your mother and I went to see about your grandfather's will and turns out, you know his little cat? Well he's all yours now."
"Really?" I said with a mouth full of Reese's Puffs, a drop of milk found its way down my chin and I wiped it away. Frankie laughed at me.
"Yeah, he's all yours. So, uh, I guess we're going to need some cat stuff for him."
"Yeah, I guess so," I said. Frankie kicked my knee under the table. I shot him a dirty look and then kicked him as well.
"Posy kicked me!" Frankie yelled.
"Posy!" Dad said.
"He started it! Not me!"
It went on like that for another five, maybe ten, minutes, before the baby upstairs starts crying and Mom came down to tell us all to shut up.
"Dad," I said. "I'm hanging out with one of my friends today at the park around noonish, is that okay?" I finally asked.
"Who friend?" he asked.
"Umm... just Lauren and her cousin, Nico," I lied. Nico and Lauren were in no way related. They've never even met before.
"Hmm, well alright, then," Dad said.
"Thanks, Dad. I'm gonna go get ready now, I'll be back later," I kissed his cheek and then ran up the stairs and back into my bedroom. I fixed my bed first, since it was still messy from earlier that morning, and then ransacked my drawers for something decent to wear.
One thing I noticed about my clothes is that most didn't even fit me properly; they were always too tight or too baggy. Another thing I noticed was that half of the clothes in my closet I didn't even like; a puke-colored hoodie, a long-sleeved pink shirt with a horse on it, a jacket with a chihuahua-shaped hood, rainbow-striped leggings, a plain blue shirt, a lime green shirt, a Depeche Mode shirt and I didn't even listen to Depeche Mode, and more.
"Ugh!" I yelled in frustration and sat on my (just fixed) bed. I looked over my piles and piles of unwanted or no-longer-fit clothes and sighed. Willow the cat came in through my open door and maneuvered intelligently through my maze of clothes. He jumped up onto my bed and sat on a cardigan that I had laying there.
Well, what happened here? he said with his eyes.
I opened my mouth to answer, but thought about how ridiculous I would look talking to a cat.
It's ok, Willow said again. I get it, who talks to cats, right? Don't mind me, I'll just be laying here and watching you. Willows curled up into a ball on the cardigan and gave a little cat yawn. Then he shut his eyes and took a catnap. I'd love to be a cat for a day.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted a light grey shirt that looked pretty decent. I grabbed it off a hook on my door and then brought it in front of the mirror. It really did looked nice. I went back to my bed and grabbed the thin blue cardigan Willow was sleeping on (he didn't appreciate that much. What gives, sister!).
I paired the grey shirt and blue with a pair of jeans and white shoes. It looked good. I shut my door and Willow politely looked away as I changed into the outfit I had picked. I did my hair up in a ponytail and I was ready. I looked at the clock. Ten minutes until noon. That didn't leave me with much time at all!
I ran over to my desk and grabbed some money, my phone, and a thin silver bracelet to finish the look. I took a quick glance in the mirror before heading out my door.
When I neared the door, I remembered that Willow now belonged to me. I felt a responsibility to my grandpa then, and with that, I turned on my heel and went back into my room, grabbed Willow, and continued out of the house with a cat squirming in my arms.
Nico's POV
After last night's interruption, I can say that I wasn't at all happy about having to wake up again the next morning, but Paul woke me and Percy up at promptly 7 AM. ("Early to bed and early to rise, I always say!" Sure, Paul, suuuure.)
Although I hate to admit it, but I was actually a little bit excited to meet up with Posy at the park today. Not necessarily because I missed her or anything, but I was just anxious to get out of the house and do something.
12 noon didn't come fast enough, but when it did, I was out the door faster than a fat kid could get to an ice cream store. It was nice outside; the sun was out and all, no clouds, a soft breeze. the kind of weather that made me feel out of place, a son of Hades in a back t-shirt and dark jeans taking a walk out in the sunshine with all these happy-go-lucky mortals and their pets.
I made it to Central Park in good time. We had decided to meet up near that place where everyone goes to play with their little remote-controlled boat models. I forgot what it was called, but Boat-model lake-thingy was my name for it. It was 12:05 PM by the time I got there, and I couldn't find her anywhere.
I stood against a wall with my hands in my pockets and there I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And kept waiting.
I checked my watch: 12:45 PM. If that girl stood me up, all hell just might break loose. Literally.
At 12:56, she finally shows up. And she's got a cat with her.
"Where have you been? Rescuing a cat?" I asked once she finally got close enough to hear me.
"No, I just lost the time and I got lost and stuff-"
"What's with the cat, then?" I was confused. She scratched the cat behind its ears and it eyeballed me with its cat-eyes.
"This cat happens to be named Willow and it's mine now. Well, since I inherited him from my grandfather, that is."
"Inherited? Grandfather?"
"Yeah, when he died, he put it in his will that I-"
I put a hand up to stop her. "Yeah, yeah, spare me, will ya? I got that much, I just don't get why you brought it here."
"Oh, that. Well I brought him because I just thought that I should. Well, I'm Willow's owner now and I want to be a good owner so I decided to take Willow for a walk at the park."
I snickered a little, and then got a little bit closer to her. "Posy," I said. "Dogs go on walks, not cats. You don't even have a leash for it!"
"It's a him, and I don't need a leash, Willow won't run away, he has nowhere to run to."
I looked back at her cat, and it looked back at me and hissed. I fought the urge to hiss right back at it. "Oh my gods," I said. "Are you kidding me right now? C'mon, Posy, it's a cat, who's ever heard of a cat going on a walk?"
She furrowed her eyebrows at me. "Well I'm taking him for a walk and if you don't like it, then you can leave. How about that?"
I ran my hand through my hair. "You've got to be kidding me. You know what, no. I've been here waiting for almost an hour now and do you know how hard that is for an ADD kid like me to sit here waiting, standing still, and having nothing to do? No, nuh uh, I'm not leaving! You and me are going for that walk you planned and I'm gonna be happy because I'm walking and doing something that's better than nothing. Ok? Let's go."
I got behind Posy and pushed her forward with one hand and made her walk in front of me.
"So why are we on this walk, anyway?" I asked with my hands in my pockets. After about ten minutes of walking, Posy, her cat, and I were in a section of the park that resembled a forest. There was still a paved road and stuff, but on either side of the road there were trees and stuff.
Posy shrugged her shoulders at my question. "I really don't know myself, actually," she answered. Her cat meowed.
I rest my right hand on the hilt of my sword that rested on my hip, invisible to the mortal eye. Except for this girl in front of me, of course. The weight of my hand on it sometimes caused it to drag on my road.
"So this whole trip was sort just a spur of the moment kind of thing?" I asked.
"Pretty much. But it's not turning out to be a bad day, right?"
I grunted in response. I had to admit, it really wasn't that bad of a day. Posy began to slow down, and soon she was walking right next to me, and her arm sometimes skidded against mine. I didn't pull away when it did, but I was careful to make sure it didn't happen more times than necessary. I was afraid she'd think I was doing it on purpose.
"What do you do in your spare time?" she asked. the question caught me by surprise.
"Why do you want to know?" I answered with a question.
She shrugged again. "I was just curious since it doesn't look like you do much other than school and the whole Demigod thing. You don't look like a busy type of person."
I looked around to make sure no one was around or dropping eaves on our conversation. "I am a busy person, just all my being busy doesn't always involve sports or clubs or stuff like that. I'm a particular kind of guy. And you need to watch out before talking about all that half-blood stuff, someone might hear."
Posy looked around just as I did. "There's no one here, Nico, just relax. You're making me nervous. No worries, I'm not going to tell anyone. I'll take it to the grave!"
"I'm just saying, you can never be too careful, you know. Plus, you've got a mouth on you and I don't know just how loose your lips are, but just make sure it doesn't accidentally slip out. Ever."
"Yes, sir," she made a little salute. A horrible-looking salute actually.
"Don't do that," I said.
The trees around seemed to go on forever. I had lost track of how long we'd been walking or how far we'd gone. I decided that we'd worry about that later.
"Have you ever seen this here before?" Posy asked after a while. I turned to look at what she was looking at. It was a grotto. The ground around it look shaky and unstable, like it could at any given moment. It was surrounded by rocks, and there was a large crack in the front. The trees around ensured that it was well hidden and dark. It looked like one of those caves that could easily have been inhabited by some form of human life millions of years ago. I had never seen it in the park before, but there was certainly an ominous air surrounding it. A gusty wind that blew made a whistling noise as it passed the rocky new mysterious park attraction. It seemed so surreal and eerily familiar, like an episode from the Twilight Zone.
"No, never seen it before," I answered
"Maybe it's new," Posy suggested. I looked straight at the crack in the rock. It was big for a small person to squeeze through, but as I kept looking at it, the hairs on my hairs stood on end.
"Yeah, maybe," I said. A small voice in the back of my head told me to keep walking and not to go near it, to put as much distance between myself and it was possible. "Hey, Posy, let's keep walking, yeah?"
"Hmm? Yeah, sure," she said, as she turned away from the cave and followed me. We slowly got back into step, but suddenly-
"Agh!" Posy's cat fell out of her arms and it bounded across the road and ran straight into the crack in the rock. It was gone. "Willow!" she yelled. She held onto her arm, there was a red, bloody scratch on her forearm.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah," she answered, staring at the grotto. I patted her back.
"Sorry 'bout that, Posy. It's a huge loss. Let's go." I grabbed her upper arm and tried to pull her along, but she wouldn't budge.
"W-Wait, I can't go yet, I have to get Willow!"
I walked up to her until we were face to face. "Posy, your cat just ran into a cave. It's good as gone."
She looked at me sadly with pouting puppy-dog eyes. "That cat was the last connection I had with my grandpa, Nico. If I lose that cat, I lose that connection."
"You don't need a cat to feel connected with your grandfather, Posy, that's what love is for,"
"But I'm responsible to Willow! He was given to me! C'mon you have to help me get him back!"
"Are you even looking at this? It's got 'death' written all over it! You cannot ask me to go in there and risk my life for a stupid cat! Ok, I'm not doing it! Are we looking at the same situation here? Try seeing from my point of view."
"Fine, if you won't help me, I'll go on my own. Jeez, Nico, you're such a wuss!" She ran away from me and toward the cave.
"A wuss?"
"You heard me!" she yelled back jsut before she disappeared into the cave. I stomped my foot on the ground. "A wuss? I am NOT wuss!" I kicked a pebble on the ground and then ran toward the crack after her.
"I hate her, I hate her, I hate her..." Seriously hated her at that moment for making me climb into a dark dangerous cave for a stupid cat.
"Posy?" I yelled once I got in there. Inside, the cave was wet and water dripped from the ceiling. It was too dark to see anything in there, and the light from the entrance did little to help me find my way around in there. "Posy! Where are you?" I yelled again. I kept walking, and every now and then, I would step into a puddle of cold water or hit my head against hard rock.
"Posy!" I yelled again.
"Shut up! I'm right here. I'm looking for my cat," I heard her voice, but I couldn't see her.
"What you won't do for your cat. Gods, I hate girls."
"And they hate you, too, but right now let's focus on finding my cat so we can get out of here."
"Right," I said. I placed my hand on the wall to help me find my way around. Slowly, I was able to see in the dark again. I saw Posy in front of me. She was still looking for the cat.
"Willow, where are you?" she said. She walked forward and kept going. I stayed a little bit behind her, taking care to remember where the entrance was. That was when I heard the brown-haired boy's voice speaking to Posy.
"Looking for this?"
To be continued..
Haha, cliffy... well, review, guys, thanks...