A/N: I'm back!!! I hope you all were pleased with the sixth chapter, because I know I was pleased with it!!! :D Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has reviewed in the past, and who (hopefully) will review in the future. Here you go: the second part to 'Nashville, Tennessee!'
Percy and Annabeth's Travels Across America in Their Huge RV-Type Thing
Chapter Seven
When I woke up, I was aware of several things.
Thing number one: The curtains were open, and sunlight was streaming into our room.
Thing number two: It was 7:00.
Thing number three:Annabeth wasn't in the room.
Thing number four: Annabeth left a note.
I groggily picked it up, and tried to decipher it. Lucky for me, it was written in Greek. (For demigods, this was sometimes easier to read.) But, since you probably can't read Greek, I translated it for you.
Dear Seaweed Brain,
Don't freak out, I'm not dead/kidnapped/left you. I've gone down stairs to eat breakfast. You'll probably wake up at seven. I left at 6:55. So, get your butt down here, kay? See you soon,
Wise Girl
I laughed, and carefully put the note in my suitcase. What? I'm a guy, I do weird little things like that. I put on a shirt that said: "I'm with the Party Ponies!!!"
Yeah, you know you're jealous. I grabbed a room key and made my way down to the restaurant. I saw Annabeth sitting in a table in the corner muttering to herself. "Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." Before I could say anything, Annabeth looked up from her watch. "And, once again, I'm right." She said, smirking. I shot her a look, and took the seat across from her. It was one of those two-person tables.
"Right about what, Wise Girl?" I said, grabbing a nearby menu. My lip curled up in disgust as I saw what was on today's 'Daily Special'.
It was fried fish. An old saying popped into my head; one that we've all heard from 'Finding Nemo.' Fish are friends, not food.
"Well, I predicted that you wake up at seven. Find my note, take all of three minutes to find a shirt, and then leisurely take 10 minutes to get down here, and another five to locate me and walk over here. Taking up all of eighteen minutes. And it's currently 7:18."
I rolled my eyes at Annabeth's logic. We both ordered eggs, bacon, cereal, pancakes, and -of course- waffles. We quickly finished, and began the long trek back up to our room. "Hey, Annabeth. Does this place have a pool?" She laughed. "Percy, I wouldn't have made a reservation at a hotel that didn't have a pool." I ginned at her, and she grinned back.
Once we got back up to our room, we changed into our swimsuits, and left the room again. "So, what are we going to do today?" Annabeth asked me. I looked at her sideways. "How should I know? You're the wise girl, remember? I've got seaweed for brains." We both laughed, and walked into the pool room. Annabeth dropped our towels on a chair, and I went to the deep end. Annabeth waded in the shallow end, knowing that anybody with in a five foot range of my cannonballs would get drenched. Sure enough, the three teenagers at the deep end of the pool got drenched.
Annabeth burst out laughing, because we both knew that I purposely did that. The two boys looked furious, but not as furious as one of the guy's girlfriend. "How dare you get my hair wet!!" She screeched. The two boys looked like twins, and I saw the girl's twin sitting on a chair over to the side. "Lindsey, I told you getting in the water was a bad idea." The wet girl's twin said.
"What? It's not like I control the water!" I protested, I gave Annabeth a wink, which they didn't notice. I swam over to Annabeth, who was still laughing.
I splashed Annabeth, which caused her to stop laughing. "Hey!" She laughed, splashing me back. We engaged into a water war, 'accidentally' splashing the other teenagers in the pool. We stayed there until about 8:30. At about 9:00, we left the hotel and began walking around town.
"Percy, is there anywhere you want to go?" Annabeth asked, staring up at the sky.
"As long as I'm with you, I'll be fine where ever we are." Annabeth blushed, and nodded. "What about the Frist Center?"
"Frist Center?"
"It's an art center, Seaweed Brian. I can't promise you'll like it, but you might." Annabeth explained. I shrugged, and made that face that said: "I really don't want to, but I'll go if you want me too."
Annabeth nodded and started thinking again. Then she gave me an evil grin. "The Country Music Hall of Fame."
I groaned. "The Frisk Center's looking really good right now." Annabeth laughed, shaking her head. "One: it's the Frist Center. Two: Maybe I want to go to the Hall of Fame!" I smirked, but said: "Okay, fine. We'll go. But they better have shiny and distracting objects in there!"
Annabeth laughed, and we changed our direction to what lead us to the Country Music Hall of Fame. We walked for maybe about ten minutes, and crossed a busy street. Annabeth jogged up the stairs, but it wasn't the bounce-step thing. I held the door open for her, and we both quickly dashed into the air conditioned building.
I froze as I heard a faint, beautiful music. It gave me the feeling that was well known in my body, one that I normally only feel around ancient Greek stuff. I looked over at Annabeth, who was frozen, too. She caught my glance, and silently motioned for me to follow her. We followed the sound of the music, until we came to a door that was ajar.
The sign on the door said: 'No shows today, keep out.' I pointed the sign to Annabeth, and she mouthed an explanation. 'This must be their auditorium, they do shows here often.' I nodded, and slid into the room. I felt Annabeth following me, silent as a mouse.
The seats slanted downward to the flat stage. And on the stage, nine girls sat with microphones and instruments. The instruments ranged from guitars to lyres, and flutes to panpipes.
Annabeth gasped in amazement, and slowly walked down to the stage. The girls were singing a song that sounded Greek, and I knew what they were saying, but I can't describe into words. It was that powerful.
I walked down the aisle after Annabeth, and tried to figure out who they were. They all looked the same, so they had to be sisters. My eyes kept drifting back to one that had a constant smile. She was playing guitar and was laughing at every thing around her.
She reminded me of someone, but I couldn't figure out who. The girl next to her looked really depressed. She was hunched over the piano, and was silently mouthing the words. The girl sitting on the piano was something else . Her outfit reminded me of space, and all the planets and stars in it. She was holding a microphone, and singing softly. It was clear that she had zoned out, and was dreamily staring at the ceiling.
I looked to my side, hoping to see Annabeth, but she had taken the very front seat. I sat down next to her, and observed the remaining six girls. Three of them were singing (not including space girl) but it wasn't hard to tell which one was the lead. One of them was doing a little dance, one was swooning like a love sick girl, and the last one had some kind of authority to her. Yeah, that's the leader. I looked at the last three, and all of them had instruments. (A lyre, the panpipes, and a flute.)
The song ended, and each girl laid their instrument/microphone down on a table that sat stage left. They silently walked off the stage, and came over to us.
The leader held out a hand to us, smiling. "Hi! I'm Calli, and these are my sisters." She said, jerking her thumb at the eight girls behind her. "Come on, girls. Don't be shy! They're cousins of ours, remember?"
My mouth dropped open. Annabeth nudged me with her elbow, and shook her head. I quickly closed it, but Calli caught it anyway. "Shocked, Fish Boy?"
I heard a snicker, and saw the girl that was playing guitar trying not to laugh. "Oh, stop laughing. It wasn't supposed to be funny!" Calli snapped at her sister.
The girl who was playing the flute walked up beside Calli. "I'm Hymnia." Then space girl walked up. "Um, this is Nia." Hymnia said. Nia smiled and shook our hands. Soon most of the girls had came up. I ran the list of names through my head, trying to remember who in Greek mythology had names like that. Calli, Hymnia, Nia, Lio, Eter, Melone, Teri, and Era. Wait, that's only eight…
I looked over to the very last girl, who was staring at us like she was trying to decipher everything about us. She strolled over. "What's your name?"
Annabeth held out her hand. I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena. And this is Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon." I sent her a look. "I can speak for my self, you know." She rolled her eyes.
"So Athena and Poseidon have made peace then?" The girl questioned. The girl named Lio rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. Like that would happen." Her sisters nodded, agreeing with her. "Well, something tells me that they don't agree with this, now do they?" Then I realized that what I thought was an angry glare, was really a smirk trying to hold back laughs. I laughed, as Annabeth nodded.
"Thalia." She said, extending her hand. Calli shot her a glare, and hissed under her breath: "Thalia, you know that we can't-
"Calli, you know I don't care, right?" Thalia hissed back.
She smirked and turned back to me and Annabeth. "So, son of Poseidon, I know this one," She said, pointing to Annabeth, "has figured out who we are –that's plain by the look on her face. Now it's up to you." I racked my brains. Nine sisters, each with her own talent, my cousins, hmmm…
Then it hit me. "The Muses?" Thalia started laughing, and Calli rolled her eyes. "Zeus told us not give away our identity, but this one always gives it away. She thinks it's funny."
"Well, I am the Muse of comedy!" Thalia protested. "Now I know where Thalia gets her name." I muttered to Annabeth. We both laughed, thinking of our old friend. "So, wait. Are the names you told us fake names?" I asked. Calli shook her head. "We use those names instead of a big long name. Like Teri is really Terpsichore. Nicknames are so much easier." Suddenly, one of the girls named Era grabbed her stomach. "Calli, when's lunch?" Calli laughed. "Come on girls, demigods. I think there's a café here."
Annabeth and I chatted with the Muses all the way to the café. It was hard to find a table to fit eleven people, so we wound up pushing tables together. A waiter came up and took our order, but we all just got a drink.
And strangely, we all got the same drink. The waiter must've had a hard time filling eleven glasses of Diet Coke.
"So, what brings you to Nashville?" I asked Calli. "I could ask you the same thing."
Somewhere in my mind, I heard Nico shouting: 'OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! BBBUUURRRNNN!!!!!!'
Annabeth shrugged. "Just vacationing." Melone looked up from her drink. "Do your parents know? Oh, no. I hope this isn't another Romeo and Juliet story. That would be so heartbreaking!" She wailed. Thalia rolled her eyes. "Forgive her, she's the muse of tragedy.
Annabeth laughed. "Yeah, they know." Calli laughed too. "Wow, Melone. But, we're just vacationing, too. Things on Olympus just get a little crazy sometimes." We were there for about another hour, and probably could've stayed longer, but Annabeth deiced for me that we were ready to go. "Thank you for your time, my ladies, but you must excuse me and Percy. We have a lot to do today." She pulled me up from my chair, and I sent an apologetic look to the Muses. "Aren't you going to got the museum?" Teri asked us. Annabeth shook her head. "Nah, we were just came here because we were bored." We thanked the Muses one last time, and left the Country Music Hall of Fame.
"So, where are we going?" I asked Annabeth, as we walked down Broadway. She grinned at me.
"Don't worry. Athena always has a plan."
A/N: HA! No one guessed who Percy and Annabeth were going to meet! I bet alot of you have guessed where they will be going. And I put a small hint in the story. (*coughcoughlastlinecoughcoughcough*) I'm rather pleased with how fast this went up, but what else are you supposed to on an eight hour drive? I'm almost done with the eigth chapter, and it should go up this week. So, please review, and please use constructive criticism only.
Happy Writing,
Lol Fantasy