Chapter Three: The Doorbell Ringer
Clara's seventh birthday
"So what's this big surprise you say you've got planned for me?" Clara asked for the hundredth time.
"Sh-uh, it's on its way," Percy responded for the hundredth time.
"Ha! I got you!" exclaimed Clara, bounding across the room and jumping into her father's lap. "You were about to say 'she,' weren't you! So it's a person, eh?"
"What, are we Canadian now, eh?"
"Don't change the subject!" snapped Clara.
"Okay, fine," Percy conceded. "The surprise is a person. An old friend of mine. I just don't know why she's taking so-"
'Ding-dong' the doorbell sounded loudly.
"Oh, thank the gods," Percy said, getting up from the sofa. He didn't notice Clara grinning behind him.
He pushed open the front door and looked left and right. "Uh, hello?" He took a step onto the porch. "Hello?"
The doorbell rang again. 'Ding-dong.'
Percy whipped around to look at it, hoping to catch whoever was ringing it. But all he saw was a strange little device attached to the doorbell. He ripped it off and stormed back into the house. Sure enough, Clara was sitting on the sofa with a strange looking remote control, giggling uncontrollably.
"Did you like it?" she asked. "I built it myself."
"Out of what?" Percy demanded, sitting down next to her.
"The toaster."
"WHAT!" Percy jumped off and stormed off into the kitchen, leaving a giggling little girl behind him. He returned a few seconds later, having found the toaster to be intact. "You little-" he started as he sat down on the couch.
"I was just kidding. I built it out of parts from your stereo system's speakers," Clara interrupted.
"For gods sa-" Percy started to get up. "Na uh. I'm not falling that little trick again."
"No, seriously dad," Clara said, putting on the innocent face that he knew all too well.
"You're lying."
Clara sighed and bit her lip. "Fine. I used that wireless mouse in the office."
"See," said Percy, standing up. "Now that's reasonable."
He returned from the office a few seconds later, holding a perfectly functional wireless mouse.
"Clara!" he said angrily, waving the mouse in his little daughter's face. "I'm tired of this. What did you cannibalize to make that little… uh…thingamajig…"
"Automatic Doorbell/Chime Activation System," Clara said proudly. "ADCAS, for short. I'm going to get a patent for it."
"Yeah, well, what did you tear up?"
Clara sighed. "Your weather radio. I know you don't use it too much, so I decided to use it."
Thunder crackled outside, and rain began to pour down from the grey, gray skies. And, as Percy climbed the stairs to his bedroom to check on the state of the supposedly defunct NOAA weather radio, he heard its mechanical voice begin to drone
Beep…beep…beep
"..A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR MOST COUNTIES IN THE DC METRO AREA UNTIL 10:00 TONIGHT. AT 5:30 PM, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR IN STERLING VIRGINIA INDICATED A LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS STRETCHING FROM GREENE TO HAMPSHIRE. THESE STORMS ARE MOVING NORTH-NORTHEAST AT THIRTY KNOTS AND ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING WIND GUSTS IN EXCESS OF FIFTY FIVE KNOTS AND DIME TO GOLF BALL SIZED HAIL. THESE DAMAGING WINDS AND HAIL WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY HEAVY RAIN AND DEADLY LIGHTNING. FOR YOUR PROTECTION, SEEK SHELTER IN A BUILDING OR VEHICLE UNTIL THE STORM HAS PASSED…"
Percy, feeling too much like a fool to be very mad, trudged down the stairs and back to the living room. "Well, he sighed," at least this means that your surprise is almost here.
Clara raised an eyebrow. "What? Because there's a bad storm outside?"
The doorbell rang. Percy whipped his head around as quickly as he could, and noted with satisfaction that the auto-ringer was far from Clara's reach. "Go get the door," Percy ordered. "You'll have to show me later what you, for real, tore up."
"Why do I have to get the door?" Clara demanded, folding her arms. "It's my birthday!"
Percy leaned in and nuzzled her. "Because you've been a bad little girl, tricking your daddy like that."
"Fine!" Clara pouted, hopping off the couch and bounding off towards the door.
Percy watched her go, yelling, "remember to check out the window before you unlock it!"
He chuckled to himself. Sometimes he felt like she drove him insane rather than kept him sane. But it was a good kind of insane.
"Dad!" Clara called.
"What?"
"I don't think it's the old friend you were talking about, dad. There's a teenage girl at the door."
"Yep," Percy said. "That's her."
"O…ohkay."
Clara opened the door and looked up to see the teenage girl smiling down at her. She was tall, with flowing black hair and piercing blue eyes that seemed to sparkle with electricity. "Hello, Clara," she said, squatting down to be level with the little girl. "I'm your Auntie Grace. We met once, but you were just a few weeks old. You probably don't remember."
Clara looked at the girl doubtfully. "You're my dad's sister? You don't look a day over sixteen."
"Cousin, actually, and she's going on forty-five," Percy responded, appearing behind Clara. "Hey Thals."
"Percy!" exclaimed Thalia happily, throwing herself into a big hug. Percy kissed her lightly on the cheek. "How've you been, you ol' fish face?"
"Ah, same old, same old. You?"
"Lots of…." Thalia glanced at Clara. "Shall we say, 'foresting.'"
Clara piped up. "So I'm confused now. If she's your cousin, how is she my aunt? That would make her my first cousin once removed."
"Well, seeing as you've got no aunts or uncles," Percy said, "and Thals here is the closest thing I've got to a sister, you can go ahead and call her Aunt. Not to mention 'first cousin once removed' is a mouthful. Come on, let's all go have dinner. Homemade perogies with amatriciana sauce tonight!"
"Yay!" Clara exclaimed happily, bounding off towards the kitchen.
"You can cook?" asked Thalia, surprised, as she and Percy walked in Clara's wake.
"Of course," said Percy, feeling mildly offended. "How do you think I survived college?"
"Grandma Sally says he survived off frozen waffles and canned garbanzo beans," Clara supplied.
"I told you not to listen to any of her preposterous stories!" Percy called back.
"Mmm-hmm," hummed Clara doubtfully. "Preposterous. Right."
"What a little angel," Thalia commented.
"Yeah. She loves messing with me."
"Takes after her auntie, then?" Thalia said, more of a statement then a question, as she slipped into the kitchen, leaving Percy in the hall shaking his head slowly and feeling like a fool.
"That was actually pretty good food," Thalia commented.
"Yeah! It's my favorite dinner," Clara said.
Percy smiled smugly. Thalia noticed. "Okay, so you can cook. That doesn't make you any less pathetic, fishface."
Clara bounded ahead of them into the living room. Percy and Clara plopped down on the couch, while Thalia made herself comfortable in the sofa-chair.
"What's this mouse doing here?" Thalia asked, reaching towards the coffee table
"Oh, its wireless," Percy said, dodging the question.
"Right. So you can use it to control the computer in your office all the way from in here," Thalia said sarcastically. "Really, why is it here next to the couch?"
Percy shot Clara a look. "It's a long story."
Clara appeased her father by changing the subject. "Dad got me a TI-96 calculator and Age of Empires Five for my birthday!"
Thalia raised an eyebrow. "Really? Playing strategy games already, are we."
"And working with partial differential equations and complex analysis," Percy supplied, rolling his eyes. "Hey, mind getting a CD out, Clara?"
"Sure!" Clara responded with an enthusiasm Percy found suspicious. "What do you want?"
"I dunno. Foo Fighters?"
"Sure," Clara said, bounding up the stairs.
Percy sighed sadly and leaned back in the sofa.
"You know, having a mother might actually be good for her," Thalia commented seriously. "You should really get out more. You know; the whole fall in love and get married thing."
"This coming from a huntress…"
"I'm serious Percy. You need to move on. It's been fifteen years. Annabeth is dead and gone, and sitting on your hands isn't going to change anything."
"Don't say that!" snapped Percy. He sighed sadly and leaned back, calming himself. "I can still hope. And I still do."
Percy was spared from having to continue down this particular line of thought by the return of Clara. She pranced over to the CD player and slipped the disc in.
The rain is here, and you, my dear, are still my friend…
Thalia made a face. "Ew. What's wrong with the sound quality?"
Percy shrugged and stood up to go check the balance. "Beats me."
"Oh, didn't I tell you," Clara said, grinning maliciously. "I used parts of the speaker to make the doorbell ringer."
Ta da! And yes, I'm still in a good mood. I hope to make it contagious. Comments/reviews appreciated! Til next time, everyone.