Chapter 11

On the way back to my cabin about a month later, I walked past the Hera cabin, cold and empty as usual. Suddenly a little girl came stumbling out of the door.

"Who are you?" I said, shocked.

"I… I … I am a daughter of Hera." she stammered.

Anya walked over, "No, you can't be."

Ruby and Tamsin walked over too. "Yeah you can't be."

"Huh?" the girl said, brushing her curly dark brown hair out of her eyes.

"Hera can't have any demigod children." said Tamsin.

"Yeah she's the goddess of marriage and families."

"But I am a child of Hera!" the girl insisted.

"She must be insane." said Dionysus, the camp leader. "She cannot be a child of Hera. Hera would never betray Zeus. He may betray her," He glanced at Ruby, "But not the other way around. Insanity is a speciality of mine, I'll cure her."

"Ok Mr D." I said, watching as Dionysus led the girl away towards the healing tent.

"Nutter!" Carmen muttered.

"Yeah, totally"said Ruby.

When I got back to my cabin I found two letters on my bed. One from my mum, telling me about how life was going without me and how Timmy (my cat) was, and one from Theo. I ripped up the letter angrily and threw it under my bed. I didn't want to read it. It would just be more excuses for not wanting to be with me anymore. I read my mum's letter, wrote a reply. Then I walked over to the battle arena to practice my archery.

I notched an arrow and aimed it at the target board. I heard an unwanted voice coming from the entrance to the arena. It was Theo. He turned towards me. In anger, I turned towards and aimed an arrow at him. He only just jumped out of the way in time. He stared at me in shock and then turned and ran from the arena. Quite a few people were looking at me in surprise. I tried to ignore them and fired another arrow at the target board. After I picked up a dagger from the supply cupboard and practiced my fighting skills. I always liked to have a back up plan in case I ran out of arrows in battle. I slashed angrily at the manikin, tearing it to pieces in about five minutes. I challenged a random guy to a fight. I remembered Theo telling me he wanted to stop things for a while. I fought the guy and pinned him down with my foot and pointed my dagger at his chest. He stared up at me in shock. I pulled him up and walked quickly away, throwing off my armour. My friends were curious about my unusual behaviour and tried to get me to tell them what was wrong but I refused time and time again. I needed a quest to take my mind off Theo. As luck would have it, such an opportunity arrived the very next day…

"So, you shall travel to Olympus with this girl and find out who she is."

"That's a crap quest." I muttered. "Who will I go with, even?"

"You are going with the girl and another person." said Chiron.

"Another person? Who?"

"They don't want their name revealed to you. The person said they would tackle a Hydra bare-handed if they weren't allowed to come with you." said Dionysus, trying not to laugh and cracked open a can of Diet Coke.

"Ugh fine." I said, checking my dagger in my pocket. I did this about every five minutes. It probably has something to do with my ADHD. But I never used to do that. In fact I never used to carry a dagger around at all. That night at the ball seemed to change something inside me. My heart was cracked and it would take a while for it to mend.