Woohoo! Already on chapter five!

This one has obvious characters as well. But it's longer, so it doesn't matter.

Starring Thalia and Jason Grace
Guest Star of Ms. Grace

Tug. "Tha-wia!"

Another tug. "Tha-wia!"

Tug tug. "Tha-wia!"

Hard yank that nearly sent her reeling sideways. "THAWIA I'M HUNGUI FEED ME!"

Thalia looked down at her little brother and sighed on the inside. The small two-year-old boy was impressively strong for his age, and the fact that he had almost said her name properly was great improvement.

She knelt down on the kitchen room floor to reach his level. "You want a snack?" she asked him in a baby voice. Lightning flashed outside—the storm raging that night was pretty impressive.

"Yes, Tha-wia. I'm hungui." Jason looked down at his shirt and lifted it up, poking his tummy experimentally.

Thalia smiled and picked up her baby brother, setting him down on the kitchen table. She had been doing homework at the time, but her two-page essay on her summer vacation could wait a few minutes. She made sure Jason wasn't in danger of falling off the table, and rummaged through the pantry.

"Ugh… you want peanut butter and jelly, Jason?" she asked, not pleased with her options. Mom hadn't gone shopping (or sent someone else to do her shopping for her) for at least two weeks. She and Jason had been living off of cafeteria food Thalia had smuggled home. "Well, there isn't any peanut better—or jelly—but you could use butter…" She checked the fridge. "Aha! Butter!" Thalia took it out to find there was only enough left for one person. "You better eat this all, Jason," she warned her brother teasingly as she popped the second to last slice of bread in the house into the broken toaster. (You had to eject the bread manually.)

Someone shouted loudly in the living room and Thalia rolled her eyes. It was Mom and her friends—probably all drunk. It was likely, at this time of night. Her eyes drifted to a magazine lying on the kitchen counter, lying open on a page that someone had circled in a large black sharpie.

Superstar Mom… a Mom?

The article continued, saying,

Grace's life is full of complications nowadays—meetings and films and interviews… and kids!

She's never talked about family, so we've always thought she never had one! But somehow she's managed to keep two children under the radar for nearly an entire decade! It all came apart, though, when a nine-year-old girl later revealed to be her daughter stormed out of the house with tears streaming her face, baby brother in arm.

Below that was the grainy picture of Thalia running away after she and her mother had gotten into a fight. Not wanting to leave Jason behind, she had brought him along too. She had never really meant to run away—when she was going to she was going to cut her hair differently and pack a bag or two—but the press had made it sound as if she was going to become a hobo if the police hadn't stopped her six blocks away from home.

But who is Grace's partner? She was never married to anyone. Another secret, perhaps? Does she keep him locked up inside that mysterious house of hers as well, away from paparazzi and public interaction of any kind?

There was more, but Thalia didn't continue reading. She turned to her brother, who was currently doodling all over her homework. Thunder sounded in the distance.

"Oh, Jason," she said, picking him up and pacing back and forth. "What am I going to do?"

More lightning flashed, and Ms. Grace squealed from inside the living room. Shouts could be heard, and Thalia asked Jason how his day had been so that he wouldn't notice the swearing. But she paid attention to the swearing rather than her brother.

"…Do you really have kids, like the news says?" someone asked her mother.

There was a pause, as if Ms. Grace was considering it. "When has paparazzi been wrong before?" she asked sluggishly, and Thalia closed her eyes, trying to remove the image of her drunk mother from her head. Unfortunately, she saw it a lot. "But yeah. Two kids." She paused. "Kids!" she called. "Get in here! People want to meet you and stuff!"

Thalia didn't move. Maybe if she didn't reply Mom would be too drunk to actually remember she called them.

"I said get in here, you stupid—!"

Thalia winced, placing her hands over Jason's ears to block out the absurd profanity. Tears suddenly swelled from nowhere. Who swore like that at their own children? Not for the first time she wished she didn't have a superstar mom, but lived in a normal family with two parents. She wouldn't have cared if they were divorced, even. Wiping her eyes and composing herself until you couldn't tell she had been on the verge of tears, she carried Jason into the living room next door.

There were four friends, all seated on couches, smoking and drinking different alcoholic beverages. Grace smiled openly, swishing around the little beer remaining at the bottom of her bottle. The TV played a soccer game in some other country, and none of them were watching.

"Children!" she greeted. "Meet friends. Friends, meet children. This is John and Tina."

"Jason and Thalia, Mom."

She laughed. "Tina… Thalia… it's the same thing, dear."

Thalia simply nodded, looking for her way out.

Lightning flashed and thunder sounded almost at the same time. One of Grace's friends dropped their drink in surprise, and then began to laugh uncannily.

"Come, dear," said Grace, sliding over on the couch and patting the seat beside her. "Sit for a minute. Talk to us."

"Uh… I was actually doing homework—"

"Silliness, Taylor. Silliness. You're the daughter of a superstar and you don't need to do homework. Sit."

Thalia set Jason on the ground and hesitantly sat next to her mother, trying to keep as far away from her as possible without indicating rudeness. But Grace wrapped an arm around her and held her close. "How are you, dear? We're dying to know."

As Thalia was left with that, Jason heard the toaster ringing in the kitchen. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled there.

The toaster was too high up for him to reach, so he pushed a chair over and climbed up using that. (He was a very advanced two-year-old.) Crawling across the counter, he reached the toaster and squeezed his fingers in between the crack to grab the toast out. Instead he just learned it was hot.

Jason yelled out and began to cry. After a few minutes he realized no one was coming for him, and stopped. He hadn't burned himself, though, so he was okay. Looking around for something to take the toast out, his eyes laid upon a fork left carelessly on the counter.

Grinning, he reached out and grabbed it in his meaty baby fingers, jamming it into the toaster.

His hair stood on end and his shoes came flying off, but other than that he wasn't hurt. Jason let go of the handle, the fork still sticking out of the toaster. Smiling, he touched it and felt the electricity course through him. He touched the metal sink and saw a spark so large it flashed white. He didn't feel anything. Laughing delightedly, he did it again and again.

No one bothered search for the baby until after their hangovers, two days later.

Poor baby Jason... ah well. At least he doesn't kill himself.