All rights go to Rick Riordan and Stephenie Meyer!

Paul's Point of View

I started to read the book again. The first chapter was apparently called I accidentally pulverize my pre-algebra teacher. As I said this aloud Collin said, "Will you please do that to mine?" Andromeda smiled at him and it was like the sun shining through the clouds. Wow, I really had it bad. The rest of the group just snickered at him. I started to read.

Look I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you are reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Before I could continue Jared broke in and said, "Oh no, my mom said my dad was important and couldn't take care of us!" He had a teasingly horrified face. "I could be one of you!" Andromeda just looked toward the sky and said, "gods help us" Seth's laugh was the loudest in the group.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you are a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages- if you feel something stirring inside-

"I feel it, I feel it!" Was Jared's outburst. I just ignored him and continued.

stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

"Who do you mean?" Seth asked warily.

"Do you mean like the minotaur?" I asked her. She nodded wearing a smile. I could have stared at her all night but unfortunately there was a throat clearing from Carslile.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Andromeda Jackson.

"No it isn't, its Paul Lahote" This time it came from Jacob, everybody else laughed while I just glared at him.

I am twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New york.

Am I troubled kid? "Yes, you are Paul." Try to guess who it was. If you said Seth, you are 100% wrong. Surprisingly it was Leah. Seth high-five her as they laughed.

Yeah. You could say that. "See you even agreed with me." Even the Cullen joined the laughter at that one.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look a ancient Greek and Roman stuff. I know— it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapon's so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

"I wished we had a teacher like that," Brady said while Collin and the other wolves that were still in school nodded.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

"Wow, you have some field trips, huh Andy?" Emmett asked my Andromeda.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

"Sounds like you with Emily's cooking, Embry." I told him as I ducked a flying hot dog coming from his direction. Esme and Emily laughed at this while Embry just looked embarrassed.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even midly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I am going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it," I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit

"Yall, really are imprints, she reminds me so much of you, Paul," Sam said with a snicker. I threw the hot dog Embry threw at me and was sad when it missed. I was surprised though when a hot dog landed on his face. Andromeda started laughing, and I realized we WERE perfect for each other.

-right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking,and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figure I was the devil's spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

"They have cruel punishments up there, how did you survive?" Was my question to my imprint. I could barely survive a single day at my school. She just made a gesture to keep going.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human.

"I absolutely agree," was Jasper's comment.

He looked at me real-serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I mean it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Miss. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."

"Well..." I racked my brain trying to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself, "And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we are going to use this in real life. Like it's going say on our job applications, "Please explain why Kronos ate his kids."

Carlisle was te one who interrupted this time, "actually in an application I filled in once it asked me that." We all looked at him questioningly, "well after you lived 300 yrs. You come across some pretty weird stuff." he said sheepishly.

"And why, Miss Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

"Either he is a shape shifter or a vampire." Ever since he joined the pack, Quil had been trying to see who else was supernatural out in the world. It was kind of getting annoying.

I thought about his question and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

" I see," Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The god's defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Miss Jackson." I knew what was coming. I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned to Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go—intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. "You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Andromeda Jackson." I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he will dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshiped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

"You really had a rough life didn't you Andromeda?" was Esme's question.

Andromeda looked at her and she said, "I do, but I wouldn't change the people I met in it." She said this as she was looking at me and we started to lean forward. Then I was pulled up by Sam who told me to keep reading. I felt the blush on my cheeks and saw a blush on her cheeks too.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. "Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the streams of cabs going down Fifth avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists— and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

All of us looked toward Jared who was munching on them.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind was blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!" Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"

"-the water-"

"like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now honey-"

"I am starting to hate Mrs. Dodds," I told her. She looked nervous and said, "Don't say that unless you want a horrifying death." At my confuse gaze she said, "Keep going."

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

"I like him," I told her. She smiled as a breeze smelling I don't know natury passed.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But-"

"You-will-stay-here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

"I am telling, you vampire or shape shifter," was Quil's continuing suggestions. We all just rolled our eyes.

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzled piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked backed up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently, that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

"Okay, the growling signifies shape shifter."

"Seth just shut up!" I guess Jacob had really gotten annoyed.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, specially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am." Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Andromeda Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain." I didn't know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.

All you could hear was laughter in the clearing, mostly coming from Embry who had also used to sell candy at school. "Dude, I like your girl."

Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book. Again there was just laughter.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed. "Vampireeee," Seth mumbled.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me into ribbons.

"Okay, so I was wrong," this came from once again Seth.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Andromeda!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. With a yelp I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword- Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. She snarled, "Die, honey!"

"Did you die?" Emmett was the one who asked this. Andromeda nodded. Emmett looked down with a sad look in his face. Then he said, "Wait if you were dead. You wouldn't be here now." And I though vampires were smart.

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me. I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

"Nah, magic mushrooms wouldn't do that to you. Trust me," we all looked at Jacob incredulously. "What?" We just shook our heads.

Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside. It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked we had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead. I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book,a s if he'd never moved. I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted, "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensils in the future, Miss Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone, Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher." He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Andromeda, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

"So did you imagine the whole thing?"Was Edward's question.

"I do not think so Edward. That is from what I gathered from Grover." Was Carlisle response. He looked in my Andromeda's direction and asked, "Am I correct?"

With a smile, she said, "We will have to find out." Rosalie turned to me and said, "Will you continue?"

I was about to start reading the next chapter when I heard Andromeda yawn as I looked around the circle I saw that several of the wolves were looking tired around the edges. I addressed Sam, and Carlisle, "If you don't mind I think we should continue tomorrow. I mean we have school tomorrow morning."

"I agree with Paul, we should continue tomorrow. After all I have a Biology test tomorrow." Andromeda said. All of us nodded and we started to walk back to the way we came from. I started to walk to Andromeda but when I got up she was already there. "Hey Paul,"

"Hey Andromeda, want me to walk you home?"

"Of course," she said with a bright smile. Hand in hand we started to walk to the edge of the woods.