Thalia Grace
The four of us compared schedules. I imagined our fathers pulling a few strings and getting us the exact same periods (except electives and that stuff) at the exact same time, because that was exactly what we had. After fumbling our way to our respective lockers, which were side by side, Rachel showed us to the classroom, then hurried off to bio.
"Wait a minute, what about homeroom?"
"It says here that Goode doesn't have homeroom on the first day back from vacation, nitwit," I told Percy and Nico sniggered.
A few minutes later, we entered the classroom, which happened to have a suit of armor in it for some reason?
Luckily we weren't late. In fact, we were actually pretty early - barely anyone else was there. I supposed it was just a back-to-school thing. Thank the gods for that. I was shocked to see the teacher though - none other than Mr. Brunner, who was the activities director of an Ancient Greek-themed summer camp for teens on Long Island. Percy, Nico and I had met him on one of our frequent trips to Montauk. He was really nice and knew a lot about mythology, so I wasn't overly surprised to see him teaching it. But at the school I attended - it was still a pretty big coincidence.
"Hey, Mr. Brunner!" Percy greeted him with a pleasantly surprised expression (a bit laughable seeing as there was still chapstick smeared across his forehead; a fact which Nico and I somehow neglected to alert him to). Nico and I echoed him.
"Good morning, Percy, Nico, Thalia. Take any seat," he smiled warmly, gesturing to the empty desks. Thankfully, it wasn't loud enough for the only other student to hear. We chose three of five adjoining tables somewhere in the middle of the class and sat down. Bored, I flipped through the textbook. Having eaten dinner with Mr. Brunner several times while staying in our favorite old dusty Montauk cabin, I basically knew all there was to know about gods and heroes and monsters. But it was quite interesting and I was rusty, so I began reading.
Percy and Nico didn't make noise, and for a minute everything was just fine until a smooth, deprecating and very, very obnoxious voice broke through my peaceful musings on Theseus and Perseus and everything in between. (For the record: a little prick interrupted my reading.)
"Sorry, hon, but I'm afraid that these are our seats."
Percy, Nico and I looked up to see five girls, four of them with hair in varying shades of blonde and the other with jet-black tresses. All of them had on too much makeup, unnatural spray tans, skimpy designer clothes, seven-hundred-inch heels and basically everything which made rich, spoilt girls who they were.
Platinum-Blonde spoke up. "Well? We're waiting."
"For what?" Percy asked, pretending to not get it.
She huffed. "Do I have to, like, spell everything out for y'all or something? I might as well. This is our table! You're totally not supposed to be occupying our seats, so just… ugh, just get lost! Like, who are you even? Oh my god."
So Nico took off his shades. "I'm Nico di Angelo."
"Percy Jackson."
"Thalia Grace."
Dirty-Blonde-slash-Dirty-Mind gasped. "Oh my god. I am so, so, so sorry. Brooke over here was just… um… just, you know, practising. She's, uh…" Dirty Blonde's eyes darted around, looking trapped.
"Auditioning for the lead role in the school play. We totally didn't know you were the children of the Big Three!" the black-haired one intervened, while Red Blonde was practically begging us for autographs and the lot. Until Percy interrupted, "Wait a minute. Do you seriously expect us to provide you with memorabilia when you haven't bothered to, I don't know, introduce yourselves or something? More importantly, how about the fact that you people acted like you were superior, until you realized who we were?"
My sentiments exactly. I took over for Percy. "Then you started to worship the ground we walk on. Isn't there something seriously wrong with that? You were so snobby until you discovered our identities. Then you started sniveling and begging for mercy and coming up with transparent lies. And hitting on my cousins. Sure, they're single."
"Doesn't mean I want to date ass-kissers and phonies," Nico said, rolling his eyes.
The Blondies froze. Perhaps their brain cells had been fried from listening to such a long speech. Then the black-haired girl (Drew, I suppose, because the name was stitched on her crop top) turned away and said loudly, "Girls, let's just find other seats. These people are too dense to be bothered with." Then, over her shoulder, she hissed, "You've officially declared war on our clique."
"Well, her little group of gossip girls is in big trouble then," Nico said, making a face at the Drew Crew's retreating backs.
.
Annabeth Chase
I arrived to Greek Mythology a few minutes late, but Mr. Brunner took no notice and I sat down next to my best friend Kara as usual. I'll admit I was excited for this lesson, because Mr. Brunner holds his version of a quiz show once in two weeks. He gives out questions, and we compete to answer them correctly. We were in groups of three, and I teamed up with Annabeth and a more quiet girl called Cynthia. Rumor had it that the Big Three's kids (sometimes jokingly called the Little Big Three) were here at our school, and it was true when I saw the three of them. Personally, I wouldn't be praying for autographs. I mean, it would be cool to befriend them, but whatever.
Mr. Brunner got that evil look in his eyes that said, I am going to test you on legends so obscure that all of you will have thrown yourselves off the building by the time I'm done.
His first question wasn't that bad. "Who was the stepfather of Perseus?"
My hand shot into the air instinctively. So did Kara's. Even Cynthia's hand slowly rose up.
But to my surprise, Thalia Grace beat us all.
"King Acrisius of Argos," she answered and grinned as Mr. Brunner drew a vertical line underneath the words Team II: The Little Big Three on the whiteboard.
"Now, who is the head of Amazon, the online shopping company? I know this may sound irrelevant, but back in the day the Amazons were a group of women warriors, honorary daughters of Ares, who conquered many cities and became great heroes."
Oh, this was too easy. It was Kara's cousin, for the gods' sake. I raised my hand and answered, "Hylla Ramírez-Arellano."
"Correct." I could see the alarmed look on Nico di Angelo's face as we tied, each with one point.
Mr. Brunner's quiz show progressed until the end of his lesson, when he tallied up the points and… surprise, surprise! We tied with the Little Big Three for first place. They were good, I couldn't deny them that. I knew they weren't dumb, but I figured they'd spend way more time on play than textbooks. Still, they were insane. Suddenly, I just wanted to be hanging out with the cool kids.
As the three of them headed towards their lockers, I nudged Kara and we ran that couple of steps after them.
"Er… excuse us…" I said awkwardly.
Nico jumped and spun around so quickly I swear he got whiplash. "Uh… hey," he said, failing miserably to hide his blush. Poor boy liked Kara! It was sooo obvious. Even Thalia and Percy knew, I could tell from the way they sniggered, louder than necessary. I kind of felt sorry for him, because Kara, of all people? She wasn't interested in romance. So to save him, I stuck out my hand. "Annabeth Chase, and this is my friend Kara. Aaand… we just wanted to congratulate you on your almost-win just now." Why did I sound sarcastic and kind of like I was gloating? I didn't mean to.
I concentrated on Percy and Thalia, since their cousin was probably still dreaming.
"Hey, I'm Percy," Percy said, shaking my hand.
"Thalia." She also shook hands with Kara and me. "And…" she looked at Nico, "I'm afraid our cousin is incapacitated by wishful thinking at the moment."
I stifled a laugh whereas Kara just looked puzzled. "Why does Nico look like he's in a daze?"
"Because he's lovestruck," I laughed. "By you."
"Okay…" Kara looked at him warily. "What am I supposed to do now?"
"Well, if you were part of the Drew Crew, you'd blush furiously and giggle behind your polished nails and gossip about stupid stuff," I offered.
Kara rolled her eyes. "Those girls…"
We chatted with them for a while - at least until we had to rush off for our next class. And guess what? I knew them. I was positive I'd seen them before. I just didn't know where from.
I couldn't tell if Kara liked Nico back. It was unlikely, but she definitely didn't dislike him, or she would have totally crushed him altogether. That girl is plain brilliant.