CHAPTER TWO

Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

I don't own the series. Rick Riordan does. As usual. Duh.

Percy wasn't sure if everybody was just playing a prank on her, or whether she had seriously hallucinated her teacher for almost an entire year, but the fact that everybody was claiming that the perky, blonde woman who got on the bus after the field trip was their real teacher, Mrs Kerrs, made her inclined to believe it was the latter, but Percy was also very sure that she had never seen her before. It was as if everybody had decided to band together to make her feel as insane as possible—as if even Mr Brunner and Grover had decided to jump into the wagon of "let's make Percy feel as freakish as we possibly can." Having ADHD did tend to make someone have the occasional hallucination, but this 24/7 illusion was seriously starting to drive her insane.

In the weeks following the trip, Percy did her best to trip up any of her classmates in an attempt to force them into admitting that they were all playing a prank on her, but every time she mentioned Mrs Dodds name, they would roll their eyes and mutter "here we go," as if preparing themselves to listen to her insanity. Then, upon seeing their reaction, Percy would deflate and completely forget what she was going to say, leading them to roll their eyes and practically run away, leaving her feeling rather humiliated and questioning her own sanity.

In fact, Percy herself was slowly beginning to believe them. It was either that she had actually hallucinated a math-teacher-demon-thing, or her classmates were all Oscar-worthy actors, and she knew, for a fact, that they weren't that good. But Grover couldn't fool her. Every time she brought up Mrs Dodds in front of him, he would pause first, and then claim she didn't exist. But the way he reacted, the way he paled... something had to have happened in the museum. Something about Mrs Dodds.

Percy, however, didn't have time to worry about that. She was beginning to get cranky, losing sleep, all because she almost always shot straight up in bed in the middle of the night in cold sweat, biting back a scream, sure there was an old, ugly hag at the foot of her bed, cackling, "Die, honey!" and trying to do exactly what it said. Her roommate, Elaine Sinclair, was nice, and she didn't complain about the few times Percy had woken her up, but Percy didn't know how to get the nightmares to stop. She very much doubted there were pills for dreamless sleep, and even if there were, she wouldn't have wanted to take them. From all her experiences with Gabe, she had learned, quite early, that alcohol and pills were not good.

The strange weather didn't help her mood either. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in her dorm room—that was one of the few nights where both she and Elaine had woken up with a scream on their lips, and a teacher had to come running to see if they were dying, or something. A few days after, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events they studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. It was like the sky was declaring war... but skies didn't just declare war, and Percy found herself wondering what was happening, for it was so strange that even her teachers didn't know why it was happening.

Put all of that together, and it was safe to say that Percy's life was beginning to go downhill faster than she had initially anticipated. Her lack of sleep resulted in a faster loss of temper, which meant that more often than not, she got into fights with Nancy Bobofit and her stupid friends. For almost every class and every day, she was sent out of the classroom, and of course, perfect little Nancy and her friends never got in trouble either. And all the times she got in trouble didn't improve her mood either—in fact, it just worsened it to a degree she hadn't even known was possible before, and her grades were suffering too.

Finally, when Mr Nicholas, her English teacher, asked her for the thousandth time why she was too lazy to study for his weekly spelling test, she snapped. She didn't even really know what she was doing until she had done it. She hadstudied for his stupid tests, but it wasn't her fault she had dyslexia and couldn't spell anything no matter how much she tried or studied. So, in retaliation, she called him an old sot. She didn't know what it meant, but it felt good, finally snapping back at her teachers.

Of course, it didn't come without its consequences. The following day, she was informed that a letter had been sent to her mother from the principal: Percy was, in fact, not invited back to Yancy the following year, surprising nobody. Which was fine to her, of course.

She missed her apartment in Manhattan. Sure, she would have to put up with Gabe, but that seemed like such a small thing to worry about. Her mother was there, and if worse came to worse, Percy just needed to find a job to get out of the house during the day, or, if she was unable to find one, she could always just tag along with her mother to work and help her in the shop. But there were a few things she would miss about Yancy. She would miss the beautiful view outside her window, and Elaine, and most of all, she would miss Grover. He was a good friend, and she worried often of how he would defend himself the next year without her.

Before she knew it, exams were approaching, and teachers were burying them in work to "help them prepare for the exams," but it wasn't like she needed to study. After all, she was expelled, wasn't she? What did it matter how well she did on the exams? Besides, she wasn't going to get anything over a C—she had never gotten anything over a C on a test, and that was when she spent days slaving over the textbook (taking notes was just too much work when she could hardly spell), and Percy was tired of school, so instead of actually really trying, she just helped Elaine study, and decided that helping Elaine was how she would study too.

In the end, however, the night before the exam, Percy found herself struggling over the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology—no matter how many times she tried to glance over Elaine's perfect notes in an effort to study for her other subjects, Mr Brunner's words kept ringing in her head: "I will only accept the best from you, Percy Jackson," and Percy was really starting to believe him about the subject being life or death for her. The creature in the museum that Mrs Dodds had been hadn't been human—that so much was clear. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized that Mrs Dodds had been an awful lot like the creatures in her book...

The day before her Latin exam, Percy had to resist the urge to chuck her textbook across the room. She didn't want to disrupt Elaine, who was sitting quietly at her desk, glancing over her notes with a highlighter and pen in each hand. The words had been swimming around on the page, doing one-eighties, flipping about on a skateboard. She didn't know why she was trying anymore. She would never remember the difference between Chiron or Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces, much less be able to spell them. While staring at the textbook did help her recognize the words a little more, it would take weeks of just staring at it for her to absorb the information she needed, and she had hours at best.

Very slowly, she took a deep breath and clutched the textbook to her chest, standing up. Maybe she'd ask Mr Brunner for help. She hadn't seen the point in doing that before, considering she was going to be kicked out anyway, but maybe he'd be able to give her a few pointers or something. And she'd also be able to apologize for how badly she'd do on the test the next day. She didn't want him to think she didn't try.

At the sound of her scraping chair, Elaine glanced up from where she was sitting, half-distracted, and said, "Percy?"

"Bathroom," was the raven-haired girl's swift reply, and Elaine was too busy with her notes to wonder why Percy was bringing her textbook with her to the bathroom. The other girl just nodded and went back to her notes while Percy quietly stole out of the room and made her way down the stairs. As soon as she reached the bottom, she made a beeline for Mr Brunner's office, where the lights were still on and there was a shadow behind it, making Percy silently sigh in relief. It was almost midnight, and it hadn't occurred to her until in that moment that Mr Brunner might've been asleep.

She was several steps away from the office when she heard voices.

"... worried about Percy, sir."

Percy froze, heart pounding. That was definitely Grover's voice. She wasn't usually an eavesdropper, but it was her best friend discussing her with a teacher. She wasn't sure if anybody would have enough self-control to not listen in.

She took another step forward just in time to hear him continue in a panicked tone, "... alone during the summer. I mean, I can't believe it. A Kindly One at this school! Now they know for sure, and so do we, but we have to do something, fast."

"We can't rush her, Grover," Mr Brunner said calmly. "We would only make matters worse. We have to let the girl mature more."

"But time isn't on our side. She only has until the summer solstice..."

"My dear boy, it will have to be resolved without her. Let her enjoy her ignorance while she still can. When she finds out, they will come."

"Bur sir, Percy saw her... the Kindly One knew what she was..."

"The mist," Mr Brunner said, almost insistently. "The power it has over the students and staff will be enough to convince her."

"Sir, I... I can't fail again." Grover choked up.

"And you haven't," Mr Brunner said kindly. "I should've seen her for what she was myself, but that is not our concern as of the moment. Right now, our concern is keeping the young girl alive until next year—"

This was the part where usually, the people being eavesdropped on finally began to elaborate on what the big picture problem was, but Percy never got to hear it. At her favorite teacher's words, her hands had gone slack in both shock and terror at the realization of the seriousness of the situation, and her textbook hit the ground with a dull thud that echoed throughout the empty hallway, and both Mr Brunner and Grover went silent. Numbly realizing what she had just done, Percy silently cursed herself as she hurriedly reached down and scooped up the textbook, backing into the hallway, looking about desperately for a place to hide.

Her eyes landed on the gleaming handle of an empty classroom, and, heart pounding, she silently lunged for it. Thankfully, it was unlocked, and Percy had barely managed to squeeze herself in and close the door with a soundless click when she heard Mr Brunner's office's doors opening with a slow creak. Percy took a shaky breath, trying to calm her heart, peeking through the window of the door. Although she was too far away to see what was in the hallway, she did make out a shadow—a shape too tall to be natural, and far too tall to be either Grover or Mr Brunner. It seemed to be holding an archer's bow.

That wasn't the only strange thing, though. There was a weird sound echoing in the halls; a sort of muffled clop clop, like wooden blocks against the floor. A disgusting stench that Percy knew all too well pervaded the air too—the smell of dirty farm animals. Distantly, Percy wondered what was making that noise, and what in the world could smell like that, because she didn't think Mr Brunner would've dragged in a goat from the zoo. Percy was so nervous that she was somehow standing still—a feat that she would've thought to be impossible just a few minutes ago. A bead of sweat trickled down her neck as the shadow moved.

"Nothing," the familiar voice of Mr Brunner murmured, although tinted with unease and worry. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Neither have mine. But I could've sworn..."

"You should go back to your dorms anyway. You have a long day of exams tomorrow. Just remember: your job is to keep Percy safe."

"I will, sir."

Percy was standing so still that she could've been a statue. A little part of her felt ridiculous at feeling so panicked and confused about what Mr Brunner and Grover had been discussing. Surely they had to have been lying. There was no way that there was someone out there trying to kill her. She was just... Percy. No cool relatives or connections where people could leech off some sort of cash from. She was a nobody. But why would Mr Brunner and Grover make up something like that? What would the point have been? If they had been trying to lie to Percy for some odd reason, then they wouldn't have had the conversation in secret.

But it wasn't possible that someone was out for her blood... was it?

When she snuck back in the dorm, Elaine glanced up curiously. "Did you know you were in the bathroom for fifteen minutes?"

Percy just tried for a smile, hiding her trembling hands behind her back. "Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go."

She shrugged, as if to say, "fair enough," and went back to her notes, and Percy tossed her textbook onto the table before collapsing onto her bed, her mind a hurricane. There was no point in studying, she decided. She wasn't able to concentrate on her textbook on the best of her days, but with her thoughts as confusing and as hectic as they were, she doubted that she would make any progress in studying. Elaine seemed to match her thoughts, because a few minutes later, Percy heard her quietly close her notebook and stand up, already reaching for her toiletry bag, yawning.

But Percy couldn't get the conversation out of her head. Even as she tossed and turned in bed, trying to block out Elaine's snoring, she couldn't stop the shiver that had nothing to do with the cold running down her spine. Grover and Mr Brunner were worried about her.

And they were worried because they thought she was in some sort of terrible danger.

It was safe to say that Percy hadn't done extraordinarily well on her exams. Sure, she surprised everybody but no more than she had surprised herself when she glanced over the paper and realized she actually knew the answer to a couple of questions, but her mood, tiredness, nervousness from the conversation she had overheard from before, irrational fear that something like Mrs Dodds was going to burst through the classroom doors, inability to work with deadlines, and dyslexia ensured that she wasn't going to do any better than that. But she had tried—she really did—and even if nobody but her knew that, it was good enough that Percy knew she tried, and she knew her mother would believe her too.

Percy wasn't surprised, and she didn't even care that she had probably either failed or just scraped a passing grade on most of her exams, but when she stared down at the Latin paper in front of her and the clock ticking down her three hours, she felt a hollow sort of hopelessness. She was already stuck on the first question, unsure of what the question was even asking her—that was the problem with all the unnecessarily long names and strange spellings. She could never figure out what the word was supposed to be. While everybody else was quickly scratching out their answers, Percy just kind of stared at the paper blankly, hoping that the words would rearrange themselves for her.

Even though she hadn't been able to get Mr Brunner's help from the night before, considering what had happened, when she turned in her test, her eyes swimming from all the names she had definitely misspelled, she hoped that he knew she had honestly done her best. Mr Brunner took her test, and after glancing over it for a few seconds, gave her a sympathetic smile, but that just made her feel even worse. She had done terribly, hadn't she? She had stayed back to be one of the last students to hand back their test, but there were still enough students left in the class to be able to witness her humiliation if it happened.

Almost as if he wanted to protect her from the next student handing in their test, Mr Brunner placed hers at the very bottom of the pile so nobody would be able to see her answers, and then he told her, "Don't be discouraged about it. I mean, it was bound to have happened sooner or later."

For a few moments, Percy stared back at him in confusion, heart hammering. Was he talking about how she had eavesdropped on him the night before? And then she realized that he was talking about her expulsion, and her heart plummeted. Mr Brunner had been one of her favorite teachers, and he had been the one to motivate her to work harder. But he was now standing (well, sitting) in front of her, telling her it was her destiny or something to get kicked out, and that she shouldn't have been sad about it. Mr Brunner was the one who had always pushed her to do her best, who had even told her he would accept nothing less than the best from her... and here he was, telling her that he had actually never believed in her.

Her expression must've given her away, but she still said, her voice trembling slightly, "I understand, sir."

He immediately tried to backtrack, saying, "No, no, Percy. I only meant that this is for the best. It was a matter of time before you left this school."

"Right, sir, of course. Thank you for telling me."

Percy was blinking hard now, and Mr Brunner must've realized he had only made the entire situation worse, because he practically stumbled over his next words. "Percy, I only meant—"

But she was already gone.

On the last day of school, she was half-heartedly shoving her clothes into her suitcase, too done with school and teachers and life to even care. Elaine was already gone, as she had needed to fly to California early in the morning or something, and after the two girls had said their goodbyes the night before, Elaine had all but snuck out of the dorm before Percy was even awake, which made her feel even worse. Out of everybody at Yancy, she had always like Grover, Mr Brunner, and Elaine the most, but Mr Brunner had all but told her he hadn't actually believed she could succeed at Yancy, and Elaine hadn't even bothered waking Percy up, so the only person she felt like she could count on still was Grover, but even he was being a little strange and twitchy around her.

Everybody was talking about their vacation plans when Percy lugged her suitcase out of the room, laughing and joking about where they wanted to go, and as Percy made her way through the throng of students, each description seemed wilder than the last. One of the girls on Percy's floor was apparently going to Paris, and she gushed excitedly to her friends of all the famous designer stores she planned to visit. One kid was apparently going to Europe for sightseeing, and was planning to hit up every monument in Western Europe. Another was going to cruise around the Caribbean for about a month on their parents' private yacht.

Because all of these kids were like her—juvenile delinquents—but unlike her, they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their parents were all celebrities, or ambassadors, or executives. She was a nobody, from a family of nobodies, and so it was easy to see why Percy wasn't usually anxious to talk about her financial status with everybody. Besides, it wasn't like she cared about how much money she had—all she needed was a roof over her head and her mother with her, and she would've been the happiest person alive. She didn't care whether or not she bathed in diamonds or golds or riches. She already had plenty of those—just not physically.

When one of the guys asked her what she was going to be doing over the summer, Percy's mind blanked. He had just gone into an elaborate description of how he planned his summer vacation to be like, and then he was asking Percy, one of the kids known to have a financially struggling family? She was teased for that mercilessly all the time, for goodness sakes! And it wasn't like the boy didn't know that. But maybe he was being nice, Percy thought to herself. Maybe he had just wanted to include her in the conversation. So she half-heartedly told him that she wasn't sure yet, and that she was just heading into the city, and she was planning to live each day as it passed.

She decided to not mention that she was probably going to get a job walking dogs or babysitting or something, to make a little extra cash and to get out of the apartment where Smelly Gabe would probably be lounging around all day. How could she have, after hearing the plans of the other students? The guy just said, "Oh, that's cool," as if he couldn't believe he had wasted time talking to her, before going back to conversing with his friends, like she had never existed anyway. Not that it bothered Percy. It wasn't like she was ever going to see him again. So she just continued shouldering her way through the crowd, dragging her suitcase behind her.

Considering that Elaine had left in the middle of the night, the only person left that Percy had trouble saying goodbye to was Grover, but it turned out she didn't have to worry about that yet, because he had booked a ticket back to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as her. Percy might've noticed his strange behavior around her, and she couldn't get the conversation between him and Mr Brunner out of her head, but that didn't dismiss the fact that Grover had been her best friend before everything. But all throughout waiting to get onto the bus and actually getting on the bus, Grover was tense, glancing around and sniffing about warily, like he was expecting another Mrs Dodds to just pop out of nowhere.

Percy began to feel nervous too, though she knew she was being ridiculous.

Percy tried to initiate some small talk, which usually would've been easy for them, but Grover was clearly distracted. He was glancing down the aisle, watching all the other passengers, and whenever somebody got on, or off, or even just moved slightly, he would tense, as if he were anticipating a fight. After a while, Percy realized that he hadn't just acted like that since getting on the bus. He had acted like that at Yancy too. She used to think that it was because he was afraid of being beat up by the other kids, but on the bus, there was nobody to hurt him.

Finally, Percy couldn't stand it anymore.

After Grover warily sat himself back down after the next time he jumped up, Percy asked rather casually, as if they were having a conversation about the weather, "What? Looking for more Kindly Ones?"

Grover jumped about a foot into the air (which was impressive, considering he had been sitting), and then his eye began to twitch. "Wha—what do you mean?"

Because Grover was a terrible liar and Percy wasn't sure if she were much better anyway, she confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the exam. "I know I've heard the name somewhere before," she added helpfully. "Don't remember where, but I know I have. You might as well tell me what a Kindly One is."

"How much did you hear?" Grover had begun fidgeting in his seat, ignoring the last part she said, although that didn't really bother her. She hadn't expected him to agree, anyway.

"Oh, not much. What's gonna happen on the summer solstice?"

Grover opened his mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again. "Percy, I was worried for your well-being."

"Grover—" she tried to say, but he cut her off.

"I mean, you were hallucinating about demon math teachers that exploded into dust, and I was telling Mr. Brunner that you were probably over stressed or something so that he should lay off on the homework and stuff—" At the end, he was practically stumbling over his words to get them out in a rush, and Percy just sighed internally.

"Grover!" she interrupted. "I would love to believe you, but, unfortunately, you're a very bad liar."

Grover's ears went pink, and he just slouched back into his seat, looking very much like he just wanted to disappear. Percy didn't blame him. Clearly, the conversation was one that Percy should not have eavesdropped on, but it wasn't like she could take it back now. Besides, she wasn't sure what kind of lie Grover would've been able to tell her, and while the lie he had come up with on the spot actually wasn't too shabby, it had nothing to do with the conversation she had actually heard, so there was that. She had wanted to ask what happened on the winter solstice too—she remembered Mr Brunner saying something about being jumpy since that day—but she decided that Grover had probably suffered enough.

Then, rather suddenly, Grover reached into his shirt pocket, and fishing around for something, he said, "Here. Take this, okay? Please? Call me or come over if you need my help, or something."

The card he handed her looked like a business card, which was a bit surprising. After all, Percy didn't know anybody who just carried about their own business cards, but each to their own, she supposed. She took it, and when he nodded back down at the card, her eyes darted down curiously. Of course, for some reason, the script was written in a fancy script. Of course it was. Why not?

"Grover, you know I can't read this."

But even as she said that, she had begun to try and make out what the card said, despite the continuous murder on her eyes, and made out something like this:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

She supposed that Half-Blood Hill, Long Island, New York was an address, but it was certainly unlike any address she had ever seen before. What kind of address didn't have a house number or a zip code? And... Hill? Was that just the name of the street... or was the place on the business card on an actual hill? Because Percy had never seen a street called hill—avenue, street, lane, yes, even drive, but not hill—but she supposed that maybe Grover lived in some place she had never gone to... although she had been to Long Island before, and she was pretty sure she would've remembered a street called Half-Blood Hill simply because the name was so peculiar.

"What's Half—"

Before Percy could get more than one and a half-words out, Grover practically shouted, "Don't say it aloud! It's my—it's my, um, summer address."

Percy flinched slightly at his tone, but quickly recomposed herself. Then she frowned as she replayed his words in her head. His summer address. That meant Grover must've been as rich as the other kids at Yancy, right? It wasn't that Percy was jealous—okay, maybe she was a little, but who wouldn't be?—but it was more that she had never imagined Grover to be as wealthy as the others. Perhaps that was why she had never heard of a street called Half-Blood Hill. It was where all the rich people lived, and... they were so rich that they didn't need home addresses... she supposed. Although when she thought about it, that didn't really make any sense either.

"Oh," she said, trying to keep her voice light. "You mean, if I wanted to go and visit you at your mansion or something?"

Grover nodded vigorously. "Yeah. And, you know, if you need help or need me."

"Why would I need you?"

Percy hadn't meant for it to come out so harsh, but she didn't realize what she was saying until after she had said it, and immediately turned red in awkwardness. It wasn't that she thought Grover was useless—in fact, she was pretty sure she'd never be able to think that Grover was useless—but she was curious as to what kind of situation he was implying. He and Mr Brunner had said she was in some sort of terrible danger... maybe Grover wanted to invite her to his mansion because he wanted to keep her away from whatever danger he apparently thought she was in? But Grover must've been... well, she didn't want to say insane, but he couldn't have actually thought she was in danger... right?

Grover flushed embarrassingly. "Um... Percy, the truth is... I kinda have to protect you."

To say that Percy couldn't do anything but stare at him in absolute disbelief was a bit of an understatement. All year, Percy had gotten into fights just to protect Grover from other kids, which had contributed to her outstanding number of detentions. She had lost sleep due to not only having terrible nightmares of Mrs Doods-like creatures, but of worry of how Grover was going to survive the next year without her. But Grover was now standing—well, sitting—in front of her, acting like he had been the one that had defended her the entire time. It was a bit bizarre to comprehend, if she were going to be honest. But the conversation between Grover and Mr Brunner... the way he spoke... for some reason, Percy had an odd feeling he wasn't talking about bullies.

"Grover," she said slowly, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

Before Grover could decide whether or not he wanted to tell her, he gave a sudden coughing fit. For a moment, Percy first flinched away, and then she realized this might've been a way of his to avoid answering, and was considering strangling him for pretending to be sick when she smelled it—a disgusting stench of rotten eggs. Her eyes darted up to the front of the bus, everybody else following in her lead, to see smoke out of the dashboard, followed by a loud grinding noise under her feet. She glanced again in concern at Grover, who looked like he was close to being sick. He had rather sensitive... well, senses, she remembered, and the smell must've been worse to him than to her.

The driver cursed and limped the groaning Greyhound onto the side of the road, and went outside to wrestle around with the engine. Everybody sat quietly inside the bus for a few minutes—well, the little kids were complaining about the smell while their parents tried to shush them, but other than that, it was rather quiet. The question she had asked Grover had been chased out of her mind; instead, Percy was worrying about whether or not she'd make it back into the city. After a few minutes of trying to fix the engine, the driver announced that all the passengers would have to get off and, with everybody pinching their noses, they all filed outside.

They were on a stretch of land that, if they hadn't broken down, Percy never would've noticed it. On their side of the highway they were on, a field of maple trees lined the land behind them. On the other side stoof a fruit stand, and the goods on sale looked mouth-watering, and if they hadn't been all the way across the highway, Percy would've seriously considered buying something. Blood-red cherries and fat peaches, apples and walnuts were all on sale, but there were no customers, whic didn't surprise her. Who set up shop next to a highway that nobody would stop at? What would've prevented her from actually getting anything was the fact that behind the stand sat three old ladies... except there was something wrong with them.

It wasn't like she could physically see anything wrong with them—no, physically, they seemed normal enough—but, at the risk of sounding insane, Percy had a sort of... strange vibe, if you will, from them. But it was a strange feeling—she didn't think that they were dangerous or evil or anything... just not particularly normal, and maybe they could prove to be dangerous. Perhaps it was because they were knitting a giant sock that Percy was sure she could've rocked as a sweater. Or perhaps it was because they were staring right at Percy.

She turned to ask Grover if he noticed what she was seeing when she saw that he was pale and shaking, his nose twitching slightly. "Tell me they aren't looking at you. Please tell me they're not looking at you."

Percy didn't really know what to say to that other than: "Um, I think they are," before she also said, in an attempt to bring a bit of levity to the situation, "but do you think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Percy."

The blood still hadn't returned to his face, and Percy was getting more and more concerned. Was there something wrong with the three old ladies? Did Grover get the same, strange feeling from them? Maybe he knew them from some other place. Were they the danger that Grover was supposedly protecting her from? Was it just Grover overreacting? But all those questions were driven from her mind when one of the old ladies, the one in the middle, pulled out a giant pair of gold-and-silver scissors that looked strangely like shears from what seemed like thin air. Every muscle in Percy's body tensed, although she wasn't sure why. Was there something wrong with them cutting yarn?

But even as she thought that, she somehow knew that whatever they were doing was much more... important than that. She somehow knew that she probably shouldn't have been looking. For some reason, she knew that this was a moment in time that would determine the future. But also for some strange reason, Percy couldn't seem to tear her eyes away.

Grover looked like he was about to pass out, but managed to say, "Percy, we're getting on the bus. Now."

"What? But it's like a bajillion degrees in there."

"Now, Percy!"

He pried open the doors, letting out a blast of heat onto their faces, and climbed inside, but Percy didn't follow. Her eyes were transfixed upon the three old ladies as the one in the middle slowly lowered the shears to the yarn, the other two ladies on the side as still as a statue, watching. Percy didn't flinch when the shears finally snapped the string, although a sort of cold, numbing feeling began to spread all over her body when she heard the snip of the yarn from across three lanes of traffic, and she still watched even as the old ladies balled up the yarn, their eyes still fixed on Percy too.

There was a sudden grunt, and she glanced behind herself distractedly. The driver had, evidently with some difficulty, managed to wrench out a huge chunk of metal from the engine, and was now holding it up proudly like it were some sort of trophy, and the passengers began to cheer. Percy glanced back at the old ladies, but they were gone now... as in actually gone. Their fruit stand was too. It was like they had ever existed, making Percy wonder if she was going insane again, but Grover had seen them, hadn't he? She couldn't have imagined them this time. But if she hadn't, then where had they gone? It wasn't like old ladies and their fruit stands could just vanish into thin air... but math teachers weren't supposed to either, and Mrs Dodds, if she had been real, had just... vanished.

"Darn right!" Startled, Percy whirled around just in time to see the driver slap his hat against the bus. "Everybody on board!"

With some of them still cheering (mostly the children who Percy privately thought didn't even know what was happening), they all climbed aboard and Percy had no choice but to follow them. As the driver brought the bus back onto the freeway, Percy suddenly started feeling feverish, as if she had somehow caught the flu in the last five minutes. Grover didn't look much better. He was pale and sweating, his teeth chattering.

Percy didn't feel like pressuring him for answers for the first few minutes while they were on the bus. She wasn't sure if she could take it. Especially with Grover next to her muttering, "I don't want this to be like last time. It's always sixth grade. They never get past sixth grade."

"What does it mean?" Percy found herself saying.

He wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead. "What did you see?"

"The one in the middle... she cut the yarn."

Grover closed his eyes and did something very weird with his hand. He made a three-fingered claw over his heart and pushed outward, like it was a gesture for something, but Percy, for some strange reason, knew that it wasn't just some silly symbol. She wasn't sure how she knew, but it was like with the three old ladies—she just had a feeling that it was something much older than a random trend.

"Grover... what does it mean? Does it mean someone's going to die?"

Grover only looked at her mournfully, like he was already thinking of what kind of flowers he would place on her coffin.