I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON RICK RIORDAN DOES! I only have rights to Atlanta and, just Atlanta. The stories are still in Percy's POV, with my oc added in.

Chapter six: I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though Atlanta and I were careful not to walk behind him. We'd both done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horns Atlanta and I were carrying. Another said, "That's them."

Most of the campers were older than us. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF_BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they staired at me made me uncomfortable. Atlanta hugged my arm tightly, trying to stay hidden between me and Chiron. I felt like they were expecting us to do a flip or something.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realize-four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression we were being watched.

"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.

He and Atlanta looked to where I was pointing, and his smile faded, "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?" Atlanta asked.

"No," he said finality. "Not a single living thing."

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.

"Come along, Percy, Atlanta," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told us the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

"Grapes would taken even less effort," Atlanta muttered.

Thunder exploded overhead.

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plant: they just go crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wonder if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" Atlanta asked Chiron.

Chiron signed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse's back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Atlanta. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper, and bringing him or her safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that!" I said.

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But its not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate…ah…fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you two dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.

"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winched. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age…"

"How old is he?" Atlanta asked.

"What! And he's in sixth grade?" I asked.

"satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Atlanta. Grover had been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

Atlanta stuck her tongue out with a sickening face.

"That's horrible."

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career…"

"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginning of an idea- a tiny, hopeful fire-started forming in my mind. I guess Atlanta had a similar idea, because she had a look of small hope.

"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real…"

"Yes, child?"

"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"

Chiron's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now…until we know more…I would urge you to put that out of your mind. Both of you."

"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?" Atlanta asked.

"Come, Percy, Atlanta. Let's see the woods."

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick you could imagine nobody had been there since the Native Americans.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"My own-"

"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."
"Do new campers, come with their own weapons and shield?" Atlanta whispered to me.

"I guess."

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp an armory had, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.
"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, there's the mess hall."

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

"What do you do when it rains?" Atlanta asked.

Chiron looked at her as if she'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.
"Too bright," Atlanta complained.

They all faced a common area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (Which was more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. Atlanta waved, but I guess the little girl didn't see her do it, because she continued to tend the fire.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.
"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

Atlanta and I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieced of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. Atlanta and I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he could pull us back, I caught the salty scent of the interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on our shoulders and said, "Come along, Percy, Atlanta."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as is if color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow us. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T0shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on Atlanta and me and gave us an evil sneer. She remained me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long, and stringy, and brown instead of red.

We kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," Atlanta observed.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

You said your name is Chiron. Are you really…" I said.

He smiled down at us. "The Chiron from the stories Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, Atlanta, I am."

"But shouldn't you be dead?"

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish… and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed.

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Eish for list.

"Doesn't it ever get boring?" Atlanta asked.

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?" I asked.

Chiron seemed to turn a hard of hearing again. Atlanta gave me a weird look, as if to ask 'Really?'.

"Oh look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

The blond girl we'd bet at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached her, she looked at us, critically, like she was thinking about how much we drooled.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an Architecture book.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy and Atlanta from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told us, gesturing towards the doorway. "Make yourselves at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it…? A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy, Atlanta. I'll see you both at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

Atlanta and I stood in the doorway looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at us, sizing us up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools. Atlanta hid behind me, wrapping her arm around her missing arm. Kids tend to stare at her because of her missing arm all the time.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

So naturally Atlanta and I tripped coming in the door and made total fools of ourselves. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Annabeth announced, "Percy and Atlanta Jackson, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" Somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said. "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy, Atlanta. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank-top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored beads. The only thing unsetting about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sword she was blushing. She saw me looing, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" Atlanta asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, out patron, is the god of Travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given us. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but Atlanta reminded me that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around the camper's faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing us, as if they were waiting for a chance to pick out pockets.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long does that take?" Atlanta asked.
The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told us. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"We've already seen it." I said.

She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside, Atlanta quickly followed us. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind us.

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" Atlanta asked. She was getting angry and so was I. "All I know is, we killed some bull guy-"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told us. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"
"To get killed? Oh sure, let's line up everyone, we're going to get ourselves killed!"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

I shook my head. "Look, if that thing we fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories…"

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So…"

"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like us. You can kill them for a while, maybe your whole life if you're lucky. But they're primal forces. Eventually, they'll come back." Atlanta said.

Annabeth looked kind of mad, Atlanta beat her to the explanation. I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"

"The fur…I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How do you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"You talk in your sleep," Atlanta said.

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' tortures, right?"
Atlanta and Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if they expected it to open up and swallow them. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without thundering?" Atlanta asked.

"Why do we have to stay in cabin eleven, anyways? Why is everybody sc crowed together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or….your parent."

She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"Our Mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy, Atlanta. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about Atlanta and your other parent."

She stared at us.
"He's dead. I never knew him."

Annabeth signed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Yours and Atlanta's father isn't dead, Percy."

"How could you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say-"

"Because I know you. You and your sister wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me or my sister."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them.

"How-"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. Atlanta shook her head. She didn't have dyslexia or AHDA. She's also never been kicked out of school.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Atlanta asked.

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD- you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, Atlanta, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortals' Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like…you went through the same thing?" I asked.

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."
"The food and drink they were giving us, to make us better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned our blood to fire and our bones to sand, and you would for sure be dead," Atlanta said.

Annabeth again looked mad, Atlanta beat her to the explanation. "Face it. You're a half-blood."

A half-blood.

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A couple of Newbies!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering towards us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

"Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned towards me and Atlanta. "Who are these little runts?"

"Percy and Atlanta Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

I blinked. "Like…the war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," Atlanta said, not missing a beat. "It explains the bad smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Tlanta."

"Atlanta."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse-" Annabeth tried to say.

"Stay out of it, wise girl."

Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and Atlanta wouldn't want her help. Atlanta may not look like it, but does know how to know fight. She's always been able to, not knowing where'd she learned it from. She's shown me a few things, so I wasn't bad at it either. Atlanta handed me her minotaur horn and got ready to fight. Clarisse went to grab her, and Atlanta ducked, sweeping her leg out, and knocking Clarisse clean off her feet. Clarisse looked up at her in shock, mostly thinking How did little runt knock me down?! One of the other girls came charging up, like a football quarterback to tackle Atlanta, but Atlanta side stepped her and stuck her foot out. The girl tripped and landed on the ground face-first.

The two other girls, both came up to Atlanta, but Atlanta simply ducked again, and they slammed into each other's heads. Clarisse, who had gotten over her shock, came up behind Atlanta going to grab her. I quickly shoved the minotaur horns into Annabeth's arms and got between Atlanta and Clarisse.

I raided my hand, to shove my palm in her face like Atlanta had shown me, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me towards a cinder-block building that I immediately knew was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching as Atlanta yelled after us. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girl's bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled like just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking- as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out-that id this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the straight I'd use to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered.

Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. Atlanta was standing beside her, leaning against the wall, calm as ever. She knew I could handle myself and won't step in on less I ask for her too.

Clarisse bet me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Claresse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into the shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shit off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I looked at Atlanta, because she would for sure punch me, but she was completely dried too. The floor around her was wet, but she remained dry.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, "How did you…"

"I don't know."

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. Atlanta made a move, like she was about to attack them, Clarisse's friends flinched as the scrambled up dragging Clarisse with them, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Annabeth staired at us. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking,: she said, "that I want you both on my team for capture the flag."