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 five: We Play Pinochle with a Horse

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with a spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What happened at the summer solstice?"

I heard Atlanta croak out, "What?"

She looked to her left then around, as if afraid of someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't…"

Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes-at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the back of his hands.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

I heard movement beside me, I turned to see Atlanta waking up next to me. She was covered with a blanket and pillow behind her neck too. Her gold bracelet was back on her arm again.

On the table between us, were two tall drinks. It looked like iced apple juice, with green straws and paper parasols stuck through maraschino cherries.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful," a familiar voice said.

Grover was leaning against the pouch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled two shoe boxes. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.

So maybe I'd have a nightmare. Maybe our mother was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And…

"You saved my life. Both of you," Grover said. "I…well, the least I could do….I went back to the hill. I thought you might want these."

Reverently, he placed a shoebox in Atlanta's and my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.

"The Minotaur," Atlanta said.

"Um, Atlanta it isn't a good idea-"

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've both been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"Our mom. Is she really…"

He looked down. Atlanta muffled her cry. I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounding rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

Our mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world."

He moaned, stomped his foot so hard, it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs.

All that meant was our mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

Atlanta and I were alone. Orphans. We would have to live with…Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets, making sure Atlanta had a good home first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looking as if he expected to be hit.

I said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did our mother ask you to protect Percy?" Atlanta asked.

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least…I was."

"But why…" Atlanta sloped down in her chair, holding her head in her left hand. I went to go to her, when I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourselves," Grover said. "Here."

He helped both of us hold our glasses and put the straws to our lips.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-our mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if our mom had just brushed her hand against mine and Atlanta's cheeks, given us a cookie the way she used to when we were small, and told us everything was going to be okay.

Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.

"Sorry," Atlanta said. "I should've let you taste."

His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just…wondered."

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said.

"Our mom's. Homemade." Atlanta said.

He signed. "And how do you guys feel?"

"Better," Atlanta said.

"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards." I said.

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you guys could risk drinking anymore of that stuff."

"What do you mean?"

He took the empty glasses from us gingerly, as if they were dynamite, and set them back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse. My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Atlanta had the same struggle, as me, maybe a bit more. She was very pale, and looked like she was going to throw up. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horns, but we held on to them. We'd paid for these souvenirs the hard way. We weren't going to let them go.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture-an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-aged kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and , unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-favored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing us was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels-what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger=pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even our stepfather.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to us. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron…"

He pointed at the guy whose back was to us.

First, I realized he was sitting I the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy, Atlanta he said. "Now we have five for pinochle."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. Atlanta sat closer to Mr. Brunner, clutching onto her horn. "Oh I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you both."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther from him, because if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you and Atlanta back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear why don't you go check on Percy's and Atlanta's bunk? We'll be putting them in cabin eleven for now."

Annabeth said, "Sure Chiron."

She was probably our age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glanced at the minotaur horns in mine and Atlanta's hands. I imagined she was going to say, You two killed a minotaur! Or Wow, you're so awesome! Or something like that.

Instead she said, "You both drool when you sleep."

Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," Atlanta said, clearly wanting to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr., uh, Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay."

Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D…does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for a reason."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in. "I'm glad to see you and Atlanta alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?" Atlanta asked.

"My year at Yancy academy, to instruct Percy." We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met Percy. He sensed he was something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to…ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy to teach me?" I asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "Are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fifth chair, though I didn't know why he should be afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me and Atlanta suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.

"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young man and women to know the rules."

"I'm sure the boy and girl can learn," Chiron said.

"Please," I said, "what is this place? What are my sister and I doing here? Mr. Brun- Chiron-, why did you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Chron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"

"She said…" I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told us that she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

Atlanta grabbed on to my shirt.

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man are you and your sister bidding or not?"

"What?" Atlanta asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so we did.

"I'm afraid there too much to tell." Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't sufficient."

"Orientation film?" Atlanta asked.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horns in the shoe boxes- "that you and your sister have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you called the Greek gods-are very much alive."

I stared at the others around the table.

I waited for somebody to yell Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shared out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?" Atlanta asked.

"Yes, quit. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Zeus," I said. "Here. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less causal about throwing those names around, if I were you."

"But they're storied," I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed in before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"- I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they Chiron? Look at this boy and girl and tell me."

I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if…he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not,' I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys and girls get over losing their mothers?"

Atlanta tensed up, her eyes flashing bright gold for a moment, before turning back to her normal green-blue. My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I gently took Atlanta's hand and squeezed it tightly. She squeezed my hand back.

"I wouldn't like it. But Atlanta and I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover said, "P-please, sir. They just lost their mother. They're in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys and girls who don't even believe."

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked up at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy ton a wood nymph who been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," Atlanta repeated. My eyes were still on the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she was really pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you two. 'Be a better influence.' He told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"And…" I stammered, "you father is…"

"Di immortales, Percy," Atlanta said. "Did you pay attention in class? I thought Chiron was your favorite teacher. Mr. D's father is Zeus, dork."`.

Mr. D, Grover, and Chiron-with a sight blush- looked at Atlanta in shock.

I ran through the D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.

"He's Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."

"Well, duh! Did you think he could possible pass for Aphrodite, maybe?"

I looked back at Mr. D-who was now glaring at Atlanta- with uncertainty.

"You're a god."

"Yes, child," Mr. D said.

"A god. You."

Mr. D turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plumb little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking nonbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned into flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

"Chicken," Atlanta snickered.

I heard Grover snort. I locked Atlanta in a headlock, ruffling her hair as she laughed at me. The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game, with a slight chuckle. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said, with a slight laugh. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The games goes to me."

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to bring beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover-who was still snickering at me-rose too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover stopped snickering, his face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me and Atlanta. "Cabin eleven, Percy and Atlanta Jackson. And mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been…ah grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Kinda cruel to keep him from his domain though. And it's just punishing the rest of us, cause he's mad," Atlanta muttered. Chiron must have heard her, because he looked at her shocked, then smiled.

"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling us there really is a place."

"Well, now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, Atlanta, just as the gods do." Like…in America?"

"Well, certainly. The gods moved with the heart of the West."

"The what?"

"Come on, Percy," Atlanta said. " What you and I call "Western civilization'."

"um- correct," Chiron said. "A collective consciousness that burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it they couldn't possible fade, not unless all of the Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart if the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods.

"And then they died."

"Died? The gods moved all over the place: Germany, France, Spain, for a long time. Where ever the flame is the brightest the gods are there. They spent, like centuries in England. Just look at the buildings. People don't forget them. Most places they've ruled for…what the last thousand years or something? You can see them in paintings, buildings, and statues, on the important buildings and stuff. And all over here in America too. The American symbol is the Eagle, the symbol of Zeus. The statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the government buildings in Washington. I dare you to find any city, where the Olympians aren't displayed everywhere. Like it or not America is not the heart of the flame. And if the Olympians are here, then so are we. Right, Chiron?"

"Um-y-yes."

It was all too much, especially the fact that Atlanta and I seemed to be included in Atlanta's we, as if we're about of the same club.

"Who are you, Chiron? Who…who and I and Atlanta?"

Chiron smiled, though still in shock of Atlanta. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up from his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you two?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you two a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but his legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse whiten fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge, polished hoof. Then another front legs, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I staired at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where the neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson, Atlanta Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."