Chapter 33
After Mr. D calmed down, he sat and we started playing the card game. Everyone was on edge. He grumbled, saying, "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with brats who only make my job much harder than necessary."
He looks like he does nothing all day. His job can't be that difficult.
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 red wine.
My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.
"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.
"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"
More thunder rumbled in the sky.
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 to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."
"A wood nymph," I repeated.
"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."
Mr. D sounded like a five year old who hasn't had any candy in twenty years. Not that that's possible.
"And ..." I stammered, "your father is…god of the sky and lightning, I presume. No wine as punishment, and that makes you Dionysus, god of wine, of grape-harvest, madness, parties, religious ecstasy, and theatre. Wow, wow. It's an honour," I say, stretching out my hand to shake his. Sucking up is the best way to survive right now.
"You are correct," he says, nose in the air, all high and mighty, "not too shabby for a child of Triton."
"Thanks, I guess."
Chiron won the game, and then led me towards my new cabin. I got a few stares, and few fingers pointed at me.
"Why are they looking at me like that?" I ask Chiron.
"It's not every day that we get a new camper, and not every day that a demi-god defeats Pasiphae's son. One of our campers, Luke Castellan saw you fight and kill it," he said.
Luke, the traitor, not that I can say anything about it yet.
Chiron showed me where we will be eating, he showed me the cabins, each cabin looked different, representing the twelve Olympians.
They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, scattered with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops.
In the middle of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smouldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. I smile, knowing exactly who she is. I couldn't say anything for fear that they'll find out that Aunt Hestia has been looking after me for the past three years.
I identified nearly all of the cabins as we walked past them, I saw Hera's and Zeus' cabin first. I saw my cabin, number 3.
Next to my cabin was Ares', number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the colour 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 me. 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 T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer.
Geez Louise, she's intimidating.
Annabeth was here waiting at cabin eleven, reading a book. She doesn't know that I've been claimed yet.
When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.
I tried to see what she was reading, and realized it was in ancient Greek. "Are you reading up on architecture?" I ask.
"Yeah, how do you know?" she replies, frowning.
"I can read the cover," I reply.
"How do you know how to read Ancient Greek?" she asks suspiciously.
"Because I took an ancient Greek elective at one point," I said, lying to her.
She was about to say something when Chiron interrupted, "Annabeth, I have a masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Rhea from here? She's been claimed as a child of Triton and will be staying in Cabin three."
"Sir?" she asks confused.
"Poseidon made it clear that she was to stay in his cabin," he explained.
"This is cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "where you would've stayed if the lord of the seas had not claimed you."
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. 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 on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation centre.
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, Rhea. I'll see you at dinner."
He galloped away toward the archery range.
I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough at my old school and University classes.
"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "since we are here, you can at least meet some of the campers."
So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.
Annabeth announced, "Rhea Jackson, meet cabin eleven.
"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.
I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Regular."
A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. He must be Luke. I recognise his face, before I passed out.
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 clay beads. The only thing unsettling 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 sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He'll be helping you with your training."
"You're determined, one of the lucky ones" Luke said. "If you weren't determined, you would've stayed here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travellers."
"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."
"I've already seen it."
"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. Clearly someone doesn't want me to stay with Luke, not that I'm interested anyway.
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?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"
"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"
"To get killed?"
"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"
"To survive this life. To live as long as we can, it wasn't easy to kill the Minotaur! I've never been so scared in my life, besides meeting Mr. D. I couldn't think straight, I've had some training in defence and stuff, but I'm lucky to be alive," I reply.
"You don't get it!" she says frustrated.
"Look, a newbie!" I hear a hoarse voice, 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 was Greek for 'Go to the hell!'. "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 toward me. "Who's this little brat?"
"Rhea Jackson, daughter of Triton," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."
"The war god? So cool."
Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"
How does she think I have a problem with that when I said it's cool?
"No," I said, recovering my wits. "Of course not."
Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies. 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 I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid and knew I could take her down.
I got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom. She works fast.
I was trying to pull away. I've been in this position before with Triton, I've had to practice getting out of his hold. And I must say, this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. It'll be a piece of cake though. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.
Clarisse's friends were all laughing. "Let go of me," I demand, feeling the water in the pipes vibrate already. I hate unnecessary fighting. This is ridiculous.
"Like she's 'Big Three' material, turns out, she's Triton's kid," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, she was so stupid looking."
Her friends snickered.
Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.
"Clarisse, please listen, let me go, or else" I pleaded, knowing if I lose my cool, I won't hold back.
Clarisse bent 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. She's no worse than the bullies I faced at my high school. I've had enough!
"Let me go! Now!" I said and they all laughed.
I turn around as quick as I could, she lost her hold on me, while I grabbed her arm, twisting it around so she's the one bent over. If there is one thing I can't handle are bullies. I've faced way too many in my short life, and I won't let them take a shot at me again. I twisted her arm more, she yelped out in pain. Her posse was ready to attack
I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Water shot out of the toilet, and into Clarisse's face, it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a 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, the water shut 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.