One of my profs said to start thinking of our final dissertation topics. I outlined and wrote this chapter instead.
Story #17: "My Satyr Godson Ate My Essay"
Clarisse hasn't seen her godson much since she left for college and Mellie spent more time with the McLeans. This time, Mr. McLean gave Mellie a weekend off so she and Coach decided to sightsee in Arizona since Clarisse went to school there. In agreement, Clarisse said she'd babysit Chuck for a day since the parents wanted to bring their son to see the Grand Canyon.
It wasn't much of a problem for Clarisse. She's the RA in her dorm which her experience as a head counsellor back at Camp Half-Blood for many years helped her get, so she got a bigger dorm. She had the space for Chuck's portable crib and some tree branches to play with (or whatever he was in the mood for), and there was an endless food supply with the messy students she looks over. It nearly reminded her of her brothers at Camp. Nearly.
"Stupid freshmen…" Clarisse grumbles as she walks back into her dorm. A kid got stuck in the elevator and, for some reason, she had to deal with it. She wasn't a Hephaestus kid but she did pry open the door with her bare hands and yank the kid out.
Clarisse left Chuck to nap in her dorm but he was awake and climbed out of his crib by the time she awoke. She saw him nibbling on some papers and assumed it was the old student wellness flyers from last month, but they weren't colourful.
"Whatcha eating there, Chuck?" Clarisse asks despite Chuck nearly finished.
Clarisse kneels beside him and catches the bottom of the page that was yet to be eaten. It was a series of footnotes that ring familiar bells in Clarisse's mind. The citations she spent all night formatting properly, nearly punching right through her laptop that had a monster-proof VPN (whatever that meant) created by Leo Valdez. Gods, if a monster really decided to bother her during her cram session? It'd beg to go to Tartarus. It was for an essay she powered through for ten hours straight, fighting against her ADHD, and was due in, if she looked at the time now, thirty minutes.
The one time she had to print a physical copy and hand it in. Stupid kid in the elevator.
Clarisse thinks about how Chuck could've gotten her essay if it was on her desk. Before she dealt with the stupid freshman, her essay was left on top of the textbook pile on her desk. Chuck's crib was beside her desk since that was the only space available. He probably climbed over the rail and onto her desk, grabbed her delicious-looking paper on cosmopolitanism, bouncing on her desk chair, and munching away on the floor where she found him.
Honestly, impressive. Her brothers could never pull that stunt.
"Chuck!" Clarisse yells, tearing whatever part of her essay is left.
Chuck frowns at her and takes the crumped title page he hid in his lap to compensate. Clarisse groans, looking at the time. Twenty-five minutes till the due date. She wonders why she didn't just drop it off this morning but remembers she wasn't finished this morning.
Whatever. All she has to do is print another copy. That's its own problem.
"Do you know how expensive it is to print stuff at the library?" Clarisse asks Chuck rhetorically as she opens her laptop to send her essay to the library printer.
Chuck shrugs before continuing to eat her essay. Clarisse would have to run to pick up a new copy before sprinting to her prof's dropbox to make the deadline. Shouldn't be that bad. She grew up at Camp and went on quests.
Clarisse knows that if she's too afraid to fail, then she's too afraid to live. A bead of Camp wisdom that doesn't go on the necklace. But unlike a battle against mindless monsters, this paper was worth 30% of her grade. In life, many things have no purpose, even if they don't realize it. She didn't feel challenged mentally by her now-eaten thesis as she would in a sparring session.
Could've been worse. Chuck could've snacked on her overpriced textbooks. She would've lost her mind if that happened.
"Let's go," Clarisse says, picking up Chuck before they head to the library.
There are a handful of reasons why Chuck's coming with Clarisse to hand in her essay. One, she isn't leaving Chuck alone in her dorm following the eaten-essay incident, arguments of him being a baby and should've been supervised anyways don't matter. Two, if there's a line-up of students waiting in the printer queue, she's using Chuck as a cut-the-line cuteness tool because she can't run them over (learned that the hard way). Three, if she's a few seconds late and her prof is there, it's another chance for the cuteness ticket since "my satyr godson ate my essay." Perfect excuse and not a lie. The Mist will filter as needed.
"Make sure you keep this in your mouth if you see my prof," Clarisse says about the title page Chuck is still gnawing on.
When she leaves her dorm, she notices the elevator still out-of-order which will waste even more time for her.
"Ah, Styx!" Clarisse curses before running towards the fire escape.
Sis, I feel you on expensive university printing. One time I had to print a 15-page paper in colour because of some dumb pictures. The perfect grade was worth it though. (Also I had to write a different paper on cosmopolitanism. Not a perfect grade but I pulled an all-nighter for that one). And, as fitting, I submitted a paper before publishing this chapter.