So, the day has come for Percy Jackson Chapter 3. I hope you enjoy this chapter. It gets very interesting.
Chapter Four: Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants
Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants
Everyone snorts at the title. It sounded very wrong.
Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.
Everybody looked at Percy in shock.
I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I'm a demigod?" Percy asked himself.
Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up,
Grover flushed.
so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.
"At least it was a normal one," Percy grumbled.
"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver. A word about my mother, before you meet her.
"At least you have a mother," Harry said, a little jealous that Percy had a mother while he didn't.
Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.
"Not a word," Hermione, Cho, Luna, and Annabeth said at the same time.
Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her.
"The gods, am I right?" Percy said, and every demigod, including Luke, snorted and scoffed.
She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.
"Yeah, the god of the sea," Percy muttered to himself. He wasn't looking forward to that part being revealed to everybody, especially the ones he didn't know, mostly the wizards or superheroes. Yes, he trusted them, but letting those people know was a pain. And he hoped they didn't give him sympathic looks. At least, Harry knows what I am going through. Imagine how he reacts to Gabe, Percy thought and smiled at the thought of Harry finding out about Gabe.
I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures. See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret.
"Yeah, from the gods," Percy grumbled. Nothing went his way. Like Peter had Parker luck and Harry had Potter luck, he had Jackson luck, which for his family, was very bad. At least Harry gets some good luck, Percy thought.
Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.
"Yeah, back to Olympus," Percy muttered to himself.
Lost at sea, my mom told me.
"Ironic, considering he is the god of the sea," Percy whispered to Annabeth and Grover.
"It was a story she told you because she didn't want you to know the truth. She was protecting you," Annabeth said.
Not dead. Lost at sea.
She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.
"He's as pessimistic and down-looking on himself as Harry is," Hermione said.
"Oi!"
Both boys flushed with embarrassment, before looking away from each other awkwardly.
Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe.
Everybody snorted.
I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.
"I think I just lost my appetite," Ron joked.
Everybody laughed.
Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along… well, when I came home is a good example.
"What did he do now?" Sally grumbled, like this was a normal occurrence for them at the time.
I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. P Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.
"What a slob," Hermione said.
Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."
"Very familiar," Harry noted.
"Where's my mom?"
"At work," Percy grumbled. Like he said, he always has the worst look.
"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"
"I'm not giving you any money just so you can gamble it away," Percy said.
" This was a normal occurrence?" Harry asked, surprised.
"Oh, definitely. At least until it happened," Percy said.
"What happened?" Harry sighed.
"You'll see," Percy said, with a smirk, repeating what the raven-haired boy said when people kept asking questions about his antics when they were reading their books.
That was it. No welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?
Harry noted that this was very similar to the Dursleys. Except he always had his room and always known that he would be protected, unlike him, who knew they were chances where he could have died. Luckily, he didn't.
Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes.
Harry snorted as everybody tried hard not to laugh, seeing the picture. Harry could just picture Gabe and Vernon hanging out and casually mentioning their abusive natures in a conversation. Clearly, after looking at Percy, he was clearly thinking the exact same thing.
He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something. He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time.
"How has he not been fired yet?" Hermione asked.
"No idea. Doesn't matter anymore anyways," Percy shrugged with a smirk.
I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course.
Yep, very similar to Vernon, Harry thought to himself.
Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret".
"What if you had no money?" Ron asked.
"He would always provide it to me," Percy muttered.
As predicted, everyone in the room gave him sympathetic glances.
Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.
"That's child abuse!" Hermione exclaimed.
Percy and Harry both shrugged.
"I don't have any cash," I told him.
"Did he do it then?" Ron asked.
"No," Percy said.
He raised a greasy eyebrow.
Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.
Everybody laughed, except the demigods as they realized how accurate Percy was sounding.
"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"
"Sounds like something the Dursleys would say," Harry grumbled.
Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."
"At least somebody's got their head screwed on right," Hermione said.
"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.
Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.
"Gross," Everyone looked disgusted at this.
"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."
"So do we all."
"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!" I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study".
"Does he even know what a study is?" Hermione and Annabeth asked, horrified.
He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.
"I should have known," Hermione said.
I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.
"At least you enjoy going home," Harry said, dreading returning to Privet Drive. However, if Sirius was freed, which he most likely would be, then he would not have to go to Privet Drive ever again.
Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,
Everybody sniffed.
or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.
Hermione was thinking of something. Is this a story about Greek mythology? Mrs. Dodds seems like one of Hades' Furies, Hermione thought.
But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden l chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.
Everybody shuddered.
Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"
Harry cried. At least Percy has a mother. So lucky, he thought in jealousy.
She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.
My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.
"That's because she is, Percy," Annabeth smiled at the love of her love. Though she knew that she feelings for Percy, those feelings were complicated, to say the least. On top of that, she knew Percy had feelings for her, but he was shy about those feelings. He saw the way that he looked at her.
I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.
"That bastard would deserve it," Grover grumbled to himself.
"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" Her red, white, and blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.
"New York," Hermione realized. She had been there young, but her thoughts about the city were very different, obviously because she thought the city was very clean, but the way that Percy described it, it sounded very dirty.
She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples", the way she always did when I came home. We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She d
didn't seem to care about that.
"Not when the same thing happened every single year," Percy said, annoyed.
But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?
Everybody snorted.
I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.
"Wouldn't we all be?" Ron asked.
From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"
"Get it yourself, you fat pig," Ron said, not caring of being reprimanded for his rudeness by his mother. Mrs. Weasley just gave him an irritated glare is all.
I gritted my teeth.
My mom is the nicest lady in the world.
"Sounds like it," Harry said, gritting his teeth in jealousy. If only mum was alive, he thought.
She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.
"Money isn't always power, Percy. In fact, some may call it the root of all evil," Hermione said.
For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion.
"How do you manage to sound upbeat about a school expulsion?" Harry asked. He would be horrified if he was expelled from Hogwarts, but Percy managed to make it sound like he was winning an award.
"Gen-Z," Tony muttered.
"Oi!"
I'd lasted almost the whole year this time.
"If only I could last more than a year, that would be a miracle," Percy said.
I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin.
"Weren't you Chiron's best student?" Grover asked.
"Yes," Percy said, sighing.
And honestly, the fights hadn't been bad as the headmaster said.
"At least, you don't deal with the weight being on all your shoulders because of a damn prophecy," Harry said.
Chiron and the Big Three all looked at each other, knowing that statement was very incorrect. Not only did Percy have the weight of protecting Olympus, but also the mortal world.
I liked Yancy Academy. I really did.
"Even after all of the bullying from Nancy?" Grover asked.
"It was the only place I made friends," Percy shrugged.
"That sounds familiar," Ron whispered to Hermione.
I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.
"Really?" Grover asked.
"No," Percy said.
Until that trip to the museum…
"That trip was something else," Harry said.
"What?" my mother asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"
"Mothers always know. Mother's intuition," Mrs. Weasley said matter-of-factly.
"No, Mom."
"Next time: Don't lie, Percy. I need to know every detail to help you," Sally said and Percy nodded, albeit reluctantly.
"Another terrible liar. Now, who does that remind you of?" Ron whispered to Hermione.
"Oi! I'm sitting right here, you know," Harry exclaimed, feeling insulted.
I felt bad lying.
"Then, why did you do it?" Annabeth asked.
Percy simply shrugged.
I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.
" Really? You think that sounded stupid? Gods, you're so thick!" Annabeth exclaimed.
"Oi!" Percy exclaimed.
She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push it.
"All mothers know when something is wrong with her kids," Molly frowned at Percy.
"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."
"I love going to the beach," Percy said, grinning widely.
"Gee, I wonder why," Annabeth said sarcastically.
My eyes widened. "Montauk."
"Three nights—same cabin."
"That cabin should have our names engraved on it," Percy grumbled.
Poseidon's eyes widened in shock. Does Sally still use the same cabin when we were "dating", Poseidon thought.
"When?"
She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."
"Clearly, you were excited," Annabeth said.
"Nice observation, Captain Obvious," Percy said.
Annabeth winced and looked down at the ground.
I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.
Percy rolled his eyes. "But there was enough money for your gambling and alcohol addictions, was there?"
Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"
"Do it yourself. She's not your servant!" almost everyone exclaimed, horrified that Gabe would treat Sally (and in extension) Percy like this.
I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk.
"I could never be nice to the Dursleys," Harry said and Percy looked at him sympathetically. He too understood what it was like to be treated like he didn't deserve to belong in a home that he should have been happy to return to.
Then we would be out here.
"Thank the Gods," all the half-bloods, even Clarisse, said.
"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."
"She is the only person I know who will be cussed out or treated like shit and still be calm and kind," Percy said.
"Percy, language!" his mother reprimanded and he kindly rolled his eyes fondly.
Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"
"Well, what did you expect, you fat slob?" Ron snarled.
"I knew it," he muttered. "He won't let us go."
"He better," Annabeth snarled.
"He did," Percy assured her.
"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all."
"There are more important things in life than money," Hermione said and everyone in the room nodded, except the Malfoys, who clearly thought otherwise. They may not be loyal to Voldemort anymore, but they were still very obsessed with their image and wealth.
"Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."
"Fatass."
"Percy Jackson!" Sally exclaimed. Usually, his mother did not scream, unless it was for a good reason, but when she did, she was scary. Percy winced, having done this before in the past.
Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip… it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"
"Selfish git," many people said and both Percy and Sally couldn't help but both said nothing about this.
"Yes, honey," my mother said.
"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."
"Cars are much more expensive in the twenty-first century, unlike the twentieth century," Annabeth explained, as the confused looks of the Muggle-raised or Muggle-born students from the 1990s, and they simply nodded their heads, while the other students looked confused.
"We'll be very careful."
"Famous last words," Grover said, and Percy glared at him. Despite this, he realized what Grover said was factually correct. Sally was believed to be dead by Percy and the group, until they saved her from Hades and the Underworld.
Gabe scratched his double chin.
"Fat," many people exclaimed.
"Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip… And maybe if the kid apologizes for ruining my poker game."
"He didn't interrupt anything. You did!" Annabeth snarled protectively, and Tyson clenched his fists into big balls. Percy couldn't help but smile at his love interest and younger half-brother, who both hugged him, though Tyson's hug was more bone-rattling.
Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.
"Percy!" Sally exclaimed sternly, and he lowered underneath her gaze, while everyone else just laughed and were rolling on the ground, trying to contain their laughter, all except Fudge and Umbridge.
But my mom's eyes warned me to not make him mad.
Why did she have to put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?
"My thoughts exactly," Harry nodded in agreement.
"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."
"Not genuine," Hermione noted.
Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.
Everyone chuckled at this statement.
"Yeah, whatever," he decided.
"I don't even think he knows what sarcasm is," Percy joked, and everyone laughed in response.
He went back to his game.
"Of course," Annabeth exclaimed irritatedly.
"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about… whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"
"More like forgot to mention," Sally muttered.
For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.
"I was not imagining things," Percy grumbled.
But then, her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.
"He should have just learnt to do that," Percy said to his friends.
An hour later, we were ready to leave.
Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.
"Who cares? How about you learn to cook yourself," Annabeth snarled.
"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."
"It's your car! Besides, his mom was the one driving. Not Percy!" Annabeth exclaimed.
Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve.
"Exactly! That's what I'm saying!" Annabeth exclaimed.
But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.
"You think that's bad? When there was a new Prime Minister for England, the Dursleys found some convenient way to blame me. The same thing occurred when Dudley almost fell back in our third year at St. Gregory's," Harry said and Percy thought that Harry had it worse. Imagine if Gabe had a son with Mom. He would probably have abused us and blamed me for everything bad that happened to his son, Percy thought in his mind.
Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.
Everybody snorted at the description.
Harry noted that the description was very similar to his description of Dudley waddling.
As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture,
Grover nodded in approval, and as did Chiron and the Olympus God's.
a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.
"Bastard deserves it," Annabeth grumbled.
The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.
Everybody laughed at the description.
"Who's descriptions are better: Percy or Harry's?" Hermione asked.
"I honestly don't know at this point," Harry said. He would have to see more descriptions of Percy's thought process.
Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.
I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.
"Good," Annabeth said.
Our rental cabin was on the South shore, way out the tip of Long Island.
"Long Island is beautiful," Hermione said and the half-bloods (the demigods, not the wizards) nodded in agreement.
"What, you've been to New York, Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Once. When I was eight years old. It was pretty clean and looked good," Hermione explained.
It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half-sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time, the sea was too cold to swim in.
"It should be noted that I could handle it," Percy said, and those who did not know Percy was a demigod looked confused, though Hermione immediately wrote down notes about his abilities. Her notes included Impervious to heat of water and able to summon water when really angry.
I loved the place.
We'd been going there since I was a baby.
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"My mom loved the place and it was where she met my dad," he said before nodding towards Poseidon, who smiled gently at him.
My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was so special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.
Everyone gave Percy pitying looks at the thought that he never met his father, but he immediately shrugged them off. The only ones who didn't were Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.
"That's beautiful," many people cooed and Percy and Sally both blushed the same color and hue of red as the Weasleys' hair color, possibly even brighter.
We got there at sunset, opened all the cabins' windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.
"Boring," Ron yawned, only for Hermione to elbow him in the ribs.
"Says the people who were cleaning up Grimmauld Place," Percy said.
"Touché," Ron said.
We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.
"What's with all the blue food?" Ron muttered.
"I'm pretty sure the book will explain it," Percy said.
I guess I should explain the blue food.
"Yes, you should," Harry reacted.
See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing.
"What about blueberries?" Hermione asked.
Percy shrugged, before saying: "Gabe's not the sharpest stick in the wood."
They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time.
"There was a lot of yelling and shouting that day," Percy said, shuddering.
But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop.
Ron's stomach grumbled.
"We'll eat after the next chapter," Molly said.
"Honestly, Ronald, do you ever stop eating?" Hermione asked.
"I haven't eaten since the last movie, during the fight between Dumbledore and Credence, and that was popcorn. The last real meal we had was when Grindelwald escaped MACUSA custody," Ron said.
This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—
Everybody shuddered in disgust.
"It's a good thing, because you would have been Percy Ugliano, which doesn't really roll off of the tongue," Annabeth said.
"Yeah, no," Percy said, feigning vomiting.
was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.
"True," Percy said.
When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.
Ron's stomach growled again.
Mom told me stories about she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash.
Everyone gave Sally sympathetic or sad looks.
She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.
Hermione smiled approvingly, and Sally smiled back at her. Percy groaned. Hermione would probably convince her to make me read at least half an hour every night. As if I'm not already doing that for nine months a year for school, Percy thought.
Eventually, I got up to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father.
Poseidon smiled at Percy, and he smiled back. This was not unnoticed by everyone. Hermione jotted down the question: Is Poseidon Percy's father?
Mom's eyes went all misty.
"So, a sore topic," Harry noted. Like Sirius during his imprisonment in Azkaban, he thought.
I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.
"Unlike me and the 'story' that the Dursleys told me when I was little," Harry said.
"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful.
"That's not a lie," Annabeth noted.
But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."
"Also, not lying," Annabeth noted again.
Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."
"I am proud," Poseidon said, loud enough for Percy and his friends to hear, but quiet enough for Harry and his friends to not hear, thus not giving away the surprise that Poseidon was Percy's father. Both Poseidon and Percy agreed that was not public information to share just yet, and Percy was positive that the information would come up at some point in the book, since the book was most likely about Percy's very first summer at Camp Half-Blood.
I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about?
"Your sense of humor or charming personality," Annabeth said.
Percy just smirked. So, Annabeth does have feelings for me. Why is my chest perking up? He thought.
A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.
"None of that matters to me, Percy," Poseidon said gently to his son.
"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean… when he left?"
People kept giving them sad looks.
She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."
"What?!" many people who did not know the true origins of half-bloods were shocked that Percy was a bastard.
"But… he knew me as a baby."
"No, I didn't, I visited you when you were a baby when your mother wasn't there, though," Poseidon said.
"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born?
"Why?" many people asked.
Percy just shrugged in confusion, as he did not want to tell the others the uncomfortable truth.
I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember… something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.
Poseidon smiled with a warm glow, and Percy smiled back, his greatest memory coming true.
I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never seen me…
I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid,
"Which you have shown at times. Definitely not a son of Athena," Annabeth said.
but I resented him for going to that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom.
"Maybe because he was already married," Percy grumbled.
He'd left us, and now, we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.
Everybody laughed at the nickname.
"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another school?"
"It's the beginning of the summer. Really, Percy?" Annabeth said.
She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.
"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think… I think we'll have to do something."
"Maybe instead of a boarding school, how about a public school?" Annabeth smiled.
"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.
"Then, why did you say them?" Peter-One asked.
"I felt angry and unloved at the time," Percy said, as if that made sense. It was stupid, he thought.
My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."
"That makes no sense," Ron said through some popcorn-filled teeth.
"It'll be explained," Percy explained, knowing the truth now.
Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.
"But it was your favorite school!" Percy exclaimed.
C
"Because I'm not normal," I said.
"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd be safe."
"Me too," Chiron said.
"Safe from what?"
"That's what we want to know," the Golden Trio grumbled under their breaths.
"Monsters," Percy grumbled under his breath.
She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.
They all shuddered at that, thinking he was referring to Mrs. Dodds.
During third grade, a man in a trench coat had stalked me on the playground.
"Creepy," Hermione muttered.
When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.
"A Cyclops," Annabeth muttered.
Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake slithered into.
"Just like Heracles," Hermione mentioned.
"Who?" Ron asked, unfamiliar of the legend of Heracles.
"Heracles is the son of the Greek god, Zeus, and is best known for the Labors of Heracles, which was a task embarked on him to become a god. He obtained it, dying in the process, and losing his family, being tricked by Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, into killing them. He became one of the minor gods. Anyways, as a child, he was also in a cot that a snake (sent by Hera) slithered into it, Heracles grabbed it by the throat and choked it to death," Hermione said, having studied Greek mythology as a child.
"Oh."
My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.
"Funny description," Luna said in her dreamily voice, and Percy simply flushed and blushed pink-faced.
In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.
"Bloody hell," Ron said, horrified.
I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum,
"Yes, you should have," Sally said sternly, crossing her arms. She still had not forgiven her son for not telling her the truth.
about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.
"That was no hallucination," Annabeth and Grover said.
"Thanks, guys. That makes me feel loads better," Percy said sarcastically.
But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.
"Your trip did get ended early anyways, though," Grover frowned, realizing that he ended their vacation.
"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake.
"Who's they?" Hermione muttered.
"You'll see," Percy said.
Everyone groaned at that.
But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just… I just can't stand to do it."
"Camp Half-Blood," Percy whispered, and a smile distantly appeared on his lip. After all the negativity of Harry and Newt's adventures and all the trauma, we need some positivity, he thought.
"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"
"Don't say it like that, Percy," Annabeth admonished and Percy just shrugged his shoulders in confusion, not understanding what she meant by that.
"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."
Percy smiled at Chiron and all of the Camp Half-Blood residents. Camp Half-Blood felt like a second home to him, like how Harry felt Hogwarts was his home.
My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around to see me born—talk to my mom about a summer camp?
"For your protection," Annabeth mentioned.
And if it was so important, why hadn't she mentioned it before?
"Never came up," Sally muttered.
"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good."
"But it's a summer camp," Hermione said confused.
"For good? But if it's only a summer camp—"
"Exactly!" Hermione exclaimed.
She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions, she would start to cry.
Nobody said anything. Malfoy had no comments. He prevented himself from saying any rude comments since his mission to kill Dumbledore was revealed. And he also didn't feel it was an appropriate time to do so.
That night, I had a vivid dream.
"Man, have I been there," Harry muttered.
It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.
"That's horrible!" Luna and Charlie exclaimed, horrified, and Luna covered her mouth to prevent tears.
The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
"That's horrible!" This time, Luna could not contain herself. She brought out horrifying tears, causing many people to give her sympathetic looks and comments that she ignored, unless it was from her friends, who she allowed to embrace her strongly with a hug.
I ran toward, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow-motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!
"Well, Percy and Harry should be life-long friends because they're both brave, reckless, never-say-die gits," Ron said and Hermione nodded, agreeing with him.
"Oi!"
I woke with a start.
Outside, it really was storming,
"In the summer?" Hermione asked, frowning.
Percy just shrugged.
the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses.
"So, a hurricane?" Harry noted.
Percy nodded, not even thinking about hurricanes at the time. New York may not be prone to hurricanes as much as Florida or Texas are, but they still do get hurricanes from time-to-time, just not as much as Florida or Texas.
There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight,
"Zeus," Annabeth noted.
and twenty-foot waves pounding the artillery.
"Poseidon," Annabeth and Athena noted.
With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."
"Nope. Just a war between Poseidon and Zeus," he muttered, causing those in their group to chuckle.
I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the ocean, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand up on end.
"Funny description," Luna said, again, in her dreamy voice.
Then, a much closer sound, like mallets in the sand.
"Or hooves," Percy whispered to Annabeth.
A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
"Who was it?"
"Why were there?"
"Who pounds on the door early in the morning?"
"Is it Grover?"
Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of rain. But he wasn't… he wasn't exactly Grover.
"How is that possible?"
"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"
"Why are you acting so weird," Percy muttered under his breath.
My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.
"Well, excuse me for worrying about my only son," Sally said with an attitude in her tone.
"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"
Percy sighed, remembering this incident. Because of the incident, his mother did not let him leave the house without telling her first. There were some incidents. She told him to call or text her when he was about to leave.
I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
"Sorry, I was just confused because you were my first friend. I wasn't aware that friends visited each other. Thank you for visiting me," Percy said.
"You're welcome. Anytime, man," Grover said, smiling gently.
" O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"
"No," Percy said. "And for her own sake. I didn't want her to worry about me."
"Percy, I just care about you so much," Sally said and hugged her son. Harry wanted a mother like her, and couldn't help but feel that Percy had everything he ever wanted in a mother, never having had that relationship because of Voldemort (and the rat, but mostly Voldemort).
I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greece,
"Isn't that a dead language?" Hermione asked.
"Not in our culture," Annabeth said.
and I'd understood him perfectly.
"I would have been worried if you didn't," Grover muttered under his breath.
I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—
The boys were disgusted by this, and the single women had interested expressions on their faces.
and where his legs should be… where his legs should be…
"What is it?" Harry asked.
Percy didn't say anything. He just stayed silent, from shock.
My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before. " Percy. Tell me now!"
The Weasley children shuddered, knowing how angry their mother could get if you provoked her.
I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
"You didn't mention getting into a sword fight or about the string being cut," Sally said.
"I was busy trying to wonder if I hallucinated either of those," Percy said.
She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"
"Yes, go. You need to leave. It's not safe for you there," Annabeth said, worried, and holding onto the love of her life's hand absentmindedly, and he held onto her hand as well. Does Percy like me too? I thought it was just me, she thought. I'll confront him after the next chapter, she thought.
Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters,
Everybody chuckled at the description, and those who did not know Grover was a satyr, had confused looks and frowns on their faces.
" It'll be explained," Alex explained, his loud booming voice taking over the Bluetooth speakers and surround sound for a moment.
and suddenly, his story about a muscular disease in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.
"That doesn't make any sense," Harry said.
Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.
"Are you sure you weren't hallucinating, mate?" Ron asked.
"No, I'm pretty sure I was not hallucinating, genius. For one, if I was hallucinating, I wouldn't have seen it. For two, he's—never mind, I'll wait for him to say it when it comes to it," Percy said.