Percy Jackson

Once I started getting used to my Latin teacher also being half not human, the tour he gave me of the place was nice. I was careful to walk next to him or in front, because I didn't trust his back end like I did his front.

I've worked the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade before on pooper scooper duty.

Never again.

Most of the kids were older than me and all wore the same orange shirt that Grover and Annabeth had been wearing. As we passed the volleyball pit, some kids nudged each other and pointed at me or at least motioned towards me. I heard one kid whisper that's him. Another pointed at the Minotaur horn.

I'm not usually shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable, like when I have to introduce myself to my class on the first day of school as a transfer. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

Looking back at the farmhouse, I realized just how big it was- four stories tall and baby blue. Just as I was looking away, I saw a shadow from the top floor move.

"What's up there?" I asked my old Latin teacher, his smile fading at the question.

"Nothing." He insisted. "Just the attic.'

"Does somebody live up there?"

"Not a single living thing."

And while I could sense that he was telling the truth, I know that something moved the curtains up there.

Maybe Mr. D or Grover had to grab something. Attics usually are used for storage, right? Maybe Mr. D kept kegs of Diet Coke up there.

"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone almost forced. "lots to see, so little time to do so."

He showed me the strawberry fields, which apparently paid for any expenses the camp had and were super easy to grow thanks to the satyr and Mr. D- who wasn't allowed to grow grapes, just strawberries.

I watched a satyr playing reed pipes, causing leaves to sprout and bugs to flee from the plant. I wondered if Grover could do that.

I bet he could.

I was kind of worried about him, though, being alone with Mr. D. Hopefully he wasn't getting chewed out by the pathetic excuse for a god.

"Do you- do you think Grover's going to be alright?" I asked. "He won't get into too much trouble, will he? I mean, he was a good protector. He even walked me back to my apartment from the bus station."

Chiron sighed, like he was debating his answer.

"Grover has big dreams, Percy- perhaps too big. To reach his goal, he must show courage and successfully complete a keeper position."

"But he did that! I'm right here, and it's not his fault that the Minotaur ran faster than we could drive. That's like... Whoever controls the weather. I want to say Z- the one that controls lightning, but I don't know for sure. There's a lot of small gods with weird jobs."

"I might agree with you on Grover's success, but it's not our decision." Chiron agreed with me, ignoring the comment about the weird weather. "it's up to Mr. D and the Council of Cloven Elders to decide if it was a success- between the fate of your mother, and the fact that you were passed out and he passed out within moments of getting inside the border, they may decide it's not enough."

"But he- but he can get a second chance, right?"

Chiron gave me a sad smile.

"This was his second chance," the centaur informed me. "After what happened five years ago... I'm sure he'll tell you when he's ready to, Olympus knows, but I advised him to wait longer. He was anxious, though, and insisted that he was ready. Maybe he'll find another career..."

"But that's... That's not fair."

"Life hardly is. Let's move along, shall we?"

After that, we made our way to various other spots around the camp: the canoe lake, the armory, the amphitheater, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem fond of), the pavilion (which didn't have a cover for bad weather, and Chiron looked at me weird when I mentioned that), and we ended at the cabins.

There were twelve of them, arranged in a semi-circle around a hearth and all looked very different from one another. At the fire, a girl that was younger than me- maybe 9, was tending to the flames. She smiled at me and I waved.

The cabins were crazy, though. Cabin 9 had smokestacks, cabin 2 had pomegranates and flowers. They were arranged with what seemed to be gods (odd numbers) on the left and goddesses (even numbers) on the right. The biggest two cabins were cabins 1 and 2, though, and they also looked more traditional.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed, looking at those two cabins.

"Correct."

"They look empty."

"Also correct," Chiron confirmed for me. "many cabins are empty, but nobody ever stays in the first two cabins."

Okay, so each Olympian gets a cabin- that explains why Hera's would be empty and then cabin 8, which, based on the moon and the silver, was Artemis' cabin.

As we walked closer, though, I felt compelled to look at cabin 3. It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one- it was low and sturdy, with a lot of seashell and abalone decoration. It smelled of seasalt, but the closer I got the more desolate it seemed. I was kind of glad when Chiron geared me away after noticing that I was walking towards it.

Almost all of the others cabins were crowded. Cabin 5- Ares, had an ugly bright red paint job and barbed wire along the roof. The loudest kid in the was a girl that was either 13 or 14 wearing one of those XXXL shirts that aren't actually an XXXL but more like a large or extra large under a camo jacket. She was still very built in a way that I knew was muscles, but not as visible as it was with Annabeth. She gave me a sneer before we kept walking.

"We haven't seen any centaurs." I noticed, Chiron nodding his head.

"I'm afraid my kinsmen are most often wild and barbaric folk. You may see them yet in the wild or at major sporting events. They're especially fond of American football. You won't see any here, though."

"Oh," I responded, then asking the question that's been bothering me since I learned Mr. Bruner's actual name. "You said your name is Chiron. Are you actually...?"

"The Chiron from the stories?" He finished my question. "who trained Achilles and Heracles? I recall you being quite interested in Achilles' story." The centaur recalled, which was a little embarrassing. "But to answer your question, Percy, yes, that is I. Like the gods, I too can not die so long as heroes are in need of training."

"Does that... Not get boring?"

"Never." Chiron told me. "Incredibly depressing, at times. But never dull. Never boring."

"What do you mean depressing?"

And, a master at adversion, Chiron looked over to cabin 11, the most basic cabin.

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

Walking over to cabin 11, Annabeth was sitting outside reading the book that I couldn't make out the name of, probably because the letters were Greek. Based on the photos, it looked like it had something to do with buildings. Architecture maybe?

"Annabeth," Chiron said. "i have master archery class to teach at noon, would you be able to take Percy from here."

Looking up, Annabeth slowly closed her book and nodded her head. "Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," my former Latin teacher motioned towards the cabin in front of us. "Make yourself at home."

Because I'll be allowed here long enough for it to feel like that.

As I said, cabin 11 seemed like a standard cabin. It's only defining feature was the symbol above the doorway: a staff with snakes, which is also a sign usually at hospitals. A cadecus?

Inside, the cabin was filled with more kids than there were bunks, evident by the sleeping bags that littered the ground.  It looked like a building that the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center (and trust me, I knew from experience).

Chiron didn't come in with Annabeth or I, the doorway a bit short for him, but a lot of the campers still bowed to him (should I he bowing to Chiron? That feels weird).

"Well then," the centaur announced. "i should be going. Good luck, Percy, I'll see you at dinner."

Standing in the doorway, I looked around at all of the kids as I heard Chiron gallop away. They'd stopped bowing and were now just staring at me, something I was used to. They were sizing me up, something I'd dealt with in all of the schools I'd gone to.

"Well?" Annabeth asked impatiently. "Go on."

So naturally I almost tripped stepping inside.

What can I say? Kids were staring at me that we a lot bigger than I was and it made me kind of uncomfortable. There were some snickers from the back and s few people whispering to each other.

"Regular or undetermined?" A guy closer to the front asked.

"Undetermined."

Now, I had no idea what that meant, but it must've been bad based on the sea of groans it was met with.

As the others groaned, an older kid came forward in the crowd.

"Now, now, campers, relax," he insisted, stopping not far from me. He gave me a warm smile "This is what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have a spot right over there, on the floor."

The guy was about 17, maybe 18 years old with short-cropped blond hair, blue eyes, and a warm smile.  He was around 6' and had a muscular build and he seemed really cool, even wearing the same orange shirt and bead necklace (where was everyone getting the necklace from?) as everyone else. The only unsettling thing about him was a scar that he had that ran down the right side of his face, from his eye down to his jaw, like a cut.

"This is Luke," Annabeth introduced me, her voice changing ever so slightly around him. I could swear she was blushing, but the moment she realized I was looking, she steeled her expression. "He's your counselor. For now."

"For now?"

How long would that be?

"You're undetermined," Luke repeated, which felt par for the course looking at the rest of my life. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. We take all newcomers in cabin 11 seeing as our patron, dad, whatever, is Hermes— god of travellers."

Looking at my tiny section of floor Luke had designated for me, I thought about trying to physically claim it before remembering that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers all behind Luke. Some looked sullen, others suspicious, some were way too excited to pick my empty pockets.

"How long will I be here?"

"That's a great question," Luke told me, shrugging. "Until you're determined."

"And how long does that usually take?" I followed up. "just like... On average?"

Before Luke could answer, the other kids laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told me, her fingers wrapping around my wrist suddenly and pulled me outside the cabin, even though I wasn't done talking to Luke yet. "I can show you the—"

I pulled my hand away, hugging myself with the arm she just tried to grab. I could hear the cabin 11 kids laughing as we left.

"Don't touch me." I cut her off, stopping in my tracks. "I don't like being touched."

She raised an eyebrow at me like I was an annoying obstacle in her way.

"You seemed to have no issue with Grover touching you at the Big House earlier."

"I—" I stopped myself, balling my fists and looking down. "I've known Grover for ten months. We've been around each other for like 10 minutes. I didn't let Grover do it at first, either. Trust me, you can ask him."

"Gods, I can't believe you were the one," the smartass said to herself. "You have to do better than that, Jackson."

I let out a breath, trying to remember what my parole officer always tells me after I get into fights.

"What's your problem?" I demanded, now angry. "All I know is that I kill some bull guy and—"

"Don't talk like that," she snapped right back at me. "you're so lucky. Do you know how many kids would kill to have that chance?"

"What?" I asked. "to get killed? To have their mom be killed?"

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

"I don't know!" I reminded her, feeling the blood rush to my face again. "I just got here! I..."

The statement died in my throat.

"Look, even if what I fought was really the Minotaur, that thing died like....thousands of years ago. It's dead."

She sighed, annoyed (which is something I'm glad we could be on the same page about).

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

"Oh, why thank you, Einstein, that makes it crystal fucking clear."

She groaned.

"They don't have souls like us, so when they die, they go to Tartarus and can come back to life." She actually clarified as if it were that hard to say the first time. "Being killed is like being forced to take a nap for them. Annoying, but they'll come back. Usually not for a while, though. If you're lucky, a while lifetime."

"So if I accidentally killed one with a sword...?"

"The Fur... Your math teacher? I'm sure she's still alive. Just really irritated. She's still out there, I promise."

"Wait," I noted. "you almost called her something else. A Fury? Like Hades torturer's?"

Annabeth glanced at the ground nervously, as if she expected it to swallow her whole.

"Don't call them that," she lectured me, as if she were my mom. "If we have to speak of them at all, we call them the Kindly Ones."

The names didn't make logical sense, torturing isn't all that kind, but I decided to not comment on it because of my growing frustrations with other things.

"Is there anything we can say without it thundering?" And maybe I sounded like a kid asking the questions, but you know what? I am a kid, so sue me. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven anyways? It's cramped and crowded and there's so many empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first three cabins, all vacant.

"You don't choose a cabin," she said, as if that was supposed to be obvious. It depends on who your parents are. Or... Parent."

She looked at me as if what she was referencing should be obvious.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," I told Annabeth. "she works at a candy shop in Grand Central Station or... She did. My dad is Gabe Ugliano, he manages an electronics store in Queens."

Her reaction made it clear that Annabeth didn't expect me to tell her as much as I did, though.

"And I'm sorry about your mom, but—" she cut herself short. "Your dad? You know both your parents?"

I crossed my arms.

"I mean, he's technically my step dad, but it's not like my bio-dad's ever made an appearance, much less lived up to the title." I explained. "I'm pretty sure he's dead."

"He's not dead."

"And you know this how?"

"Because you wouldn't be here otherwise,"Annabeth told me. "You wouldn't be here if you were one of us."

One of us.

Something about that phrase upset me in a way that i didn't want Annabeth to see.

I'm one of them.

But for how long?

How long will I be in cabin 11?

Probably long enough to start to feel comfortable and at home and then be forced out.

How long will I be at this camp?

Probably long enough for the same thing to happen.

"You don't know anything about me."

"Oh, really?" She took it as a challenge, which wasn't what it was. "i bet you bounced around school to school. ADHD and dyslexia? Usually sure signs that you should be here. ADHD makes you battle ready, dyslexia means your brain is hardwired for ancient Greek, not English. I'm sure most teachers wanted you medicated, right? They didn't want you to see what or who they really were."

But her description of that made me take a step back.

Did she watch me with Grover?

"You... Sound like you went through the same thing."

"Most kids here did," she confirmed for me. "Face it, Jackson. If you weren't like is, you wouldn't have survived the nectar or ambrosia used to heal you, or the Minotaur. You're a half blood."

A half blood.

Now maybe, because she was visibly white, she didn't mean it in the way that it came across.

But it's a term I'd heard more than enough of growing up.

A term that I despised.

A half blood.

I was a guest in one culture, and a guest in another, and I didn't have a home in either.

I was reeling with so many thoughts that I didn't know where to start when the girl in the XXXL shirt from cabin 5 came hurling towards us.

"Well, look! A newbie!" She yelled with a husky voice.

Looking over, she had three girls with her, all wearing matching camo jackets like it was some sort of fashion statement.

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

"Sure, little Miss Princess," and for as much as this reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, I couldn't argue with her on Annabeth's nickname. "That way I can run you through with it in Friday."

"Erre es krokas!" Annabeth cursed, which I somehow understood was Greek for go to the crows, and then realized it was the Greek version of go fuck yourself. "You don't stand a chance.'

"Well pulverize you," she retorted before turning to me. "who's the runt?"

"Percy Jackson," Annabeth introduced us. "meet Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares."

"The war god?"

She took it way too personally.

"You got a problem with that, newbie?"

But she wanted to pick a fight, and I was angry about how vague everyone was being about everything, so it wasn't beneath me to take it.

"No, it just explains the bad smell."

She growled like a dog.

"We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."

"Try Percy, dyslexia isn't auditory, La Rue."

"Mhm." The daughter of Ares hummed. "Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried.

"Stay out of it, Wise Girl."

And miraculously, she listened. It seemed to pain her, but she stayed quiet, which was fine.

After all, I'm the new kid. I have to earn my reputation, and if it takes a fight, it takes a fight. I shoved the Minotaur horn into Annabeth's hands, but instead of throwing a punch, Clarisse grabbed me by my neck and started to drag me away towards a building i knew was the bathroom.

The hand around my neck was bigger, almost burly like...

What did I do this time?

Why is Gabe dragging me to... Is he going to throw me in my room? Or lock me out to get something that mom or I forgot or...?

Why can't I breathe?

Knowing it risked making it worse, I started to kick at Gabe, but it did no good. I could hear laughing and it sounded girlier than Gabe's poker buddies, but maybe it was the lack of oxygen. I tried to summon the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it wasn't there.

"Like he's Big Three material," Clarisse's voice snapped me out of what I would later realize was not what was actually happening. It was some sort of episode caused by the daughter of Ares grabbing me by the neck and hair. "I bet the Minotaur feel over laughing, he looks so stupid."

Her friends snickered, and the worst part of this was the fact that Annabeth seemed to have followed us. She was standing in the corner, looking at us through her fingers.

Clarisse kicked my knees from behind, forcing then to give out and kneel over the toilet, which smelled of rusted pipes and well... Shit. She pushed my head towards the bowl and I thought to myself I won't have this happen to me again before I felt a tug in my gut. I tried to resist her, but it wasn't working. I assumed the tug in my gut was strain.

Then the pipes started to rumble, and then they shruddered, causing Clarisse's grip on me to loosen just in time. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc over me. The next i knew, Clarisse was no longer touching me, but rather screaming behind me.

I turned around just in time for another blast of water to come out of the toilet and blast Clarisse in the fact, knocking her to the ground. The spray stayed on her like a fire hose, forcing her back towards the shower stalls. When her friends went to help, it was odd— the other toilets and showed started to act up as well and push them back with the current of water until they left the bathroom.

As soon as they were gone, I felt the tug in my gut go away and the water stopped as suddenly as it started.

The bathroom was flooded, and Annabeth was still standing there. She hadn't been spared, she was soaking wet, but she still remained where she was. Little Miss Princess looked shocked.

Looking down, I realized that I was the only dry person or thing in the room. Even my clothes and hair weren't wet.

I stood up, my legs shaky like they usually were when my mind framed back in after my ADHD makes it tap out.

"How did you...?" Annabeth asked.

"I don't know."

The two of us walked outside to see Clarisse and her friends sprawled in the mud, surrounded by other campers gawking at the sight. Her camo jacket was sopping wet and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of pure hatred.

"You're dead, new boy." She threatened. "You are totally dead."

And I should've let it go, but I'm bitter by nature, so I didn't.

"You wanna gargle some more toilet water, Clarisse?" I threatened. "Shut your trap."

Her friends had to hold her back from jumping me as they brought her back to Cabin 5. Other campers had to avoid her flailing feet.

Meanwhile, Annabeth was still staring at me and I couldn't figure out if it was because she was angry at me for dousing her, grossed out by it, or intimidated by it.

"What?" I demanded from her for the millionth time that afternoon. "what are you thinking?"

"I think," she answered, the most straightforward she'd been all day, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."