Chapter Text
"How do you accidentally do that?" Ron Weasley asked, while his sister Ginny tried to hold back a laugh. Hermione shot them herI'm-reading-shut-upglare, to which they obeyed.
My name is Percy Jackson.
I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a privateschool for troubled kids in upstate New York.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yeah. You could say that.
Grover nodded in confirmation, and Percy looked offended.
I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going badlast May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids andtwo teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancientGreek and Roman stuff.
I know—it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.
Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffybeard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, buthe told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Romanarmor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.
"Go Chiron!" Ajax cheered.
I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.
Boy, was I wrong.
See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to theSaratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for theschool bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when wetook a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on thecatwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that . . . Well, you get the idea.
Fred and George exchanged a grin. They were halfway out of their seats, ready to make their way over to Percy and plot to destroy the world, but Ginny smacked them both. "Can you at least let Hermione finish the first page before killing us all?" she rolled her eyes.
This trip, I was determined to be good.
"How long did that last?" Draco teased, and Percy went pink. "Shut up sun kid!"
All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchupsandwich.
Annabeth and Thalia recoiled. "Why'd you put up with that Grover?" Thalia asked.
"Mission," Grover said simply as if it explained everything. It did.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been heldback several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on hischin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his lifebecause he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him,but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.
"Easy target," Ajax scoffed.
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and sheknew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster hadthreatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildlyentertaining happened on this trip.
"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.
"Yes! Beat her!" Coach Gleeson Hedge bellowed, at the same time as Alastor Mad-Eye Moody yelled "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
"Not two of them," Nymphadora groaned.
Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.
"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.
"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anythinghappens."
"That's right, blame the halfblood. Always blame the halfblood," Nymphadora scoffed.
Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspensionwould've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
"Intriguing," Luna mused.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statuesand glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and startedtelling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings onthe sides.
I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybodyaround me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds,would give me the evil eye.
Nico laughed. "You called her Mrs. Dodds?" he smirked, and Annabeth chuckled. Jason, Piper, Frank and Hazel looked confused.
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, eventhough she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She hadcome to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She wouldpoint her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get afterschool detention for a month.
One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I toldGrover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You'reabsolutely right."
"Ohh," Hazel giggled. "Is she a . . . "
"Kindly One," Grover nodded.
"She doesn't seem very kind," Dennis Creevey commented.
Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.
Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned aroundand said, "Will you shut up?"It came out louder than I meant it to.
The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"
My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."
"Here comes the part where you have to answer questions," Nico shook his head.
Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picturerepresents?"
I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronoseating his kids, right?"
"Ugh we're going to have to watch the whole Kronos thing again," Percy groaned.
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because . . ."
"Well . . ." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"
"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.
"Titan," I corrected myself. "And . . . he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos atethem, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeusgrew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"
Lavender gagged, and a whole bunch of the others did as well.
"Eeew!" one of the girls behind me said.
"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the godswon."
Some snickers from the group.
Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it'sgoing to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"
"Really?" Draco leaned forward. "She doesn't think this is important information? Really?" he said sarcastically.
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does thismatter in real life?"
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anythingwrong. He had radar ears.
"There's a reason for that," Grover nodded.
I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I learnt. Unreasonably quickly," Percy nodded.
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feedKronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, ofcourse, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan'sstomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered hisremains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs.Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
"Excuse me? You tell that and then expect them to go eat lunch peacefully? You're kidding right?" Seamus Finnegan scoffed.
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and actinglike doofuses.
Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."
I knew that was coming.
I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"
Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been athousand years old and had seen everything.
"Really?" Ajax tutted. "I wonder why."
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I willaccept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."
"Well he better be bloody happy after what Percy's done. Is taking a dip and becoming temporarily almost immortal good enough? Diving into Tartarus?" Draco shook his head.
Hermione glanced up from the book. "What did you say?"
"Nevermind, just continue Hermione," Artemis shook her head.
I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.
I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armorand shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and nameevery Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.
"That sounds fun! Why didn't he do that with us?" Piper grumbled.
"Pipes, you were in camp for like two days," Artemis reminded her.
But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia andattention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C– in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be asgood; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spellthem correctly.
Hermione stopped to glance over at us. "Don't you have ADHD and dyslexia, Art?" she asked, and I nodded.
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele,like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
"He probably had," Jason shrugged.
He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic alongFifth Avenue.
Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figuredmaybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had beenweird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. Iwouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
"Stupid gods throwing a hissy fit," Artemis rolled her eyes.
Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers.Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Doddswasn't seeing a thing.
"KILL HER! BEAT NANCY BOBOFIT -"
" - CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
"HER RED HAIRED BEHIND STRAIGHT BACK TO -"
"COACH HEDGE! SIT DOWN AND BE QUIET!" Piper ordered, and Hedge obeyed, but not of his own free will.
Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we didthat, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn'tmake it elsewhere.
"Detention?" Grover asked.
"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not agenius."
"Really? That's news to me," Draco told him sarcastically.
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deepphilosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"
"That's Grover for you," Thalia sighed.
I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.
I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment,only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jumpin a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'dsend me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in sixyears and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'dgive me.
"I love Sally," Artemis nodded. "Favourite person."
"Wow, rude," Jason grumbled.
"You have never had the pleasure of meeting Sally Jackson. I assure you she will become your favourite immediately," Thalia assured her brother.
Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he reada paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorizedcafé table.
I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her uglyfriends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch inGrover's lap.
"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody hadspray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.
"Your imagination never ceases to amaze me," Annabeth told her boyfriend, who grinned.
I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control ofyour temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.
I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in thefountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"
"—the water—"
"—like it grabbed her—"
"Water grabbed her, exploding toilets, parents met at a beach, father lost at sea, stronger when dunked in water, none of that told you who your dad was?" Ajax frowned, and Percy didn't say anything.
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at themuseum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'ddone something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."
That wasn't the right thing to say.
"Dude, never give punishment ideas! Misbehaving 101," George - or was it Fred - scolded.
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Groverto death.
"She's a Kindly One!" Grover folded his arms in defense.
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.
"But—"
"You—will—stay—here."
Grover looked at me desperately. "It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."
Nancy Bobofit smirked. I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.
"Scary," Ajax teased.
Then I turned to face Mrs.Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps,gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
How'd she get there so fast?
I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I knowI've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank placebehind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.
The demigods scoffed.
I wasn't so sure
I went after Mrs. Dodds.Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between meand Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner wasabsorbed in his novel.
"Chiron help him, he's really pathetic now!" Ajax said, and Percy looked offended.
I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end ofthe entrance hall.Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.
But apparently that wasn't the plan.I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greekand Roman section.
"How ironic," Reyna drawled.
Except for us, the gallery was empty.Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She wasmaking this weird noise in her throat, like growling.
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especiallyMrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it . . .
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."
"There was no safe way out of that scenario," Frank shook his head.
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"
The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.
Nico scoffed.
I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."
Thunder shook the building.
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we foundyou out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."
"Highly doubt that," Ginny shook her head. "And clearly they are fools."
I didn't know what she was talking about.
All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been sellingout of my dorm room.
All of the demigods were silent, and then they burst out laughing. "You were selling candy illegally?" Piper laughed.
Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internetwithout ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade.
"They didn't even check?" Annabeth scoffed.
Or worse, they weregoing to make me read the book.
"How is that worse?" Padma Patil asked.
"Dyslexic," Nymphadora explained between giggles.
Ajax looked thrilled. "Gods, Leo would've loved to hear about all this."
And just like that, the good mood faded.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't . . ."
"Your time is up," she hissed.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingersstretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was ashriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice meto ribbons.
The witches and wizards were stunned silent with shock. It took Hermione a few seconds to recover before continuing.
Then things got even stranger.
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into thedoorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out ofthe air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword,which he always used on tournament day.
"Riptide!"
Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.
She snarled, "Die, honey!"And she flew straight at me.
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.
"Came naturally?" Dean Thomas questioned.
Hisss!
Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on thespot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if thosetwo glowing red eyes were still watching me.
I was alone.There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms orsomething.Had I imagined the whole thing?
"Magic Mushrooms?" Ernie Macmillan asked.
"Drugs, dude," Justin Finch-Fletchley explained.
I went back outside.It had started to rain.
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was stillstanding there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me,she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
I said, "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.He said, "Who?"But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead.I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.
I went over to him.He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensilin the future, Mr. Jackson."
I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it. "Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"
He stared at me blankly. "Who?"
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip.As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"
"They tried to convince you that you were insane! I'm going to kill Chiron!" Annabeth growled
"As fun as that would be," Hermione turned the page and blinked. "Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death- what sort of Chapter names are these!?"
