Chapter 3
III. Austin
Austin wandered around the lake, keeping an eye out for any signs of the drawings.
Kayla insisted on doing it right away, warning that they could get kicked out of the camp if they kept misbehaving. The thought of that happening made his stomach drop—he definitely didn’t want to risk it!
His mom had been excited when he finally agreed to give summer camp a try. She’d been pushing him to try it since last year, but he just wasn’t interested. The idea of going without her made him nervous. What if…what if the other kids picked on me for singing my mom's original songs?
Austin remembered his mom saying that if people talked about how much they hated a song, it usually meant they were just repeating what someone else had said. In other words, they didn’t actually dislike the song; they only thought they did because they were influenced by someone else’s opinion.
Even though she was trying to encourage him, he still felt nervous. But he gave it his all because he wanted to see his mom smile and be proud of him.
He thought the summer camp might be like that, but it turned out to be different. He made a new friend named Kayla on his second day. She was kind and supportive, though they hadn't meant to make anyone cry.
Austin was just as excited as everyone else, though not everyone shared his enthusiasm. Sometimes, he didn’t mean to say certain things and often got distracted. The campers around him told him it was because he had ADHD, and he was aware that he did have it.
But what surprised him was that they didn’t treat him badly at all. They were just like him, and he thought that was pretty cool! He was excited to tell his mom about everything—the winged horses, the half-goat people, and all the information he had learned!
But not this.
Not after he had made someone kick his shin, which hurt a lot.
"I can’t find anything," Kayla said, and peered across the lake again. "I’ve been searching everywhere."
Austin also wondered how they could manage to see every little detail across the entire lake. Maybe they just had really sharp eyes.
"Because," Austin started, "I’ve told you so many times before that it’s a paper. It must have been soaked in water, ripped up, and boosh—gone!”
"It's impossible," Kayla said with a little frown. "My journal pages don’t get soaked when they touch water. I remember writing in it even when I was in the bath!”
“Because you can find those waterproof papers at every market!"
"Wait, really?" Kayla replied, looking upset. "I thought I had magic.”
Austin rubbed his nose. "Look, if we don’t find any drawings today, we’ll have to figure it out tomorrow.”
Kayla threw up her hands and then started giving Austin gentle pushes. "But we still need to do something.” She said, "Last time, I lost one of my journals—it had all my favorite things in it, and I had to like, search for a week.”
“For a week?”
Austin had experienced something similar. He once lost his favorite toy car, and it took him forever to find it. He remembered how annoying it was to run around the house just to find his car!
"Yup," Kayla nodded. "Then my dad reminded me that I probably left it at the park. But the park was miles away, and I was very upset I cried a lot. In the end, I just made a new one to replace it!”
"Then what happened?" Austin asked, picking up a crumpled leaf from the ground.
"Then, then…" Kayla said, her brow furrowing. "I forgot what happened next. Do I need to add another sentence?”
"I don’t know…maybe if you're like—explaining,”
"But I’m telling a story from the past, not explaining."
Austin let the crumpled leaf fall to the ground and stepped on it with his shoe. "It’s the same thing!”
"Nuh-uh.”
"Let's just draw something for him," Austin said. "If we can’t find it, we’ll replace it!”
"You're right, but…” Kayla glanced around before focusing on him. "We don’t know what was on the paper."
“We don’t need to know what was on it; it could have been a stick figure or whatever,” he said. “When you forget your journal, do you even remember what was in it?”
“I don’t even remember,” Kayla replied. “I have ADHD."
“Exactly,” Austin said. “We just need to create something more perfect!"
"Oooh, I’ve got my art supplies with me; we can definitely use them!"
"So, here’s the plan: we’re skipping the afternoon activities tomorrow and heading straight to Arts and Crafts."
Kayla gave a nod and tried to adopt a serious expression, but her face kept twitching in a scrunch. “Got it, little boss."
Austin tossed another leaf onto her face before running off, leaving Kayla with no chance to get revenge.
The next day, they did their best to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary, especially during archery training. Chiron—the centaur—was there to teach them. Austin, however, found it impossible to keep his eyes off Chiron's horse. It was a distraction, but that was a different story for another time.
The boy who had kicked his shin was there as well, with a camper guiding him.
They even skipped lunch so they would have more time to work on the drawing. Kayla had brought her art supplies and they managed to borrow some from the Arts and Crafts area. There were only a few campers around, but most of them were busy sculpting.
Austin didn’t really understand what they were doing, but they started drawing figures and things they had seen around the camp.
“Look, I drew a Naiad!” Kayla said excitedly, showing off her mermaid drawing. “I saw them at the lake yesterday.”
Austin squinted at the drawing and frowned. He poked the mermaid with his yellow crayon. “That’s not right,” he said
“They don’t look like that.”
“How do you know they don’t look like that?” Kayla asked, starting to color in the mermaid’s hair.
“Well, they helped us yesterday, remember?” Austin replied. “I didn’t see any tails on them.”
“But they looked like mermaids!”
“No, they didn’t,” Austin replied.
“Well, you’re coloring the pegasus wrong!” Kayla countered.
They managed to finish the drawing, but not without arguing loudly, throwing colors at each other, and ruining the other drawings in the process. By the time they were done, the drawing was even worse than Austin had intended to do.
"Oh wow, it looks perfect!" Kayla exclaimed.
Austin yanked the paper from her hands. "No, it doesn’t," he said. "We were supposed to color the sky blue, but you put green in it."
"That’s because we need cyan!"
"Why'd you make the sky cyan? The sky’s blue!”
"Hey, can you keep it down?" one of the campers scolded, they were hunched over a block of clay, concentrating hard on sculpting a pineapple.
"Sorry," Austin and Kayla mumbled, before hurrying out of the room.
It was starting to get dark by the time they finally made it back to the cabins. A few campers were still milling around, some campers were just out, probably waiting for dinner. The idea of a food made Austin's stomach growl, reminding him that they hadn’t eaten since lunch.
Dinner hadn’t changed; they still had to squeeze in with the other campers at one table. He still didn't understand why they have to stick with one table while the others don’t have to sit so cramped!
After quickly scarfing their barbecues, they pushed back from the table and stood up, giving the other campers a bit more room.
"Should we go for it now?" Austin asked.
"Yeah," Kayla said. "This the only thing we can do before we're kicked out!’
They found the boy sitting at one of the tables with the other campers. He was shoveling food into his mouth with his hands, and it was splattering all over his shirt and the table. But nobody else seemed to mind. It was different from the table behind them, where the kids were eating neatly while having conversations.
They walked over to the boy, who looked up with a slight frown that grew deeper when he recognized them. This is bad, Austin thought nervously. This is a bad idea!
"Hey," Kayla said, scratching her ginger hair awkwardly. "We’ve got like…something for you."
"Something?" the boy asked warily.
"Yeah," Austin replied. "You could call it a gift.”
"A gift?" The boy's expression shifted instantly. Austin could definitely relate, even he would be super excited if someone gave him a gift!
"Also, we wanted to say sorry," Kayla said. "For ruining your drawing…”
"It's okay," the boy mumbled, twisting a piece of barbecue. "My drawing was ugly anyway."
"Don’t say that.” Austin disagreed.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
“What was even in the drawing?” Kayla asked.
The boy’s face brightened a little. “Spider-Man,” he answered. “Annabeth didn’t want me drawing him anyway because she’s so scared of spiders!”
"Well, we made this for you." Kayla handed him a folded piece of paper.
The boy hesitated for a moment, staring at the paper before carefully taking it from her. Austin and Kayla watched closely as he slowly unfolded it. They weren’t sure if it would work, given that the drawing hadn’t turned out perfectly.
Austin fidgeted, "It's okay if you…if you don’t like it,"
But the boy was already gasping at the drawing. “Really, this is for me?” he squeaked, drawing everyone’s attention from the table.
“Just—just keep the drawing down,” Austin said nervously.
“But I like it!” the boy’s eyes sparkled. “Look, look! They drew something for me!”
The camper across from the boy stared at the drawing, and everyone else followed suit. “Woah, did you guys draw this?”
Kayla nodded excitedly. “Yeah!”
“It’s awesome, right?!” the boy exclaimed, snatching the drawing back and staring at it in awe.
"Yeah," one of them said, pointing at the horse. "Is that a yellow pegasus?"
Austin felt his cheeks flush, and he could hear Kayla giggling next to him. Fine, she won. But that doesn't mean she knows that the sky is blue, not cyan!
It looked like the boy had already forgiven them. He was bouncing around in his seat, looking really happy.
"Thanks, guys," another camper said, giving them a wave. "Ron's been bugging me about one of these. Too bad it's summer, or we could've gotten him one."
“It’s okay,” Kayla said with a cheerful smile. “If he wants more gifts, I still have some leftover Jell-Os in my bag.”
"I have a chocolate bar," Austin let out a sheepish smile. "Um, if he wants it…”
"I want chocolate!" Ron whined. "Can I have one, Lee, please?"
The camper who thanked them narrowed his dark brown eyes. "If you brush your teeth properly every night before bed, maybe I'll think about it."
"No," Ron said, but thought about it. "Okay,"
Austin reached into his pocket, pulled out the chocolate bar, and handed it to Ron. The boy's smile was so wide and that made him feel like he had accomplished something really special. He couldn't help but think that his mom would be proud of him for making someone so happy.
"I told you it would work," Kayla whispered.
"You're right," Austin nodded happily. "Thanks."
"Come on, I bet they're already chowing down on my plate of barbecues," Kayla said, pulling him back. "I left some on mine,”
They sprinted back toward their table, shoving each other. But when they arrived at the table, they realized they'd already lost their seats. The both of them decided to just wait for the sing-along, their favorite part of the day.
After Mr. D's usual rambling announcements, followed by a comment about how ungrateful they were, the dinner finally ended, with everyone full and satisfied.
"Dude, does he look a little...drunk to you?" Kayla whispered, watching Mr. D sip on his Diet Coke.
"He's a god, Kayla."
They both jumped when Mr. D glanced in their direction. Quickly, they hurried toward the others who were already heading to the sing-along.
“Hey!” someone shouted, grabbing their attention. They both turned around to find Lee standing there, carefully holding Ron’s hand in his.
“Hi there,” Kayla said with a smile. “Are you all heading to the sing-along?”
“I'm actually in charge of leading it,” Lee laughed. “I don’t think I’ve caught your names yet. You guys were the new ones, right?”
“Yep,” Kayla replied.
“Hi again,” Austin greeted.
“It’s great to see new campers enjoying themselves,” Lee nodded, “Most of them are still pretty shocked, man. I mean, think about it—being demigods? Isn’t that unbelievable?”
“Not really,” Austin replied.
“Not shocked at all,” Kayla added. “Oh! I’m Kayla, by the way!”
Austin introduced himself, still trying to wrap his head around the sudden turn of events.
“Look, Lee!” Ron exclaimed, pointing at Kayla. “We've got the same hair color and little dots on our faces."
Kayla giggled. "Maybe we're actually long-lost siblings or something!"
"We'll figure out if you're one of dad's children soon," Lee said, "But I hope your godly parents claimed you this week.”
"So how does the claiming process actually work?" Austin asked curiously.
"The symbol will appear on your head, depending on whichever claims you. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit." Lee explained.
"Gee," That doesn't sound very reassuring at all. “So who’s your godly parent?”
“Apollo,” Lee replied.
“What’s he like?” Kayla asked. “I’ve heard about him before. Is he as handsome as they say?”
Lee fought back a laugh. “We always make a trip to Olympus every solstice, so…you could say that.”
“Olympus, like the Olympics?”
“Not sports,” Lee said, shaking his head. “Come on, hurry up—the sing-along’s about to start.”
“Sit with me,” Ron said cheerfully, and they both took their seats, one on each side of him.
“I still don’t understand,” Kayla said. “What’s Olympus?”
“It’s not a sport, okay?” Ron said, shaking his head, mimicking Lee. “I haven’t been there myself, but…they say it’s amazing—like a place waaay above the sky!”
“So you had to fly?” Austin asked. He started getting nervous again, the thought of flying—especially on a Pegasus—was already making his stomach churn.
“No, no flying,” Ron said. “There’s this place called the Empty Site Building.”
“Cool!” Kayla said, then her brows furrowed. “but what’s an Empty Site Building?”
“I don't know! But I heard that you have to take the elevator,” Ron said excitedly. “Then you enter the code, and that’s how they let you into the secret base.”
They were about to ask more questions, but the singing had already begun, and Austin wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass without joining in!
They sang the same songs as yesterday, the familiar ones, before the campers around them started making up their own tunes, laughing as they tossed marshmallows at each other. Ron was munching on the dozens of marshmallows that had been thrown at him, while Austin was trying to catch one mid-air.
“Hey, who wants cookies?” someone called out, and everyone cheered and eagerly demanded them, chanting cookies, cookies, cookies.
He hoped he could come back here next summer, he worried, though, that he might not be able to return if his mom’s busy. He desperately wanted to meet his dad. If he did, he’d be able to tell his mom that he finally found his father. He hoped that, if meeting his dad was the real reason she sent him to summer camp, it would all make sense.
Kayla poked him, and Austin turned around to see her handing out marshmallows. He ate in silence, watching as the fire danced higher and brighter, mesmerized by its warmth.
He suddenly realized that everyone had stopped singing, and the camp seemed to have fallen silent. He looked up and saw that everyone was staring in his direction. He thought it was because of the marshmallow he was eating.
Nope.
Because there was something glowing above Kayla's head. She waved her hand towards it, but it moved past, leaving only a glowing symbol behind, like a hologram.
Kayla glanced at him, her eyes quickly darting up above his head. He did the same thing, and saw the same symbol above him—a golden lyre that appeared to be playing a melody all on its own.
“Well,” Lee said, now standing tall, “Welcome to Cabin Seven.”
Then everyone knelt down.