Friends and Enemies
See, bad things happen to me on field trips.
‘Oh, so it is not only in quests that you are super unlucky’, said Thalia snarkily, while Percy pouted, and the wizards looked at him weirdly.
Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn’t aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.
‘What in the hell were you aiming at anyway’, asked one of the twins, Percy still could not figure out who was who.
‘Well, I never thought that it was working’, complained Percy, ‘besides why would they leave a working war cannon, in places that children go to?’
‘Technically it probably was not working at least to mortals, that is’, commented Annabeth, ‘it was probably used during a wartime by demigods, so it was probably made with celestial bronze or imperial gold. It was probably lying around, until the touch of a demigod, like at the Saratoga battlefield, where that map was hidden or the entrance to the labyrinth’. Everybody else seemed to agree with this.
‘Okay, then why in the Hades was it loaded?’ asked Chris (‘Hey!’ that was from Hades).
Percy laughed very sheepishly. ‘Well it was not loaded’, he said, while rubbing the back of his head, ‘I mean at least not until, I did’. Everybody laughed, so hard that some (the twins, Stolls, Hermes, Apollo and some others) fell off their chairs. Most were clutching their stomachs, from laughing so hard.
‘So, you technically loaded a war cannon that was not supposed to be working, and blasted your school bus to pieces?’ asked Leo, ‘man, you are honestly my hero, now’.
‘Well, it was not like I was aiming at the bus, I was aiming at an empty ground, which was on the opposite side of the park’, the last part muttered so softly, that only Annabeth heard it, and she chuckled.
‘Yeah, and we all know how well you can aim’, whispered Thalia to Will and Nico, who chuckled, much to the amusement of the others, while Percy pouted.
Annabeth eventually took pity on him and started reading again.
And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool,
‘Ohh, that was a good one’, shouted Poseidon, ‘that was literally, what everybody talked about for the entire year, and those sharks were like the underwater celebrities of the entire ocean’ and started laughing.
Everybody was surprised, and was about to ask, when Poseidon waved to Annabeth, to continue reading.
I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.
The entire hall was silent for about 5 seconds, and then it was like a massive thunderstorm, conjured up by Zeus, everybody started laughing.
‘Wow, Percy, you should have told us about this’, said Conner, still laughing.
‘When I went there, someone told me to pull it’, shrugged Percy, ‘I thought it was the guide, so I pulled it’.
‘Wait what, the guide told you to pull the lever?’ asked Athena, surprised.
Percy thought for some time, ‘now that I think about it, I think it was one of the sharks who said it. I mean back then I did not know that I could understand fish’.
‘Wait, you can talk to fish?’ asked Hermione, very surprised. The wizards were surprised, while the demigods and gods were trying their best to control their laughter.
And the time before that…Well, you get the idea.
‘Noooo’, cried the twins and the Stolls, ‘we want more’. The Stolls had actually taken a notebook, to write them down.
‘Well, the time before that we went to the botanical gardens’, started Percy, but stopped instantly, when he saw the look that Annabeth gave (he mouthed, ‘later’ to the twins and the Stolls – they were overjoyed).
This trip, I was determined to be good.
‘And there you go jinxing it’, said Annabeth.
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-ketchup sandwich.
Everybody who knew Grover growled, while Thalia muttered, ‘I am going to kill her’. The demigods and wizards, who were near her, instantly moved away.
Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated.
'Yeah, well, imagine going through 6th grade for several years. Then finally when you actually get to meet a demigod, and then figure out that he is of the most powerful kind, again', muttered Grover.
'And we are all here alive and well, thanks to you', said Percy and gave him a hug, which Thalia also gave, while Nico gave a punch to his arm.
He must’ve been held back several grades because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin.
‘Hey!’ cried Grover, indignantly, while the others chuckled.
On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.
‘Well, I did need a cover story, didn’t I ?’, grumbled Grover.
‘Yeah well, it would have worked, as long as there is no enchilada day in that school’, smiled Percy.
Grover looked confused for some time, raised his hands in defeat, ‘well enchiladas in the Yancy Academy canteen were simply divine’. All the others were confused.
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.
The entire hall laughed. ‘Man, we should seriously give you lessons on how not to give up your charade’, commented the Stolls.
‘Ohh, he can stay in character now’, said Percy brightly.
‘That was literally the worst experience in my entire life’, groaned Grover, while Clarisse also chuckled.
Everybody looked at them confusedly, and Percy said, ‘it will probably come up in the books’, and told Annabeth to read.
Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair,
Thalia and Annabeth growled again, which made everybody move even further away, while Percy hugged Annabeth and said, ‘well she does sort of get it back, in a way at least’. Grover, remembering what happened, laughed.
and she knew I couldn’t do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.
‘Ohh, come on. That just ruins all the fun’, all the children complained (except for Hermione and Luna).
‘Kind of reminds me of Umbridge’, whispered Harry to Ron, who nodded.
“I’m going to kill her,” I mumbled.
‘Yes, please’ could be heard everywhere.
Grover tried to calm me down. “It’s okay. I like peanut butter.”
‘Yeah, not in your hair’, scoffed Piper.
‘I had to do something, to calm him down’, said Grover, raising his hands.
He dodged another piece of Nancy’s lunch.
“That’s it.” I started to get up,
‘Yes’, everyone cheered, while Chiron and Grover looked at each other and smiled.
but Grover pulled me back to my seat.
‘Noooo’, everyone exclaimed, surprisingly even some adults (Sirius, Remus, Tonks and surprisingly Moody).
“You’re already on probation,” he reminded me. “You know who’ll get blamed if anything happens.”
‘But still, that would have been totally worth it’, grumbled the Stolls.
Looking back on it, I wish I’d decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
‘Nope, that would actually have endangered the other students also’, said Annabeth, hoping that that was not how he was thinking.
Everybody else was very confused over what she meant. But she just continued reading, saying, ‘it will be there in the books’.
Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and orange pottery.
‘Man, that looks bloody creepy’, commented Ron, ‘you sound like it was a haunted house’.
‘You have no idea, museums almost always have ghosts’, muttered Reyna.
‘Or monsters’, said Percy, ‘who always wants to kill you’.
‘Or at least skeletons’, muttered Thalia. At this Percy also shuddered thinking about their fight when they were going to save Annabeth.
Annabeth looked curiously at them, Percy seeing this, ‘when I was on the quest with the hunters’. Annabeth nodded and started.
It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.
‘Much more than that, boy, much more’, said Artemis.
He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx
‘I hate them’, said Annabeth.
‘Well, technically you could have gotten off easy’, muttered Grover to Percy, who chuckled.
‘Those questions were insulting my intelligence’, said Annabeth indignantly. Percy and Grover started to laugh loudly at that.
Noticing that everybody was looking at them, ‘you will read about it’, said Grover.
‘I’m starting to hate that comment’, muttered many of them.
on the top and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age.
‘Your age?’ asked Ron, ‘so about 12. But why would they make a stele of such a young girl?’ The gods all looked at each other, remembering the day Pompeii was destroyed.
He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say,
Annabeth stopped her reading and looked at Percy, and back at the book, as if surprised. The other demigods were also gawking at Percy.
‘Annabeth, did you read it right?’ asked Nico, very surprised.
Annabeth nodded, ‘wow, Percy, where did this Percy go? Did he like disappear the moment you entered Camp Half-Blood?’
‘Heyy, I do listen to you’, pouted Percy, which caused everybody to laugh.
because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking,
‘The one time you actually tried to listen’, said Annabeth shaking her head.
and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.
‘Monster?’ asked Jason, to which Percy nodded. Hades looked grave, as he remembered who he sent to get his helm.
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.
‘Ahh, so this is where you first met her?’ asked Nico.
Percy nodded, ‘I have no idea why she still wears that jacket’.
‘You have no idea, imagine, when she comes as our lawyer, wearing that jacket?’ grumbled Nico, to which Percy chuckled.
Everybody else looked confused, but Percy just waved his hand, and said, ‘it will probably come up, if it does not, I will surely tell you’. This was starting to annoy the others, who did not know the story.
She had come to Yancy halfway through the year when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
‘Nervous breakdown?’ asked Harry looking at Percy, ‘did you cause it?’
Percy laughed, ‘nope, but what actually happened to her I wonder, I hope the teacher did not die’, and glanced at Hades.
Hades glanced at Poseidon (which he did not seem to notice - at least not yet), and said, carefully, ‘I would never allow the monsters who serve me to kill anyone. The underworld is packed as it is. I do not want any more to come and pack it even more’.
‘Brother, did you send a monster before the minotaur?’ asked Poseidon.
Hades actually looked shameful, but still muttered, ‘I was not the one who sent the minotaur, actually’.
Percy stood up, ‘father, uncle had every right to be angry. Besides, you know the reason and anyway he kept his side of the bargain, so please forgive him’. Poseidon seemed to calm down.
‘Wait, it was not you, who sent the minotaur?’ asked Percy, surprised.
Hades nodded his head.
‘I wonder?’ said Percy thoughtfully, looking at Thalia and Annabeth.
‘I won’t be surprised’, said Thalia, while Annabeth looked down, which made it obvious that she also thinks that it could’ve been him.
‘We know, it’ll be there’.
From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was a devil spawn.
‘Noooo, that is Nico’, said Thalia, also recognizing who the monster was. The demigods all chuckled, while Nico stuck his tongue out at Thalia.
She would point her crooked finger at me and say, “Now, honey,”
‘She still calls you that, right?’ asked Nico, trying to control his laughter.
‘Well, that is the precise reason, as to why I still call her Mrs. Dodds’, Percy smiled.
real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.
‘Man, that sucks. I hate detention’, grumbled Ron, to which all the children agreed.
One time, after she’d made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight,
‘At least you did not have to sign for fan mail’, grumbled Harry.
Percy hearing this asked, ‘fan mail?’
‘You have no idea’, answered Harry was about to tell the story, when he noticed Zeus glaring at them, ‘later, during the break’. Percy nodded, and Annabeth started reading.
I told Grover I didn’t think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, “You’re absolutely right.”
‘Grover, Grover, we should seriously teach you how to stay in character’, said Travis, while Connor nodded, very gravely.
‘It was late at night, besides, I was using it as a metaphor, rather than a literal thing’, said Grover.