Runaway Train | p. jackson

Chapter four; Family secrets are always the best

Family secrets are always the best

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Alex almost had a heart attack when she saw Chiron. From the waist up he looks like a regular middle-aged guy with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. From the waist down, he's a white stallion.

As soon as they saw him, Tyson froze.

"Pony!" he cried in total rapture.

"Horse!" Alex said alarmed at the horse man.

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not ... leaving?" Her voice was shaky.

Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. "Hello, child. And Percy, my goodness. You've grown over the year!"

Alex snorted. "Really?"

"Shut up Al." Percy grumbled.

Chiron stared at her expectantly. "Erm... A-Alessandra Grace Alonso Saint Auclair but you can just call me Alex." She said quickly, worried she was going to do something wrong.

"It is nice to me you Alex, I'm sorry that I will not be your teacher."

Percy swallowed. "So what Clarisse said was true. You were ... you were ..."

"Fired." Chiron's eyes glinted with dark humor. "Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."

'What?' Alex mouthed to Annabeth looking for answers but she just shook her head.

"Besides himself, you mean," Percy growled.

"But this is crazy!" Annabeth cried. "Chiron, you couldn't have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia's tree!"

They named the tree? Why would anyone name a tree? What sort of name Thalia anyway? Alex thought almost missing the conversation in front of her completely.

"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Percy and Alex asked in unison.

Chiron's face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boom box.

Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron's flank but was afraid to come closer. "Pony?"

Chiron sniffed. "My dear young Cyclops! I am a centaur. "

"Chiron," Percy said. "What about the tree? What happened?"

He shook his head sadly. "The poison used on Thalia's pine is something from the Underworld. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus."

"What's Tartarus?" Alex whispered to Annabeth.

"Big pit of monsters in the underworld, not a hole you'd want to fall into."