Goode Day to be a Demigod

Chapter 5 - School?!

Soon, they turned the corner and saw Goode, with lots of students trickling into the school grounds. They saw lots of clusters of people, friends happy to see eachother again after a long summer. Eventually a group would move into the building - the office, Percy informed Annabeth. 

Annabeth saw Percy craning his head to see if he could see any of his friends from the year before, and so she told him to go find his friends. She said that she would probably be getting a tour of the school, so it made sense for them to split up. 

She pecked his cheek goodbye before the school gates and headed off walking straight into the building, while Percy slowed down to try and find faces he recognised. In the end, Percy ended up being recognised, and this drew the attention of everyone in his grade, who all knew about his sudden disappearance last year.

"Hey guys is that Percy? Wait - Percy? Percy Jackson?" Someone shouted from the midst of a group of people in Percy's grade. Percy turned his head when he heard his name being called, and everyone in the group did a double take. "No wayyy, it's actually him! Back from the dead, are you?"

"Hey guys, how are you? And a scarily accurate statement," Percy said, smiling sheepishly at his friends. He walked up to them and they immediately made space for him. Most of his friends were from the swim team, so everyone in the group was on or was once on the team.

"Good, good and you? Where were you last year? You just left in the middle of the year - no explanation! We got worried," Asked Karl, who had been one of Percy's best mates on the team.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that, family emergency and all. I'm good though, and it's nice to see you all again," He surveyed the group, noticing the changes in appearance since he left, "Hey Aaron grew! No way man, you got pretty tall!"

"Yep, two inches in five months. Very proud of myself, I'm no longer the smallest on the team!" Aaron said smugly. In turn, he looked over Percy for differences from when he had last seen him. One was incredibly obvious; "But wherever you went, it looks like you got ripped man. Somehow you look more muscular than you did last year,"

Percy chuckled and looked down at himself, "I was able to work out, I guess," Honestly, it was just Tartarus and the lack of food from that that made his muscles seem more defined. Although, he had definelty gained some muscle from all the fighting. 

"So you were able to workout but not keep in contact?"

This came from another of Percy's friends, who was presently looking pretty ticked off, despite - as his friends later told him - being worried about Percy the whole time he was gone. Ash was the first person that Percy actually met, and they were the one who got Percy to try for the swim team last year. The two of them were probably the closest out of everyone on the team, and Percy leaving without any warning had hit them pretty hard. They had even gone as far as to ask Paul about Percy, as Percy had told them about Paul being his stepdad.

"Hey, come on Ash, you know how he is with phones," Said one of the girls.

"No, it's alright, I probably deserve that," Percy admitted, "I, uh, got injured while I was with my family. I was with my aunt and something happened, details are pretty fuzzy and I got some sort of injury trauma amnesia where you forget what happened. I was in hospital for a while," 

Everyone looked mildly alarmed and shocked. Ash looked guilty, and apologized, "Shit, sorry Perce, I didn't mean to be like that,"

"Nah it's fine, you didn't know," Percy made a mental note to tell Annabeth his cover story, "Oh - unrelated note, I did get a phone recently so now I can actually call you guys!" He pulled out his phone to show his friends and they looked at the bronze rectangle in interest before giving him their numbers. "So... I mean, other than Aaron shooting up, what's happened around here?"