stollen things || c. stoll

5.1 ~ Charlie Beckendorf

Everyone began breaking off, silent. Most people went back to their cabins. Clarisse took Silena to the Big House, and Connor and I knew not to follow. So we headed back to the Hermes cabin to see Travis.

We only had to wait about an hour before war council was called. All of the senior counselors were sitting around the ping pong table in the rec room of the Big House. Lee Fletcher, the boy who used to be Apollo's counselor and a close friend of mine, had passed away last summer leaving his younger half-brother, Michael Yew, in charge. Pollux from Dionysus was there, along with Clarisse La Rue, the Stoll brothers, Silena, myself, and Jake Mason of Hephaestus.

As soon as we got there, Clarisse and Michael were already screaming and pointing fingers. Clarisse was wearing her full battle armor with her electric spear strapped to her back. I was worried for Michael, standing at a whopping four feet and six inches and getting up in Clarisse's face.

I liked to think we were friends, but the shouting match was over something ridiculous and it was such an odd sight, with Clarisse being over a foot taller than him and much more buff. Travis, Connor, and myself were struggling to keep silent, and kept hitting each other's legs to prevent laughing out loud.

The Apollo and Ares cabins had gone to Philly the week prior to capture a chariot from the titan army. Ares lead the mission, but it was actually the Apollo kids that physically got the chariot. They had been arguing over it since they all got back. I was counting the minutes until the first curse was cast. One thing that Apollo kids were good at was magic and spells. All the time their father spent creating poems paid off, so they had spells in the bag.

Silena was sitting silently in between the two of them, looking down at the ping pong table with puffy eyes. I wanted to sit with her, but Clarisse was giving any that came near a death stare.

Percy came down from the attic and started yelling at the two of them to quiet down. It wasn't fair on Silena.

"Tell Michael not to be a selfish asshole." Clarisse growled.

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you." He rolled his eyes.

"I'm only here to support Silena," Clarisse shouted. "Otherwise I'd be back in my cabin."

"What are you talking about?" Percy demanded.

Pollux cleared his throat. "Clarisse has refused to speak to any of us, until her, um, issue is resolved. She hasn't spoken for three days."

Travis snorted. "It's been wonderful."

"What issue?" Percy asked.

Clarisse turned to Chiron. "You're in charge, right? Does my cabin get what we want or not?"

"My dear, as I've already explained," Chiron said quietly. "Michael is correct. Apollo's cabin has the best claim. Besides, we have more important matters—"

"Sure," Clarisse snapped. "Always more important than what Ares needs. We're just supposed to show up and fight when you need us, and not complain!"

Yeah, there are more important things, I wanted to snap back at her. Like, I don't know, Beckendorf. Or the war! That one, too.

"That would be nice," Connor muttered to me.

Clarisse gripped her knife and waved it in the air. "Maybe I should ask Mr. D—"

Chiron was getting increasingly more impatient. "As you know, our director, Dionysus, is busy with the war. He can't be bothered with this."

"I see," Clarisse glowered, turning to us. "And the senior counselors? Are any of you going to side with me?"

We all looked to the table. It did make more sense for Apollo's cabin to get the chariot, though I didn't really get why it couldn't be a camp-wide chariot. Also Michael wasn't making it as big of a deal as Clarisse was. Also Clarisse was a bitch sometimes.