Max Whitfield and the Sea of Monsters

Chapter II: I get Bothered by a Street Dog

You know, you never realize how important your freedom is until you're forced to sit in a room and listen to a guy talk about the intricacies of the English language for an hour. And this just validates my belief that school is a prison system in disguise.

My ADHD only served to heighten my discomfort at being cooped up in a classroom. Looking back on it, it was a bit of a miracle how I'd lasted so long without going insane. The only class I actually enjoyed and tolerated was Biology. Not because I liked the subject or was even remotely good at it. It was because of the teacher, Mr. Oakley.

His full name was Vincent Oakley and he looked like a regular teacher, albeit a quite relaxed one. He usually dressed in a vest and a coat, loose fitting pants and a hat he never took off. But the thing that made him different than other teachers was a secret only I knew. You see, Mr. Oakley was actually a satyr.

The loose fitting pants were so people wouldn't notice his goat legs and the hat was meant to hide his horns, hence why he never took it off. Like many satyrs, he had been sent to my school to search for half-bloods. Fortunately, that meant he understood my situation and because of that, wasn't as strict as the others. He still expected results, but he was much more lenient with me. That meant I felt much more relaxed, which helped me pay attention.

However, on this particular day, my mind was far too occupied with my dream. I couldn't shake the feeling that Luke was going to try attacking Percy soon. As such, I ended up spacing out during most of the lesson. I barely noticed the bell signaling its end. And my absent mindedness didn't go unnoticed.

"Max." Mr. Oakley called out as I left.
"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I'm just a bit tired." I told him, not wanting to have a lengthy conversation about my dream.

"Alright. Just... if anything is bothering you, I can notify Chiron." he offered.

"Thanks, but there's no need."

I left the biology classroom and headed towards my worst nightmare: Math. To be perfectly honest, I did occasionally try to pay attention to that class. But the teacher had such a monotone and unexcited voice that I almost always ended up falling asleep. That is, when she wasn't scolding me about doing my homework or paying attention. During those times, I often wondered if she was a monster in disguise. However, she was a just a regular mortal.

Still, I told myself that this was literally the last week, so she couldn't throw any more homework or tests at me. All I had to do was get through these last lessons and then I would finally be free.

Since there wasn't really a point to listening to the teacher at this point, I took a small handbook out of my backpack. I had gotten it for the first Christmas I had with my mom after five years, and I had been using it to keep pictures that my mom sent me and the ones exchanged between me and my friends from Camp Half-blood.

There were some pictures of Annabeth in front of some buildings and with her stepbrothers, there were a couple of Percy and I in different places around New York. My gaze rested on a particular picture from back in October. It had been taken at Camp Half-blood and showed a girl with straight blonde hair and warm brown eyes. It was Penny Ranger, daughter of Apollo. We had met last summer, when she had arrived at Camp a few months before Percy. She ended up going with, him, Annabeth and another friend of ours, a satyr named Grover, on a quest to retrieve the stolen master bolt of Zeus.

Over the summer we had become quite close, sparring together and overall relying on the other whenever we had something on our minds. I had actually had times where I had been about to call for her when I needed to rant about something, before I remembered that she had stayed at Camp for the school year. I had thought about contacting her through an Iris-Message, but my drachmas were supposed to be for emergencies only. I was pretty sure chatting with Penny didn't count as an emergency.