conqueror • percy jackson

3.

"I... I am a freak?" Tyson asked.

"No," Percy promised, gritting his teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."

The rest of his classes felt like they were moving by in slow motion. It was a relatively boring day after the events of that morning until social studies.

While they were drawing latitude/longitude maps, Percy opened his notebook and stared at the photo inside. It was Rosie on one of their trips to the skatepark.

She was wearing a shirt with little pink hearts printed all over it, a gift Percy had gotten her for her birthday in November as a joke, and ripped jeans. In the picture, Rosie's sitting on top of her skateboard and grinning at the camera.

Rosie pushed off of the ground with one foot, flying down the ramp on her board. Percy's eyes went wide watching her.

He didn't expect her to know how to skateboard.

He was so shocked that he didn't notice that she'd gotten to the other side and was waiting for him.

"You comin' or what?" She called out to him.

With a wide grin, Percy hopped onto his skateboard and followed after her. His mom had to drag them home that night.

Percy was glad he had it to remember their summer. On more than one occasion, he'd found himself really wishing she was around. He'd wanted to tell her about his dream just that morning.

Percy was about to close his notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.

"Hey!"

Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is not your-"

"Give it back!" Percy shouted, his ears growing hot. Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads.

"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."

His huge buddies chewed up my photo. Percy wanted to pulverize them, but he was under strict orders from Chiron never to take his anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were.

The bell rang.

As Tyson and Percy were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"

He looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying him any attention. He hurried to gym class and got changed in the locker room. On his way out, Tyson stopped him. He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.

"Will you... uh..."

"Oh. Yeah," Percy nodded. "Yeah. Sure, man."

Tyson ducked inside the weight room. Percy stood guard outside the door while he changed. He felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked him to most days. Percy learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.

Coach Nunley, the gym teacher, announced that they'd be playing dodgeball.

Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"

"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled.

"Mm-hmm." Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made Percy the other team's captain, but all of the jocks moved to Sloan's side right away.