𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟸𝙴𝟼: 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝙿𝚎𝚗

"Ouch!" Leo shouts, hitting his head on the table. "It's not under here!"

"Why don't you guys check your backpacks? Someone might have picked it up by accident," Jason suggests.

"Okay!" Leo dumps his backpack out on the table, and there's a lot to go through.

"Leo, why do you have so many Kool-Aid Jammers in here?" Piper asks.

"Why is there glitter?" Hazel asks.

Frank asks, "Why is there a photo of Annabeth?"

"Screw that," says Annabeth. "Why the hell is there a calendar with my name on it?"

Leo starts to talk. "Oh, uh-"

"Wait, I'm on it too," says Piper. "Why are these dates circled?"

"Hazel," Annabeth says. "You're circled for today and yesterday. What were you doing today that you were also doing yesterday, and probably will be doing tomorrow?"

"Oh my. Oh my." Hazel starts to fan herself.

Annabeth crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at Leo. "That answers that."

"What the heck?" Piper asks.

Leo offers her a bar of chocolate.

"Oh, thanks! Wait, no! Leo, you sicko!"

"I have no pen!" Leo says. "Who's next?"

"I didn't take it," says Hazel.

"Neither did I," says Piper. "But sure, search my backpack."

Jason assumes his seat at the head of the table, and also the role of the group's TSA agent. He empties Piper's backpack in front of him and pokes around. He shouldn't feel weirder going through a girl's things than he did with Leo's, but he does. After all, Leo doesn't keep tampons in his backpack, and he hasn't caught Jason's fascination for a little over a year.

"You have a lot of notices from the mailroom," Annabeth notes.

"I could help you carry your package to your room if it's too heavy," Jason offers.

Piper squirms, which is weird for her. She's usually so confident. "My uh, I mean, I don't have the pen!"

Jason sighs. "Next."

Frank dumps out his backpack next. There isn't much to go through, and he does have a pen!

"We did it!" says Jason.

"I'm so sorry about that, Percy!" says Frank.

"That's not my pen," says Percy. "My pen says 'riptide' on the side. That's a Lisa Frank pen."

Hazel takes the pen from Frank. "That's mine, actually." She unzips her pencil pouch as well as the many zippers on her backpack when Jason realizes that this is ridiculous! Hazel would never hurt a fly.

"For real, people?" Jason asks. "At this rate, the pen thief probably knows who he or she is. Can this person just come forward and apologize and give Percy's pen back? I'm sure you didn't realize it was that special."

Nobody comes forward, so Jason starts a countdown. "Three."

Nothing yet.

"Two."

Percy wrings his hands.

"One-"

"Hold up," says Annabeth. "You're the one leading this entire investigation, Jason."