Persephoneia Jackson And The Olympians

HOW I ∆CCIDENTALLY V∆PORIZED MY PRE-∆LGEBRA TE∆CHER

For a little context let me tell you something: bad things always happen to me on field trips. It was a simple fact of life by now, like cigarettes smelled and tasted awful, or Christmas fruitcakes from the supermarket tasted stale even if they were fresh-ish, or Zeus was the undisputed King of Primadonas and Tempertantrums everywhere.

Need some proof, well here you go: during my fifth-grade field trip to the Saratoga battlefield there was a tiny accident between me and a Revolutionary War cannon that apparently disliked me enough to launch a cannonball at the innocent school bus that had taken us there, dispite the fact I A) never touched or lit the fuse, and B) there supposedly wasn't a cannonball in the darn thing in the first place. I, of course, was expelled for it anyways.

Before that little mishap during my fourth-grade school field trip to Marine World we had been taking a behid-the-scenes tour of their shark pool when I had evidently hit a wrong lever in true Kronk Fashion™ which ended up with our entire class taking an unexpected swim with the fishes. This was dispite the fact I made sure to stand as far from the levers as possible I was still blamed and subsequently expelled.

As Yzma would say: "Wrong Lever!!!!"

Get the picture now? Good.

Also sidenote: I told that story to my big brother once and he then proceeded to spend an entire five minutes laughing at me and my misfortune.

I was distinctly not amused.

Luckily for him, he quickly made it up to me by buying me a jumbo blue-raspberry Icee.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, my field trip! This trip I was determined to best this apparent curse I had on my school field trips and not give a reason for expulsion. Even if I wanted to fling myself from the cliffs into the Aegean Sea or walk into the middle of traffic in New York City - either option was fine with me at that moment in time.

The entire drive there I somehow managed to put up with Nancy Bobofit, a freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl who'd kept herself entertained throughout the ride by hitting my best friend, Grover Underwood, in the back of the head with torn chunks of her peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich (gag).

Grover was, unfortunately, an easy target by societal standards. He was scrawny, cried when he got frustrated (which - totally relatable), must've been held back several grades because he was the only sixth-grader with both acne and the start of a whispy beard on his chin, and on top of all of that, he was crippled. He had a note that excused him from P.E. for the rest of his life because of the muscular disease he had in his legs. Whenever he walked it was like he was walking bear-foot on Legos and broken glass, don't let that fool you though, there was none faster than he whenever it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy had been throwing chunks of her abomination-of-a-sandwich at him the entire time and whenever she hit her target it got stuck in his curly brown hair. Every time I turned to glare at her she would just give me this sick self-satisfied smirk because she knew I couldn't do much of anything as I was already on probation for punching (and subsequently breaking said idiot's nose) another student in the face for picking on Grover. The Dean had already threatened me with the dreaded death-by-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

What a buzzkill.

"I'm going to skin her, scrub her with sea salt, and then kill her with a rusted spoon." I muttered.

Grover tried (in vain) to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter." This, of course, was said as he dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch-turned-projectile.