Daughter of Neptune, Book one

I

Coach Hedge grunted like he was pleased to have an excuse. He took the megaphone off his belt and continued giving directions, but his voice came out like Darth Vader's.

Everyone was cracking up. Coach tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: "The cow says moo!"

The kids howled, and Coach slammed down the megaphone. "Valdez!"

Piper and I stifled a laugh. "My god, Leo. How did you do that?" Piper asked.

Leo revealed tiny Phillips head screwdriver from his sleeve. "I'm a special boy."

"Guys, seriously," Jason pleaded. "What am I doing hear? Where are we going?"

Piper knit her eyebrows. "Jason, are you joking?"

"No! We're floating in the same boat. We have no idea---" I was saying before Leo cut me off.

"Aw, yeah, they're joking," Leo said. "They're trying to get me back for the shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren't you?"

Jason and I stared at him blankly.

"No, I think they're serious." Piper tried to take Jason's hand again, but he pulled it away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't-- I can't--"

"That's it!" Coach Hedge yelled from the front.

"The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!"The rest of the kids cheered.

"That wonderful" I muttered sarcastically.

But Piper kept her eyes on Jason, like she couldn't decide weather to be hurt or worried. The her eyes shifted to put Jason and I into her view. "Did you guys hit your heads or something? You really don't know who we are?"

Jason and I looked at each other, then look back at Leo and Piper and shrugged helplessly. "It's worse than that." I said. "We don't know who we are."

The bus dropped us in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, but it was in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that's what this place was: The National Museum of Nowhere, I thought. A cold wind blew past the desert. I hadn't even payed attention to what I was wearing, but it wasn't nearly warm enough: black leggings and navy blue high tops, a purple t-shirt, a black sweater with sleeves that I had pushed up to my elbows. I had hair with slightly faded aqua, blue, and purple streaks mixed in with beach wave black hair that pulled back into a messy ponytail. And black and blue glasses.

"So crash course for the amnesiacs," Leo said in helpful tone, but right from the start you could tell that it wasn't going to be very helpful. "We go to 'Wilderness School' "-- Leo made air quotes with his fingers. "Which means we're 'bad kids'. Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were too much trouble, so they shipped  you off to this lovely prison-- sorry 'boarding school'-- in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable  nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti and weaving daisies into hats! And for a special treat we go on 'educational' field trips with Coach Hedge who keeps order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you guys now?"

"No." Jason and I said in unison. I glanced at the other kids, there were about twenty guys and about half as many girls. None of them looked like hardened criminals. I wondered what they had all done to get sentence to a school for delinquents.

"So you guys are really going to play this out, huh? Okay, so the four of us started here together this semester. We're totally tight. You do everything I say and give me your dessert and do my chores--"