Changing the Future

Chapter 4

Chiron told me that the camp grew strawberries to cover their expenses, and seeing that they had a resident wine god, plants grew crazy fast in his presence. But due to his restrictions, Dionysus was prohibited from growing grapes, so the camp settled for strawberries.

I worked alongside the Demeter cabin for a few hours, loving the feeling of the sun on my skin as I pulled weeds, dirt caking my pants and boots and sweat pouring down my face. I struck up a conversation with Fiona Reynolds, a daughter of Demeter, while we pulled weeds and planted seeds.

Of course, I managed to mess up whatever chance I had at her friendship there when she looked up from her row of strawberries and stared at me in abject terror. I frowned, looking down at myself to see if I had started glowing gold again. Thankfully, I wasn't.

"What's wrong?" I asked Fiona, clapping my hands together to shake off the excess dirt.

"The strawberries," she spluttered out, her face white as a sheet as she raised a hand and pointed at the last two rows I had been working on.

"What about them?"

"Look!"

I turned around and gasped at what I saw.

Earlier, the field we were working in was completely void of any plants, simply being identical rows of dirt with holes periodically placed in the ground. Now, the rows where I had planted seeds were full of life. Strawberry plants that had been seeds mere minutes ago were now full on plants, going so far as to the majority of the strawberries were already bright red and ripe for the picking.

Sure enough, the last seed I had just planted started to glow green, and two seconds later, a fully grown strawberry plant was sitting in front of me and Fiona, who stared at the plant like it was going to grow limbs and strangle her to death.

She stood up and ran, saying that I was cursed by Demeter. I frowned at her choice of words. Wouldn't this be a blessing from Demeter as the goddess of the harvest? Last I checked, the majority of her children could grow anything as long as they had the seeds. I mean, those tulips on the roof of the Demeter cabin had been grown today before cabin inspections.

Before anyone else could come and gawk at what a freak I was, I left the strawberry fields and headed for the armory. If I was going to come out of Capture the Flag in one piece, I needed to get myself some armor.

I met up with James Turner, the head counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, who helped me get fitted with my armor. Afterwards, he told me he could add stuff to it if I'd liked, but I told him not to worry about it. Armor was made to be worn into battle, not to look pretty.

"By the way," James said before I left, "I think what you did to Holly was awesome. She needed to be taken down a notch."

"Thanks," I said, my face a bright red. It wasn't that I had a crush on him or anything, but I hated being praised for the things I did. I do what I think is right and that's the end of the story. I didn't need my deeds immortalized in writing when there were thousands of more heroic things happening in the world.

During lunch, I felt the stares of dozens of campers watching me as I ate. It was so awkward that not even the kids in the Hermes cabin wanted to talk to me. No, they'd much rather talk about me even though I was sitting right next to them.

Luke took pity on me and tried to start up a conversation, but the entire time, he stared at my hands like he was expecting the grapes I was eating to grow to the size of a wrecking ball. I stood up halfway through lunch and left the dining pavilion, heading for Thalia's pine tree. I knew it wasn't called that anymore, but to me, it will always be Thalia's pine tree.