Chapter two: Percy Vaporizes the algebra teacher
Y/N POV: I woke to a person rudely shaking me awake.
"Hey Grover, can you help me over here, I think Y/N might be in a coma or something?," A voice calls out. Wait, Grover!? As in Grover underwood from the book!? I slightly panic and my reflexes kick in. I slap the hand away harshly and let out a small groan as I try to blink away my grogginess.
"OW!! Never mind." the voice from before screeches in a higher pitch. I hear another voice. "Come on Percy, cut her some slack. She just woke up? What do you expect?," Hold the phone, Percy! As in Percy Jackson!?
"Well your not the one who's hand just got slapped! Very harshly I might add!," The person who I assume is "Percy" sassed back. The person who I assume is "Grover" sighed and began nervously chewing on something.
"Where am I? Who are you?," I ask in a dazed voice, looking at my surroundings (which at the moment was a grey depressed looking interior of a school bus) The person who I still could not believe was Percy Jackson whispered in a not so hushed tone to the person who I could not believe was Grover Underwood.
"Hey Grover, did you slip magic mushrooms into her food or something? Or is she just gone crazy?," Grover replied.
"I didn't slip magic mushrooms in her food. Her mind is still probably in the dream world." Percy snorted "yeah right."
I pressed my fingers to my temple and I blinked out of stupor. I looked up to see the 2 confused faces of 2 very familiar people looking at me. "Am I dead?," I said, shocked. I look at them again and realize this WAS Grover underwood and Percy Jackson.
"Yep, she's gone crazy." Muttered Grover, even more nervous. Percy realizes my condition could be serious and he becomes worried, taking in my appearance and shocked expression.
"Hey Y/N, you okay? You seem... tired." He says, trying to lighten the mood. Realizing I messed up the story line, I cover it up using my excellent acting skills.
"Oh, I'm fine." I rub my eyes a bit and yawn. "I just stayed up late studying last night. I'm a little disoriented but it'll wear off by the end of the day.," I reassure them. We still in silence while a million thoughts crowd my brain. When have I ever been so good at lying? Why do I feel like I want to pickpocket someone? What did I do to end up here? I feel so smart all of a sudden, what's up with that? And how do I get back?
These thoughts swarm my brain until the bus stops and we all motion to get outside. I didn't even notice the bits and pieces of peanut butter in Grover's hair, I was still deep in thought. It wasn't until I caught Percy making death glares at a girl that I think was Nancy Bobofit did I notice Grover picking out the bits of food. When we were all situated, Mr. Brunner (or should I say Chiron) lead the museum tour.
He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides and some other stuff, but I wasn't paying attention because I kept eyeing Mrs. Dodds who sent Percy death glares all during the lesson.
I glanced at Percy, and he had an annoyed look plastered on his face when he turned over to Nancy who was whispering (not-so quietly) to her friends and said. "Will you shut up?," Mr. Brunner with his super radar ears paused the lesson and turned to him.
"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?," Percy's face was totally red.
"No, sir." Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"
He looked at the carving, and slumped back down a little relief. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?,"
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, still not satisfied. "And he did this because ..." Percy's forehead scrunched up in concentration.
"Well...Kronos was the king god, and—"
"God?," Mr. Brunner asked. "Titan," He corrected.
"And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"
"Eeew!," Screeched one of the girls behind Percy. "-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," He continued, "and the gods won."
Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"
Brunner used his radar ears again. "And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Busted," Me and Grover said in the same time.
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. Like I said, he had radar ears.
Percy thought about Mr. Brunner question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?,"
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. I was getting dragged out the door by Grover talking about climate change and nature's environment when Percy (who was trying to keep up with us without getting pushed around) stopped for a little bit talking to Mr. Brunner.
We sat along the rim of the water fountain when Percy came to join us. "Detention?," I asked, stealing Grover's line. "Nah," Percy said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when Percy thought he was going to give him some deep philosophical comment to make him feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?" I snickered and Grover punched me lightly on the shoulder, before taking the apple from Percy.
Percy looked like he was about to unwrap his sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of us with her ugly friends and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.
"Oops." She grinned at Percy with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.
If it wasn't for the look of annoyance and rage on his face, I would have thought he was trying to calm down. I remembered that in the book, the school counselor had told him "a million times","Count to ten, get control of your temper." But Percy was mad, and his mind went blank.
A wave that looked like a giant watery human hand grabbed Nancy and pulled her into the fountain and lost it's shape once it splashed back into the fountain where Nancy was sitting on her butt, screaming, "Percy pushed me!,"
Like magic, Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—""—the water—""—like it grabbed her—"
Percy was oblivious to the fact that his life would get a lot more complicated.
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Percy's POV: As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." That wasn't the right thing to say."Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!," Grover yelped. "It was me, I pushed her." I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.
"Actually," Y/N pushed herself in front of Grover and glared up at Mrs. Dodds in front of her. "It was me who pushed Nancy into the fountain. Neither Grover nor Percy pushed her, I made it look like one of them did it. If there's a person to blame, it's me." She defended us. Mrs. Dodds sneered back at her and cackled. "Then Detention Mrs. L/N!,"
I felt kinda bad that I got Y/N and Grover tangled up into the mess, but when I finished giving Nancy my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare, I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, and she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
I turned to Grover and mouthed "How'd she get there so fast?," He mouthed back. "No idea." I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. I wasn't so sure.
I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover and Y/N. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner while tugging on Y/N's sleeve. It was like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty. Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it..."You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.
I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am." Thunder shook the building.
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been sellingout of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't..."
"Your time is up," she hissed. Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. Then things got even stranger.
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Y/N POV: "Y/N, we gotta save Percy, Mrs. Dodds is trying to kill him! She's a kindly one, I'm sure of it!," Grover exclaimed. He mumbled something else (probably a curse to Mrs. Dodds, I'm not sure) as we walk (limp for him because he has crutches) towards Chiron. He looked up from his novel and turned to us. I put on my best "my best friend gonna die unless you do something" expression and explained. "Mr. Brunner, Percy's in a predicament with, how do I explain this...a kindly one." Chiron's face morphed into one that seemed to mean"Ah, I'm screwed and I'll most likely lose my job if I don't improvise at once."
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Me and Chiron barged into the museum and he shouted "What ho, Percy!," And threw a pen at him. Percy looked at me with confusion probably thinking "Why is Y/N here when she's supposed to be at detention?," This caused him to not catch the pen and me to panic.
'THE MAIN CHARACTER IS GOING TO DIE AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT!!!!' I mentally slap myself and then that's when I here a voice ringing like a dozen drums playing at once in my ears. "Press button on the crossed swords charm on your bracelet." I didn't want Percy to die because of me so I pressed the button.
A double sided sword (one side golden and the other bronze) appeared in my hand and I wasted no time using it to distract the fury. Percy luckily dodged Mrs. Dodds' first attack and he scrambled to pick up the pen.
Once he wrapped his hand around the pen, it turned into the infamous Riptide.
I kept the fury distracted for a solid few seconds—enough for Percy to figure out that the pen wasn't really a pen and use it to defend himself. Mrs. Dodds, no longer interested in mauling me, stared past me... and right onto Percy.
She screeched "DIE HONEY!," Percy swung the sword... and I decided to slip away from the scene thinking, Percy just vaporized the algebra teacher.