CHAPTER ONE
I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-algebra Teacher
Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson series. Everything belongs to Rick Riordan. Only Persephone Jackson, is mine.
Percy hated her life. She hated Yancy Academy. She also hated Nancy Bobofit. And she hated Mrs Dodds. Not necessarily in that order.
See, she was on her way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and while she usually would've loved a trip like that (getting out of Yancy, being with her best friend Grover, and having Mr Brunner leading the field trip was a treat within itself), it didn't erase the fact that she still had to be in the same bus as Nancy Bobofit and Mrs Dodds, and the latter kept throwing her dark looks as if trying to figure out ways to punish her for something she hadn't even done yet. By that time, however, Percy was used to it. Mrs Dodds could find anything to punish Percy for.
Nancy, on the other hand, didn't have the same self control Mrs Dodds had. That was why Percy was gritting her teeth, her hands clenched together, trying to calm herself down while the other girl was throwing pieces of her peanut-butter-and-ketchup sandwich in Grover's hair, and Mrs Dodds, as usual, wasn't seeing a thing.
Grover was scrawny. He cried easily. And he was crippled. He had a little goatee too—she suspected that he must've been held back a few years, which made her feel a little closer to him because she understood what it was like to do terribly in the education system—and putting all that together made him an easy target for bullies. But that didn't stop him from having one of the biggest hearts that Percy knew. He could be sweet and kind, though a little bit insensitive sometimes, which was why Percy liked being his friend. Unfortunately, most people didn't see him the way she did, and Nancy Bobofit was a prime example of that.
If Percy hadn't been on probation, she would've gotten up and pummelled Nancy already ten minutes ago. Instead, she was forced to just sit with gritted teeth and an urge to murder Nancy, but it wasn't like she could do anything. Grover was dodging the chunks of sandwich she threw at him with surprising agility, but he wouldn't last long. Nancy must've known she couldn't do anything, Percy thought, grinding her teeth furiously. That must've been why she was targeting Grover. Out of everybody she could choose, she really just had to go for Griver, right? There were twenty-five other mental nutcases in the bus.
Finally, Percy snapped when Grover wasn't fast enough and a piece landed in his hair. She started to rise with a death glare aimed straight at Nancy, but before she could do anything, Grover had grabbed her elbow and forced her to sit back down.
"It's okay," Grover tried to say encouragingly. "I like peanut butter."
"With ketchup? In your hair?"
Grover flailed around for a response, but before he could say anything, the bus screeched to a stop and Mr Brunner called, "Everybody out!" and Percy didn't miss the look of relief on Grover's face when the boy realized that he didn't need to respond. Instead, he just busied himself with grabbing his bag and Percy just glumly picked up hers.
She later wished she had just punched Nancy right then and there. It would've been nothing compared to what she was about to get herself into.
Mr Brunner, the Latin teacher at Yancy, was easily her favorite teacher. At least, his class was the only one that didn't put her to sleep. His hair was thinning, and he had a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, and he always smelled like coffee. In class, he often told stories and jokes and let them play games as another way of learning, and he also had a collection of Roman armor and weapons, which always made class interesting. Mr Brunner seemed like the only teacher who actually cared about his students learning, which was one of the things Percy appreciated about him.
Anyway, with Mr Brunner leading this trip, she hoped that it would be more interesting than it would've usually been. Besides, Percy liked history, which was a bit surprising, but she supposed the reason she liked it the most was because it was taught by Mr Brunner, and Mr Brunner's class was worth dragging herself over the textbook despite her murderous dyslexia. However, she knew she shouldn't get her hopes up, because it wasn't just Mr Brunner chaperoning the trip. Mrs Dodds was also supposed to be keeping order, and... to say that Mrs Dodds didn't like her was an understatement.
Mrs Dodds was a mean, little math teacher who had come from Georgia apparently, and she had taken a special delight in torturing Percy. She always wore a leather jacket, even though she must've been at least fifty years old. She had come to Yancy after their last teacher had had a nervous breakdown and had to leave, and from the first day of school, she had decided she hated Percy and loved Nancy. When she would point her crooked finger at her and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, Percy knew she was going to get after-school detention for a month. Once, she had made her erase answers out of old math textbooks until midnight, and she had joked to Grover that she didn't think Mrs Dodds was human. His response had been... terrifying, to put it nicely.
Anyway, she tried to ignore the way Mrs Dodds was glaring at her evilly, and focus instead on the cool artifacts. Percy doubted that she would be able to look at the stuff in there for at least a very long time. Her mother had to work almost every day, and it wasn't like Gabe was about to take her to the museum. Much to her surprise, she actually really liked the museum. It might have sounded stupid, but she felt as though she were at home among all the art and sculptures. Like she finally had a place where she belonged.
Yeah, she definitely sounded insane.
What made the trip annoying was the fact that everybody around her kept talking. It was aggravating. None of them, save for a handful, seemed particularly interested in anything. Percy supposed that made sense, although it was still annoying. All their parents were wealthy, and they probably thought that they would never need to know any of the things Mr Brunner was pointing out. Hell, they probably could've bought out some of the artifacts if they really wanted to. But that didn't mean that they had to ruin the trip for everybody else, like Percy, who actually found the stuff interesting and wanted to listen to what Mr Brunner was saying. She found herself giving the evil eye to anybody who talked, but they didn't notice it.
Finally, when Nancy Bobofit snickered something to her "friends" about the naked guy on the stele, Percy lost it. She turned around and snapped harshly, "Will you shut up?"
Unfortunately, it had come out way louder than she had meant for it to. Her face went pink when Mr Brunner stopped his lecture, and everybody in the class turned to stare at her, although most of them laughed. Mrs Dodds was giving her the evil eye, but Percy didn't back down, still glaring defiantly at Nancy who was only smirking back at her.
"Miss Jackson," Mr Brunner said, making Percy redden even more as she slowly turned around to face the Latin teacher, "did you have a comment?"
"No, sir."
He then gestured at the stele. "Perhaps you'll be able to tell us what this represents, then?"
She glanced at the stele, and a small smile of relief tugged at her lips, because she actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right? So there was this prophecy that said Kronos would be overthrown by his kids. And Kronos was the king titan. But he ate all his kids, except for Zeus. Zeus overthrew his father with the help of his siblings by freeing them by making Kronos barf up all his kids. Then there was this big battle, and the gods won."
"Nerd," someone muttered, and Percy had to inhale sharply to keep herself from turning around and smacking whoever said that.
"Like we're ever gonna use this in real life," Nancy muttered from behind her. "Like our job applications are going to say, 'Why did Kronos eat his kids?'"
"And," Mr Brunner said, "to answer Miss Bobofit's question, why would we need this in real life?"
"Busted," Grover muttered.
"Shut it," Nancy said, her face brighter than her hair.
Despite the fact that he had just asked her an impossible question, Percy felt a small smirk crawling onto her face. It was nice to see Grover standing up for himself, and at Nancy Bobofit, no less. Besides, she was glad that Nancy got in trouble too. Considering that it was the red-headed girl who always made Percy's like a living hell, Percy had some sort of savage satisfaction that Mr Brunner had called Nancy out too.
But even though Percy racked her brains for an answer, she couldn't come up with one, so in the end she just shrugged and said, "I don't know, sir."
Mr Brunner looked disappointed, but accepting at the same time, like he had expected her to not know the answer but had been hoping she did. Still, he just continued, "I see. Well, half credit, Miss 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?"
That was not a happy note, but the doofuses of Yancy made it work. They were laughing and pushing each other out of the way while they left the building, some of them mockingly holding their stomachs, Mrs Dodds bringing up the rear, still shooting nasty glances at Percy, as if she were the reason Nancy had been embarrassed. Percy had to refrain from rolling her eyes, because she seriously didn't want to get in trouble again. If Mrs Dodds found something wrong with her behavior on the trip, then that was her problem; if Percy gave her a reason to punish her, then that was Percy'sproblem. At least, that was what she was chanting to herself.
Before she and Grover could follow the other kids, Mr Brunner called, "Miss Jackson? A word, please?"
She shot a glance at Grover and gave him an encouraging nod, silently telling him that she'd catch up with him later. Grover just nodded back and made his way out of the building, although gingerly keeping his distance away from the other kids, like he was afraid of being infected with some horrible disease that was just retching off of them. Percy didn't blame him. Then she turned around while Mr Brunner wheeled up to her.
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr Brunner told her, and she had a feeling that he didn't mean the question about the Titans. "What you learn from me is extremely important. I will only accept the best from you, Percy Jackson."
At that point, Percy was used to it. Every single teacher, every single principal always told her that she would do great, that they expected the best from her, that they understood that she had dyslexia and ADHD but she was still expected to try—and Percy was sick of it. Because it didn't matter how hard she tried, or how many hours she studied, or even how many times she asked for help. Teachers always saw her lousy work and demanded that she do better, that she try harder—as if she weren't already trying her hardest. It was an old story she was used to, and it didn't affect her much.
Except Mr Brunner was one of her favorite teachers. He had always pushed her to be better—even made her want to do better in his class—but here he was, looking at her as if she hadn't done her best, as if she hadn't spent days pouring over her textbook that she could barely read, just trying to achieve at least a C in the class when she had previously never had anything higher than a C- because she wanted him to know he cared. To say it hurt was a bit of an understatement. But Percy couldn't let that show. She knew that perhaps Mr Brunner hadn't meant for his words to hurt so much. But he was asking for a lot—he wasn't just asking her to be just as good as everybody else; he was asking her to be even better, when she could hardly even spell all the different names. It was a bit frustrating, to say the least.
"I'll try harder, sir," she mumbled, because she really didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't like she wasn't alreadytrying her hardest, but she doubted that Mr Brunner wanted to hear her complain about how hard she was already trying. She had learned from previous experience that that didn't always work out.
When she trudged outside, the rest of the school had already delved into their food. They had all sat along the front steps of the museum, where they had a perfect view of the traffic on Fifth Avenue. The black clouds that signalled a brewing storm didn't bother her, though. Ever since about Christmas, the weather had been strange across all of New York, and the weirder part was that it seemed to be only New York. Massive snow storms, flooding, lightning strikes that resulted in wildfires—she wouldn't have been surprised if they had to add a hurricane on the list. Perhaps it was global warming, or something.
Nobody else noticed, or they didn't care, though she strongly suspected it was the latter. From out of the corner of her eye, she saw some of the guys pelting pigeons with random snacks, while Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket a lady's purse. A snort of dark amusement found its way past Percy's lips. Why Nancy was trying to steal something, she had no idea. Nancy liked flaunting the fact that she had money in front of practically everybody, reminding everybody that her dad was a millionaire and she could buy the entire school if she wanted, so Percy didn't understand why she was stealing, but trying to figure out how the brains of the Yancy Academy douches worked lowered her own IQ, so instead of pondering, she took a seat next to Grover, who had already started on his lunch.
Grover had always had an appetite, which was quite amusing to Percy sometimes. Even though he had a note from a doctor (some doctor named Will something; Percy hadn't pried) that excused him from P.E. class, and he walked as if every step hurt him, but what Percy had found mildly amusing but mostly horrifying was the way he ran when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria, as if not even a muscular disease in his legs could stop him from his beloved enchiladas.
"Detention?" Grover asked, but Percy just shook her head.
"Nah. Mr Brunner doesn't really give out detentions. He just asked me to work harder... but I'm not a genius, you know?"
Grover just stared out across the street, making her do the same. Then, he opened her mouth, and she thought he was going to say something philosophical to make her feel better but all he said was, "Can I have your apple?"
Percy didn't have much of an appetite, so she let him take it, and while Grover munched on the fruit next to her, she found herself gazing at the streets, studying the pedestrians. There were a couple of teenage boys who were whispering to each other as they half-walked, half-ran down the street, and a group of giggling girls, probably from public school, wandering down the sidewalk like a pack. An old couple was tottering around on the streets, looking around, throwing breadcrumbs for the pigeons. Percy found herself wishing that she could be normal for once in her life, although that wasn't the first time she wished it. All her life, she had never been normal, and she often wondered what it was like to be it.
As she watched the stream of cabs, she suddenly longed to just jump into one of the cabs and head home. Her mother's apartment was only a little ways uptown from where they were sitting, and Percy hadn't seen her mother since Christmas. But Percy knew that although her mother would hug her and be glad to see her, she would also be disappointed too, and send her right back to Yancy, reminding her that she had to try harder, even if this was her sixth school in six years, and Percy wouldn't be able to stand the sad look her mother would give her. What did it matter? Percy thought miserably. She was probably going to get kicked out of Yancy anyway. It was just a matter of time.
Moodily, she was just about to unwrap her sandwich when Nancy Bobofit's stupid face and her stupid orange freckles that looked like her face had been spray-painted with liquid cheetos and her stupid crooked teeth was suddenly in Percy's face—Percy supposed that it was because she had gotten tired of stealing from the tourists, not that she was successful anyway. Before Percy even had a chance to respond or to react to the ugliest face suddenly in front of hers, Nancy had dumped her half-eaten lunch on Grover's lap.
"Oops," she said, grinning nastily at Percy, her crooked teeth on full display.
Percy took full credit and responsibility for what happened next, although if she were going to be completely honest, she wasn't exactly sure what happened next. All she knew was that her vision had gone red; a wave roared in her ears; and even though her counselor had told her a million times to take a deep breath and count to ten to rein in her anger, she couldn't do it, no matter how much she tried to keep her cool.
The next thing she knew, Nancy was sitting in the fountain, dripping wet, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"
Mrs Dodds seemed to materialize next to her, although Percy was still too mad to notice.
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"
"—the water—"
"—like it grabbed her—"
Percy didn't remember pushing Nancy into the fountain. To be fair, her mind often missed things—an effect from ADHD, or so she was told, and pushing Nancy seemed to be something that she would totally do. But it didn't matter what happened, and Percy didn't really care. All she knew was that with the way Mrs Dodds was staring at her with almost an evil look, she was bound to be in trouble, and Mrs Dodds wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world when it came to punishments.
After she made sure "poor Nancy" was okay and promised to get her a new t-shirt, she turned on Percy with a triumphant gleam in her eyes, like she had been waiting the whole school year for that moment. "Percy Jackson! Come with me."
Percy opened her mouth to grumble something about a month erasing textbooks, her last and most horrible punishment, but then she caught herself at the last moment and closed her mouth. She had learned from experience that one should never try and guess their punishment before it was given to them—the same way one should never give pranksters ideas. Mrs Dodds already hated her and had a perfect reason to give her the worst punishment she could think of—Percy didn't need to make it worse. Besides, with the way Mrs Dodds was staring at her... a shiver travelled down her spine. If going with her meant that the cruel look would disappear, Percy would do it in a heartbeat.
Grover suddenly launched himself into the air—gulping and slightly pale, he yelped, rather shakily, "Wait! It was me. I pushed her."
Percy stared at him in absolute disbelief. It was no secret that Grover had always been terrified of Mrs Dodds, but here he was, defending her from Mrs Dodds. He never would've wanted to be near her, let alone in the same room as her, but Grover was pretending like he had been the one to push Nancy into the fountain. Although Percy was grateful for his attempts, she knew she couldn't let him get in trouble for her. This was why Percy liked being his friend—no matter what people said or how much they teased him, none of them would be able to compare to his heart.
"Nonsense," Mrs Dodds said, although her eye began twitching.
"But—"
"Silence!" she snarled. "You will stay here!"
Grover's chin began to tremble under her furious gaze, and Percy felt both a rush of sympathy and anger toward Grover and Mrs Dodds, respectively. Couldn't she see that all he was trying to do was defend her? She didn't have to be so cruel to him. Grover then tore his gaze away from the teacher, and his eyes flitted about desperately between Mr Brunner, Mrs Dodds, and Percy, as if he were hoping Mr Brunner would see what was happening and come to my rescue. But Mr Brunner was still reading his magazine under his red umbrella, munching on a celery stick, oblivious to the rest of the world. Percy managed a reassuring smile toward Grover.
"It's okay," she told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Honey!" Mrs Dodds barked, but she didn't make the word sound as sweet as it was. "Now."
Percy caught sight of Nancy Bobofit smirking at her, so in return, she gave Nancy her I'll-kill-you-later deluxe glare, before turning back to Mrs Dodds... but somehow, the teacher was standing at the top of the stairs, right in front of the entrance, gesturing impatiently for Percy to follow her, making Percy blink in shock. An ice-cold feeling washed down her back. How'd Mrs Dodds get up there so fast? Percy thought back to what she had been thinking when Nancy had been screaming—her brain must've fallen asleep or something, and she must've missed seeing Mrs Dodds going up the stairs. Her school counselor had always told her that it was part of her ADHD.
Percy had a strange feeling though that this time, her brain wasn't misinterpreting things, but she followed Mrs Dodds up the stairs anyway, trying to hide her trembling hands in the sleeves of her jacket. Halfway up the steps, she turned around to glance at Grover. He was still glancing between her and Mr Brunner, like he wanted Mr Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr Brunner was still too absorbed in his novel to notice. When she looked back, Mrs Dodds was inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall, leaving Percy feeling both confused and slightly afraid. Why was her brain screwing with her memory so many times in such a short period of time?
Mrs Dodds didn't give her any time to figure that out.
When Percy cautiously walked into the building, she thought nervously that perhaps Mrs Dodds was going to force her to buy Nancy a new t-shirt at the gift shop or something. That seemed like a reasonable punishment, and an explanation for why they were back inside the museum. Percy should've known that Mrs Dodds wasn't a reasonable person, and that she didn't always need a logical explanation for her actions. She led her back into the Greek and Roman gallery, empty except for the two of them.
Mrs Dodds was standing in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods, her arms crossed, and she was making this weird growling noise in her throat. Even without the noise, Percy would've been nervous. Being alone with a teacher was weird enough, and especially with Mrs Dodds being said teacher. There was something about the way she was looking at the frieze too, like she wanted to pulverize it... Percy wildly thought that maybe Mrs Dodds had a bad incident with Greek mythology when she was younger, or maybe she just didn't like the gods, or something.
"You've caused us a lot of problems this year, honey."
Percy didn't know what she was talking about, so she decided to do the same thing. "Yes, ma'am."
"Did you think you were going to get away with it?"
"... no... ma'am?"
The look Mrs Dodds was giving her was making her nervous. It was beyond mad. It was evil. But Percy reasoned to herself nervously that Mrs Dodds was a teacher. Despite how much she hated Percy, it wasn't like she was going to hurt her. But no matter what Percy told herself, the gleam in her eyes still made Percy shake a little.
"Do you know what you have to do?" she growled, tugging on the cuffs of her favorite leather jacket.
Percy froze at that, because when she said growled, she meant literally growled. A deep, rumbling sound was resonating from her throat. Not for the first time in the last five minutes, a rush of ice-cold fear washed down her back, and the only thing she could think of doing was squeaking out, "I'll... I'll try harder, ma'am?"
"Did you think that we were fools, Percy Jackson?" she roared. "Your time is up. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."
"Uh—"
Percy was a bad kid, yes, but she wasn't a bad kid. Sure, she illegally sold candy out of her dorm from time to time to make some money, and she never read any of the books her English teachers assigned her, instead choosing to plagiarize off the internet, but she wasn't, like, breaking-the-law kind of bad. But the way Mrs Dodds was glaring at her, and the way she was speaking... it made it sound like Mrs Dodds was accusing her of something much worse than just selling candy. It was like she was accusing Percy of having done some sort of unspeakable action, something so terrible that she deserved to die for her actions.
To say that Percy was terrified would've been an understatement. In that moment, her mind was racing, trying to desperately think of anything she could've possibly done that would elicit such behavior from her teacher, but in her panic, all she was drawing was a blank. Maybe she had sleep-walked out of her dorm on one occasion and murdered someone, or something? But it didn't matter, because Mrs Dodds didn't give her any time to wonder what she had done.
"Your time is up!" she shrieked. "Die, honey!"
And Percy's day got even weirder.
Her math teacher's eyes began to glow like coals; red and black with the burning fires of Hell. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and judging from the murderous look in her eyes, she was about to slice Percy to ribbons. The logical thing would've been to run and scream, but Percy was frozen to the sport, her mouth open, staring at her teacher with terror, because holy guacamole, this was not happening
But it was, and then Percy's day got even weirder, which she hadn't thought was even possible.
Mr Brunner, who had been outside of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen, but there was no way he could've gotten there so fast unless he had run, and Mr Brunner was in a wheelchair. But he was there, and Percy was too distracted to think about that, so when he shouted, "What ho, Percy!" and tossed the pen at her, she didn't really think.
She wasn't thinking logically—after all, how was a pen supposed to defeat something like Mrs Dodds?—but at that point, thinking logically was the last thing on her mind. She simply just dodged the monster's talons and snatched the pen out of the air... except it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword of gleaming bronze, but it wasn't just any sword. It was Mr Brunner's sword, which he used on tournament day. But Mrs Dodds didn't give her any time to ponder about that (she didn't seem to be giving Percy any time to think lately), because she spun toward her with a murderous look in her eyes. Percy's arms were jelly, her arms were shaking so badly that she almost dropped the sword.
"Die, honey!"
Percy, for a brief moment, wondered why Mrs Dodds was still calling her "honey" while attempting to murder her, but then Mrs Dodds flew right at her, snapping her out her thoughts, and Percy did the most sensible thing she could think of: she swung the sword. Although she didn't know what she was doing, the sword caught what used to be Mrs Dodds on the shoulder. The monster let out a strangled scream before she exploded into sand, a loud hiss echoing throughout the gallery, and the wind picked up and carried the dust away.
For the first few moments, Percy just stood as still as a statue (which was an incredible feat for her, but she didn't dwell on that thought). Her hands were still trembling. Then she took a deep breath, forcefully closed her eyes, and then opened them again. She was alone. Mr Brunner was gone, and so was Mrs Dodds. The sword in her hands was only just a ballpoint pen. Percy felt herself relax a little. Everything must've just been a dream, and she must've just imagined the whole thing, although she was still sweaty and her knees still felt a bit weak.
Very slowly, she unsteadily made her way back to the museum steps outside, trying to process everything that had just happened. While she had been inside, it had started to rain, and the rest of the class was still outside, although they didn't look happy about it. Most of them had to use their jackets or their bags as a makeshift umbrella, and Grover wasn't an exception. A museum map was tented over his head, and Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her trip in the fountains, talking to her ugly friends, so Percy supposed she hadn't seen the need to cover her head.
When Nancy saw her, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
Percy blinked. "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
Percy just stared back at her in confusion, too surprised to even care that Nancy was snipping back at her. She was pretty sure she had never heard of the name Mrs Kerr before. Was this Nancy's idea of playing a prank? Was she just messing around with Percy as a way to get back at her for supposedly pushing her into the fountain? When it was clear Percy was too stunned to reply, Nancy just rolled her eyes and turned away, but she didn't really care at that moment. Percy then slowly walked toward Grover, almost trance-like, and, taking the museum map he handed her gratefully and holding it over her head, she asked him where Mrs Dodds was.
He said, "Who?" but he paused first, and he wouldn't look at her, so she thought he was messing with her.
"Not funny," she said, her hands beginning to shake again. "This is serious."
Thunder boomed overhead, but Percy didn't care. With the way Grover was acting... it was like he was trying to convince her that Mrs Dodds didn't exist... but how could she have not? Percy remembered extremely clearly that Mrs Dodds was in fact a real person, and Grover had always been a terrible liar... but there was what Nancy said... about someone named Mrs Kerr... like even Nancy didn't believe in Mrs Dodds... and why would she and Grover come together to play a nasty prank on Percy...? She couldn't have hallucinated her pre-algebra teacher for almost an entire year... could she have?
Then she saw Mr Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, still reading his book, as if he hadn't moved, and when she went over to him, he looked up, a little distracted, and said, "Ah, yes, that'd be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Miss Jackson."
She handed it to him, having completely forgotten she was still holding it, and asked, "Sir, where's Mrs Dodds?"
He just stared at her blankly. "Who?"
"The other chaperone. Mrs Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"