Chapter 1: That Hellhound Across the Street

I jammed my hands into my pocket, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible in the music store. If anyone looked at my face, they'd realize that I was way too young to be out during this time of the day when school was supposed to be in session.

All school did for me was provide a source of torture. So it wasn't exactly abnormal for me to skip school. In fact, it was abnormal for me to even be in school. Sometimes I'd show up in a half-hearted attempt to please my parents, but I would never last more than a period before ditching.

"Do you need something?" a woman asked me. Her tone was polite, but inside, she was probably suspicious on why I'd stayed in her store for over an hour without buying something.

"No," I said without turning my face. "I'm sorry, I'll get out now." Which was exactly what she wanted. I walked to the front door and searched for my next target. A giant dog barked, chasing after a squirrel. Actually, 'giant' was an understatement. The thing was huge. I stepped onto the sidewalk.

That was when I bumped into a guy as he was running. He was holding a giant sword in one hand and a broken leash in the other. His black hair looked like it had never seen a brush and his green eyes were panicked.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't see you. By the way, did you see a dog around here anywhere?"

"Just now, before we collided," I said. "Across the street. Is that your dog?"

"Yeah. Can you point out where he went?"

I stuck my finger down the street towards the Central Park. "What's the sword for? Seriously, if police saw you with that, they'd arrest you on the spot. It looks too real to be a fake."

He paused. "It's an umbrella."

"No, it's a sword."

"Shouldn't you be at school, little girl?"

"I'm thirteen. Shouldn't you? You don't look much older than me."

We stared each other down. He broke the connection and muttered something about mist. "Anyway, I got to go before she goes berserk again."

"Already has, she was chasing after a squirrel." The guy jogged towards the park without bothering to say goodbye. I ran after him. "Hey! Not even a goodbye? Don't you owe me something? You would've lost your dog if it weren't for me."

"Go back to school," he said. "And forget you even saw me."

"Let me help. I'm not going to school, so you can forget about that. I'm dying for something to do, and it's not everyday I get to see a hellhound." The last word slipped out of my mouth without any thinking on my part. At first I thought, Hellhound? Come on. But then I realized it was a pretty good description of the dog.

"Did you just say hellhound?"

"Um, yeah, sorry about that." I blushed. My mother used to tell Greek myths to me as a bedtime stories when I was younger.

"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong. You know what? Come along." He waited until I caught up with him. "My name's Percy. Yours?"

"Elena. But you can call me Lena."

It wasn't hard to track down Percy's dog. You could hear her barks from a block away. We found her yapping up a tree and clawing the trunk.

"Mrs. O'Leary – no! Don't do that, that tree will fall down if you –" True to his prediction, the tree started swaying dangerously. I imagined the squirrel clutching on for its dear life and winced. Percy produced a giant chew toy and threw it as far as he could. "Fetch!"

Mrs. O'Leary ran eagerly towards it, but instead of bringing it back, she continued gnawing and slobbering on it.

"That'll keep her busy for a while," Percy said, satisfied. We sat down on the park bench.

"Mrs. O'Leary?"

"I wasn't the one who named her," he sighed. He took out a pen cap and pressed it to the sword tip. It transformed into a pen.

"Cool," I said. "You never told me why you have a sword. Where did you get it from?"

"My dad."

"Who is he, an archaeologist or a historian? And how did it turn into a pen?" My mind was full of questions.

"My dad works with the ocean," he answered. It made no sense whatsoever, and his voice was filled with hesitation as if he was reluctant to surrender even this vague piece of information. "The pen's magic."

"Sure seems like it," I said. Was he humouring me? Percy sure did hide a lot of secrets, though he was easygoing and friendly. There was an uneasy silence as I tried to figure out the truth.

"Want to get some ice cream? My treat."

Percy walked me back to my house. After a few hours of bonding, we'd gone from strangers to friends, despite our three year age difference. I learned that he lived with his mom and his stepfather here in New York and had a girlfriend he'd met in camp, which he still went to every year. As he was talking about some Annabeth Chase, he pulled her picture out and I got a glimpse of a blond girl with grey eyes. It was obvious that he was head over heels in love with her.

I told him about my life. How I lived with the picture perfect family. My parent loved each other. I had a little brother who was seven and a braniac, and a younger sister who was a music prodigy. We lived in a giant house. We were rich enough to be able to afford sending my brother and my sister to private school, but my parents didn't bother sending me because I was the black sheep in the family. And truth was, I didn't care. Because in my opinion, what you learn in school wasn't useful at all. It didn't teach you how to be resourceful, or how to be on your guard at all times as for me, there was always a possibility of being attacked by some strange animal. School didn't teach you how to survive. Period.

"And these… monsters attack you how often?" Percy asked. I wasn't sure he'd believe it when I told him that instead of humans, my attackers were monsters.

"It depends. Probably every once a week or so when things heat up. Sometimes once a month." At first, I had told my parents and my friends about these monsters. But they didn't believe me. Not surprising.

And how I dealt with monsters, I didn't. I just ran far enough and hid in a dumpster. They never found me in dumpsters.

"Do you mind if I talk with your mom?" Percy said as we were at the front door. I tried not to grimace as Mrs. O'Leary destroyed my mother's garden. She put hours of work into it. Now I was watching the roses being uprooted and the bushes being crushed under her giant paws.

"Why would you want to talk to my mom?" It was an extremely odd request. No one I ever hung out with wanted to talk with my mom.

"You know that camp I mentioned? Maybe you'd like to go there this summer."

"Camp sounds lame," I said truthfully. "What do you do there? If it's the classic camp experience – hike, swim, stinky cabins – I'm not interested."

"It's actually a pretty cool place, I bet you'll love it. But you see the thing is, I'm not sure if you can go, because it's for special people –"

"What? Is 'special' just a code word for 'stupid'? Goddamnit, that's all I hear everyday. Elena, you are a special girl, please work with us." I stopped and ran the words through my head again. "I'm sorry, I get defensive." Hopefully that sufficed as an apology. Percy did seem like a nice guy. "Maybe your camp is okay."

He laughed. "Camp's the best. But I can't tell you about it, sorry for that. I think I broke the rules by even telling of its existence."

"A super spy camp? Designed to train kids to become FBI agents?"

"Keep dreaming."

I invited him inside to our house and led him to the kitchen. "Sit down, I'm just going to bring my mom over." I pushed a bowl of jellybeans towards him. "Enjoy." Then I went to my mom's office where I knew she'd be typing on her computer. She worked from home. "Mom, I met someone at the park."

"A boy?" she looked sternly up at me.

"Relax, you know I know that you don't want me dating until I'm like thirty. Plus this guy's already got a girlfriend.'

My mother sighed and actually turned away from the computer screen, swivelling around on her office chair to face me. "Honey, you can't just bring strangers into our house. Who knows who they really are –"

"Percy is a nice guy, and I'm not stupid. He wants to talk about some camp."

She got up. "Where is he?" I didn't move for a few seconds because I was quite surprised she gave in so easily. My mother was usually hard to persuade.

"In the kitchen." We walked down the long hallway and back to the kitchen. The first image that registered in my mind was that Percy had separated the blue jellybeans from the other ones. The second was that he was swinging his sword above his head, like a madman, swatting a fly away as he munched on a jellybean happily. It was overkill.

"Stop!" My mother yelled.

Percy looked up at her with his green eyes. She blinked. "Sorry, Mrs…"

"Evans."

"Yes, I'm just going to get to the point."

"You wanted to talk about some camp?" Mom asked. He nodded. They both looked at me.

"I get it," I mumbled and left the room, closing the door behind me. Then I leaned my ear against the door. One lesson I usually went by: When they tell you to leave the room, you eavesdrop.

"I am not sending her to that camp. Elena is doing fine on her own." I didn't have to strain much to hear those words, because she was practically spitting them out as loud as she could.

"So she is one. Mrs. Evans, just listen, please. If she doesn't go, then you're sentencing her to her death."

What?

"Now I can't escort her there myself, but I've got a friend. Grover." The rest was said very quietly. I could only hear a few mumbles.

Two minutes later, the door opened and I nearly tumbled onto the floor. I wiped my hands on my jeans as I got up. "Didn't hear anything, I swear."

I expected her to lecture me again, but instead, she helped me up and said with a bright false smile, "You're going to camp this summer!"

Percy waved behind her and popped another jellybean into his mouth.

"Great," I answered.