Becca: Hey, thanks to everyone who favourited, alerted and reviewed.

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise belongs to me

After prologue this is set about a year after Thalia is turned into a tree.

On with the show.

Chapter 2: I accidently vaporize my maths teacher

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

"They never do." Athena stated, a bit of sadness tainting her voice. The demigods shifted uncomfortably on the floor.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:

"Sorry? Is Percy trying to give advice?" Thalia asked incredulously.

"Great, we're all doomed." Nico sniggered.

close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

"That won't work punk. Monsters would still sense you." Ares said, rolling his eyes at Percy. Percy just glowered at the floor.

Being a half-blood is dangerous.

Percy snorted, "Understatement of the year."

Thalia and Nico nodded, thinking about the war.

It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

The Olympians winced, thinking about all their children that had died and about how they were not allowed to do anything about it.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

"Why would mortals be reading this book?" Dionysus asked.

"If this gets published, I'll send the author to hell." Hera said, gritting her teeth about how all secrets were going to be revealed.

"Hera." Zeus warned. The demigods glanced at each other. Seems Hera didn't change.

But if you recognise yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

"Okay, you didn't warn us." Apollo joked, grinning even as his sister whacked him over the head.

My name is Percy Jackson.

"No, no, no. It's Perseus Jackson. Can't forget the Perseus." Thalia scolded in a mocking tone.

"Shut up."

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

"Of course. I've never met anyone as troubled as you." Nico snorted. Percy glared.

"Shut up." He repeated.

Yeah. You could say that.

"See, you even agree."

"I said shut up."

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

"It sounds like torture." Hermes groaned. Apollo grinned at him while Athena and Artemis rolled their eyes. Boys.

I know—it sounds like torture.

Hermes and Apollo grinned at Percy, who grinned back.

Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armour and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

Dionysus groaned. Great since he's there, we're going to be adding another worthless brat to the already brat-filled camp.

"Chiron." Zeus said, looking at Percy for confirmation. Percy nodded.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

"You're always wrong about that kind of thing." Thalia and Nico said together, smirking at their friends' expense. Percy rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. The gods only watched amusedly at the interactions between the three demigods.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.

There was silence then the whole hall burst into laughter.

"What were you aiming for Percy?" Nico managed to get out, still laughing his head off.

"I think I was aiming for my least favourite teacher." Percy said, deep in thought. This sentence only served to make everyone laugh harder. After silence was restored they continued.

And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

"No, keep talking. We want to hear more." Apollo said over the noise of laughter in the hall.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

"And I'm sure that worked out very well." Thalia said sarcasm evident in her voice. Percy rolled his eyes.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

"EWWWWWW. Who eats peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwiches?" Aphrodite gagged while Ares tried to calm her down.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.

"I'm sure Grover would love to hear you say that." Nico said smirking.

"I can almost imagine the headline for the news. 'And a boy murdered by a Goat with reed pipes." Thalia said. Percy glared at the floor. It's only a matter of time, then you can blast them with water all you want.

He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

"Great way to blow your cover." Artemis said sarcastically.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"Get ready to be suspended Percy." Nico sniggered.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

"Please do. I need some action." Ares whined.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.

"Percy. What did you do now?" Thalia demanded.

"I didn't do anything. It was my maths teacher that did something." Percy protested.

"What did your maths teacher do?" Thalia questioned but narrowed her eyes when Percy didn't answer.

In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

"Oh gods, please be nothing serious." Thalia pleaded. Nico nodded along with her.

Mr. Brunner led 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.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

"More than that half-blood." Athena said.

"I know that now." Percy grumbled.

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, astele,for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

"She's a monster isn't she?" Thalia groaned.

"How did you guess? Was it perhaps the name of the chapter?" Percy mocked.

"Good point." Thalia muttered.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.

"I should try that sometime." Ares grinned.

She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last maths teacher had a nervous breakdown.

"Poor, poor teacher. I wonder what she did to them." Aphrodite said.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

"A month! Isn't that a bit much?" Demeter asked.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

"Its blow cover time." Nico snickered.

"Why are you screwing with the hulks line?" Percy asked.

"Cause I can." Nico smirked. Percy just shook his head.

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will youshut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"It's always that one. Why can't it ever be another." The sons and daughters of Kronos shuddered.

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.

"And hedidthis because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,

"GOD!" Zeus roared.

"I'm sure Chiron will correct him." Artemis and Athena hurried to stop their fathers' anger.

Zeus huffed but sat back down, glaring coldly at Percy who pretended not to notice.

and—"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "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.

"How he fell for it, I have no idea." Poseidon shook his head mystified while Hades and Zeus nodded with him.

And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

"You just shortened a ten year war into a sentence." Zeus said in disbelief.

"It's a gift." Percy said smirking proudly.

Some snickers from the group.

"I'd like to see them survive a day in Kronos' stomach." Demeter huffed. These children need more cereal.

Behind me, 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.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his 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.

"Boys always act like doofuses." Artemis said. All the males in the room huffed but didn't say anything.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"Well not everything, but most things." Athena said.

"Nobody cares." Poseidon said gritting his teeth.

"Fish face."

"Owl brain."

"Quiet." Zeus said.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"I definitely know now." Percy grumbled a few things about how being a demigod sucks and then shut up.

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had everlived,and their mother, and what god they worshipped.

"I bet that worked well." Thalia said laughing.

But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to beas good;he expected me to bebetter.And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

"Probably was." Athena stated.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.

"What got your togas in a twist?" Apollo asked looking at Zeus and Poseidon.

"How are we supposed to know? This is the future." Poseidon said.

We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were fromthatschool—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Did it work?" Nico asked.

"No." Percy replied.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

"I guessed as much." Athena rolled her eyes.

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

Thalia laughed, "Deep, goat boy, very deep."

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

"Awwww, sooooo cute!" Aphrodite squealed. Hera smiled and Ares muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'wimp'.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

Everyone snorted in disgust.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

"Oh yes. Very pretty. I sure as hell want to date her now." Ares rolled his eyes.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

"A wave?" Repeated Zeus, looking suspiciously at Poseidon who looked everywhere but at him.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

"POSEIDON!" Zeus practically screamed, "You broke the oath." He was seething.

"Yes I did brother. It was a mistake on my part as I have brought him a hero's fate but we will not kill my son." He added the end bit after seeing Hades look like he was about to bring out hell. Percy pretended not to hear his father's words but they cut through him like ice.

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

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."

"No. Never guess your punishments." Hermes and Apollo said in horrified tones.

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Of course it wasn't." Thalia groaned.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me.Ipushed 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.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.

Thalia and Nico shivered. They had each seen that look once. They never wanted to see it again.

Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but 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.

How'd she get there so fast?

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 counsellor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

"Nope. It's the mist and monsters."

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

"Great, no help is going to be coming anytime soon." Thalia mumbled. Poseidon looked a little put out but tried not to show it.

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.

"Great." Thalia and Nico groaned. Any hope they had lost.

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...

"She probably did want to." Athena grimaced.

"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.

"Unless she's a monster in disguise. Then she would not think twice about hurting you, in fact she'll more than likely try to kill you." Thalia said.

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 selling out of my dorm room.

"Awesome!" Apollo grinned cheekily.

Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay onTom Sawyerfrom 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.

Athena glared whilst Percy whistled innocently.

"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 shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

"You sent a fury after my son." Poseidon stated coldly. He glared at Hades but only got a sneer in response. The demigods sighed. They would never work together.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Poseidon breathed a sigh of relief, until he remembered that his son was in there and immediately placed a mask over his emotions, hiding them from his face.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

"Why is she still saying 'honey'?" Ares asked, thoroughly confused.

"I don't know. Never asked her." Percy shrugged and turned back towards Athena who continued reading.

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.Hisss!

"You defeated a fury on your first try?" Thalia said in an awed voice. Most people nodded along with her making Percy blush and Aphrodite to giggle.

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

"The wonders of the mist." Apollo said.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

"Magic Mushrooms? Of all the drugs in the world you chose Magic Mushrooms?" Nico asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Shut up. Can we please continue reading?" Percy replied.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Ourteacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"He really is a terrible liar isn't he." Thalia mused.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

"You would've made a very good God of theatre." Poseidon mused ignoring the look Zeus was giving him.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

"Of course." Thalia chuckled and Nico joined her. Percy rolled his eyes at them but smiled all the same.

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me 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 all right?"

"Now Chiron, he can lie. And he can lie very, very well." Thalia stated smirking at Percy.

"That is the end of the chapter." Athena announced.

"I'll take it next." Thalia offered and the book was handed to her. She opened it to the next page.

"Chapter 2. Three old ladies knit the socks of death."

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