I have been at this for days now.
I don't know what happened, but while I was with Miss Sere Mrs. Dodds disappeared and it seems only me and that Jackson kid are the only ones who remember.
I may be used to the occasional weird experience, for crying out loud I was made in a lab and have literal super powers. But this twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. The entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick. Almost all the students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr —a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip— had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.
Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on either Nancy or one of the other hundred students, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.
It got so bad I almost believed that Mrs. Dodds had never existed.
Almost.
The only proof I had were three people. Percy Jackson, Grover Underwood, and Mr. Brunner. After hearing about Mrs. Kerr from Nancy I had gone to Mr. Brunner and asked him about Mrs. Dodds. It was like for a split second he became a different person, his heart beat spiked like he'd been caught in a lie only to go back down a second later.
Then there was Percy and Grover. Throughout the last few months I've seen and heard Percy mention Mrs. Dodds to Grover. Whenever Percy mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But we both knew he was lying.
Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.
I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, Honors classes and all that. But at night, I had weird dreams of Mrs. Dodds standing in a dark room, like a cave, with torches surrounding her and a weird shadowy figure speaking down to her in some unknown language.
The horrible weather didn't help much either. One night, the winds threw a metal pole through the window in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.
I started losing sleep due to my dorm mate waking up screaming due to being traumatized from almost dying. My grades slipped from A's to C-'s. It didn't help that Nancy and her friends got into more fights with Percy. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.
Finally, when our Science teacher, Mr. Devon had to stop me from turning vinegar into acetaldehyde. That blunder got me sent to study hall for the rest of the school year. At the time I was upset about it and I called him a "wannabe walter white, milk dud, Doakes from Dexter lookin ahh". Four weeks with one hour of sleep does not do well for my anger issues.
So, I attempted to help my roommate.
Every night I would stay with my roommate —Louis, he was from Luxembourg. We'd stay up together till he felt safe enough to fall fast asleep, and hold hands so he felt safe. It was easier than moving rooms and I got back up to five hours of sleep.
I still wasn't allowed back in class because I almost killed everyone with the acetaldehyde incident.
Everything would have been great, if the rumors hadn't started.
Louis decided to tell his friends about how I helped him. But, since he wasn't entirely fluent in English, he worded it wrong, saying I was sleeping with him to help him feel better. The teachers heard this and decided it would be best to bring it to the headmaster.
The headmaster decided to send my dad a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.
Fine, I told myself. Just fine.
I was homesick anyway.
I wanted to be with my dad and sisters in our little house on the lower South Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with being ignored by everyone.
I mean I guess there are things I'd miss at Yancy. The free art supplies, the field trip seventh graders get to go on, the Gym teacher's therapy dog Pedro. I'd miss Nancy, who'd been a good friend, even if she was an idiot. I worried how she'd stay out of jail next year without me.
I'd miss the Zoology Club, too —the class hamster was so cute, it cheats at uno though.
As exam week got closer, Latin was the test I studied for the most. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me and Percy about this subject being vital for us. I wasn't sure why, but if the ominous man with two heart beats says it's vital I'm listening.
The evening before my final, I got lost.
With what happened with Louis, the school had to move me to another Dorm on the other side of Campus. Due to that it took me half the night to walk from the Library to my classroom.
I walked through the halls past the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor, with a twelve year old Percy Jackson crouched down behind the door.
With all that's happened in the past month, I obviously followed his lead.
Sneakily I got behind Percy, floating a centimeter off the ground so I would be silent. Percy noticed me, his eyes widening as he began to try and speak. Luckily I shut him up before he could blow our cover.
Covering his mouth I gestured to the door. He nodded, understanding that I was here to eavesdrop as well.
From inside, we could hear Grover and Mr. Brunner talking.
"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"
"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."
"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline- "
"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can." "Sir, not only did he see her...but Dio did too."
"Their imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince them of that."
"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."
"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall."
I started to hear a slipping noise, noticing that Percy's mythology book was starting to fall out of his hands. Quickly I caught it, being sure to not let the two things in the room hear us.
"But, what about Diogonese," Grover said, his nervous words being followed by a strange tapping sound. Like hooves. "We know near nothing about him. His dad constantly sends letters meaning he cares enough to look for him if he goes missing. And have you seen his eyes, they're almost hollow, I don't know what it is but something is off about him."
Percy looked up at me. Glancing over my face as if trying to see what Grover had meant.
Of course my eyes look hollow, I'm nothing but an abomination made in a lab. You wouldn't expect Talos to look at you like it was the iron giant.
A sudden tearing sound resonated through the hall, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Percy and I's eyes darted to my hands as the Mythology book had torn in my grasp.
The office went silent.
My heart started hammering, I didn't have time to think as I grabbed Percy and booked it down the hall.
A shadow slid across the hallway, the shadow of something not human, like a satyr from the book I'd just torn but with only one fury leg and a vaguely female figure. Following it was something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.
Percy opened the nearest door and slipped us inside.
A few seconds later I heard a quick clank-clank-clank and a clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks and metal hitting tiles, then a sound like an arrow being notched like in a fantasy movie. A short, dark shape ran past the front of the glass, followed by a large, dark shadow with what sounded like horse hooves.
A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.
Percy and I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.
Finally, we slipped out into the hallway and made our way back up to our dorms, not speaking as we feared whatever that was would find us, and with me never fighting something with a weapon, I was not risking it.
On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. I was up all night thinking.
The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents with expendable income that didn't go into high temperature kevlar clothing. Their daddies may have been executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities, but at least they didn't make them out of sugar, spice, and clay toys.
They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to Chicago.
What I didn't tell them was that I'd be spending my time in an underground bunker fighting Godzilla's coked out cousins, and spending my free time worrying about how to not vaporize my room in my sleep.
"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."
They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.
The only people I dreaded saying good-bye to were Nancy and Louis, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. Nancy had stolen my phone and put her and Louis' numbers in it.
What sucks is I had hopped on to the same Greyhound as Grover and Percy had. In the same aisle. So, there we were, together again, heading into the city.
During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers —me specifically. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased, which made me try and befriend Nancy so she'd stop. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.
Finally, Percy couldn't stand it anymore.
Percy said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"
Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"
Percy confessed about us eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.
Grover's eyes twitched. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"
"And what do hollow eyes look like? Cause I'm pretty sure I don't have empty eye sockets," I asked.
He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."
Wait- that's what happened with Mrs. Dodds?
"Grover—" Percy tried to say.
"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."
"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." Percy and I both say.
"And a real jerk too, yeah I have issues, but you talked about me like I was—"
His ears turned pink, but his eyes locked in on me.
It was like he was more worried of me saying Monster than he was of me and Percy finding out what he and Mr. Brunner spoke about.
From his shirt pocket, he fished out two grubby business cards. "Just take these, okay? In case you need me this summer.
The card was in fancy script, saying something like:
Grover Underwood
Keeper
Half-Blood Hill
Long Island, New York
(800) 009-0009
"What's Half-"
"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped at Percy. "That's my, um ... summer address."
It looked as though Percy's heart had been sunken with a harpoon.
Why was he giving us his Summer Home's address? Was it supposed to protect us from those Kindly Ones he spoke of?
Wait... are Kindly Ones a euphemism for Hades' Servants?
"Okay," I heard Percy aay glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."
Grover nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."
"Why would I need you?" Percy asked.
It came out harsher than he meant it to.
Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, Diogenes, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you. Both of you, now it seems."
We stared at him.
All year long, I'd seen Percy get in fights, keeping bullies away from Grover. I'd lost sleep having to think over the words he'd said about me, like I was some warmongering destroyer. And here he was acting like he was trying to defend me?
"Grover," I said, "what exactly do you think you're protecting us from?"
There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.
After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover, Percy and I filed outside with everybody else.
We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.
The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.
I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.
All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.
The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at Percy.
I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.
"Grover?" Percy said. "Hey, man-"
"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?" Grover bleated.
"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?" Percy asked.
"Dude, they're twice the size of your waist. You'd have better luck fitting them on a T-Rex."
"Not funny, you guys. Not funny at all."
The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors —gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.
"We're getting on the bus," he told us. "Come on."
"What?" Percy said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."
"Actually by the looks of it, it should be fixed soon." I said getting a weird look from Percy.
"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.
Across the road, the old ladies were still watching Percy. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip clearer than anything in my life. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for —Fuzzy Lumpkins or the one guy from the Gang Green Gang.
At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.
The passengers cheered.
"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" Once we got going, I looked over to Percy and stepped back a bit. He looked feverish, as if he'r caught the flu.
Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.
"Grover?" Percy said.
"Yeah?"
"What are you not telling me?"
He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"
"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"
Grover's expression was hard to read, but from what I'd gathered from their conversation and the sound of Grover's heart. I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than whatever Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."
"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." Percy and I both said.
He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older, it gave me a shiver down my spine.
He said, "You both saw her snip the cord."
"Yeah. So?"
"It wasn't that hard to miss?" But even as we answered him, I knew it was a big deal.
"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."
"What happened last time?" Percy asked.
"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth. Why do I keep picking up other's? They'll just get hurt." Grover contributed to mutter
"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"
"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Both of you. Promise me."
This seemed like a strange request to me, Percy promised he would but I was less quick to answer.
"What does this have to do with Mrs. Dodds?" I asked, trying to get some information.
Grover looked at me like he was too afraid to answer. That was enough for me, he had no weapons and if he was really protecting us I wasn't risking it. I promised him.
"Is this like a superstition or something?" Percy asked.
No answer.
"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"
He looked at Percy mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers he'd like best on hus coffin.
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Author's Note: I hope you enjoy reading this, please tell me what you think and give me as much feedback as you want. If you want a significant other tell me who, depending on who it is I may put it.
Word Count: 3282