Chapter Text
I killed someone.
I should give you some context. My name is Perseus Jackson, but since you are going to be reading about me, I suppose you could call me Percy. My life has never been easy, and sure, you could call me a troubled kid. 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.
I was honestly excited about this. I love looking at all the artifacts there. Each of them held a story and meaning. It was interesting to learn about, and there were going to be Greek and Roman artifacts there. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan when it comes to me. But it was led by my Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, so I had hopes that this would go well.
Mr Brunner was an interesting figure. He was a middle-aged dude who used a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You would think that he was a boring teacher who would most likely put you to sleep in 10 minutes, but that wasn’t true. He told stories and jokes and let us play games in class (education games, of course). He also had this awesome collection of Roman and Greek armour and weapons.
I hoped that this field trip would be ok. At least I hoped I didn’t get in trouble. I had a bad track record with field trips like in 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. 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.
This trip I was sure would be different than all the rest.
Boy was I wrong.
-
The whole way to the city, I had to deal with Nancy Bobofit, a girl with fiery red hair and freckles all over. She was sitting right behind me and Gover, my best friend. She was throwing pieces of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in his hair.
Gover was an easy target. He was scrawny and cried when he got frustrated. Also, he used crutches, so you can imagine how weak he may look in the eyes of a bully. He was the perfect target for someone to take their frustration on.
I really wanted to protect Gover or just do anything. It just wasn’t in my nature to sit around and watch as some I knew got hurt, whether that be emotionally or physically. I couldn’t do anything, though. I was already on probation, and if something were to happen in this field, I would be given an in-school suspension.
“I’m going to murder her” I mumbled under my breath, it wouldn’t be hard I could do it easily. I didn’t have any experience but how hard could it be? I must have said it loud then I meant because Gover replied.
“It’s okay. I like peanut butter.” He tried to calm me,
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.”
In hindsight, I really wish I had decked her right there and then consequences be damned.
Mr Brunner led the group pointing out certain displays and talking about them, He clearly knew what he was talking about. 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 was all beautiful, with intricate patterns and shapes. The trip was going well; nothing had happened, and nobody bothered Grover or me.
Mr Brunner stopped us at 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 also told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say because it was interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs Dods, would give me this strange look.
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. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.
From the first day, she kept giving me this one look. I don’t know what it was, but she didn’t seem to hate me all that much. I mean, she hasn’t given me detention for no reason, so there that. She was a really weird person; honestly, I didn’t think she was a human.
I once said this to Grover and he looked me dead in the eyes and said that I was absolutely right.
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 you shut 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 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?”
When I looked at the picture, I intently recognised it: “The carving shows Kronos, the king of the Titans, eating his children, the god.”
“Yes that is correct,” Mr Brunner said nodding his head “And he did this because…”
“ He did this because… he got a prophecy saying that one of his kids would kill him and take over. So he ate them so they couldn’t do that.” I said I looked at Mr Brunner to see if I got anything wrong. He made a gesture to tell me to continue. “Right he ate 5 of his children and after that, his wife Rhea got sick of him so she hid baby Zeus and fed Kronos a rock instead. After Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—”
“Ewww!” said one girl behind me.
“—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,” I continued, “and the gods won.”
Some snickers from the group.
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 Mr Brunner called out Nancy, He was the only teacher who heard and called her out for stuff.
I thought about the question there were many answers I could give to that but none of them would make sense to him. I could give some generic answers about learning from the past and not making the same mistakes, but I doubt he would be impressed with that.
Instead, I just replied, “I don’t know sir.”
“I see,” he said, studying me. He gave me the impression that he knew I had an idea of why it was important, but I must have imagined it because his expression was now one of disappointment.
“Well, half credit Mr Jackson. Indeed Zeus did 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 soon drifted off outside the girls laughing and gossiping and the guys pushing each other around.
Grover and I were the last ones there, so I wanted to spend the most time looking at the painting away from everyone else.
“Mr Jackson, a word please.” Mr Brunner called out.
I knew it was coming.
“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.”
“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.”
He talked as if he knew gods and monsters as if they were real. But no that couldn’t be it, how could he know all this? Mr Brunner was just some teacher in no way related to all of this.
Unless he wasn’t.
I didn’t dwell on that thought; instead, I nodded my head and went outside to find Grover. I hated the way Mr. Brunner pushed me to be better than everyone else. He expected me to be some kind of child prodigy, but I wasn’t.
The class gathered on the museum's front steps, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
Overhead, clouds were grey and nearly black, and a storm was brewing. This kind of weather had been in New York since Christmas. It wasn’t natural for this kind of storm to be here for so long. We had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes, so maybe it wasn’t unreasonable for there to be a massive storm.
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 was standing off to the side not paying any attention.
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 from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn’t make it elsewhere.
“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.”
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?”
I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.
I looked out towards the streets where people got on and off cabs. I wish I could go up and catch a cab to take me back to my mom’s apartment. It wasn’t very far only a little bit uptown. She would hug me and be glad I was there but at the same time, she’d be disappointed that I left. I hated disappointing her and she would send me right back to Yancy. Also, I would be totally expelled for leaving and as much as I hate Yancy I didn’t want to be expelled for the sixth year in a row.
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 café 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.
“Oops.” She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.
I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told me a million times, “Count to ten, get control of your temper.” But I was so mad that my mind went blank.
Then there was a rumbling in my ears, I felt the ground shaking but it had to just me vibrating.
I don’t remember pushing Nancy but she was sitting on her butt on the ground. There was a small cut on her cheek that must have happened when she fell.
Mrs. Dodds materialised next to us.
Some of the kids were whispering: “Did you see—” “—the ground—” “—like it pushed her—”
I stood there, unsure of what had happened. Had I done that? It shouldn’t have moved; I couldn’t have made it do that.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I would be in big trouble.
As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure 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 fire in her eyes, but it wasn’t like she was wanting for this excuse to punish me. It was really hard to discern what she wanted. “Now, honey—”
“I know,” I grumbled. “I’ll probably have detention for like the rest of the year.”
This obviously wasn’t the best thing to say since she narrowed her eyes at me. “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.
“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 smirked at me as if she had just won some sort of major event. I glared at her and her smirk died down a little.
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.
I wasn’t so sure that was true, how could I miss her going up all those steps.
I went up after her.
I glanced back at Grover. His face was deathly pale, and his eyes were cut from me to Mr. Brunner. It was as if he wanted him to realize what was happening and stop it.
I tore my eyes away from them and looked back up a Mrs. Dodds, who was waiting at the top taping her foot impatiently.
She walks away into 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 empty Greek and Roman section.
Empty except for us.
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 me that sent a shiver down my spine.
“You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said but it wasn’t in the accusatory tone I was expecting, it was more thoughtful.
I did the safe thing. I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “ Did you do it?” she asked.
“N-no” I stammered “I didn’t push her over! I swear. I don’t know how she fell.”
“We are not fools, Percy Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said. “ You know exactly what we are talking about.”
“I don’t, I really don’t!” Maybe she was talking about the candy stash I had in my room that I sold to other kids.
She studied me long and hard before nodding. “It’s clear that you didn’t do it.” She breathed out a sigh “That is good.”
I blinked, unsure what was currently happening that was good.
“I am sure you will be informed later,” she hummed talking to herself.
Informed? About what, who would be informing me in the first place? I was so confused. Unless Mrs. Dodds was part of that. It was possible and would make so much sense.
Mrs. Dodds then looked toward the exhibit's entrance. Her eyes were wide. Then they started 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 Furry.
“Alecto,” I breathed out in shock how had I not realized this sooner.
“No hard feeling young one.” Then she rushed toward me
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. I caught it
Alecto then swiped at my head it wasn’t a very skilful attack, I knew she wasn’t really trying to kill me.
I uncapped the pen and a glowing bronze sword appeared in my hands. It was the sword Mr Brunner always used for tournament day.
Alecto then charged at me and without hesitation swung at her neck.
I hit and the blade with straight through her like butter.
She exploded into yellow dust and vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur, 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 clutching a sword. I cupped it and walked outside. The whole thing had been confusing.
It was now raining Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, now with a bandaid on her cheek, grumbling to her ugly friends.
When she saw me, she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.”
“Who?” I said.
“Our teacher. Duh!”
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I left it I suppose that is just what happens when you kill your teacher.
Nancy left probably bored.
I turned to Grover “Do you know where Mrs Dodds is.” Obviously, I knew but I want to see Grover’s reaction to the whole situation.
He said, “Who?”
“Not funny, man,” I told him. “This is serious. How could you not remember our teacher.”
But he paused first, and he wouldn’t look at me. I knew it. He knows something. But I just left it maybe Mr. Brunner would have more answers.
Thunder boomed overhead.
I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved. It would be the perfect time to question him.
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.”
I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it.
“Sir, where’s Mrs. Dodds?” I asked innocently
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?”