Chapter Text
Chapter 1: “I’m the Perfect Child, Not”
Look, I didn’t want to be the legendary hero Percy Jackson’s sister.
It’s a one-way ticket to a very short and miserable life that involves a lot of monsters, mild head trauma and the smell of seaweed where seaweed should never be. Don’t ask…
Trust me on this, being Percy Jacksons sister sucks, like really sucks. I learnt this the hard way.
My name is Ione Jackson.
I’m ten years old and go to a perfectly boring, average elementary school in Manhattan, New York, called Blackbird Elementary where I of course am in the fourth grade.
Am I a perfect kid?
Heck no! Far from it.
Am I a troubled kid?
Eh… not yet. I’m working on it.
Today was a perfectly normal day at Blackbird Elementary. It was pretty boring if you ask me.
Reports were in and I can’t believe it – I did semi okay! I got a D in English, a B in maths, a couple Cs in science and social studies (which I am definitely going to frame because I swear that Mr Brown has it out for me), I also got a glorious A in PE – which, if I’m honest, is the most important subject. Who needs things like maths and science anyways when you can play baseball and dodgeball forever?
I got yelled at yet again for being bad at reading. Mrs Krugar yelled at me in English today because I couldn’t read the stupid comprehension out loud properly – you can thank my good old friend dyslexia for that one. I may have snapped back at her for it… may have called her an old witch who lives with trolls, but I don’t know, it may be true. Maybe.
I even got the highest honour today. I beat Andy Richerdson at his own game, beat him at four square, smashed the ball and it bounced right into his eye. Serves him right for always cheating.
Now the day had finally come.
The greatest time of year.
Summer.
Summer. The most magical and sacred season that was ever dreamed of. Where it is totally acceptable to rot your brains with cartoons, eat popsicles until your tongue turns bright blue, well purple but you get the point, and then live in your pyjamas 24/7. It is pure bliss.
Well… almost pure.
At this point I was trudging home through the warm New York streets with my backpack thumping against my back while wearing a uniform that is trying to suffocate me from the inside out while also making me look like a Victorian child.
Let me paint a glorious picture for you:
I’m wearing the most atrocious school uniform ever designed by mankind. It’s a stiff navy-blue blazer, a plaid skirt that has to go past your knees, and long navy-blue socks that constantly fall down and somehow get you detention—like that’s my fault, and a white shirt that somehow manages to be both itchy and see-through whenever it rains.
To sum it all up. It’s a disaster, an insult to fashion.
To add to it all it makes me look even smaller than I already am.
I’m short. Like, really short.
I’ve got long, wavy black hair that never listens to me and always looks like I just rolled out of a wind tunnel… or maybe fell out of a tree. Hard to say. I have these sea-green eyes that people say look “mysterious.” Whatever that is supposed to means.
I think it has something to do with how they make me look like I’m constantly about to cry, which for the record, I’m not. I just… have that face.
So, there I was, a slightly grumpy ten-year-old in a nightmare outfit, walking home while mentally preparing for the weekend ahead. Mom had hinted that Percy might be coming back today from that fancy boarding school upstate. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in months, which was fine. Mostly.
Okay, not really.
But he always came back weird. Quiet. Tired.
Like school wasn’t just books and lunch trays, but something heavier he didn’t want to talk about. I never knew what to say, so I mostly just annoyed him until he smiled again.
Spoiler alert – it didn’t work today.
The hallway outside of our apartment smelled like old onions, cigarette smoke, and someone’s dog that probably hadn’t been walked since the Bronze Age. Poor buddy.
I jiggled on the front doorknob – it was unlocked, of course – so I just walked in.
The first thing I was greeted by was a smell that could kill giants, it hit me like a truck, the smell of beer, sweat and something that I can only describe as cheese that died 80 years ago and has been left in the sun.
Great.
My stepdad Gabe was home.
He wasn’t just home, he was enthroned, like a king at the kitchen table together with his posy of poker buddies. They were all shouting and laughing while slamming cards down onto the table. There was a greasy pile of chips and dip next to them but it was ignored in favour of the cheap playing cards and even cheaper insults.
I stood in the doorway for a second and shifted my backpack so that I can use it as a shield.
Just walk through. Don’t make eye contact. You’re a ghost. A short, sweaty, summer hoping ghost in itchy socks and a skirt that makes you look like a Victorian doll with regrets.
“Hey,” Gabe grunted through a half-chewed mouthful of sandwich, not even turning to look. “Watch your step, shrimp. We just cleaned the carpet.”
I stared at the carpet for a second. It had more stains than the subway seats. Definitely freshly cleaned.
I didn’t bring this up. I just nodded and kept walking, as if this will make him ignore me all of a sudden.
One of Gabe’s friends gave me a sideways look and said, “This your kid, Ugliano?”
Gabe chuckled.
“Nah. Just the extra. The backup kid. Came with the wife.”
That stung. It always did, no matter how many times I heard it. I wanted to say something clever, like “At least I’m not the reason every room smells like failure,” but instead, I just cleared my throat.
“Is Percy home?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even and clear.
Gabe finally looked up at me with that squinty, smug look he always wore when he knew he made you feel small. “In his room. Been stompin’ around since he got back. Probably broke somethin’. Typical.”
I nodded again and made a quick exit toward the hallway, my footsteps silent on the wood floor. I hated how I did that—shrinking around him. Being quiet, careful. Like prey. Like he was the big sea monster and I was just a little crab trying not to get noticed.
One day I’m gonna be taller than him. One day I’m gonna slam the door so hard it knocks his dumb poker chips off the table.
But today wasn’t that day.
I quickly moved down the hallway, away from the wretched stench of Gabe and his giggling schoolgirl-disguised poker buddies.
I stood at the door for a second as I stared at the faded “KEEP OUT” sign that was barely holding onto the door. Percy had made the sign two years ago using a marker and printer paper after he got fed up with me barging into his room so that I could ask dumb questions like “why is the sky blue?” and “Do fish sleep?” To be fair those are very reasonable questions for an eight-year-old to be asking.
I moved my eyes away from the sign and knocked on the door three times.
“Percy?” I called. “It’s me. Your sister.”
There was a pause.
Then some movement inside. A drawer shut. Footsteps. A low voice.
“Yeah?”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out a crumpled little bag of popcorn I had bought from the store at school. It wasn’t very nice popcorn, it tasted like it had been made last summer and left in the boy’s locker room, but still – popcorn is popcorn, plus the stuff is cheap.
I shook the bag as if calling a dog.
“I come bearing gifts,” I said, knocking again, lighter this time. “Stale popcorn. Possibly dangerous. Might explode.”
There was another pause where I really thought I was going to be told to stuff off but then.
“Whatever. Come in.”
The door creaked open, and I stepped inside.
Percys room looked different somehow. Not literally but it felt like it did.
It had the same messy floor. Same unmade bed. Same books and socks that looked as if they were fighting in World War III for territory.
Percy looked older somehow. I mean, sure—he was older—but that’s not what I meant. He looked like he was dragging a weight behind him, one that made him look miserable but somehow angry at the same time.
He was sitting on the end of his bed with his elbows resting on his knees and staring into space.
“Hey,” I said, flopping down next to him and popping the popcorn bag open. “I bring crumbs. Want some?”
He took the bag wordlessly and grabbed a handful. Chewed like it was cardboard. Probably was.
“Still the worst popcorn on the planet,” he muttered.
“I know,” I said, grinning. “That’s what makes it bonding food.”
We sat like that for a few seconds, just chewing stale popcorn and letting the silence stretch between us.
Then Percy ruined it.
“So, how does it feel being the perfect child?”
And just like that, my grin vanished. What was that supposed to mean?
“What?”
He shrugged, still not looking at me.
“You know. Mom’s favourite. Good grades. Doesn’t get expelled. Doesn’t get chased by—”
He stopped himself.
Chased by what? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. Not yet.
Instead, my brain short-circuited on the word “perfect.”
Perfect?
Me?
What part of me was perfect exactly?
Was it the D in English I got today?
Or the two Cs and a B that I was thinking of framing like they were medals?
Was it how I couldn’t read a basic paragraph out loud without the words flipping, swimming, and diving off the page like they were in the Olympics?
Was it when I called my English teacher an “old troll witch” under my breath—except it wasn’t under my breath, because the whole class heard it?
I’ve had three detentions this month alone.
And the only A I got was in PE.
Which doesn’t even count, according to most adults, because apparently dodgeball “won’t help you get into college.”
So yeah.
Perfect.
I kept chewing on a piece of stale popcorn like it might give me something smart to say.
It didn’t.
Something was wrong, I just didn’t have the faintest clue what.
I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in the way Percy wouldn’t meet my eyes. In the way his shoulders were hunched, like the ceiling was pressing down on him. He looked tired—too tired—and not just in a “school sucks” kind of way.
“Percy,” I said slowly, “what did you mean... chased?”
He stiffened as I asked the question.
There was no answer.
So I pressed just a little.
“Did something happen?”
Still nothing. Man, my brother is annoying sometimes. All this no speaking business was making me slightly nervous and when I get nervous well, I usually say something dumb.
“What? Did you get expelled for another stupid school?”
His head snapped toward me so fast I flinched.
His eyes burned.
“You don’t know anything.”
I shrank back.
And just like that, the gap between us felt like a canyon.
Like a crayon in the hands of a destructive toddler—snapped right in half before anyone could stop it but of course I was going to say something back, I don’t back down no matter what.
“Yeah?” I snapped. “Well maybe you should tell me something for once instead of sulking around like the world owes you a parade.”
Percy’s jaw tightened.
He looked up at me with that storm-in-the-ocean glare he gets when he’s really mad—like, cyclone mad.
“You don’t get it,” he said. “You never have to get it. You get to stay here with Mom, go to your little school, live your normal life while I—while I get expelled every year just for existing!”
I blinked. How is that my problem?
“So it’s my fault now?” I stood up, hands clenched. “It’s my fault you get kicked out of every school like a human bouncy ball?”
“No, but it’s easy for you, isn’t it?” he snapped, standing too. “You’re the one who actually makes her proud. You’re the one she brags about to people. ‘My daughter got a B in math.’ ‘My daughter won the softball game.’ Meanwhile I’m—”
“What? The sad kicked puppy? The tragic school reject?” I shot back. “You don’t think I try to make her proud? I got a D in English, Percy. A D. I got yelled at today—again—for not being able to read. I’m not perfect. I’m just not constantly getting expelled for blowing things up!”
Percy stepped closer, eyes burning.
“You don’t have to be perfect. You just are. To her. To everyone.”
My voice cracked.
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair!” Percy shouted.
I don’t know who moved first.
Maybe it was me, maybe it was him. But suddenly there was a shove—nothing huge, not really—but enough. My shoulder bumped hard into the dresser behind me.
And something inside me snapped.
“Don’t push me!” I shouted, shoving him back.
“Then stop acting like you’re better than me!”
“I’m not—” I started to scream, but then—
“HEY!”
The voice was like a tidal wave crashing into the room.
We both froze as the door flew open.
There in the doorway stood Mom—Sally Jackson—with her keys still in one hand and her eyes wide, furious, and deeply disappointed all at once.
And just like that, everything inside me dropped to the floor.
Because our mom wasn’t the kind of person who got mad easily. She was the kind of person who made angry hurt.
She stood in the doorway, and for a moment, I just looked at her.
Sally Jackson is… well, she’s beautiful. Like, the kind of beautiful that makes people stop and stare on the subway, then feel weird for doing it.
She’s got long brown hair with streaks of grey that she never bothers to dye, and eyes the colour of the ocean—except they change depending on the light. Sometimes bright blue, sometimes sea-glass green, sometimes stormy. Percy once said he never thought of her as old, even when he was little. I get that. She doesn’t feel old. She feels… like home.
Her smile is warm—like fresh-laundry, homemade-soup, tucked-under-the-blankets kind of warm.
But she wasn’t smiling now.
She was glaring between us like she was trying to figure out whether to yell, cry, or send us both to our rooms until we turned fifty. She didn’t look mad necessarily; she looked disappointed, which is always somehow worse.
“What is going on in here?” she demanded in a tone that would scare planets.
Neither of us said anything. Percy looked down at the floor. I stared at the crumpled popcorn bag on the bed suddenly finding it very interesting.
She stepped fully into the room, her voice lowering but no less sharp.
“I heard you yelling from the elevator. And pushing? Really? This is not a war zone?”
Percy didn’t answer.
I wanted to melt through the floor.
“I come home hoping we could have a quiet night before our trip—and this is what I walk into?”
Trip? What trip? I wasn’t told about any trip.
My stomach dropped.
“Trip?” I echoed. “What trip?”
Sally blinked like she hadn’t meant to say that yet.
“I was going to tell you after dinner,” she said softly. “Just me and Percy. Montauk. For a few days.”
I stared at her.
Then at Percy.
So that’s what this was. A nice weekend. A getaway. For the two of them.
Without me.
Without the so-called “perfect child.”
So much for that.
“What about me?” I asked even though the answer was in plain sight, even a newborn could see it.
Sally sighed. The kind of sigh grownups do when they’re trying to act like they’re being patient, but really they just want to shut the conversation down.
“You’re not coming with.”
“Why not?” I pressed, standing a little straighter.
“Because,” she said carefully, like each word was made of glass, “Percy is having a really rough time right now. He needs space. Just him and me.”
Rough time?
What about me?
What about the kid who got shoved into a dresser five minutes ago and got called perfect like it was an insult? That kid wants to go to the beach as well.
“Cool,” I said, folding my arms. “Very cool. So, while you two are off having your magical beach healing time, what am I doing? Home alone with Smelly Gabe?”
Sally shook her head. “No, honey. You’re going to stay with the Tuckers.”
“The Tuckers?” I groaned. “Mom, nooo.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“They’re health freaks,” I moaned louder. I was being dramatic but I did not care one bit. “They drink wheatgrass for fun. They eat things with lentils. Sam’s mom won’t even let us have ketchup. It’s all ‘natural’ this and ‘organic’ that and 'do you want some beet juice?' No, Linda, no one wants beet juice!”
Even Percy smiled at me saying that, which only made me more annoyed.
Oh, now he reacts. Now he smiles.
“It’s just for a few days,” Mom said gently. “I promise. I’ll pick you up right after. Maybe we’ll even go out for pancakes.”
“If they’re not made of quinoa,” I muttered. For those of you who don’t know Quinoa is a seed, often treated as a grain, which is known for being a complete protein source, blah, blah, blah. Basically, it’s healthy, and nasty tasting.
She crouched slightly to meet my eyes, but I wouldn’t look at her.
Not yet. Maybe not at all.
“Ione, I love you. This isn’t about picking favourites. Percy needs this right now.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He always does.”
I felt like saying a hundred things right there on the spot but I took the guidance counsellor’s advice for once and counted back from ten and took a deep breathe. Mr Smith would be so proud of me right now.
I wanted to say something sarcastic like Sure, I’ll just stay behind with the lentil lords and pretend beet juice is happiness.
Or No worries, I’ll be here perfecting my perfection while eating the weird fake pizzas that they eat.
But I didn’t.
I just swallowed the words like a mouthful of old popcorn and forced myself to nod.
“I’ll go pack,” I said, voice flat.
Then I turned and walked out pretending that the situation definitely didn't hurt me.