Orphis Brown and the Stolen Crown

Chapter 18

The bees attacked and they ran for their lives.

Orphis shouted, 'LETS SPLIT UP!' which wasn't the smartest thing to do, considering there were like 50 bees, but Orphis was desperate. They all dived in different directions and Orphis's cheek caught in a bush branch and he stumbled. His left cheek exploded in pain.

He felt his face. Sticky liquid was slowly oozing down his face. He decided to ignore it. There were more important things than some harmless scratch.

Selina yelled out too and he guessed that she also suffered some minor injury. No matter, they had to get rid of these bees or else they would have painful stings to go with their scratches. Orphis shuddered. That would not be good. 

'The lake!' Wendy shouted 'Dive in to the lake!'

She pointed east, where the lake beside the school was located. The water was so clean that people would go and take a sip at break. Not anymore, thought Orphis, as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. His blood would probably make the water not so very clean anymore, but he didn't care. He was confident enough to believe that his life was more important than some little lake. Besides, his classmates had water bottles.

They dove inside the water, and the bees hummed angrily above them. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the bees gave up and buzzed away.

After they were absolutely sure that the bees weren't gonna come back, they surfaced and took big gulps of fresh air. He had never known he could hold his breath that long. His swimming teacher would be proud.

They were sopping wet when they came out and Henry declared, 'I need a towel. And a bath' he added.

They all laughed and Orphis felt like that was the first time he laughed in days, maybe weeks.

'Come on' Oliver said, 'We need to go home now'.

'Wait' Orphis said, 'I need to do one more thing'.

He was planning to talk with Mr Strick, the son of Dionysus. He would understand, since he was a demigod too.

They all dried off and at that exact moment, the students came back from their field trip. Orphis looked at the principal, and he seemed to understand.

'What's up?' he asked, when they were safely back in his office.

So Orphis told him everything that had happened, nodded when Orphis paused, and he looked a bit drunk. Probably just helped himself to a bit of wine in the field trip. Orphis thought.

After he was done, Mr Strick nodded and said, 'Looks like you've been through a lot. You better go home, get some rest. I expect you're very tired and your parents will be very worried.'

'Yeah, thanks.' said Orphis and the principal stood up.

'Well, I have a party to attend to.' he said importantly, 'Good day to you!'

And he left the room.