The Ocean Arrow

Star City

Percy

In line to board the train, I warily looked behind my back every few moments or so. My mom, who stood next to me, adjusted the backpack on her shoulders while looking at me with an amused expression on her face. "You've looked behind your shoulder ten times in the past minute, what is up with you?"

I wave a hand at her dismissively, "What! I'm just being careful. You never know what could happen. I mean," I begin to lower my voice, and eyed the couple in front of us in the line, who were chattering away, not aware of us behind them. "A monster confronted me just the other day, and I want to make sure there will be no more surprises. Just let me be the one to worry for once, Mom."

She rolled her eyes, and rested a hand on Paul's shoulder who looked up from his book in confusion. He clearly wasn't paying attention to us. "Well, as your mother, I feel obliged to worry. So that's what I'll do. Now, pay attention, we're up next."

I whip around, noticing that it's already our turn to board the train. I give the conductor, a man with graying hair and a bushy mustache, my ticket and he smiles as me as he stamps it and allows me onto the train.

Now that the three of us were boarded, I began to walk down the aisles, trying to find an empty compartment. As we walked down, I frowned each time I noticed a compartment was already taken by people. But luckily for us, one was open in the back of the train. We claimed it before anyone else could.

The compartment itself was fine. There were four separate leather chairs that all faced each other. And large window with blue velvet curtains allowed sunlight to pour into the room, where it smelled oddly like the Mediterranean Lavender Febreze was sprayed here. Don't ask how I know that.

I set our bags above us in the overhead compartment, and I sat down across from my mom and Paul, who were settling in nicely.

"ETA to Star City?" Paul asked my mom who thought for a moment before replying, "6, maybe 7 hours."

"Oh, great," I sigh, slouching back into my seat. As a kid with ADHD and a short attention span, I don't think I'll be able to last it that long in this train. "Well, anyways, what's the schedule for the trip?"

"Once we arrive at the hotel, we can order takeout or just snack on something at the hotel. Tomorrow, I signed us up for this super cool tour of the city. That's two hours. My expo is over the weekend, but we'd have time to go sightseeing at night. Then we have a free day to do whatever before we go home on Tuesday," my mom said excitedly. She's been anticipating this trip for weeks. This'll be her first author expo ever, and she's been talking nonstop about it. She now reminds me of Annabeth when talking about everything on Daedalus' laptop.

Speaking of Annabeth, I was disappointed to hear she wasn't coming with us. But she insisted that this was something I should have with my mom and Paul. Just us. Plus, Annabeth is also beginning to reconnect with her dad again, and I encouraged her to stay with him for a few weeks in San Francisco.

I looked at my mom, her dark hair with streaks of gray hair were pulled back into a high ponytail. Wisps of her hair fell apart from the rest, framing her face. She was wearing a light blue blouse with jeans. My mom didn't look her age, I remember a few years ago, someone mistook us for siblings. I remember being disgusted for the rest of the day. I didn't dare leave the apartment with my mom for the whole week.

My mom suddenly unzipped her backpack and scoured through it. After another moment, she pulled out a container of blue cookies, and my mouth watered at the sight of the sweets. Paul immediately grabbed the container from her hands before I could even reach for them. He instantly popped the top off and took one. He stuffed two in his mouth and offered the container to me, "hant un?"