Mortality • Percy Jackson

• Greetings •

Mr. Bruner led the museum tour. 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.

Kate opened the Lightning Theif, flipping through the pages. Her eyebrows furrowed. The book was...blank.

A girl in front of Kate snickered something about a naked guy on the stele, and Kate watched as the words popped into the book. Her eyes widened as a couple of pages filled themselves in black and white Times New Roman font.

Nancy snickered something about the naked guy on the stele. Kate read. I whirled around facing her and said,

"Will you SHUT UP?"

The action happened just a few seconds after the words came into the book. Kate realized.

It came out louder than I meant it to. The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr.Jackson, did you have something to say?"

My face was totally 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?"

Kate looked up from the book. It was Kronos, the titan lord of time, as she had read from greek mythology. She remembered once reading in the D'Lauries book of Greek mythology, that Zeus had tricked him into drinking up a wine and mustard concoction, to regurgitate the gods.

The boy flushed in relief. "That's Kronos eating his kids right?"

"And?" Mr.Bruner pressed.

"Well, he was the king god, and-"

Mr.Bruner raised an eyebrow. "God?"

The boy frowned, biting down on his lip.

Kate tipped forward, before hesitating. Should she tell him? She knew she wasn't supposed to.

"Mr.Jackson?"

Kate leaned towards him, her mouth just next to his ear. "Titan," she whispered, softly, so that nobody else could hear.

"-titan, and well-"

Mr.Bruner nodded, and Kate let out a light sigh of relief, flipping back into the book.

"And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters –"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"– and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,"' I continued, 'and the gods won."

Kate looked up when a bunch of snickers came from the group.

Near Kate, a girl with bright red hair, and freckles the color of Cheetos, 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," A boy smiled slyly.

"Shut up," The girl from before hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

"I don't know, sir." The boy muttered.