The Fiasco at Camp Half-Blood

There's a Dead Guy in There?

"Hey, Nadiya!" I spin around, looking for the voice. "Nadiya!"
It's my half brother, Connor. He's waving at me and I have a strong suspicion that he's probably trying to rope me into one of his grand schemes. When a huge smirk lights up his face, I know for sure.
"Come on." He motions at me to climb down from the lava wall, which I have fallen off of multiple times in the past hour.
"What now?" When I reach the ground, I pull off my climbing gloves, which I shove in my pocket, and then release my black hair from its ponytail. "Another prank?" Against my best intentions, I feel a smile start to snake across my lips. As much as I don't want to get in trouble, I always enjoy our stunts.
"Just wait," Connor says with a huge grin, and my imagination immediately starts going wild, imagining what the possibilities could be.
Last week, he and Travis had convinced me to help them in an elaborate prank involving one of the satyrs and several squirrels. We'd gotten bathroom duty for a week, and thanks to Percy Jackson, the pipes have never been the same. They regularly explode, so we've had to clean up more than a few messes in the past several days.
And that's not the first prank the brothers have pulled. I've heard about the chocolate rabbits on the roof of the Demeter cabin, and the talking toilet seats. I don't even know the full story behind the Great Party Pony Incident, nor am I sure that I want to. All I know is that it involved disco lights and pineapple.
When we reach the Big House, I expect us to go in, but we just jog past.
"Seriously, where are we going?"
Connor just ignores me, but when we get closer to the cabins situated behind the Big House, I notice a little smile making an appearance on his face.
Finally, he stops jogging and leans forward, though we're the same height. "Okay." His eyes dart around and I can tell that he's excited. "Travis and I have a plan."
"Why am I not surprised?" I sigh, then motion for him to go on. "Tell me."
"So-" He's cut off and noticeably jumps when Travis jumps out from behind me. I'm startled too.
"Come on!" Travis hisses. He grabs my arm and pulls me over to the side of the cabin, where Leo Valdez and Nico Di'Angelo, of all people, are crouched in the bushes below an open window. Leo motions for me to hunker down and Nico just looks annoyed. I wonder what it took the Stoll brothers to get him here.
"Someone please tell me what the prank is," I say.
"You didn't tell her?" Nico asks. His dark hair almost falls into his eyes and as he brushes it out of the way, I notice black nail polish coating his fingernails.
Travis and Connor just look at each other and then Travis says, "You were supposed to tell her."
"No, you were!"
"I most definitely was not."
"Dude, we decided on you!"
As the brothers dissolve into arguing, Leo ignores them and flashes me a smile. "Well, mi amiga, welcome to our little pranking group. Leo Valdez, Super Sized McShizzle."
"Hi... I'm Nadiya." I don't really have words, which is understandable considering that I don't really know the two boys in front of me, and, of course, they've both saved the world multiple times. I haven't really ever talked to them, and I'll admit that it's probably because I've been a bit starstruck, not to mention being completely new.
The arguing between the brothers has escalated to the point where there's a bit of shoving involved, so Leo conveniently lights his hand on fire. It sounds as if I wasn't freaked out at all when I say it like that, but I definitely scrambled back a good few inches.
"Chill," Leo says, and I'm not sure if he's talking to me or Travis and Connor, who stopped arguing immediately when they saw his flaming hand.
Nico jumps in to explain things. "So, those two idiots have a crazy theory..." He trails off, chuckling, and I notice that he doesn't say it in a derogatory way, but it's more like playful teasing. "...that I actually think might work. Which is why I'm here."
Connor starts explaining so quickly that I can barely understand him. "Nico can control the dead, right? Well-"
He's interrupted by his brother, who just continues Connor's sentence as though nothing happened. "-Annabeth's cousin is here-"
"-In this cabin-"
"-And he's dead, so-"
"-Maybe Nico can control him!"
They look very proud of themselves, but I'm so utterly confused that I just burst out laughing.
"What?" Trevor wavers between being on the verge of awkward laughter and looking crestfallen.
"Okay, so, first of all, there's a dead guy in there?" I jerk my thumb towards the wall.
"Sort of." Nico doesn't elaborate, so Leo explains.
"He's an einharjar. His dad was a Norse god, so yeah, he died, but the dude somehow gets another life. Kinda not fair when you think about it."
"Yeah, that'd be nice," Trevor mutters under his breath, and I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or if he's thinking about the people who he'd want a second life for.
Having arrived after the Second Giant War, it's been hard to try to catch up on the recent events. Everyone here knows exactly what happened, or knew the heroes, or knew the people who died fighting. All the stories are so mind blowing, and it's still hard to get used to the fact that my dad is a god who, according to the Stolls, is a dude who walks around in a stereotypical mailman outfit. Voluntarily. But I'm even more confused by the fact that Leo just said that there are Norse gods. As far as I knew, there were only two sets: Roman and Greek, and that was strange enough.
"Norse gods?" I ask, and then resort to sarcasm. "Wait, lemme guess, the Aztec ones are still around too?"
Leo shakes his head, curly hair bouncing. "Nah, just Romans, Greeks, and apparently Norse gods too. I only know because Annabeth told me..." He trails off, a worried look on his face.
"And you weren't supposed to tell anyone else..." Nico nudges Leo's arm. He looks straight at me and shrugs. "Oh well." I laugh, partially because his flippant attitude perfectly reflects the kids at Camp Half-Blood, and partially because I wasn't expecting him to be funny. He strikes me more as the chill emo dude who says a couple words every now and then, but maybe I misjudged him. I tend to do that. For example, somehow I thought Coach Hedge was going to be this laid back, lazy guy, when in reality... well, let's just say that he's most definitely not.
"Annabeth's gonna kill you," Travis laughs.
"Help?" Leo asks, spreading his hands out.
"Ten drachma and consider it done," Connor says, crossing his arms.
As Leo turns out his pockets, searching for the gold coins, I ask Nico about the plan. I'm starting to realize that he and I are the only sane ones in this group.
"Explain in English, please?"
"Well." He shifts his weight as if he's preparing for a complicated explanation. He probably is. "You know who Annabeth Chase is, right?" Without waiting for me to nod, Nico continues. "Well, she had a cousin. His name's Magnus, and, well, he's technically dead. The Norse demigods... it's kinda confusing but basically, if you die a 'hero's death,' you can go to Valhalla. It's kinda like Camp Half-Blood, but I think Annabeth said it's more like a hotel... I dunno. Something like that. But essentially, the einharjar get two lives. So we're testing to see if I can control the einharjar like I can with the dead."
"And hopefully pull some epic stunts." Connor grins at Travis, who's counting Leo's coins in his hand.
"That's not the point," Nico says, though I think there's a part of him that thinks it would be fun.
"Okay. I think I got it," I say. "I think."
The Stoll brothers give each other a fist bump, and somehow they shimmy the window open. Leo, the shortest one of us, is given a boost through the opening, and I climb after him. As my feet touch the ground, I notice how dusty it is.
"You're sure this is the right cabin?" I whisper.
"Positive," Leo says. "We just hardly ever use these ones."
I can tell. Apparently they don't get a lot of non-demigod visitors at camp. There's not really anyone else who could actually come into camp, and I'm sure that Zeus would rather teleport back to Olympus than spend the night in this dusty cabin.
The other three boys clamber in behind us, and the Stolls are surprisingly quiet. Their chaos has its limits, I suppose.
Connor points down the hallway. "He should be in the bedroom. Annabeth said he was sleeping."
"Something about his sword making him tired," Travis adds. "I dunno."
We creep through the doorway, Connor in the lead, and after a few steps I hear loud snoring. Behind me, Travis tries to suppress a laugh and I find myself covering one of my own.
Suddenly, Connor stops and I almost run into him. He turns and holds a finger to his lips, eyes wide. Then he slowly turns the doorknob and steps into the bedroom. When I follow him, I see that the boy in the bed has longish blonde hair, and is clutching a necklace decorated with what looks like a hieroglyphic or some kind of strange rune.
Leo ducks out of the room to go keep watch outside, but on his way, he whispers, "Do your thing, Zombie Dude," as he gives Nico a double thumbs up.
Nico just raises his eyebrows, and then closes his eyes.