How You Changed Me (Demigods In High School AU)

Chapter 4 || Meeting Jerky Jackson

ANNABETH CHASE

Period 1. Don't you just love that? The sound of your terrible day starting because Period 1 is English. And Annabeth was dyslexic. So she sat at the back row, trying to pull her princess curls in front of her face so no one could see her. Well, now she just looked like a curly mop was sitting on her head. Annabeth gave up, pulling her princess curls back behind her and putting her chin in her palm.

This. Was. Torture.

She watched as Percy Jackson came in, along with a Latino boy who seemed to be a head shorter than him with elf-like ears and greasy hair. He seemed to be begging Percy for something and Percy just kept rolling his eyes, shaking his head. Again, jerk. He could at least answer the boy. And to her complete discomfort, Percy took the seat next to Annabeth, not even sparing her a glance.

The Latino dude sat next to him, playing with a few straws from the cafeteria, turning them into paper helicopters. He honestly looked like a son of Hephaestus, but Annabeth shook that idea out of her head. The only demigods she knew existed at this school were Piper and herself.

"Annabeth Chase?"

"Here," she said absently.

The list went on before it stopped on Percy.

"Percy Jackson?"

"Here," he raised his hand lazily.

"Leo Valdez?"

"Super McShizzle in the HOUSE!" he did a swagger move and Annabeth couldn't help but roll her eyes.

Wow, this dude was gonna be fun. When attendance ended, the teacher walked to the front of the room.

"For those of you who are new this year and don't know me, I'm Mr. Blofis, and I'll be teaching you English this year."

Great. At least the teacher seemed nice...

"Any questions?" Mr. Blofis asked, turning to everyone.

Percy's hand rose.

"Percy?"

"What's for dinner tonight with Mom and Estelle?"

What. The. Heck. Annabeth could see Paul facepalm in front of his whole class, who seemed to be already used to this new behavior, except for the new students.

"Are you coming over tonight or are you staying in your penthouse, Percy? You know you could always--"

"Nope," Percy smirked at a teacher, "You know what parents say to most of their kids. Under my roof, you go by my rules. Under my roof, there are no rules."

"You sassy little--" Paul started with a smile on his face but Percy cut him off.

"Thank you, my lovely stepdad who I used to call Blowfish."

Oh... That made sense. Percy was Mr. Blofis's stepson. Jeez... She feel bad for him.

"Okay, if that's the only question you're going to ask, Percy, it's lasagna. Any other questions?"

No one raised their hands.

"Okay! Well, since it's the first day and many other teachers will be giving you homework, I'll say now that there is just a simple twenty-five minutes of reading any book you'd like. Fantasy, non-fiction, anything. Just make sure to write a two to three sentence summary about what you read to give me proof you read the book. Today, we'll be doing partner work in creating several haikus about each other."

The class began to whisper, pointing fingers at each other to try and partner up.

"Stop with the fingers," Paul held up a hand, "This is an exercise that I'll choose your partners for. In the future, you may be able to decide. For now, your partner is the person sitting next to you."

Annabeth wanted to slap herself. No, no, no, no, no! She was with Percy Jackson. Percy looked at her once, scanning her face for any signs of recognition, before sitting back and taking out a blue coke from his backpack, taking a sip and swishing it around in the bottle.

"Fudge," she said under her breath.

"Alright! You may work anywhere in the classroom or in the hall, just as long as it's easy for me to access you and make sure you didn't run off to the gas station like Percy did last year," Paul winked and Percy just gave him a troublemaker smirk.

Wow. Annabeth stood up, looking at Percy who looked up, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Where do you wanna go?" she asked.

"I don't care," he shrugged.

Of course, he'll say he doesn't care, Annabeth! That's what everyone says!

"Would... the hall work fine?" Annabeth asked, trying to be cautious in case he would be sassy and destroy her mentally.

"Yeah," Percy said from where he was making faces at Leo back and forth.

"Let's go then," she said, fighting the urge to slap that face and yank that arm into the hallway.

Percy just slowly got up from his seat with his laptop, walking out of the classroom, throwing another stupid face at Leo before popping his head out of the doorway and sitting down next to her, chin resting on one of his knees.

"So... tell me something about you," Annabeth said.

"Huh? Oh. Uhm... I love the ocean, the fish like talking to me, and I like eating seaweed."

"I know exactly where all that seaweed goes," she muttered under her breath.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me something about you?"

"I'm super smart, I moved from San Francisco, and I live with my best friend."

"Okay," Percy said, not even taking note.

Annabeth quickly wrote down a haiku for him.

"A seaweed brain
from the ocean depths below
where fish are his friends."

Percy just stared at her for a long second before coming up with his own for her.

"Why'd you call me a seaweed brain?"

"All that seaweed has to go somewhere," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Loves to be so smart,
San Francisco did her hard,
Lives on bestie's heart."

"What the f**k was that poem?" she stared at him.

"You want to compare Apollo's and mine?" Percy asked before slapping a hand over his mouth.

"What... did you say?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

Don't let Percy be a demigod... Don't let Percy be a demigod... Don't let Percy be a demigod...

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Let's move on. I'm obliviously oblivious and I own a car company, but it's no big deal."

She had her jaw hanging open.

"Obliviously,
this boy makes lots of profit,
through cars; no biggie."

"Wow," Percy said, clapping slowly.

"You try, Seaweed Brain."

"I might just, Wise Girl."