The Sea of Monsters (Annabeth's POV)

Chapter 2: Seaweed Brain Almost Dies (not the first time)

        I started to follow Percy to his school so I could talk to him, but he was never alone.  Once I thought he saw me, but then he just kept walking. 

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        Percy's school was definately not ordinary.  It seemed like more of a progressive school.  All of the kids sat in beanbags and the teachers reminded me of hippies, really relaxed and chill.  The kids there were anything but relaxed and chill.  I'm pretty sure most of them were delinquents.  By the time I found Percy, first period had started. 

        Percy was sitting with some really big, hairy kid.  There was something off about him, but I couldn't quite tell what... Just then the teacher said that they were going outside to see what it was like for the kids on Lord of the Flies.  I had read that book in 4th grade and had loved it at the time. I was kind of excited, but then it just turned into an all around wedgie contest.  This kid who reminded me of an child of Ares was leading it, his name was Matt Sloan as far as I could tell.  He had shaggy black hair that I guess some girls might have found cute, but he had eyes like an eternal abyss.  He had fancy clothes that were really sloppy, like he was rubbing his family's money in the other kids' faces.  Gods, I hated those kind of kids.  I was kind of dazed off when I saw that Sloan kid trying to give a wedgie to Percy's odd friend, whose name I'd learned was Tyson.  Tyson freaked out and swatted Sloan way across the basketball court. 

"You freak!!" Sloan yelled, "Why don't you go back to you're cardboard box!"

Percy shouted "Take it back Sloan!"  He looked like he was ready to knock that kid's lights out.  That aura of power was coming off him stronger than ever, and for a second I was afraid he would pull out riptide on the kid. 

"Why do you even bother Jackson?"  Sloan said, "you might have friends if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."  Now I'm not proud of this, but after that comment I kind of wanted Percy to pull riptide on him.  Sure, it might not hurt him, but it would effectively scare the pee out of him.  This kid could use a little humility. 

"He's not a freak, he's just..."  Percy looked flustered.  Come on seaweed brain, where's you're witty comeback?  I doubt anyone would have heard it anyway though.  Percy's "friend" was now sobbing enough to flood the entire school, and Matt and his goons were guffawing loudly.  I noticed something odd about someof the people in Matt's group.  They had nametags that read odd things like, Marrow Sucker and Skull eater.  They sounded almost like monster names.  Except for Joe Bob.  After this revalation, I made sure to keep an eye on those boys, though I was probably just being paranoid. 

After the teacher came out, he said that they had understood Lord of the Flies perfectly.  What and idiot, I thought.  These kids understood nothing about good literature.  I glanced back toward Percy who had managed to calm the big crying kid down.  Percy has a caring compassionate side? Who knew?,  I had time to think this before we went back inside.

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The rest of the morning went by with only one chemical emergency.  Oh, sorry, in the words of the teacher, "A wonderful expirement, deserving of an A+ on your test!"  Trust me when I say, it was just a big mess. 

So now we were in social studies class, and I was walking around the room looking at everyone's drawings of latitude and longitude lines.  And let me tell you, these kids were not artists.  When I made it to Percy's desk, I saw that he was looking at a picture, perplexed.  I leaned in to see what it was, and saw that it was a picture of me in front of Lincoln Memorial.  I had sent it to Percy, knowing that sometimes it felt good to know that you had another life waiting for you back at camp.  The fact that he kept it in his notebook...  My thoughts were interupted by Matt Sloan walking over.  He nearly stepped on me and I had to jump out of the way.  He snatched the picture from Percy's notebook.  He looked at the picture and his eyes practically bulged out of his sockets.  Was that jealousy I saw in his eyes? "No way Jackson!  She isn't your...