Just Add Water

something brewing

Despite Grover's initial doubt, they integrated Xime into their little group easily enough, as if they'd always been friends. It was Grover and Ximena and Percy against the world. The underdogs. The weird kids of first grade. Having them as company made Percy feel like he was invulnerable to any teasing or scoldings from students as well as teachers. Yancy Academy wasn't so bad when he thought of it in that way.

The worst of Yancy, however, was still present. Mrs. Lambert seemed to have something against him—every day it was worse. She always saw his smallest mistakes and magnified them into mountainous things.

"You can't do this," and "You can't do that." "Why are you talking in my class?" "I'll have to punish you, honey."

He'd grown tired of hearing her talk, now that the months had passed.

But at the very least, he also had Mr. Bruner. He was hard on him, sure, but he was also kind, and patient. He wanted Percy to achieve—especially in Greek mythology.

"These things are important for you to learn, little Percy," he'd say. "Now, who were Kronos' children?"

He wasn't going to lie: Greek mythology was hard. But he still tried, he thought to himself. He wasn't such a failure, after all. He missed home, his mom, her blue cookies...but at least now he was doing good.

And there was the other thing: after the Dax Incident, as Grover had begun to call it, he hadn't once forgotten about the whole fish business.

He was extra-careful around water, steering clear from water bottles and the like and only drinking when he was alone, just in case he couldn't concentrate enough to stay dry. During bath time, he was sure to be the last one to use the shower, always placing a towel on his tail; anyone could accidentally peek through the gap that separated the floor from the shower door. He chewed gum—asked for scented shampoos—anything to make his supposed "fish smell" go away.

Percy took notice of Ximena as well. It was hard, though. He never saw her wash her hands since she did it in the girl's bathroom, and he didn't want to risk throwing a glass of water on her to confirm his theory; everyone could potentially see that she was a mermaid.

One day after P.E, he sadly discarded his theory.

"Why are you staring?" she asked as she stood next to the water fountain while wiping her face.

Water trickled down her chin, and he felt a small tugging of disappointment.

"I don't know."

"You want your turn in the fountain?"

"No!"

Xime looked at him quizzically. "Well, okay, weirdo."

He was about to snap back at her, until something caught his eye. Well, not some thing —rather, some one. Percy froze for a second. It was a man, looking directly at him from the window overlooking the parking lot. He'd never seen this man before, and at the same time, he was sure that he had. The man's slick, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, his stature tall and firm. He wore all black, hiding most of himself in a big, heavy coat. That wasn't the familiarity. The familiarity was his face. Sharp and angular, yet similar to Percy's. He couldn't put his finger on why, though.

His eyes were what mainly gave it away. Even from this distance, they glinted like sea glass, shifting unnaturally from blue to green. This was no human. With a jolt, he realized that this was the merman he'd met, apparently spying on him—looking much more human, with normal, brown skin and no gills, no tail—but still very much the same merman.