Percy Jackson- The After Math

Annabeth

We walked down to the canoe lake. Percy's hand grasped mine as we walked along the shore. We came to our spot that was just below a pine tree with high branches. A little spot was cleared of pine needles and had a blanket laid over it. Percy and I had come here often, it was tucked away in a secluded corner next to the lake, the lake where we had our first kiss. Well, first real kiss. I had pecked him once when I thought he was going to die, but that doesn't really count. Today I wanted to talk about something happy, rather than trying but not succeeding in forgetting our last quest and ending up in tears. Percy plopped down on the blanket. He patted the blanket next to him in a gesture of 'come sit down'. I sat next to him.
"So..." I said.
"What?" He looked at me quizzically.
"What is the purpose of this little outing?"
"Hmm..." He said, "I don't know, I just wanted to spend some time together."
"Oh." I replied, giving him a small smile. When I looked in his direction I saw a flash of pink in the trees nearby. I glanced over his shoulder and saw some blonde hair swaying from behind a large tree trunk. My eyes narrowed.
"Annabeth you ok? What is it?" He looked over his shoulder and saw the hair. "Oh."
"I do believe we are being spied on." I whispered to him.
He looked at me in a questioning manner. I knew what he was asking.
"Not too much." I said.
He smiled and raised his hand. A small, steady stream of water rose from the lake and aimed itself at the culprit. It a heartbeat it shot at the pink wearer, which I assumed to be a child of Aphrodite, and caught her square in the back. She screamed.
"My outfit!" She exclaimed. Suddenly a call came from somewhere else. "Run!" And a few kids sprang from behind bushes and darted away. Another person then stepped into Annabeth's line of sight.
"Piper!?"
"Hey Annabeth, umm how's it going?" She said, her cheeks flushing pink.
"Are you spying on us?"
She looked at me and said "The Cabin just wanted to have some fun! Plus I did kinda want to see what you were doing." She gave a guilty smile.
"Piper" I said.
"Sorry!"
"Ugh, oh well, I guess we will have to have our alone time later. C'mon Piper."
Percy's face fell. "Awww, why?"
"Don't make your baby seal face at me, Piper can join our group for now. We can go down to the ocean and, I don't know, talk?"
"Fine." He said reluctantly.

* * *
We walked to the beach. As we walked along the shore we talked about everything and nothing. I was in the middle of telling the story of the last kid on the climbing wall (which is really funny, trust me) when Piper stopped walking.
"What's that?"
I followed her finger to where she was pointing. In the water was a bottle stoppered with cork. Percy walked over to it.
"Ugh, people have no respect for the environment, littering every... Hold on there is a note inside."
He attempted to pull out the cork. After watching him struggle with it for a while I held out my hand.
"Let me try." He handed over the bottle and I easily pulled out the cork.
"I loosened it up for you." He said.
"Do you want to see what it says or not?"
He walked over to me and looked over my shoulder. I unrolled the note and read it out loud. It said:

Tell everyone at the campfire tonight to look up at the sky.

I didn't recognize the hand writing. It was odd. What did it mean? Was it a trick? I glanced at Percy.
"I don't know what it means!" He said.
Then Piper interjected "Maybe we should have a meeting, you know, Jason, Hazel, Frank, Nico, and us."
It sounded like a good idea. "Sure, Percy can we meet at your cabin?" I asked him.
"Yeah," he said, "bring everyone over."
"See you at your cabin." I said and gave him a quick peck on his lips.
He smiled at me and walked away. Then I went to go find Nico.

* * *
We sat in a circle on Percy's floor since he didn't have a table and chairs to sit around.
"So, why are we here?" Nico asked.
"Show them the note." Piper directed at me.
I pulled the note out of my pocket while Nico gave a puzzled look. I read it aloud.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Frank said.
"We don't know." Percy answered.
Hazel said, "should we show it to Chiron?"
"I think we should," I said, "then he can make the announcement at the campfire."
"So we are showing it to everybody tonight." Nico interjected.
"Yes" I said.
"Then you should go talk to Chiron now."
"That's probably a good idea, Percy will you come with me?"
"Corse Annabeth." He stood up and held out his hand, just as I had done earlier.
I took it and let him help me up. I turned back to everybody in the room, "see you tonightnn." Then I walked out the door.
* * *
Once we were outside I realized that it was already getting close to dinner. Percy and I ran to the big house and found Chiron sitting in his wheelchair, looking out over the camp. He smiled when at us when we got there.
"Hello. Annabeth, Percy." He inclined his head at us.
"Hi Chiron, we...umm...have something to show you." I pulled the note out of my pocket and handed it to him.
He read the note and his friendly smile turned into a frown. "Hmm... May I keep this?" His expression became troubled as he kept looking at the note.
"Sure Chiron" I said. "But, we were wondering if you are going to make the announcement tonight at the campfire."
He looked up at me. "Yes, yes I am. I recognize the handwriting, and it confuses me. But I will share it tonight."
"Well, bye Chiron." Percy said.
"Goodbye Percy. Annabeth." He once again inclined his head at me.