𝚅𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚐𝚘 - 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚜

𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝙾𝚕𝚍 𝙻𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

༺♔༻

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs Kerr – a perky blonde woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip – had been our maths teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. It got so I almost believed them – Mrs Dodds had never existed. Almost. But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

„And who's fault is that?" Annabeth asked.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. Finally, when our English teacher, Mr Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.

„What is an old sot" a younger student asked, „It's a person who is often drunk" Thalassa answered, smiling at him.

I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

„You darling are something" Tom laughed. Thalassa grinned.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

„You get expelled a lot." somebody mentioned, „I mean back then I was in six schools in six years, so yeah" Thalassa said and giggled while everyone, except her family, looked at her in disbelieve.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine. I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

„If he wasn't dead already I would kill him" Tom, muttered under his breath, while Abraxas nodded agreeing with him.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. I'd miss Latin class, too – Mr Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.