As I predicted, math was horrible. Luckily we were doing fractions and not measurement, actually, screw that, fractions suck as well. Thank the gods after math I had archery, the one thing I was actually kind of good at.
Once I grabbed my bow and arrows from my cabin I headed straight for the archery range. I managed to beat everyone else there (including Kayla, who taught the lesson) so I decided to count my arrows to pass the time. When everyone else had made it to the archery range Kayla started practice.
My first shots were pretty good hitting either a bullseye or near bullseye, but my fifth arrow hit the outside of the white ring next to the middle.
"That was bad" I chided myself.
"Halina, you say that every time you don't satisfy yourself, which I've noticed to be a lot. That shot was fine, don't beat yourself up about it." Kayla reassured me.
'Idiot' I thought to myself. It sure was embarrassing to get told the "you don't have to be perfect" speech in front of people. Thank the gods the rest of my shots were pretty good, I mean, I'm a child of Apollo, I should be good at at least one thing Apollo related. My singing sounded like a dying donkey, every time I played the trumpet I sounded like a dying duck and I wasn't smart enough to do much in the infirmary. The only other thing I could kinda do was poetry.
Unfortunately after archery was music, don't get me wrong, I love music and I love playing an instrument, I just sound like absolute crap, that's all.
When class started I pulled out my silver trumpet, making sure the valves were tightened. Austin taught this class. He was the most beautiful saxophone player I had ever heard. Okay, I haven't heard many sax players, but I've heard a few. We had a new student today, and I seemed to be getting better so I wasn't the worst sounding person in the class today.
One of the reasons I sounded so bad was because we couldn't practice outside of lessons. Apparently it's too distracting, to the other campers. Actually not apparently, it is. I remember I did band in my primary school and these two really annoying tenner saxophones would play when they weren't suppose to claiming they were "warming up." The worst part about that was band was first thing in the morning.
We played Spider Pig, Dragon Dance and Billie Jean, well, we tried to play Billie Jean. That song is a lot harder than you would think, especially with only a few people.
Austin winced as Billie Jean came to an end,
"We're getting better but that one still needs a lot of practice," he told us. As I put my trumpet away I, glanced over my shoulder to see Will and Nico making out behind the Hades cabin. I'm just glad it wasn't the Apollo cabin.
There was 8 minutes till lunch so I decided to clean up the bathroom in my cabin, I know, extremely mature of me, especially since I'm a very messy person, but I'm sick of tripping on Will's rhinestoned cow boy boots his mum sent him.
There. Were. Clothes. Everywhere.
Will almost never leaves the infirmary unless Nico's making him sleep or it's meal time, so there's no one to yell at us to pick up our stuff that we've thrown on the floor.
I sorted out everyone's clothes and I was planning to put them on their owners beds but the conch for lunch sounded before I could.
"Where did you disapear to?" Asked Austin when I sat down for lunch.
"I was cleaning our bathroom." I said with a blank face, my siblings looked at me in shock. I NEVER clean unless someone asked me to.
"You can thank me later." I told them while taking a bite into my Vegemite sandwich. Kayla wrinkled her nose at me while talking a bite into her own pb and j sandwich. She thought Vegemite was disgusting (most people at camp did) and I thought Peanut butter and jam was disgusting. We had gotten into an argument about which sandwich was better once, Austin and Katie joined and sided with Kayla, stupid Americans.
"Are you guys excited for capture the flag tonight?" Kayla asked us. Will responded with,
"We'll see how it goes" and Austin nodded eagerly. I just shrugged. I wasn't the biggest fan of running, or sweating, or social interaction.
Will smiled and waved at Nico who was walking towards our table holding his doctors note. He sat down next to Will and rested his head on Will's shoulder. Will smiled and rested his on Nico's.
"What are we talking about?" Nico asked.
"Just capture the flag" Will responded. I smiled at them, they were one of the cutest couples I had ever seen. I had heard a lot about the camp's "it" couples over the years. First it was these two campers named Silena and Charles, they had both died in The Battle Of Manhattan, so I had never met them. After that it was Percy and Annabeth, but then they fell into Tartarus and it became Clarisse and Chris, Clarisse wasn't too happy the Aphrodite kids were fawning over her. Then, finally Nico and Will got together and it became them.
Nico cast a jugdy glance towards my sandwich, sirously what was wrong with Vegemite? As long as you don't put too much on it won't burn.
*Time skip to capture the flag brought to you by Timothy Bowling*
As I put my armour on I felt the nerves run through me, we had the Athena cabin but there were only two campers and they were relatively new. The other team had the Ares cabin with three campers who had been at camp for about three or four years.
I walked up to the forest with Austin, Kayla and Will were in the infirmary, preparing for the aftermath.
Once every one had lined up Chiron started the game. I ran through the woods hoping to make it to my position before the second conch.
20 minutes later I heard the conch shell just as I made it to the outskirts of the lake. The flag was about 20 metres down and I was to stop anybody who might be coming for it.
Around 75 minutes into the game no one had come across me, this game was pretty boring when all you were doing was standing there, but finally, after a while, am Ares camper emerged.
The Ares Camper was 15 like me, I was great full that it wasn't the other Ares camper who was 19 like Will, or the 17 year old camper, like Austin and Kayla.
I know I should probably tell you their names, but I couldn't remember their names for the life of me. In my defence, I'm scared of the NICE campers (that are older than me,) I had no interest in talking to the Ares campers, even if we were the same age.
The Ares Camper (Reggie, maybe?) Charged first, swinging his sword at my face. Yes this guy was an Ares camper, but he had only been here for around three years, I had been here for six. I may not be naturally good at sword fighting, but I had double the amount of experience then him.
We were exchanging blows for a while, but he was winning. Just as he was gonna throw the winning blow we heard the conch shell. I heard cheers coming from my cabin, cabin 6, cabin 4, and cabin 11. I glanced down the lake and saw Austin running towards me with a smile on his face.
A smile grew on my face, but quickly faded as the angered Ares camper (Ronald?) Slammed his elbow into my stomach. I doubled over in pain, the wind knocked out of me. That kid was insanely strong.
"HEY!" Austin yelled, going into protective sibling mode as I sputtered.
"Oh ya fuckin cunt, ya mother fucka, fuckin bustard, what did I fuckin do? Ya fuckin sore loser, ya cunt." I swore at (Remmy?) I know I know, probably too much, but what can I say? It's part of my fuckin culture.
The Ares camper stormed off and Austin kneeled down and helped me stand up. I felt like throwing up, if anyone else had elbowed me, I would've been fine, but Ares campers were next level strength.
Austin walked me to the infirmary while I tried not to throw up.
"What happened!?" Will asked, his voiced laced with concern.
"Ryan elbowed them in the ribcage when the game ended because he lost." So that was his name, Ryan.
"She'll be okay," Will decided as I sat on a bed and he handed me an ice pack. I could already feel a bruise forming.
"At least I didn't get stabbed," I said. Kayla nodded in agreement with me.
"On a scale of one to ten rate your pain" Will told me.
"Compared to a normal punch 9.5, compared to a stab wound 4." I told him, and Will nodded.
My stomach hurt to much to eat that night, and I went straight to bed instead.
