AJ Hale & The Olympians: Son of Lightning

Chapter Eleven: Uncle Mo's Nightmare Motel

               Our room was somewhat expected. Other than the fact that it looked like a blind person had decorated it, it was normal.

Orange shag carpet. Blue wallpapered walls. A heart-shaped bed with red silk blankets. A large mirror on the ceiling over the bed. A pink heart-shaped hot tub with rose petals in the water. Two complimentary chocolates on the red heart-shaped pillows.

"Why put a mirror over the bed?" Dakota asked.

"I don't know," I shrugged. I feel like waking up to yourself staring at yourself would be kind of creepy."

"Yeah, hey, do you want a chocolate?" she asked, holding out a red tin foil-wrapped chocolate.

"No thanks. I don't want to eat free snacks from hotels anymore," I said. But feel free to eat both."

"Oh, right... sorry," she said, holding out the chocolates like bombs and putting them on the pink dresser. "I'm going to be safe and not eat them.... but I wanted chocolate..."

She looked sad and deflated. I pulled out a Snickers bar I had stashed in my pocket. "Here, let's share." Dakota's eyes lit up, and we split the chocolate bar. I lay halfway on the bed, looking up at myself in the ceiling mirror, while she walked around touching stuff.

"Hey, there's a button on the wall," Dakota said, then pressed it without a second thought.

I'm beginning to understand what ADHD is.

A disco ball hanging from the ceiling started to spin. The lights dimmed, and a spotlight hit the ball. Thousands of light beams filled the room as the ball spun. Lovely Day by Bill Withers started to play from somewhere. The bed started to vibrate and rotate.

"TuRn It oFf!" I said, my vocal cords vibrating in my throat, making me sound like I was on the bumpiest ride at the Lotus.

She slapped the button on the wall, the ball stopped spinning, and the bed did, too. The vibrating stopped, and the music cut dead.

We looked at each other, shocked at what just happened. "...Sorry." Dakota said.

She then kicked her shoes off for the first time this whole trip—the single most deadly thing to happen to me so far. "Quit being a baby!" she said as she jumped onto the bed next to me. Laying on her stomach, with her feet near the pillow, she turned on the TV. "AJ, look!"

I sat up and was met with a picture of myself on the TV. It was a new report; the headline read: Young boy on a criminal rampage across the US!

It showed a clip of me running out of the Subway back in New York with a frost on my face.

"AJ Hale, a Thirteen-year-old boy, started his criminal spree by destroying a Subway and running from the police after the incident. The next sighting of Hale was near Omaha, Nebraska. He was spotted riding a Greyhound to Las Vegas. But he caused the bus to crash and explode. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt in the crash. Then he was spotted at the Henry Doorly Zoo, where he got into a shootout with the mysterious man who had kidnapped Percy Jackson back in 2006. Who is this man? And is AJ Hale his new target? We go to an eyewitness on the Subway scene in New York."

The video cuts to Jamie, the girl who works at Subway.

"AJ? Yeah, he was cute," she smiled. "It was his first time in a Subway. I thought I was weird, but it's not my place to ask. AJ didn't destroy the Subway on purpose. This cow came in and started going crazy! AJ pulled out a gun and started to fight the cow! The cow did not like that and went even more rabid. AJ Hale saved my life..." she looked right into the camera. "AJ Hale, thank you for saving me. You are a true Hero!"