The Greatest || Percy Jackson

new friend? no. a near-death experience? yes

Sophia didn't know what was happening. She was disoriented and scared. She relied on Percy to get her through the rest of the trip and back onto the bus. Without his grip on her hand, she would have been left at the fountain, all alone.

Her hand received several squeezes from Percy, who was trying to get her to talk. She was too busy taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm.

"Soph?" Percy called, "Sophia?"

Sophia was staring off into space as the bus drove back toward the school. She took long, deep breaths, trying to convince herself she wasn't crazy.

She was so confused, and she wasn't happy that she was being gaslit into thinking that Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Everyone had, instead, been telling her that their algebra teacher was Mrs. Kerr. Sophia didn't believe that for one second. Mrs. Kerr was skinny and timid and blonde. Nothing like Mrs. Dodds. And Sophia had never seen her before in her life until she got on the bus at the end of the museum tour.

"Hey," Percy said.

"I'm not crazy," she said.

Percy furrowed his brows and shook his head.

"No, you're not crazy."

She snapped her head to him. She looked straight into his sea-green eyes. She swallowed nervously.

"I feel crazy."

"I know. I do, too."

She looked back down at her hands, messing with her fingers. Her knee was bouncing up and down with nerves.

Percy looked at her for a few more seconds, before looking away. He thought about something to use to distract her.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" he asked.

She looked at him and smiled, holding out her hands. Percy smiled back and mimicked her actions.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" they both said.

Sophia's hand was balled up in a fist, except for two fingers, which were pointing out. Scissors.

Percy's hand was laid out flat on his palm. Paper.

"Ha!" Sophia exclaimed, "I told you, I never lose."

Percy rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, yeah."

Throughout the days of confusion, the only thing that kept them sane was the hesitation from Grover when Percy or Sophia would ask him about Mrs. Dodds. Grover would hesitate, like he was trying to decide what to do or say, and then tell them they were wrong, or that they were misremembering.

Sophia saw right through him.

Sophia was preoccupied with other thing in the daytime, so her thoughts never strayed far from schoolwork, but when she went to sleep, her mind was plagued with nightmares of Mrs. Dodds and her sharp talons and fangs.

The crazy weather kept coming, and Sophia was tired of it. One night, she was hanging out in Percy's room when his windows blew out.

A few days after that, a humongous tornado touched down in Hudson Valley, only fifty miles away from Yancy. Sophia found that pretty scary.

Percy wasn't doing too well. He got cranky and snappy. He even snapped at Sophia and Grover, although he almost never did that. Mostly, he took his anger out of Nancy Bobofit and her friends. His grades slipped down even more, despite Sophia trying to encourage him. He regularly got in trouble during class for insulting teachers or disrupting class.

After a particular incident with the English teacher (the words "old sot" were involved), Percy was informed that he wouldn't be welcome at Yancy the next year, and that a letter was being sent to his mother to inform her.