Curse of Twins

9. A Mid-Summer's Nightmare

The next few weeks went on without a hitch. I got used to camp and made new friends. I got stronger and I could beat most, if not all, of the Ares cabin in swordplay. This ticked off Clarisse, who purposely matched me with campers twice the size of me which I only found more fun because you doesn't love a challenge. I outshined a lot of the Apollo cabin with my archery skills. Although they seemed to like me even more because of that and claimed that I was truly an Apollo kid. I had become friends with a lot of them which led me to sit at their table during meals when Percy inevitably ditches me for Annabeth.

James and I continued to hang out on the dock any time he wasn't singing during the sing-a-long. It's become our to-go place.

Annabeth and I got along great. She couldn't believe I was related to her Seaweed Brain because I was so much smarter and I could keep up with her Greek lessons.In reality though, I took her lessons and went to the library in the Big House and had Thomas explain everything so I could understand. 

I hung out with Thomas a lot these days, reading books about the gods and some normal fiction books. There was a book shelf where all you had to do was ask for a particular book and it would appear on the shelf. Thomas and I would get the same book and we started our own book club between the two of us. He loved any book that had a beast fighting for acceptance of both humans and his kind which meant we read a lot of paranormal books. That was my favorite genre so, we bonded a lot over the course of the summer.

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Annabeth and I, along with a few Aphrodite girls decided to go shopping for the Mid-Summer party for the party that night because who really wants to wear hand-me-downs. We got permission to leave and went to the nearest mall.

"What do you think?" Annabeth came out in a strapless green party dress. I thought it was great on her but the Aphrodite girls were vetoing it.

"Percy's favorite color is blue, right?" One of the girls, Cinder, asked. Annabeth nodded. "Well, then you have to wear blue, besides you look stunning in anything. Annabeth walked away to find another dress and the girls turned to me.

Oh boy. They smiled deviously. "So what's your story with James? Are you guys dating yet?"

I put up my hands, shaking my head, and said "No way, he's like a brother to me. We've grown up together. We are best friends. That's it."

The three of them crossed their arms and gave me a look of doubt. "Come on girl. We heard all about your fight a few weeks ago. He won't look at anyone but you." A girl named Layla said.

I sighed. "I don't know... I get really confused when I think about that kiss..." Oh crap! I put my hand over my mouth.

They all giggled. "So you do like him! Don't worry we will fix you up so he won't think about looking at another girl again after tonight."

I tried to argue but they dragged me into a dressing room and handed me dress after dress to try on and I started to feel like a model walking out to show them.

When Annabeth found her dress, she joined the critics. "Stop. That one." Annabeth said and the girls squealed.

I looked down it was a strapless red dress that had a low back and gold swirl designs from the top to the waistline that looked very elegant and the skirt looked wavy like fire. It was shorter than I would have normally chosen but I admit, it did looked great on me. Everyone bought their dresses and got into the van with Argus.

We decided to meet in the Aphrodite cabin two hours before the party to get ready.

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