Rogue Demigods Book 1: Daughter of the Earth

Silvia Alexander Smith: Our principal is evil

I'm not normal. I know that already. Anyone could tell you that. They say I'm crazy. I'm not. They've got rumors that I sleep with my sunglasses on. They're wrong, although they have good reasons to believe that. But I don't sleep with my sunglasses. When I sleep, my eyes are closed. I don't need to wear them if my eyes are closed. Yep, I wear sunglasses to hide my eyes. Only my friend Amy knew that before, but now you do too. Amy doesn't know why I hide my eyes, though. She once suggested that I take off my sunglasses. I didn't want to. Why would I? It would creep everyone out and someone like Josh, who most people think knows too much about Greeks and Romans than is good for him, might actually get some suspicions. Some suspicions about the truth.

Josh is blond, with stormy grey eyes. He's a good friend of mine, although perhaps not as good as Amy. Amy's perfect - well, not perfect, naturally. She's too loyal, for one. She wouldn't leave her friends' sides even if it means death. But it doesn't. Not for her. She's not one of us... Is she? No. No, I can't think like that. I'll drive myself crazy. My life's crazy enough as it is. And she can't bear to intentionally hurt somebody. Generally she hurts people more this way... Um, don't tell her I said that. Still, Amy's one of those people that you can't help but like. She's kind and generous and so much more besides. She even  looks perfect. She's got milk chocolaty brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, dazzling white teeth, as well as red lips and pink cheeks that make her look like she's wearing just the perfect amount of makeup, and, of course, she's got flawless skin. But that's enough about Amy. What was I saying? Oh, right. My eyes. See, the reason why I hide my eyes is because they're...

"Silvia!" Amy yelled, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Come on! You're almost late for class!"

"Oops!" I answered. "What do we have?"

Just then, there was a 'Yeah!' from Josh.

"Mythology." I muttered.

"Mythology." Amy agreed, flashing me a sympathetic smile.

See, I hate mythology. I grew up surrounded by, well, mythology. And growing up is not an experience that I would like to repeat.

Well, as you might expect, during Mythology period it was all 'Blah, blah, blah' and 'Ooh, ooh, I know!' (from Josh) until, all of a sudden, the loudspeaker came on. "Silvia Alexander Smith, Joshua King, Alexander Graecus, Kristoffer Hatchet, Nhalia Bowstring and Amethyst Greece, please report to the office." boomed all around the room. So, we all got up and walked out of the room in a single file. We were almost to the principal's office when, um, the janitors confronted us.

Well, it was the principal and the janitors and I never even knew we had more than one janitor, but they did confront us. So, we were all just standing there until Nhalia said 'hi' and then, well, let's just say that all Hades broke loose.

First of all, the janitors morphed into a huge, scaled, many-headed, dragon-like creature: the Hydra. Josh yelped, then hid behind Alex. Then our principal started growing hair. And not just hair on his head. Not even just facial hair. No. He grew hair all over his body. He started growing taller, too. And then the transformation was complete: our principal had become a-

"Laestrygonian." Josh squeaked.

"I just said 'hi'." Nhalia grumbled, just as a golden bow with a golden arrow strung in it appeared in her hands.

"Awesome!" she said grinning wildly.

She pulled back...

And shot the arrow. Bam! It hit the Hydra right in the eye. It roared in pain and shot a jet of flame at us. I closed my eyes and prepared to die.

After a few seconds of waiting, I opened them again. And what I saw was so shocking that I almost screamed. Kristoffer Hatchet stood there, surrounded by tendrils of white-hot flames, coiling and uncoiling around his body. And yet, he seemed unhurt. His body appeared to be absorbing the flames. And then they were, just, gone. He stepped back, obviously exhausted but unwilling to let it show.