The Valdez side-effects

Chapter 1

I walk through the halls of my high school clutching my billion pound books to my chest. My friend Ivory walks along beside me humming happily.

"So what are your plans for this summer?" She asks happily.

"I think I'll go back to where I went last summer." I shrug. Most likely not exactly where I went, I had no intention of going back to the underworld anytime soon and I wasn't in the mood to meet Circe again.

"And where would that be?" I Ivory presses.

We walk put the front door into the warm air. I shrug.

"I went to Long Island." I keep it brief.

"OH EM GEE!" Ivory squeals. My eardrums nearly burst. "I went there toooooo!"

I force a smile. "Wow. That's cool."

"Oh em gee. What did you do there?" She asks flailing her hands. Her fifty or so bracelets make metallic gingling sounds.

"I um, picked strawberries." I think back to the strawberry field at Camp Half-Blood, my home.

"Wow. I mean like, WOW!" Ivory hops in one spot. "We are like twinsies! I did that to! Where did you go?"

I bite my lip. "A place called Half-blood hill. You wouldn't kn-"

I am cut off by Ivory's screams. "WE ARE SUCH TWINSIES! I WENT THERE TOOOOO!" She grabs my hands and jumps up and down, causing me to drop all of my books. I knew I should have stopped to put them in my bag before we left our lockers.

I bend over to pick up my books. "You went to Camp Hal-" I stop myslef. She was a mortal, she wouldn't have been able to pass the magical borders surrounding Camp. "Half-blood hill?" I correct myself.

"Uh huh." She nods pulling a compact mirror out of her purse and touching up her makeup. "I thought I would hate it at first but it was actually so cool! I wonder why the call it Half-blood hill, I mean, there's no blood, or halves."

"Gee Ivory, I don't think you get what half-blood actually means." I shove my books into my messenger bag.

"Sure I do." She snaps her mirror shut and flips her red hair. "Oh my god, here comes Philip."

Ivory has this huge crush on this guy named Philip at our school. She flips out whenever she seea him. "Pretend I just said something really funny. Like throw your head back and laugh."

I try and do what she told me to but I am a horrible actor. I laugh a little but I wasn't exactly what I think Ivory hand in mind.

"I know right and-" Ivory starts a random conversation.

"Hey ladies." Philip says from behind me. I turn and smile at him. Ivory straightens her shoulders and flips her hair flirtatiously. "Hey Philip."

"Hey Ivory. And hey Leora." He winks at me. I resist the urge to facepalm. Everyone has been using my full name recently. "I'm having a party this weekend. You two are invited, if you aren't to busy, I know you two are popular and all, getting invited to all of those parties."

"I'm not sure if that was just mean or you are genuinely stupid and don't pay attention to our weirdness." I say sarcastically.

Philip punches me lightly in the shoulder. "It was a joke. See you friday." He walks towards the student parking lot.

Ivory squeals and jumps up and down. I push her down onto a bench. "Too much energy." I say.

"Sorry." She brushes some stray stands of hair off her lips. "So in Long Island I met this guy. He was so cute! Maybe even cuter than Philip, imagine that!"

"Wow Ivory. I thought you were convinced Philip was the cutest guy in the world." I say teasingly.

"Ya ya." Her eyes shift over my shoulder. "No way! There's the Long Island guy I was just talking about five seconds ago! Maybe he heard me and came running!"

I roll my eyes and turn around. About fifty feet away, across the school's quad, is parked a familiar van. Leaning against it is someone I have ached for, for nearly ten months.

Leo Valdez.