Daughter of Kronos

Chapter 11

  When I woke up the next morning, I realized that the whiteboard next to the door had words on it. But I couldn't read them, so I ignored them. 

  I peeked into the refrigerator in the kitchen. It was empty. I peeked into the freezer. That was empty too. I looked in the cupboards. Also empty. All of a sudden, there was a knock on my door.  I looked through the peephole. It was Ethan, so I opened it. 

  "Luke told me to come get you. It is time for breakfast, and when you didn't come down, he thought something might have been wrong with your schedule board."

  He looked on the back of my door where the whiteboard was. 

  "Nothing seems to be wrong with this. It's working fine, and that's the right schedule. Why didn't you come down at the right time?"

  "I can't read," I told Ethan shyly.

  He nodded. "Most demigods have a hard time reading, but we weren't sure if you would be affected because of your...parentage."

  Just to make sure, he pulled pen from his pocket and wrote something down on a napkin. Then he asked me to read it. I really wanted to read it. I really did! It's just the lines and curves on the napkin didn't make sense to me. I took the napkin and looked at it really hard. I turned it upside down, trying to make sense of it. Finally, I put it down in defeat.

  We walked to breakfast. I told Ehtan about how my mom tried to teach me to read when I was five, but then saw that I was a hopeless case and gave up. But the fact that I couldn't read or write didn't stop her from wanting me to get a good education. Every night she would read to me. She taught me from textbooks she picked up at the library. She taught me about the Civil War when we read Gone with the Wind, she read Hamlet to me, she taught me about animals, plants, and helped me do math. Through it all, she never lost her temper, or grew impatient when I couldn't understand something. She was determined to make me smart.

  Ethan looked jealous. "I wish I had a mom like that. You know, don't be mad that you can't read. Everyone here has dyslexia, even Luke. But because of all the stuff your mom taught you, you're probably a whole lot smarter than half the people here."

  "Really? You think so?"

  "I know so."

  After walking through the breakfast line, I sat down next to Luke.

  Luke looked up form his pancakes. "Sorry about the schedule board, Sam. We'll find a way for you to get around here on your own. Maybe I'll get someone to put an intercom in your room. For today, unfortunately, you'll have to have Ethan escort you from palce to place. If you need anything else, make sure you tell someone so they can get it for you."

  The clinking of forks on plates signaled that breakfast was over. The monsters got up and left to go do their jobs. I still had to get used to seeing them around.

  Ethan got up and found me. 

  "It's time for your training."