Warriors of Wisdom

Chapter Five

I usually look forward to dinner with my dad. I do not look forward to dinner with a bunch of strangers, and especially ones where I'm going to be "claimed" by my mom.
I found Asher outside, just like Chiron said.

"Hey," he said, "How'd it go?"

I tried to hide my uneasiness, because I didn't want to make myself seem weak. "It went great. Chiron wanted you to take me to the dining pavilion."

"Got it. It's right over there. I'll give you a small tour of the stuff we'll pass." He led me past an area where a bunch of burly looking teenagers were forging weapons.
   
"This is the forge. It's where the Hephaestus cabin goes to forge new weapons for the camp. They make the best weapons." I remembered something about Hephaestus being the god of blacksmiths. We kept walking until we were strolling by the buildings in the shape of an Ω.

"These are the cabins. It's where all of the children of each god stay. Usually undetermined demigods would stay in the Hermes cabin, but we haven't had many undetermined children for a while now. Hopefully your parent will claim you by dinner tonight."

We walked past the armory, which stores all of the weapons for camp. People here kept on mentioning weapons. What kind of summer camp was this?"

"Why do you have so many weapons here? Doesn't sound like a very safe camp."

Asher laughed. "The weapons are for your training. They're here so that you can train to do stuff, like fight monsters and things like that." We passed the canoe lake, which was pretty self-explanatory. Finally we made it to the dining pavilion. It was a building made out of Ionian columns, with steps leading up to a bunch of tables. Some kids from the camp were already starting to crowd in. There were about twenty tables, but there weren't that many kids at each. Probably three or four at each table.

"You can join the Hermes kids over there for now." Asher pointed to a table with two other kids. I walked over to their table, but I wasn't planning to socialize with them. When I sat down, the two of them turned to me. One of them had ruffled red hair, freckles, huge glasses, and an elfish smile, as if he were ready to make trouble. The other one had longer black hair, acne (Gross!) and the same elfish smile as the other one.

"Is this the girl that made a giant run away? That's awesome! She should teach us how she did it, cause I'd like to use it on the other campers!" he laughed and punched the other one in the shoulder, "Oh, I'm Jared by the way. And this over here is my brother Mason." He pointed his finger at Mason, who waved back at me and chuckled.

"Brothers? But you two look nothing alike." I said, which seemed to make them laugh even more. They seemed to think that everything I said was funny.

"Biologically, we don't come from the same mom. But our dad is Hermes." Mason stated, "So are you a kid of Hermes? Because it would really be more interesting in the Hermes cabin if we had another sister. Our three sisters are in school right now. Bah! I like it here at camp better. The victims of pranking here are WAY better than the ones at my school."

"Um, I don't know what you're talking about, but--"  I was cut short by a whistle. I hadn't realized that Chiron had gotten here.

"Hello, campers! I have an announcement, but first, let's eat!" The campers cheered. I looked around as their plates magically filled with food: burgers, fries, and in their glasses, Coke and water filled up.

I looked at my own plate and glass, which was still empty. "How do they do that?" I asked Jared.

He laughed again. Seriously, what did he think was so funny? "You gotta let it know what you want. All you gotta do is think about the food being on the plate, but nothing too big. If you want, you can say it out loud, like this," He looked at his plate. "Cheeseburger!" he said. Suddenly, a cheeseburger appeared on his plate. He looked at his glass. "Water!" His glass filled with water. "See? Easy. You do it."

I looked at my plate. I thought salad. After saying that, a salad was on my plate. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber. My favorite. I didn't specify what I even wanted in my salad, but somehow my plate knew. I looked at my glass. Lemonade. The glass filled with lemonade. "That's amazing."

"The gods can do amazing things." Mason said as he munched a french fry.

I happily chowed down my salad. It brought back good memories with my dad. He used to make this salad all the time. I missed him.

Chiron raised his hands, and everyone grew silent. "Well, it is good to see you all gathered here. I have some news. Asher has successfully brought back a new demigod!"

Everyone looked over at Asher, who was sitting at the table across from me. He smiled as everyone clapped for him. I clapped too, especially since the demigod that he had saved was me.

"So," Chiron said, gaining everyone's attention again, "I'd like you all to meet Callisto Gates," he pointed over to where I was. I waved awkwardly to everyone. Some people waved back. Some people whispered to the people next to them. That almost made me mad. I have caught people at school whispering about me so much. In elementary it infuriated me, but as I got older it didn't bother me as much. I felt like the little second grader that was being made fun of.

"She is currently undetermined, but we hope that soon--" He stopped talking. Everyone gasped. Jared and Mason were scooting away from me. I looked at Chiron, who had a look that was both shocked and scared at the same time. Asher and his table looked at each other nervously. Some of the kids said, "Is that possible?" and "I've never seen anything like it." I'm pretty sure I didn't look much different than I did a few minutes ago. I don't know what all of the fuss was about.

"What? What's happening?" A girl from one of the tables, one who was wearing pink and a lot of makeup, pulled out a mirror from her Gucci purse. She faced it in front of me, and I saw what everyone thought was so strange.

Floating above my head, was a gray, glowing symbol. The girl's hands were shaking, so I couldn't see what it was right away. Through all of the shaking, I was able to make out a small, oval head with huge eyes, and it had the body and claws of a bird. I realized that it was an owl. If my mom is a Greek goddess, the only Greek goddess that I could think of with an owl as her symbol...

Chiron bowed. Everyone followed his lead. "All hail, Callisto Gates: daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, strategy, and useful crafts."