The Blonde and the Bootlegger: A Percy Jackson story

The Olympus Ball

bigshmiles bellaschneeb chestnutia
A/N have your tissues ready, this one is going to be a tear jerker

Frank P.O.V

When we returned home from town, I found Juniper Underwood coming back from the barn after milking the goats. I tipped my hat to her.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Underwood," I said.
"Good afternoon, Frank," She replied.
Juniper was slim and dainty and her pails of milk looked heavy. Her back and shoulders were slumped over and the muscles of her arms appeared strained.
"Here, let me."
I took her pails from her and she breathed a sigh of relief to be free of her burden.
"Thank you."
Sometimes being built like an ox came in handy. "Clumsy Ox," was the term that my grandmother always used when I'd made a mistake. She used it at least ten times when I'd called to tell her what had happened.
I knew that the rest of the guys, especially Leo, were mad at me because it was my fault that we were stuck here. Leo would never forgive me for crashing his car.
I helped Juniper carry her pails of milk back to the farmhouse. She looked pretty today in a yellow and white gingham dress and a white apron trimmed in ruffles.

There was something about her that reminded me of Hazel. They both had wide, warm smiles; the kind that always made the world look like a better place. Hazel was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with her coffee-colored skin, cinnamon curls, and big golden eyes. I always wondered what someone so lovely could possibly see in me. But Hazel was more than beautiful. She had one of the biggest hearts I had ever come across, especially in how she continued to put up with her mad witch of a mother.
I felt bad for calling Marie Levesque a witch because Hazel hated when people called her that. She had been called "daughter of a witch" all her life but I couldn't find a better word to describe her mother. Marie was drunk more often than not and when she was drunk, she was angry and would take it out on Hazel. Sometimes she even hit the girl. I longed to take her away from all that.
When I visited her the night before he left, I entrusted Hazel with something very special: a lucky charm of mine. Before she had gone off to serve in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during the Great War, mother and I had a bonfire.
A/N Frank's native Canada was part of the British Empire during World War I. The Women's Army Corps (also known as Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps) was the women's unit of the British Army.
She told me to save a piece of the leftover burnt wood so we could use it to start another bonfire when she returned home. Mother died in the line of duty and I keep the piece of burnt wood as something to remember her by. I always carried it in my pocket until I gave it to Hazel.