RED » N. BOBOFIT

10 | just before they lose it all

Nancy's POV

A few seconds after Percy had made me join his sword fighting class, a noise rang out. It sounded like someone blowing into a conch shell.

"That's lunch, everybody!" Percy cried as he clicked a cap onto a sword, turning it into a pen. I remembered that pen. Mr. Brunner had used for grading, all those many years ago.

Before I could ask Percy about that, Jasmine pulled me to the side, "Sit with me at lunch, okay? I have a plan to find Di Angelo."

A moment later, the conch shell rang out a second time, and Percy started down the hill, up to the pavilion. His five students -along with me and Jasmine- followed him.

I quickly grabbed some food, stacking my plate so that even after my offering to the gods, I'd still have enough food not to go hungry for the rest of the day till dinner. Jasmine walked behind me to the fire pit, where Percy and Annabeth were standing, talking to each other in hushed tones.

"We can't do that Percy..."

"Why not?"

"You know he'll die,"

"We won't let him,"

"We can't stop death, Percy"

"We have before,"

"Not like this,"

I scraped a roll, some green beans, and a few tater tots into the fire. I waited till Jasmine was finished to sit down at Percy's table.

Annabeth stopped talking immediately, but after realizing how suspicious that was, tried to start a conversation. "I'm glad I got that nap, gods I was having a mental break down, huh?"

I shrugged and stared to eat. My hamburger was delicious, way better than plain-old-cafeteria food. I devoured it quickly before turning over to my green beans.

I hadn't noticed, but Annabeth had started to talk again. "Sorry about leaving you two this morning. That won't happen again. I'm not usually like that."

"Is that true?" Percy asked sarcastically. "You'll fall asleep anywhere! Remember the Pegasi stables? You were knocked out cold! Coach went ballistic when he found you!"

"No fair!" Annabeth cried as she hurtled a piece of her pie at Percy, who ducked just in time. "Hedge goes ballistic over everything!"

"True," Percy agreed.

"So Nancy, I heard you found out this guy's secret identity!" Annabeth pointed to Percy.

Percy scoffed. "Secret identity? Please, what am I, demigod during the summer, Mr. School Nerd during the winter?"

I swallowed the rest of my beans, "Yeah, I met Mrs. O'Leary in the woods."

"You went in the woods. Alone?" Annabeth didn't flip out at me like Percy did when I told him, but she studied me with her cold, grey eyes. I nodded. "Mmm..." She said, thinking. "And nothing bothered you? No ants the size of cars, or walking tables?"

"Nope," I said, popping the 'P', before taking another bite of food.

"I think Leo took care of Buford the week he was here." Percy said, before stuffing at least twenty green beans in his mouth.

"Oh, well than scratch the walking table tops off the list," Annabeth said before returning back to her food. Being a demigod must really take it out of you, cause these kids ate like animals.

"Who's Buford?" Jasmine whispered to me. I shrugged in response. Jasmine turned to Annabeth and Percy. "So, who runs this camp anyway, and don't you dare say you two."

"Well..." Percy said, trying to find the right words to explain the situation.

"Our camp director is taking a leave of absence and our activities director is out of town on business. He's talking to some relatives about upcoming battle plans. So technically, Percy and I are in charge. We're the highest ranking people here."

"Highest ranking?" I asked, confused.

"We've been on more quests than anyone else here, so yeah, you could call us the highest ranked people. Usually demigods are veterans, most to us either fought in the Titan War or the Giant War, but Percy and I fought in both."

"Cool, I guess," Jasmine said, flipping her black hair away from her eyes.

Just then, Connor -the kid who had helped me find the Pavilion earlier this morning- came up to us. "Percy, Chiron's back!" He cried.

"Chiron?" Jasmine looked over at me, puzzled.
I shrugged yet again.

A few moments later, a big white horse came galloping down the hill towards up. Wait. It wasn't a horse. Well, the bottoms half was, but the top half was the torso of a middle aged man who I knew formerly as my latin teacher back on sixth grade.

Mr. Brunner has returned.

THIS IS THE TENTH CHAPTER! MY STORY HAS TEN CHAPTERS! God, I'm so excited! I never thought I would get this far.

Thanks for reading!