Poseidon's Academy

Chapter 1. The Letter

Hailey perched on the roof of her two-storey brick house, oblivious to the pair of teenage girls giggling at the end of her street. One of them pressed her hands onto the road. The asphalt shuddered and moaned, great big cracks tearing through the black ground as water gushed up from underneath it, transforming the road into a crystal blue lake. The second girl stirred her hand through the water, ice blasting from her fingertips and shooting down the lake, freezing it solid.

'Ice rink,' both girls shouted. 'Ice rink. Ice rink.'

Children piled out of houses, pulling on skates and scrambling onto the frozen water.

Their laughter didn't register with Hailey, whose gaze remained fixed on the envelope clutched in her hands. It smelled of salt, reminding her of sunny days at the beach. The address read:

Miss Hailey Woods

12 Golden Fleece Place

Calliope Gardens

London

A gold trident bordered by the letters P and A was stamped on the back, with a swirl of gold water encircling it. Hailey's stomach grew heavy as she thought about the letter inside, which would either inform her of her acceptance to or rejection from Poseidon's Academy: the high school every eligible teenager in the world strived to get into.

Poseidon's Academy was no ordinary high school. It was an underwater palace that had once been the Olympian god Poseidon's home. No one had ever seen it-aside from accepted students, who whispered of jewel-encrusted walls and sea-nymphs.

Hailey doubted Poseidon appreciated the conversion of his palace into a school, but he wasn't in a position to complain considering he, and every other god, was dead. And had been for sixteen centuries now-compliments to humans killing them in the Great Battle.

Although Hailey supposed you could say they had lived on-at least in a small way-because when they'd died, their powers had showered from the sky to the human race, turning everyone into demigods. And since then, the gods' powers have passed down through each generation, so every human in the world has a power.

The cold touch of a raindrop sliding down Hailey's cheek had her gazing up at a grey cloud encroaching on the sun. She flicked her hand at it, watching the cloud speed away out of sight, leaving the sky azure blue.

Hailey was a Zeus. The only Zeus in over a century, to be exact, which meant her powers came with certain expectations. Her mind flashed back to the last Powers class she'd had before the summer holidays...

Hailey stood in a grassy field, the sweet and earthy scent of rain hanging in the air. Her teacher, Mrs Pritchet, loomed behind her with the rest of her class. But Hailey was too busy focusing her powers to remember they were there.

Warmth flowed through her fingertips towards the black sky, and a rope-shaped tornado whirled to life fifty yards ahead of her.

'Not good enough, Hailey.' Mrs Pritchet marched to Hailey's side and clucked her tongue. 'That feeble thing couldn't even pick up a shovel.'

'I'm trying,' Hailey protested.

'Try harder.'

'Yeah, make it bigger,' one of her classmates called out from behind her. 'Big enough to rip someone's roof off.'

'I bet she can't do it,' she heard someone else say.

'There's no way,' someone replied. 'She sucks at being a Zeus. I'd be so much better.'