Alacrity

I

i. Kleptomaniacs and New Kids

Lyra scrambled to attention, shoving the stolen goods behind her back and quickly doing her best to look innocent. Connor and Travis did the same, whistling a merry tune and looking anywhere but the centaur's gaze. The three stood to their feet, careful to hide the items they stole, and bowed to the centaur respectfully.

"Well then," Chiron said, attracting Lyra's attention to the boy that hovered awkwardly in the doorway. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner." He turned on his hooves and trotted off and, if Lyra was correct, right now he would be teaching master archery. The only reason the girl knew this was it was because it was in her best interest - she would have a higher success rate of pranks and stealing things from the camp store if Chiron was busy somewhere else. The last thing she wanted was to be caught stealing from the store... again. She had gotten dish duties for two weeks, and her accomplices got off scott-free because she was the 'bestest sister ever!' and didn't rat them out

The new boy, Percy, Chiron called him, stood in the doorway and examined the Hermes kids. All of them had gotten to their feet and examined the new boy, trying to figure out who his godly parent was. He had dark, tousled hair and bright sea-green eyes that were looking warily around.

"Well," Lyra smiled the instant she saw Annabeth, her 'innocent' look breaking into a grin. "Go on."

Lyra's grin turned into a smirk as Percy tripped coming in on the day and landed straight on his face. She had to muffle her snickers with her fist, though the brothers on either side of her didn't even try to hide their pleasure at his clumsiness. Percy climbed back to his feet, his face a brilliant shade of red. He was extremely embarrassed at his less-than-perfect entrance, it was extremely clear for everyone tor read. Lyra was sure she could have fried an egg on his face.

"Percy Jackson," Annabeth announced, sweeping her arm in a semi-circle to display the crowd. "meet cabin eleven."

"Oi, Anna," Lyra called towards the girl. "is he one of us? Or, y'know, undetermined?"

Percy clearly looked confused at the question, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Lyra groaned loudly, rolling her eyes and huffing. The Hermes Cabin certainly didn't need any more members. They were already filled to capacity as is - the floor was practically invisible through the throng of brightly colored sleeping bags. It was starting to feel less like a home and more like a petri-dish of teenagers. But the worst part wasn't even the crowd - no, the worst part was the smell. Shoving over a dozen teenagers into one cabin, packed like sardines? It cultivated a stench that was slightly nauseating, and it didn't help that the Stoll's always had opened glue containers that they always forgot to close, and that there was a rotting apple under Julia Feingold's bed that had been there for months (and that nobody was brave enough to try to remove it), and it certainly didn't help that Cecil Markowitz's cologne smelled like bottled farts.

And yet, the Hermes Cabin would always accept whoever needed some place to sleep. Their patron was, as in the name, Hermes, the god of thievery, travelers, merchants, et cetera, et cetera. That meant that the cabin was loaded with unclaimed demigods - and, whenever there was an accident and a cabin needed to be re-built, they would have house the displaced demigods - and the children of Hermes.

Due to all of the strain placed upon the cabin, it was quite run-down and wasn't as magnificent as all of the other cabins. As compared to the pure-gold Apollo cabin, the barbie-doll Aphrodite cabin, and the blood-red Ares cabin, the Hermes cabin just looked... old. The threshold was worn down from hundreds of scuffled foot-prints (and several painted handprints from the Stoll's), and the brown paint was peeling significantly and chipped all over the place. The only thing that differentiated the Hermes cabin from any other old summer-camp cabin was the symbol over the doorway; it was a caduceus: a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it: a symbol of Lyra's father.