Poseidon trident

3 OLD LADIES

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty four/seven hallucination-ton was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entirecampus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completelyand totally convinced that there was no Security guard at the museum 

ever so often I would bring up the Security guard just to see if I  would trip them up. But they would stare at I was psycho.

It got so I almost believed that Security guard had never existed. 

Almost. 

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the Security guard to him, he would hesitate, then claimshe didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Security guard with talonsand leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. 

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out thewindows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valleytouched down only fifty miles from Jefferson Academy. One of the current events we studied in socialstudies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in theAtlantic that year. 

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to studyfor spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it soundedgood.

 The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited backnext year to Jefferson Academy.Fine, I told myself. Just fine. 

I was homesick.

 I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to publicschool and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.And yet... there were things I'd miss at Jefferson . The view of the woods out my dorm window, the HudsonRiver in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was alittle strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

 I would miss o-Mr. Bummer's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

 As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Bummer hadtold me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology acrossmy dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the differencebetween Chiron and Charon, or Polypeptides and Polypeptides. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I started to pace the room,feeling like there were ants everywhere on my body.

 Mr. Bummer's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the bestfrom you, Percy. 

 breath. I picked up the mythology book

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Bummer, he could give me somepointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want toleave Jefferson  Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.