A Girl Named Maya Hale- Based off of The Percy Jackson Series

Chapter 2- Wait What Just Happened?

I burst in through the door to my house. My mom was sitting on the couch reading. She must have come home early from work (she's a marine biologist) to spend time with me like we always did after the last day of school. She looked up and smiled at me.

"Mom I made it through the year!" I said excitedly.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you Maya, you did so well this year," she said while she wrapped her arms around me.

I leaned into the hug, and smelled my mother's comforting smell of vanilla.

"Since you did so well this year, what do you want to do today?" she asked.

"Can we go to the beach?" I asked immediately. I ask this every time, but it's always a no.

"Sweetheart, I don't know..." my mom said, trailing off.

"Please mom? I promise I won't go in the water, I won't even stick my feet in." I pleaded with her.

You see, I have never been totally underwater before. I'm not dirty or anything, I've just never taken a bath before, always showers. My mom said it was unhygienic, which when you think about it, it really was. But that doesn't explain why she never let me go in a pool, or the ocean, even though we only lived 30 minutes away. And I knew my family always snuck out to the beach when I was doing homework, or when I wasn't home. They always smelled like salt and had crazy hair filled with sand. I was always angry when they did that.

I don't know if she didn't let me go in the water because my dad was a marine or something, but she never had a good reason.

My mom thought for a moment. "Alright, I'll let you since your birthday is in 2 days, and you're going to be a teenager. We can get pizza and eat it there."

I jumped around and screamed. I couldn't wait to see the ocean. I wanted to fill the empty part of me just by knowing it was there.

After we had picked up pizza from a local Italian restaurant, we got in the car and drove to the beach.

As soon as we parked the car, I grabbed my bag and ran out, making my poor mother take everything else.

I started to run on the sand, and my legs burned, but I couldn't care less. The whole time I was laughing like a maniac and smiling like an idiot.

And then I saw it. The gigantic ocean, right there in front of me, big and blue. I sprinted towards it and came to a sudden stop when I realized I had promised my mom I wouldn't even stick my feet in. I looked at the giant crashing waves and then looked at my mother who gave me a huge smile.

"Oh go ahead, stick your feet in," she said happily.

I quickly sat down on the wet sand and put my feet in. I don't know how this was possible, but my smile got even wider. My shorts were soaking wet, and so was the lower half of my shirt, but I didn't even notice.

I went to go eat pizza with my mom, and we talked and laughed for a long time. Then she brought out blue cupcakes she made especially for me. They had tiny blue candy dolphins on top of them, my favourite animals.

We walked along the beach, our feet splashing in the salty water, picking up shells and finding little moon jellyfish. She told me about the type of animals and fish in the Atlantic Ocean.

The sky was orange and pink from the beautiful sunset and the sun seemed to be sinking into the ocean.

In the distance, I saw something jump in the air that disappeared under the water. I gasped. It was a pod of dolphins!

"Mom, look!" I said as I pointed to the dolphins excitedly.

"Bottlenose dolphins," she said. "They're beautiful, aren't they?"