Poseidon's Daughter

Chapter 33

Rhea POV

After Mr. D calmed down, he sat and we started playing the card game. Everyone was on edge. He grumbled, saying, "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with brats who only make my job much harder than necessary."

He looks like he does nothing all day. His job can't be that difficult.

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder rumbled in the sky.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," I repeated.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded like a five year old who hasn't had any candy in twenty years. Not that that's possible.

"And ..." I stammered, "your father is...god of the sky and lightning, I presume. No wine as punishment, and that makes you Dionysus, god of wine, of grape-harvest, madness, parties, religious ecstasy, and theatre. Wow, wow. It's an honour," I say, stretching out my hand to shake his. Sucking up is the best way to survive right now.

"You are correct," he says, nose in the air, all high and mighty, "not too shabby for a child of Triton."

"Thanks, I guess."

Chiron won the game, and then led me towards my new cabin. I got a few stares, and few fingers pointed at me.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" I ask Chiron.

"It's not every day that we get a new camper, and not every day that a demi-god defeats Pasiphae's son. One of our campers, Luke Castellan saw you fight and kill it," he said.

Luke, the traitor, not that I can say anything about it yet.

Chiron showed me where we will be eating, he showed me the cabins, each cabin looked different, representing the twelve Olympians.

They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, scattered with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops.

In the middle of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smouldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. I smile, knowing exactly who she is. I couldn't say anything for fear that they'll find out that Aunt Hestia has been looking after me for the past three years.

I identified nearly all of the cabins as we walked past them, I saw Hera's and Zeus' cabin first. I saw my cabin, number 3.

Next to my cabin was Ares', number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the colour had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer.