The Day I Was Claimed (a pjo fanfiction)

act one-scene two

act one-scene two: i mess up some monster socks

corresponding chapter: three old ladies knit the socks of death

word count: 1669

pre-text authors note: if you didn't read the post-text author's note from last week's chapter, i would suggest doing that. it's important information.

if you did read it, and the people who didn't are being a bitch about updates, you have my permission to thrash them with carefully crafted insults until they read it.

that is all.

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After the incident at the museum (read: my panic attack over nothing), I slipped into my own world. I wasn't sure what was real or not, so I stayed away from everything. Except for Percy. I was confident he was real. It was me I was worried about.

Everyone kept insisting to Percy that the peppy blonde lady- Mrs Kerr- that got on the bus with us that day had been with us since Christmas. I knew it was a lie, but I had no problem with it. Mrs Kerr was a better teacher anyway.

Percy was not okay with it. He wouldn't let it drop, despite the weird looks he got whenever he brought it up. It might've had something to do with the fact that he clearly wasn't sleeping well. Maybe he was plagued with the same nightmares that I was.

Mrs Dodds killing Percy.

Mrs Dodds killing me.

Mrs Dodds killing Mom.

The freak weather continued. Got worse, even. And it made Percy irritable. Partly because we had to write a paper on it in Social Studies, but still.

While Percy's mood and grades got worse (D's and F's, for the record), mine got better. Well, my grades did, at least. Because I wasn't sure what was real, I buried myself into the things that I could separate for sure. History, Algebraic equations, biology, they all made sense to me (when I could read it). Everything had a place, and it was all organised neatly. You can't just move the femoral artery or disobey the rules of math.

My difficulty with reading simply pushed me harder. I wanted to understand the differences between an equation and an inequality. I ached to solve them flawlessly. The school recognised my efforts and offered to put me in the advanced math class, but that would've been useless seeing as it would've only been a few weeks. But I made my first 'B' on the final for the class that I didn't even take.

Percy, on the flip side of the coin, went off on Mr Nicoll- the English teacher- and a letter was sent to mom. Percy would not be invited back to Yancy next year. They assured my mother and me that I was always welcome, but I wasn't staying if Percy wasn't.

Apparently, both of us were homesick and wanted to go back. Even if it meant suffering through our step-father and his gambling and his drinking and his...

There were things from Yancy that I would miss: the view from my dorm window; the library; Grover. Percy said he'd miss Mr Brunner's class, which I believed since it was the only exam he studied for.

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The morning of exam day, Percy confessed to eavesdropping on a conversation between Grover and Mr Brunner ofter trying to get some help. According to Percy, they'd said something about him being in danger. I was obviously shocked, but not as shocked as I should've been.