Andy Jackson: Child of Land & Sea

At Least Once More

I have no rights over this story. I don't own anything. Rick Riordan is our lord and savior. All hail the king.

Act I — Storm At Sea

Part I — You are my world, my darling. What a wonderful world I see.

It was not my fault, she repeated all the way home.

Andy couldn't understand how yet again she had gotten herself expelled. For fifteen years she had managed to jump from school to school—nobody ever seemed to think she deserved a second chance. And maybe she didn't.

Whatever they might say about her, one thing Andy was sure of: It had not been her fault!

Yancy Academy; the simple thought made her want to barf. She hated the place and everyone in it. Well, except for Grover, the scrawny boy who cried whenever he got frustrated. He had bad acne, a wispy beard on his chin, and on top of all that, was crippled. Some sort of muscular disease in his legs that made him walk funny, like every step hurt. But she adored him anyway, he'd been the best friend she'd ever had.

Oh, and there was Mr. Brunner, of course. He'd been a good Latin teacher. But he pressed Andy unlike any other, ignoring the fact that her bad ADHD made her brain misinterpret things. It was hard to keep up, and he accepted nothing but the best from her. Like she could do any better than a C-.

Andy scolded herself and tried to focus. It was hot inside the bus. She was sweating like mad. The New Yorkers were busy with their own little lives. Andy sat back and remembered who's fault it had been.

Mrs. Dodds.

The math teacher—who looked like a fragile little granny—had decided to hate on Andy since her first day. She seemed sweet enough, but her death stare could scare the bravest of men. How she loved looking at Andy with hatred, as if she was trying to pulverize the girl with her eyes. Andy always knew the old lady was evil; she just had no idea how right she was about it.

Problem was nobody believed her that the woman turned into a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs. Nobody believed her that the monster was about to slice Andy to ribbons. Nobody believed when Andy swore that at the last moment, when she thought her math teacher was going to murder her, Mr. Brunner arrived and threw her a ballpoint pen that turned into a sword at her touch.

But Andy remembered it all too well.

Mrs. Dodds spun towards her with a vicious look in her eyes. Andy's knees were like jelly. Her hands were shaking so violently she had trouble raising the sword. Mrs. Dodds flew straight at her and Andy did what she had to do, what little she could do. When the metal blade hit Mrs. Dodds' shoulder it passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the stop, leaving nothing behind. Andy was left alone. Nobody was there but her. Her and the ballpoint pen in her shaky hands.

After that they all had tried to convince her with lies. They kept saying, over and over, that she had imagined the whole thing, after all, there had never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy! Andy almost believed them. Almost. But Grover couldn't lie to her. Whenever she asked, he would tell her there was no Mrs. Dodds, but he always hesitated first. She knew him all too well.

Then she heard a queer conversation between Grover and Mr. Brunner.

"... a Kindly One in the school!" Grover had said. "Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"