Andy Jackson: Child of Land & Sea

Special: The Death Of Fear

"Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain."

Mark Twain

Andy was in a science class when she heard some weird noises outside. SCRAWK! OW! SCREECH!

It was like somebody was getting attacked by possessed poultry. Nobody else seemed to notice the commotion. In the lab, everybody was talking loudly. It wasn't hard for Andy to go look out the window without calling attention for herself.

There was a girl in the alley outside with her sword drawn. She was tall and muscular like a basketball player. She was hacking at a flock of blackbirds the size of ravens. A cut was bleeding over her left eye. One of the birds shot a feather like an arrow, and it lodged in her shoulder. She cursed and sliced at the bird, but it flew away.

Andy had no idea what Clarisse, of all people, was doing on the Upper East Side in the middle of a school day, but she was obviously in trouble. And she wouldn't last much longer.

"Mrs. White," Andy said, "can I go to the restroom? I feel like I'm gonna puke.''

"Go!" Mrs. White answered fast.

Andy ran out the door with her ballpoint pen already in hand. Nobody stopped her in the halls. She exited by the gym and got to the alley just in time to see Clarisse smack a devil bird with the flat of her sword. The bird squawked and spiraled away, slamming against the brick wall and sliding into a trashcan. That still left a dozen more swarming around her.

"La Rue!"

The girl glared at Andy in disbelief. "Jackson? What are you doing—" she was cut short by a volley of feather arrows that zipped over her head and impaled themselves in the wall.

"I go to school here."

"Just my luck," Clarisse grumbled, but she was too busy fighting to complain much.

Andy uncapped the pen, which grew into a metre-long bronze sword, and joined the battle, slashing at the birds and deflecting their feathers off her blade. Together, Clarisse and Andy sliced and hacked until all the birds were reduced to piles of feathers on the ground.

They were both breathing hard. Andy had a few scratches, but nothing major. She pulled a feather arrow out of her arm. It hadn't gone in very deep. As long as it wasn't tipped with poison, she'd be okay. She took a bag of ambrosia out of her jacket, where she always kept it for emergencies, broke a piece in half and offered some to Clarisse.

"I don't need your help," she muttered, but she took the ambrosia. Clarisse sheathed her sword and brushed off her jacket. "Well... see ya."

'"Hold up!" Andy said. "You can't just leave."

"Watch me."

"What's going on? What are you doing away from camp? Why were those birds after you?"

Clarisse stumbled past Andy.

"Come on," Andy said. "You just about got killed at my school. That makes it my business."

"It does not!"

"Let me help you."

Clarisse took a shaky breath like she really wanted to punch Andy, but at the same time there was a desperate look in her eyes, like she was in serious trouble. "It's my brothers," she admitted. "They're playing a prank on me."

"Oh," Andy said, not really surprised. "Which brothers? Sherman? Mark? The one with the goatee?"

"No," she answered, sounding afraid. "My immortal brothers. Phobos and Deimos."