The Second Jackson- Piper McLean book 1

Greek is an Insult?

Lani

I wasn't scared of ghosts, which was definitely a good thing. Half of the people in camp were dead.

Shimmering purple warriors stood outside the armory, polishing ethereal swords. Others hung out in front of the barracks. A ghostly boy chased a ghostly dog down the street. And at the stables, a big glowing red dude with the head of a wolf was guarding... I swear they're unicorns.

None of the campers paid the ghosts much attention, but as our little entourage walked by, with Reyna in the lead and Frank and Hazel on either side of my brother and I, all the spirits stopped what they were doing and stared at me and Percy. A few looked angry. The little boy ghost shrieked something like "Greggus!" and turned invisible.

I wished I could turn invisible. After weeks of being on my own apart from my twin and this attention made both of us uneasy. Which was probably obvious as we tried to remerge, even though we missed that chance the moment we were out of the womb. We settled for staying between Hazel and Frank, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

"Am I seeing things" I asked "Or are those-"

"Ghosts?" Hazel turned, she had startling eyes, like fourteen karat gold. "They're Lares. House gods"

"Oh so smaller than real gods but larger than apartment gods?" I joked.

"They're ancestral spirits" Frank explained, he'd removed his helmet which revealed a babyish face that didn't go with his military haircut, or burly frame. He looked like a toddler who'd taken steroids and joined the Marines. I wasn't sure if he could tell I was joking or not.

"The Lares are kind of like mascots" he continued, "Mostly harmless, but I've never seen them so agitated"

"They're staring at me" Percy said, "That ghost kid called me Greggus. My name isn't Greg"

"Graecus" Hazel corrected. "Once you've been here a while, you'll start understanding Latin. Demigods have a natural sense for it. Graecus means Greek"

"Is that bad?" Percy asked.

Frank cleared his throat, "Maybe not. You've both got that type of complexion, the dark hair and all. Maybe they think you're actually Greek. Is your family from there?"

As Frank explained I stumbled as I got another image flashing in my head. I was in this giant throne room; Percy was standing next to me and people sat in all the thrones around us. I recognized one of them as Hera, or Juno, but she looked different. I couldn't hear anything but somehow, I knew I was yelling at the gods. Everything started shaking and this time when I returned to reality it was like someone had put me in a catapult.

"Don't know. Like I said, my memory is gone" My brother was saying from where he was gripping my forearm, helping me stay up.

"Or maybe..." Frank hesitated.

"What?" I asked, though my voice sounded almost as weak as I felt, a cold feeling spreading through my body, like my life force was being pulled away by these images.

"Probably nothing," Frank answered, "Romans and Greeks have an old rivalry. Sometimes Romans use Graecus as an insult for someone who's considered an outsider- an enemy. I wouldn't worry about it" Though he sounded pretty worried.

"I'm taking it as a compliment" I shrugged as we stopped at the center of camp, where two wide stone paved roads met at a T.

A street sign labeled the road to the main gates as VIA PRAETORIA. The other road, cutting across the middle of camp, was labeled, VIA PRINCIPALIS. Under those markers were hand-painted signs like BERKELEY 5 MILES; NEW ROME 1 MILE; OLD ROME 7280 MILES; HADES 2310 MILES (pointed straight down) an image flashed in my head of a blonde girl, about the age of twelve, tossing a red rubber ball at a dog with three heads. I looked back at the signs to read two more, RENO 208 MILES and CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE!