The Ghosts Among Us: A Percy Jackson Halloween Special

5 | In Which Percy Jackson is an Eavesdropper Extraordinaire

It was now five days later, the night before Halloween, and Percy was going to pick up his costumes for himself and Annabeth. He stepped into the Aphrodite cabin, looking around for Lacy who was the official hander-outer of the Halloween costumes.

He spotted her by a vanity mirror putting on lip gloss, and walked over to her, tapping her on the shoulder, and smiling when she turned around. "Oh, hi Percy!" Lacy grinned, smiling and flashing her braces with pink rubber bands.

"Hey, so I'm just going to get right to the point. Do you have the costumes for me and Annabeth?" Percy asked.

"Oh! Yeah! I was going to deliver them to your cabin later, but I'll just give them to you now!" Lacy said. She put the tube of lip gloss down, then walked into a closet. A few moments later, she returned with a plastic bag full of something, presumably the costumes.

She handed the bag to Percy with a smile, which he happily accepted and took. "There you go! Two super realistic costumes that are great quality and are exact replicas of the uniforms from the movies!" Lacy said.

"Awesome!" Percy said, looking inside of the bag at the costumes. "They look amazing, Lacy. Thank you!"

"Don't thank me, thank the twins, Dove and Darrell Heartlace! They designed and made most of the costumes themselves! Along with a few others, but they did most of the work. They're really great at it," Lacy said. Percy looked over at where Lacy was pointing to see two blonde teenagers, presumably Dove and Darrell. He could definitely see the resemblance.

Dove was sitting at the sewing machine, currently working on creating something. Darrell leaned over her shoulder, occasionally pointing out a few things. They definitely seemed to be a good duo.

Percy walked over to them. "Hi guys! Thank you so much for the Halloween costumes! I'm Per-"

"Percy Jackson, we know," Darrell smiled, looking at Percy.

Dove briefly looked up from the sewing machine, acknowledging Percy. "It's no problem, we love designing clothes anyway, so it's more like you're doing us a favor. Plus, we aren't the only designers. Mitchel, Valentina, and a few others helped out as well with the designing. Plus, Piper did amazing with being the leader and keeping everything organized and making sure we stayed on track. Lacy's great at handing things out too!" Dove talked quickly as she sewed.

"Wow, you're very humble," Percy laughed.

"She can never seem to take a compliment," Darrell smiled.

"Well, you guys are probably busy. I'll leave you to it!" Percy said.

"Bye, Percy!" The twins said in unison.

Percy walked out of the Aphrodite cabin with the bag swinging back and forth in his hand. He was so pumped for tomorrow. As Percy walked to the Athena cabin, he let his mind wander, and couldn't help but bump into someone. He frowned and stopped, looking to see who it was, and apologizing.

He immediately stopped when he saw who it was though.

Clarisse.

Percy has purposefully been avoiding her, Will, Rachel, Grover, Leo, and Piper all week, and had been very successful at it (If you don't count Percy running into Piper at the pavilion five days ago). Unfortunately, it looked as if his streak was broken.

Usually he wouldn't really mind running into Clarisse or think twice on it. During normal circumstances they'd usually just shoot a couple insults at each other then call it a day. Why weren't these normal circumstances? Percy didn't quite know yet, but so far, it was her outfit.

Clarisse wore a crop top version of the camp shirt (A CROP TOP!), a black skirt (A SKIRT), had her hair actually brushed and looking nice, and she wore makeup! Yup, makeup. Clarisse just narrowed her eyes, her lip gloss covered lips pressed together tightly and her eyes narrowed at Percy.

As Percy looked closer at her, he saw something odd in her eyes. Resentment. But not the usual kind. There was also hurt mixed in there as well.

"Oh," She said, "Hello, Percy."

"Um, hi Clarisse," He said, still dumbfounded, "Uh, nice outfit?"

Clarisse's eyes and features softened and she smiled slightly. "Uh, thanks. I need to go," She then quickly walked away with a nervous look on her face.

Percy just stood there frozen, watching her in confusion. Suddenly, when she was a few yards away, Grover popped up out of nowhere. Percy took a couple steps forward because hey, one of his weaknesses is not being able to keep from eavesdropping - heh.

"What was that? Don't you hate him?" Grover whispered.

"Yeah, I know that's why we're here and all, but he's so nice! It's hard to be mad at him. I don't even know why I would hate him," Clarisse whispered back.

"Have you completely forgotten? He left me behind, he let you die. We both lost our lives because of him. Trust me, I thought he was a nice guy at first too. But I finally saw the truth that night. And you know I don't dislike that many people," Grover whispered.

"Yes, but I feel like I didn't even hate him until a few days ago. Something weird is up," Clarisse said back.

"Whatever. I'm talking to the boss later about you. Halloween is tomorrow, we can't fail our mission," Grover said.

"You never do," Clarisse sighed. So... that was one of the weirdest conversations Percy has ever heard while eavesdropping.