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chapter forty-one. ☄︎. *. ⋆
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AFTER MY BEST FRIEND of the lovely Oracle sat down and did not wake back up again, the entire camp came together and elected someone we decided fit for such a punishment as taking her back up to her attic—and I'll give you one guess as to who everybody was mad enough at.
Percy, of course.
Grover volunteered to help him. I wanted to tell him no, since Grover hadn't done anything wrong, but he stalked off without complaints and helped lug the old mummy to the Big House's attic with Percy. I frowned as the two of them hauled the Oracle off its rock. The least they could do was make sure she didn't lose any limbs.
A few minutes later, I sat around a ping-pong table in the rec room with all the rest of the cabin reps. Normally, I wouldn't be invited to council of cabin representatives meeting, seeing as I had two people ahead of me for the role of head counselor in cabin seven, but at the time, I was the only Apollo camper staying year-round. Will usually would be there all year, but that fall he decided to try going back to his mom's house and rekindle a relationship with her. I wasn't sure how well it was going for him, but since he hadn't yet returned to camp, I guessed he was doing alright.
Mr D and Chiron (in wheelchair form) sat at the head of the ping-pong table. Zoë and Bianca di Angelo (who had become some kind of personal assistant to Zoë) took the other end. Thalia, Percy, and Grover sat along the right. Beckendorf and Silena were in deep conversation on one end of the left side of the table. Travis, next to Connor, was toying with some device I guess Beckendorf had given him. Connor and I were at the other end of the left side. None of the Ares campers could show—all of them had gotten a broken limb during capture the flag, courtesy of the Hunters. They were resting up in the infirmary. (Under my instruction, because again, I was the only Apollo camper. Gods, it's tough when everyone relies on you for everything. I was beginning to understand what it's like to be a god.)
Zoë started off the meeting on a positive note. "This is pointless."
Grover made a move—I'd been expecting him to reach out and comfort Zoë awkwardly or something, but he just grabbed the Cheez Whiz can and began spraying it on some ping pong balls.
"There is no time for talk," Zoë continued, ignoring the pshhh of the Cheez Whiz can. "Our goddess needs us. The Hunters must leave immediately."
"And go where?" Chiron asked.
"West!" Bianca said. I was amazed at how different she looked after just a few days with the Hunters. Her dark hair was braided like Zoë's now, so you could actually see her face. She had a splash of freckles across her nose, and her dark eyes vaguely reminded me of someone famous, but I couldn't think who. She looked like she'd been working out, and her skin glowed faintly, like the other Hunters, as if she'd been taking showers in liquid moonlight. "You heard the prophecy. Six shall go west to the goddess in chains. We can get six Hunters and go."
