Melpomene (PJO)

1. Wake up, you're about to die

FOUR MONTHS LATER

glick. glick. glick. gli-

"Miss Carter!"

"Yes?!" Mari jumped in her seat, swivelling around to meet the annoyed eyes of one Graham Fummeral.

"Yes, Mr. Fummeral." Her teacher clicked his fingers in her face as if she were a misbehaving dog. 

"I asked, can you solve for X in this equation?"

Mari sighed. It was the last class of the last day before Upper Creek Elementary School split up for summer. In May. Yeah, that was weird. Back in England, schools split up for summer in July. Not that Mari was complaining. School had been... an experience, to say the least. She honestly wasn't sure how she'd got through the last five months without being expelled, but she certainly hadn't endeared herself to the faculty (there was an incident involving her humming 'god save the queen' instead of reciting the declaration of independence, or possibly the pledge of allegiance, because she still didn't know either and her homeroom teacher had given up). And the homework, gods, the homework. Six years school-free had not prepared her for what felt like being hit by a thousand useless textbooks and a whole lot of frustration. She wouldn't have got through it without Naomi Solace letting her sit in the corner of her recording room and work. The music helped.

"Marion Carter!" Mr. Fummeral clicked his fingers again. "The question, please."

"Oh, shi- shorry." Mari gulped. "Uh, is it... 7.5?"

"3.7." The teacher scowled. "As interesting as I'm sure the window is, I would appreciate it if you paid some attention to the lesson I am trying to teach. If it weren't the last day, you'd be in detention. As it is, I'll let it slide this time. And don't try and answer if you're just going to guess, you're wasting lesson time. Now..."

Mari ripped her page of calculations out of her book as the teacher kept talking, and scrunched it into her pocket. Will sent her a sympathetic look from a couple of seats away. He got the same treatment sometimes, but all the science teachers loved him, and hated her. Mari was pretty sure they'd all have a get-together after school just to celebrate the fact that they never had to teach her again because she was going to be starting 6th grade and moving to middle school. Never mind that she actually tried, but nobody seemed to care. Apart from Naomi, but Naomi wasn't a teacher. Most days, Mari just couldn't keep her focus on the teacher's words as they droned on and on and on. She'd accidentally notice the shape of the blackboard and then imagine a tiny family trying to climb up the side of it or something, and then she'd have to design a complex ladder system in her mind to make sure the tiny family all made it to the top of the blackboard safely... and before she'd know it the bell would be going, signalling the next class and she'd have no idea what had happened in the last fifty-five minutes.

This time, though, it wasn't just her usual inability to pay attention. Mari had probably slept for a total of seven minutes that night. Fifteen if she counted blinking.

Every night since she'd started living with Will and Naomi, snakes would slither into the room she slept in, ready to torment her when she woke. She hadn't told anybody because it had never worked before. The last person she'd told had been Brienne Harsome, her foster mother back when she was four. Some of the snakes had chased Mari down the hallway and she'd accidentally shattered the vase containing Brienne's mother's ashes. Mari didn't remember her exact words to Brienne as she tried to explain the snakes, but there had been a lot of crying involved, by both parties. Brienne had said she believed Mari and that she was going to head out right that second to buy some nice, strong snake repellent. Mari had been so thrilled that she hadn't remembered how it didn't make sense for any shops to be open at midnight. She'd made Brienne a thankyou card while she waited. A real monstrosity of a thing, with copious amounts of glitter and a lot of spelling mistakes. Brienne had come back with Andrew Rush, Mari's social worker, and Mari had been out of the house by morning. She still didn't know what happened to that stupid card. So, yeah, she wasn't going to be telling anybody about the snakes any time soon.