Little Tricks (PJO x HP) DISCONTINUED

CHAPTER SEVEN: I become supreme lord of the bathroom

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet. Or maybe Ara, considering she was still cheering.

Annabeth showed us a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords),  the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough. (Ara was very excited to see if she could throw something in the lava)

"I actually ended up throwing shampoo in it. Apparently magic, lava and shampoo don't mix well." Ara grinned, Hermes laughed and high-fived her.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.
"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess
hall."

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."
"Whatever."
"It wasn't my fault."

"Bullshit." Theodore whispered, Percy looked at him, offended, "How dare you!" He said, Theodore winked at him.

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.
"Who?"
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

Draco choked, "I thought the book said 'Not hoe.'" He gasped.

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.
I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shim-mering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their
shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.
I didn't know what else to do. I waved back. Ara waved too.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."
"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."
Ara smirked, "I love that it's the Naiads that broke you."

"What broke you?" Blaise asked, "I ended up sobbing in Clarisse's arms after I was officially claimed."

Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"
"Oh, well then we belong here." Ara said.

"True."

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."
"Half-human and half-what?"
"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.
"God," I said. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."
"That's ... crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with
humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"
"But those are just—" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods—"