The Riptides: Percy's Sister (Percy Jackson And The Olympians)

Book Two, Chapter Two 2.2

My day started normal enough. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep Elementary School.

See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on bean bags instead of desks and we don't get grades and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert t-shirts to work.

I mean, that's all cool with me. I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most demigods, so I'd never done all that well in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things and the kids weren't always all that... well, bright.

It was a full day for me and all we did was watch movies. Toy Story one, recess, Incredibles, lunch, Finding Nemo, leave. I felt I ended my day on a good note. That was until I got to the middle school.

I walked a few blocks making my way into the office and rang the bell.

"Hi little girl," the receptionist said. "Are you lost?"

"Um, hi. No, I'm not lost, I'm looking for my brother. He goes to this school. I think he's in gym class right now."

"What's his name?"

"Percy Jackson."

The man typed away. "I see Perseus Jackson."

"That's him." I nodded.

"Hm... yes you are correct. He is in gym class. Can I get your name first Miss?"

"Molly."

He was writing something down and gave me a piece of paper, no, a sticker. "Here you go. Gym is across campus."

"Thank you."

I looked at the sticker and it was one of those HI! MY NAME IS.

Once I made my way to the gym, all I heard was, "Perfect! More seafood!"

I'll say this, I hate dodgeball. I can never play that game without getting hit in the face.

Before I could register anything else, I heard Tyson yell, "Molly, duck!"

I ducked as the dodgeball whisked over my head at the speed of light.

BOOM!

It hit the wall mat and I noticed these weren't your regular, run of the mill red rubber dodgeballs. They looked like searing hot, bronze bowling balls, but these giants or whatever they are that threw them, picked them up like they were nothing.

"Coach!" Percy yelled.

The coach looked up sleepily reading a Sports Illustrated magazine, but if he saw anything strange about the game, he didn't lead on. That's the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw the eighth graders pounding on the younger kids. Wouldn't be far from the truth anyway. Or maybe the coach saw Matt Sloan, Percy's bully, getting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. Apparently that happened before. Whatever the case, nobody realized we were dealing with genuine bloodthirsty monsters. And since they called me seafood, I'm going with man eating, bloodthirsty monsters.

"Yeah. Mm hmm," the coach muttered. "Play nice."

And went back to his magazine.

One of the giants threw his flaming hot bowling ball and Percy dove to the side as the fiery comet sailed past his shoulder.

"Corey!" Percy screamed.

After my shock of trying to take everything in, I pulled Corey out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.