GODS AND MONSTERS , pjo

02 , percy goes crazy

CHAPTER TWO:
PERCY GOES CRAZY

The Mrs. Dodds thing was getting a little annoying. Percy just wouldn't quit. Every so often he would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on me, as if I was suddenly gonna remember who she was. Instead I would just roll my eyes.

The weird thing is, if I thought hard enough I would know exactly who she was. But as fast as i remembered her, i would forget her. Then wind up with a major head ache.

Grover continued to be weird. Whenever Percy mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying and I knew Percy did too.

Something was going on. Something had happened and I missed it.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help anyone's mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in Percy's dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I noticed Percy starting to act cranky and irritable most of the time. His grades slipped from Ds to Fs. He got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends, which ultimately ended up involving me.

If you are my teacher reading this, I promise I didn't hit her. But if you aren't, she deserved it.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, Percy snapped. He called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it seem to offend him, so I laughed.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: We would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Whatever, I told myself.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. I can't help it, I'm a mamas girl.

Though there were things I'd miss at Yancy. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without us.

I'd miss Latin class, too. Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. Or at least tried to. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me and Percy about this subject being life-and-death for us. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before our final, Percy got so frustrated he threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across his dorm room. I knew why, it happens to me all the time. Words start swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.

He paced the room. I sat on the floor trying to focus on the words on the pages but it was as if every voice in New York was whispering in my ears. I closed one eye, as if that would help. (It didn't.)

I took a deep breath looking up as percy picked up his mythology book. He started stomping out of the room. I was confused for a second before I scrambled up and ran after him.

We walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.