Poseidon Is My Daddy (Book #1 of the Daughters of Olympus Series)

I Meet A Gryphon

Hey, I'm Julie Anderson, I'm 15 years old, I live in Hudson Valley and I'm gonna tell you how my life got turned upside down. So it all started on September 4th. It was my 1st day in the 10th grade. Most kids would be really unenthusiastic about coming back to school, but I couldn't wait. I straightened my headband in my hair and headed out the door. I walked to school by myself every morning (oh well) and I spend most of my time behind an instrument, so I guess you could kind of say I'm a loner. But the truth is, I've got a lot going for me. I posted a video of me doing a strings cover of Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger' and NYU wanted to offer me a full music scholarship. They also saw a video of me covering the song 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift so that just sealed the deal. I have dyslexia and ADHD but I make such high grades that some people don't believe me when I tell them. I'm also really active, I'm a star athlete in PE but I don't like to show off.

So, I got to school like 10 minutes early but when the bell rang, I sprinted to homeroom. I chose a seat at the front f the classroom (as always) and settled in. After our teacher, Ms. Hamm (I know right?) took attendance, the bell rang and we were off to biology. Our teacher, Mrs. Hendricks, paired us up and I just happened to get stuck with the meanest girl in class, Alani Dieheart. Ugh. I can't believe all the boys drool over her. Before you think I'm just jealous, let me describe her. She has a huge, flat forehead, teeth that look like dirty broken glass and she doesn't even know how to smile! She's also super short, extremely bony and she has cold, dead shark eyes!

So, turns out our first piece of homework was a project. While I was trying to plan out our project, Alina was staring stupidly at Jared, her obvious crush. I got really frustrated because I was only 2 hours into 10th grade and I was already taking on stress! "Ugh! Alani, we need to-" I never got to finish that sentence because the sound of a window breaking very rudely interrupted me. When everyone finally got to their senses I saw a gryphon. Yes a gryphon, like body of a lion, head of an eagle gryphon. The worst part: its blood red eyes were fixed on me. A million thoughts raced in my mind, 'What do I do?' "Should I run?' 'Should I even move?' My thoughts were interrupted by even more breaking glass breaking. A tall guy with messy black hair and sea green eyes was standing in the wreckage. His arms were taut with muscles and he was wielding a bronze sword. He established the gryphon's focus on me and attacked it. After a blur of bronze and silver, all that remained of the gryphon was a pile of gold dust.

The boy fixed his sea green eyes on me, 'You, come with me.' The weird thing was that I didn't ask questions, but Alani sure did. 'Why her? Why not me?' she whined like a child. 'Because I'm not you Alani!' was my brilliant comeback. The boy grabbed my wrist and ran outside taking me with him (duh...). Up ahead I saw what looked like a large bird, but suddenly it stood up revealing an jet black equine body. 'Is that a-' 'Pegasus? Yes. Time to go Blackjack.' The pegasus whinnied like Who is she? 'It's fine Blackjack. She's a friend.' The boy vaulted onto Blackjack's back and offered me a hand up. I accepted and he pulled me up and I wrapped my arms around his waist. We spiraled into the sky. The close contact made me kind of nervous though. Yeah, getting up close and personal with a guy you've known for 3 minutes, who wouldn't love that?

As we flew, the kilt of my school uniform whipped in the wind. The boy and I were silent for the whole ride. I was starting to feel tired and I hesitantly rested my head against the boy's back and fell asleep.