Percy Jackson One Shots and Short Stories

#22 - New Year's Eve

Chapter 22 - New Year's Eve
published: Monday, 3 December 2018

"Gather round, children!" Travis hollered through a megaphone. "Gather round!"

Annabeth winced and silently cursed Will for choosing a megaphone, of all things, for Travis' Secret Santa present.

"If he does that one more time..." Clarisse trailed off threateningly, shaking her spear at the son of Hermes.

Travis ignored he death threats and cheerily flailed his arms in the air to get everyone's attention. "As it's almost night time, Camp Half-Blood's annual New Year's Eve's events are about to begin!"

Cheers erupted from the Hermes cabin, which caused a wave of excited chatter to ripple across the demigods' ranks.

"Wonder what they have planned," Annabeth murmured to Percy out of her corner of her mouth. Christmas last week by the Aphrodite cabin had been eventful enough; Annabeth and Percy had been each other's Secret Santa's, and some magic mistletoe had severely messed with her head.

"It's Hermes," Percy said nervously. "I'd be surprised if an explosion wasn't involved."

"For the first half of our six-hour event," Travis announced. "Everyone is welcome to play with our newly-built temporary arcade!"

The Hermes campers ripped grey cloths off the odd-sized objects, revealing machines upon machines of traditional mortal fun.

"Most of these were built by the Hephaestus cabin – Kudos to them! – and are also filled with prizes Connor and I stole–I mean, bought from a mortal store in preparation for today," Travis declared. "Every camper will have a bag of 20 tokens, and each game will require a certain number of tokens to play a round."

"What if we run out of tokens?" someone shouted.

Travis pointed at them and beamed as if he was a game show operator. "I'm glad you asked! If you need more tokens, don't hesitate to trade in chores, favours, and drachmas with the nearest Hermes camper!"

"I am so ready for this," Percy whispered to her. "I spent half my childhood in the arcade avoiding school."

Annabeth snorted. "Please, you think you can beat me? I'm a daughter of Athena, I'm the queen of video games."

"My pac-man high score from when I was 7 is still in the arcade machine," Percy challenged. "No one ever beat it."

Annabeth smirked at him. "Oh, we'll see, Jackson."

A Hermes camper came by with a red velvet bag of shimmering golden tokens.

When everyone was given a bag, Travis raised his hands. "Let the games begin!"

Annabeth grabbed Percy by the hand and they weaved between campers as they made a beeline for her favourite game – the can toss.

As it turned out, they didn't need to run, because Hermes had installed more than enough games for everyone.

The words "Please insert one token" were displayed on the game's headboard, and prizes dangled from it.

Annabeth grinned at Percy. "Take your pick, and I'll win it."

Percy snorted. He pointed to the largest stuffed penguin. "That one." It needed all the cans to be knocked down, three times in a row.

Annabeth stretches her wrists and rolled her shoulders. She picked up the red ball from the bowl and aimed for the can.

It was all about the logic.

Assuming the game wasn't rigged – she knew it wasn't, because Chiron was supervisor – the quickest way to knock down all the cans was to knock out the base. To knock out the base, the ball had to hit the exact centre off the can and hit it off the ledge.