Deadly Waters | Percy Jackson

7. In Which it's None of Your Business

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

She showed him 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.

It was a sadistic enough contraption that Percy could easily imagine Pez sitting there and laughing at the misfortune of those who didn't make it in time.

Finally, the duo 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."

She looked at him sceptically, and Percy realised it was his fault. He'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. He didn't understand how, but the toilets had responded to him. He had become one with the plumbing.

He let out a mental snort.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

He stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give him a straight answer for once.

He wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at him from the bottom, so his heart skipped a beat when he noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if he were a long-lost friend.

Percy didn't know what else to do.

He waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," he repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

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?" He replied sarcastically, his mind throwing him back to every teacher that had spat the same thing in his ear.

You, Percy Jackson, are a lazy good-for-nothing nobody, and you'll never get an-

"-I mean not human." Annabeth interrupted. "Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

He didn't want to admit it, but he was afraid he did. He felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation he sometimes felt when his mom talked about my dad.

"God," he half-sighed, posture slumping in a combination of stress and relief. "Half-god."

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

"That's . . . crazy."

"Is it?" Annabeth asked rhetorically. "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?"