Golden Green

Ch. 4

Percy Jackson and the Olympians belong to Rick Riordan. All credit to him.

"Ooo, his ears are pointy like Christmas elves."

"Or Lord of the Ring elves. But I guess his are a little more nuby than theirs."

"I think they're cute."

"That's a little weird, Beth." Whispered voices were not doing a good job at whispering. I figured the voices all belonged to my siblings who had yet to meet an awake me so I thought I would introduce myself. I opened my eyes and saw at least four sets of brown or green eyes staring back all shooting wide in shock and falling out of view.

"Hello," I said, sitting up and eager to meet new siblings, dangling my feet over the edge of my bed and saw four people all embarrassed or shaken up on their butts or standing.

"Stop staring and get ready for today you four," called the familiar voice of Katie out of view in the cabin.

The four kids all looking around my age scattered through the cabin doing their own things like a routine while I just sat on my bed wondering where to start. I thought to myself I couldn't do whatever that was planned in pajamas so I hopped off the top bunk and rifled through the duffle bag pushing through trophies of monsters Fidi had earned and empty bags of ambrosia to pull out jeans, a clean pair off socks, and a grey shirt to get dressed into. I noticed everyone was changing on the spot so I did too rather than finding a private place to dress. I laced up my dirtied timberland boots, standing by my bedside with nothing to do again.

I remembered from a pinch of common courtesy skills that Ares gave me that people should brush their teeth daily as to not offend anyone with bad smelling breathe so I dug through the bag again and pulled out a white and yellow thin brush with picture of Hera smiling a glimmering white grin on the handle with the word Crest across the blank space next to her. I tapped a passer-by's shoulder to ask them a question.

"Why did Hera put her face on this brush?"

"Uhhh, I don't know. Probably so whoever uses it knows crest is sponsored by Olympus or something like that. Hephaestus does it all the time during commercials on his channel," answered the girl looking at me with an odd look.

"What is crest, sponsored, and commercials?" I asked, developing more questions than I had answers.

The girl walked away from me with her head down and eyes looking away like I asked her something embarrassing. I moved on and remembered that you put something on the brush before you clean your teeth with it and found a small squishy tube with Hera's face on it again with the word Crest across it again but this time not wanting to sound out of place like Chiron didn't want I tried pouring what was in the tube onto the brush but nothing happened. I sat down trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with the tube but I thought I just had to squeeze harder so I aimed it at the brush again and squeezed. The tubed pop and shot shiney green paste all over me and the floor but not on the brush. Katie came walking over to the noise and saw me sitting back on the bunk spreading the paste on my teeth so I could start brushing them.

"Are you okay, Datanus?" she asked, spotting the mess of green I made.

"I don't think Hera packs her brush paste in the easiest things to open," I said, starting to rub the brussels of the brush against my teeth.

"Sweetie, have you ever used a toothbrush or toothpaste?" she asked again, taking a towel from another camper and began whipping the paste off me and the floor.

"No, actually. This is my first time," I said, happy I was trying new things.

"Well, you know, you're supposed to twist the cap off the top of the tube then squeeze it onto the brush so you don't have to rub it into your teeth," Katie said, giving me a lesson on the new tools to everyone who was watchings enjoyment. I grinned along with the brush still in my mouth, happy I was making people laugh on my first day here. Katie turned around quickly with a mean look on her face to our siblings and then turned back to me with a smile instead when they all went back to what they were doing.