History

The teacher was reviewing the Revolutionary War in preparation for the upcoming test on Monday. I think she was lecturing to us about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. I didn't see any point in memorizing the facts. In the demigod world, the facts are fiction, and the myths turn into facts. I kind of learned that the hard way.

Thus, I rested my head on my desk, silently anticipating the moment where the godly bell would ring, and I could leave to go to lunch.

"Who could tell me one of the writers of the Declaration of Independence?" Mrs. Cooke, my history teacher, asked. When I first saw her nametag, "Hello! My name is Mrs. Cooke! I am one of the history teachers at Goode!", I accidentially mistakened her name for Cookie. Ever since then, I was on her top ten most hated students in her class, having never forgiven me for calling her a cookie.

She fixed her evil glare on me. The only thing worse than math teachers are nefarious history teachers.

"Percy Jackson."

My instinctive reflex was to look up and maintain the facade of an attentive, history-loving student. "Um, what?"

"Answer the question."

I desperately racked my brain for a possible answer. Who in Hades' name did sign the Declaration of Independence? Someone called Thomas? No, it can't be Thomas the Tank Engine. Can it? No, I'm pretty sure that he was a train... Thomas Edison? Yeah, that sounds like a person. Should be him. I can recall reading about Thomas yesterday; he was definitely a person. Probably a son of Hephastus. Maybe Apollo... Annabeth would know.

"Thomas Edison." I answered triumphantly.

The whole class burst out in laughter, but Mrs. Cooke's stern look silenced them immediately.

"And how exactly would the inventor of the lightbulb contribute to the reason why you are an American today?" Mrs. Cooke asked sarcastically.

"I'm not American. Well, half. I'm Greek too," my mouth blurted out.

Mrs. Cooke didn't say anything. Maybe it wasn't Thomas Edison. Maybe the guy wasn't even called Thomas. Thomas Edison...

"I mean," I tried to correct myself, "con Edison."

And that is, Mom, how I ended up in detention for being a "class clown who disrupted the lesson with meaningless jokes that shamed American history". When I went to pick up the mail from the endless rows of metal boxes down the hall, I realized then that con Edison was the guy who made us pay for water and electricity. And Thomas Jefferson was the dude I was looking for. Although it didn't help how Nico appeared one night with the ghost of Thomas Jefferson.

Math

Thanks to Annabeth, I managed to sustain an overly satisfying score of 70 in math class. Back then, I was always at the brink of failing math, a 65. Fortunately, my luck landed me with relatively nice math teachers who sympathesized with my current situation, being a father-less child afflicted with both dyslexia and ADHD, with the exception of the demonic Mrs. Dodds.

I was supposed to be taking Trigonometry in 10th grade, but instead I was taking Algebra I. So that day, we were learning about simplifying trinomials. Math was beguiling, but girlfriends who were math whizzes made it seem easy.

Ms. Kwong was nice. She assigned us classwork which would end up as homework if we didn't finish it.

So I was currently staring at page 526 of Prentice Hall Mathematics New York Integrated Algebrawhich instructed on how to factor trinomials. Thing is, I couldn't understand the math until after I got home. That was when Annabeth would sit down with me and explain stuff.

Simplify the following expressions.

1. x^2+2x+1

I stared at the problem. Then I recalled the teacher mentioning something about that question in an example she showed us today. She wrote the answer.

On the looseleaf, I wrote: x^2+2x+1=(x+1)(x+1)

I noticed that there was an upsetting sad face right in the middle of the equation. I didn't like sad faces. It reminded me of the expressions peoples' faces conveyed after the Battle of Manhattan. So, I changed it to: x^2+2x+1=)x+1)(x+1).

I spotted a shadow hover over me, the gray darkening my looseleaf.

"Percy," she chided me gently. "That doesn't make sense. A parenthesis cannot-"

"It looks like a sad face." I interrupted her.

She clasped her head on her forehead, as if saying, what am I going to do with you? Finally, she sighed and gave me a weak smile.

"If it makes you happy, instead, you can simply write it like this."

She picked up my pencil and wrote: (x+1)(x+1). "x and the parenthesis make a smile."

That's dead, I finished the sentence sadly. Although, I did appreciate her thoughtfulness.

Health

It was mandatory for New York City public school students to have at least five health classes per year with the consent of a parent or guardian. The content shared varied on the age of the student. To rephrase it, you could be learning about the importance of washing your hands in Kindergarten, HIV and AIDS in fourth grade, and having sex education classes in tenth grade.

In other words, it made things incredibly awkward for us tenth graders. To worsen matters, classes were not divided between girls and boys.

So we were learning about condoms.

The health teacher must have been immune to this kind of stuff. She didn't even seem to mind talking about this information.

"There are three types of condoms: latex, polyurethane, and lambskin." She explained passively.

"Lambskin." I repeated. I turned to Nico, muttering, "those must be luxury condoms. I've never heard of them."

He gave me a funny look.

"Lambskin condoms are indeed condoms made using lambskin. They are one of the oldest types, made back in perhaps the early 1900s."

"Never mind." I answered.

"Now, children, please do consider seriously before having sexual intercourse. Let's say that you have a friend who plans to have sexual intercourse with his or her boyfriend or girlfriend. Jot down two ideas to say to your friend."

Two seconds later, she said, "Who wants to share their answer?"

To my surprise, Nico raised his hand.

"Nico di Angelo."

He looked at the teacher uncomprehendingly. "If you get pregnant, don't come crying to me."

"If it's a boy?" Someone called out.

"You don't want to be a father, do you?"

The teacher called on someone else.

A/N:

I haven't been active for a while. Sorry for that. :/ I was just seriously busy with homework and tests right before Mid-Winter Break which is right now. Time for nine hours of sleep again :)

Review? Ideas?

I get motivation to write from emails clogging up my inventory. I promise to include Annabeth/romance in the next chapter...(bribery xD)