A/N: I don't own PJO, HOO, or anything Rick Riordan does. Also, TMOA is BORING. Rick Riordan is losing his touch… but anyway… on w/ the story!

Chapter 2: I Accidently Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

"Wait." Athena stopped Zeus. "Where are the Demigods?"

"They have been sent back to CBH. They are now back, though they do not know why." Percy replied.

"I accidentally vaporize my pre-algebra teacher." Zeus read.

"How do you do that?" Asked Hermes. "I mean, you can't 'Accidentally'…"

"Shut up, Hermes." Artemis and Percy stopped Hermes together. They smiled at each other.

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

"No one does." Thalia said, as the Gods, except ones who did not have children, looked down.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

"That won't work." Percy and Athena said together. Cue shocked faces.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

"Maybe you do, Percy, may you don't" Thalia half-smile-half mocked. Percy smiled. Thalia had a point. He wouldn't have become a God, or have gotten a beautiful wife.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages―if you feel something stirring inside―stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson.

"Really… I NEVER NOTICED!" Nico spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

"Yes." Was all that echoed around the two troublesome demigods. (Thalia and Nico) Percy huffed.

Yeah. You could say that.

"I TOLD YOU!" Percy was now embarrassed.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our grade six class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight-mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading for the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

"Ohhhhhh!" "What FUN!" That, of course, came from the goddess of wisdom.

I know- it sounds like torture.

Athena turned her eyes at Percy, and growled. Percy actually seemed scared.

Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher was leading this trip, so I had high hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he was cool, but he told stories and jokes and would let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

"That's horrible." Athena stated and everyone ignored her.

"That's Chiron." Dionysus retorted.

I hoped the trip would be ok. At least, I hoped for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

"Why would he even think that?" Thalia asked.

"Yeah," Nico agreed, "When is Percy never in any type of trouble?"

Poseidon was wondering why Thalia and Nico would say that. Would his son get in that much trouble in the future?

Boy was I wrong.

"GASP!" Thalia instated.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus but of course, I got expelled anyway.

"AWESOME! HI-FIVE LITTLE COUSIN!" That, of course, were the two most energetic and troublesome Gods of Olympus: Hermes and Apollo. Everyone else laughed along with them. Percy was being degraded. Har-har.

And before that, at my fourth-grade school when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.

This resulted in another round of laughter. A couple minutes later, they managed to calm down.

And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

"OH COME ON!" the said Gods exclaimed, and continued their pursuit for Percy's extraordinary misadventures.

This trip, I was determined to be good. All the way into the city I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chinks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

"YAY!" Ares looked excited. Percy glared at him, and Ares ran miles.

Grover was an easy target.

He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated.

"Grover, Grover Grover." Thalia, Nico and Percy exclaimed at the same time.

He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should have seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

"I don't think Grover would like that description." Percy mused for himself.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her cause I was already on probation. The headmaster threatened me with death

"What!" Poseidon shouted.

Thalia smiled and said, "Wait, I'm not done reading."

By in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"Oh," Poseidon answered smiling sheepishly. A couple demi-mortals and immortals snickered.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Percy still wished this.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's ok. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"Oh come on, ME! Get a life!" Percy exclaimed loudly. Now everyone was confused. "Percy." Athena was talking to him like she would to a four y/o child, "This is a book you're talking to."

"Go away," was the answer.

"How dare-"

"Shut up." Athena was red with anger and embarrassment, while the Gods and demigods snickered.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens." Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.

In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

"What!" Poseidon shouted as his face whitened.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

"Longer than that." Hephaestus muttered. A few Gods were surprised, for he had not spoken since the Demigods and God came.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele for a girl our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everyone around me was talking, and every time, I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

"Why does she sound like someone I know?" Nico wondered and Hades agreed. She did sound familiar.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to drive a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

Nico's eyes widened at this. He knew who "Mrs. Dodd's" was. He hoped his dad had guessed it to but no such luck.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.

"Actually, that is Nico here." Thalia corrected.

"Yeah… wait-What!" Nico said. All the demigods started laughing and Hades huffed and glared at the gods, daring them to say anything.

She would point her finger at me and say, "Now honey," real sweet and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about the Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?" It came out louder than I meant it to.

"Of course it did." Athena said. "The structure of the building should have large enough area to echo-" she was cut off by Percy, who froze her in time. While the Gods stared, Percy said that he liked this way better. No one disagreed.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele.

"Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," said Mr. Brunner obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."

"Well..." I racked my brain trying to remember.

"Kronos was the king god, and-"

"GOD!" everyone shouted and Zeus huffed.

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself.

"And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"Exactly." Aphrodite said.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

"He just shortened 10 years of fighting," Thalia started.

"Into a couple of sentences," Athena, who was back to normal, finished.

"If he had said it any other way it would have taken too long." Hera shrugged.

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who every caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see," Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe and scattered him remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

"Boys are doofuses." Artemis said. All the girls agreed while the boys shouted and protests.

"Zeus, read on." Athena said.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew what was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go―

intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

"It's for the best." Thalia said.

I mean, sure it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.

"Cool."

But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No―he didn't want me to be as good he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

"I know what you mean." Percy said. Again the demigods and Gods alike were worried – had Percy finally gone mad?

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took a long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

"He probably was."

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a large storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was Global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Zeus eyed Poseidon, and vice versa.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school―the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean―I'm not a genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

"OH. MY. GOD!" "FAIL!" Thalia and Nico did the combo.

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head for home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to get kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Poseidon and those who had met Sally smiled.

Aphrodite squealed and when everyone turned to her she said, "Poseidon still likes her!"

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends―I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists―and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

Thalia and Nico growled, while Percy calmed him.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

"Percy's descriptions are weird." Nico said.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

Poseidon grinned at Percy, who grinned back.

"I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see―"

"―the water―"

"―like it grabbed her―"

Everyone outright laughed.

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

"Oh no." All the demigods and Gods said realizing who Mrs. Dodds was.

Hades who realized who Mrs. Dodds was gasped and said, "Alecto."

All the gods gasped and the tension in the air rose.

"You sent a fury after my son." Poseidon almost yelled. Hades eyes were bugging out.

"If it helps," Nico said fearing the safety of his father, "Percy's fine."

Poseidon glared at Hades but didn't do anything.

Just then, a bright light shined forth… and out of the portal came…

A/N: That's it for this chappie! The next one is coming soon! Who's coming? Dun-dun-dun!