"Fifteen minutes of reading," Mrs. Annabeth Chase Jackson announced to her eleventh grade Greek Studies students one cold winter afternoon. "And then we'll move on to our lesson."

Monday afternoons, just after lunch, at precisely one o' clock, Mrs. Jackson arrives from her lunch break to teach Greek Studies to Manhattan's eleventh grade students. Mrs. Jackson was already an excellent architect, but she'd also always enjoyed teaching as a part-time job on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; her off days.

At least, that was what Tarni Fahl had heard.

Mrs. Jackson swept her gaze over the classroom, taking in the details with disapproval as her fourth period class fumbled with their book bags, a few students accidently spilling the bag's contents onto the coal colored carpet. A few boys goofed off and slapped each other with a few two-inch-thick books before settling down under Mrs. Jackson's warning glare.

Tarni suppressed a giggle, sitting back in her chair and holding her book up to her nose. She squinted, trying to decide whether the 's' was a 'z' or whether it was really just an 's'. That's always the problem with being dyslexic; she couldn't read a thing. She brought the book back to her desk and sat back as far away from the page as she could, thinking if she could put enough distance between her and the page, she might work something out. No such luck. She stared long and hard at the page, but it all looked like tangled spaghetti.

Defeated by the words that floated all over the page, she closed her book and rested her chin on her desk, eyeing blankly the text carved into the desktop; 'KK + LG = LUV'.

Tarni never succeeded in guessing who 'KK' or 'LG' was, but it was entertaining to imagine what 'LG' or 'KK' looked like. Since the initials 'KK' reminded her of Kristina Kerr (coincidence?), she'd always thought of 'KK' as the skinny, bratty, blond braided cheerleader Kristina was. As for 'LG', though, Tarni thought different. 'L' was the nickname of the curly red haired boy, Luke Rome, so she'd always seen him as some red-haired kid in a blue jacket, and he was probably a hottie, considering boy-crazy Kristina was the first person that popped into mind whenever she thought of 'KK'.

Tarni uncapped her color pen, pressed on the orange ink spring and began to draw on a piece of lined paper in her class binder. She created smooth, curved lines white the orange ink until she had two heads with necks and four hands floating just two inches down from the necks. Tarni next clicked the pink ink and drew a cheerleading outfit, giving it finishing touches with flecks of red here and there. She colored, lightly, the cheerleader's leggings and pink slippers. She continued with a blue sweatshirt for the other head, and black jeans and red shoes, all the while shading it with black lines to and fro. Finally, Tarni sat back to admire her almost, but not quite finished artwork. Just the faces to go. Tarni could never get the face quite right, but it was worth a shot. She picked up her pen and was about to touch the ballpoint to the paper when;

"Are you going to share your artwork with the whole class, Ms. Fahl?"

Tarni swung her head to meet Mrs. Jackson's intimidating gray eyes. Nervous, Tarni searched the young woman's face for any signs of disapproval. Surprisingly, Tarni only found genuine curiosity, as if Mrs. Jackson didn't mind Tarni's sudden disinterest with reading, although Mrs. Jackson had clearly said to do so.

"You draw quite well, Ms. Fahl," Mrs. Jackson continued. "Maybe you'd like to show the class how well you've drawn?"

Courage building, and refusing to be humiliated, Tarni forced a cocky grin onto her face. "Why not? Of course I'll share, Mrs. Jackson."

Tarni ripped the doodle out of her binder and, trying not to move shakily with embarrassment, moved to the front of the classroom. She turned to face the whole class and held up her doodle with what she hoped looked like pride. "This was the first thing that came into mind when I saw the text, 'KK + LG = LUV' carved into my desk. I wanted to draw what came into mind when I saw it, and I guess I got a little too absorbed in my work."

To Tarni's relief, no one was laughing. The class nodded with approval at her artwork and some even murmured a 'good job'.

Mrs. Jackson was smiling, gray eyes twinkling at Tarni's defiance toward humility. "Thank you, Ms. Fahl. That will do."

Tarni grinned from ear to ear before giving a little curtsy and heading back to her seat. She flopped down into her chair with relief and sloppily folded her doodle, shoving it into her binder's cover pocket.

"Now that you all seem to be finished with reading," Mrs. Jackson began as Tarni struggled to straighten the messy wrinkles in the tie that came with her school uniform. "Let's open our books to page four-hundred and twelve. The story of Athena and Arachne."

Tarni stifled a groan as she flipped through the pages of her Greek Studies textbook. A few seats across from her, to the right, one of her friends Hale Jacobi was already there, sitting straight with attention and hand in the air.

Mrs. Jackson noticed this when Tarni did. "Do you have something on your mind, Ms. Jacobi?"

Hale nodded. "Mrs. Jackson, I've read this story a hundred times, but I've never been able to tell how old Arachne was when Athena turned her into a spider. I know it a weird question, but it's been nagging me since I've first read it. Does the story mention it?"

"She was about seventeen," Mrs. Jackson answered, as if recalling it in memory. "Arachne, being skilled in the art of weaving, had challenged Athena to a weaving contest to see who could create the better tapestry." She was on a roll now. "Athena's design included the Greeks worshipping the gods, while Arachne's design included humiliating them. Athena, greatly angered by Arachne's insolence, transformed her into a spider, therefore the spider earning the scientific term, 'arachnid'. Those who have a great fear of spiders have 'arachnophobia', with the prefix of 'arachnid'. Arachnid is spelled 'A, R, A, C, H-"

A phone rang. Mrs. Jackson turned with surprise. She walked over to her desk in the corner and picked up a small, light pink cell phone. It was buzzing crazily.

"Excuse me," She apologized. "Please read the story of Arachne and Athena, pages four-hundred and twelve through four hundred and fourteen." She popped the phone open and held it to her ear. "Annabeth Jackson."

Tarni looked up. Mrs. Jackson was smiling as she listened to whoever was on the other line. "Percy! It's great to hear from you! What's going on?" Silence. "Oh, I'm just fine. How are the repairs of Hoover Dam?"

Who's Percy? Tarni wondered. Her brother? Her husband? Her friend? Some old client?

"A surprise? Come on, Percy." Quiet. "What? Are you serious? Wow! I'll have to ask my boss, though, you know that." She grinned, as if the other line could see her do so. "No, you hang up. No, you hang up. Ha, ha. Bye, Percy."

She closed the phone only to see her whole class paying much more attention to her than to the story of Arachne and Athena. "What?"

It was Hale that spoke up. "So, who's Percy?" Hale grinned as if she were about to hear a bunch of juicy gossip.

"Percy is Mr. Jackson," Mrs. Jackson answered as if that solved everything. "Now, who can tell me the exact details of Arachne's tapestry?"

The class ignored her order, every student - mostly girls - turning to face their friend and chattering about Mr. Jackson.

"What does he look like?" "Probably really cute." "He must get paid a lot, working at Hoover Dam." "According to what Mrs. Jackson said, he's planning a surprise." "That's so sweet!"

"Mrs. Jackson," Kip Hadix, another of Tarni's friends, waved his hand. "Do you have any kids?"

"Um, yes." Mrs. Jackson replied, startled. "A toddler, Asphodel. She's around four. But I'm never around, so I always hire someone to look after her."

"Yep," A thin dark haired boy, Leon GaDicoin, mumbled from his seat just behind Tarni. "Babysitter."

Tarni turned around to face him. "What's you're problem?"

Leon looked flustered. "Nothing! Nothing. Just saying."

Tarni rolled her eyes and turned to face the teacher again. Everyone was bombarding her with questions, and she was trying to answer each individually; "Yes, Percy's very handsome. No, he is not short. He is not an Aztec warrior. Would I be this thin if we were expecting another baby? Asphodel is not an Aztec warrior either..."

Tarni was about to yell a question as well when Mrs. Jackson suddenly yelled "We're going on a field trip!" over the chattering of the noisy classroom.

Everyone's quiet attention was now on Mrs. Jackson.

"What?" Kip questioned.

"The surprise Percy wants to do for me cannot be on Tuesdays or Thursdays because of my work with architecture, so he wants to take me the day after tomorrow." Mrs. Jackson explained. "But since I'm teaching Greek Studies on that day, I'll either have to call in absent or take you all with me. Calling in absent is something I never do, so we're going on a field trip."

The bell was just loud enough to be heard over the cheering of the eleventh grade fourth period Greek Studies students.

...

If you couldn't tell already, I've edited this chapter a bit. Yes, I'm changing the plot a little bit... don't get anxious, it won't be too different, I just need to twist things a little bit to make it sound good. Also, this chapter needed a bit of editing anyway, so... yeah! Hope the refined chapter sounds alright to you guys. :)

-Over and out-