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ɪ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴘɪɴᴏᴄʜʟᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ʜᴏʀꜱᴇ (ᴘᴛ.1)

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I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest of them wanted food.

 I must've woken up several times, but what i heard and saw made no sense, so i just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that strangely tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blonde hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped some pudding of my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak out, "What?"

She looked around, as if afraid somebody would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We don't have much time!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."

Somebody knocked on the door and called out, "Annie? Are you in here?", and the girl quickly filled my mouth with some pudding.

"Annabeth!" Astrea cried out exasperatedly and looked at the apologetic face of the younger blonde. 

"Sorry!"

The next time i woke up, the girl was gone.

A husky, blonde, surfer-like dude was standing in the corner of the room watching over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, on his forehead, on his hands. I remembered fuzzy bits of the old greek stories Astrea used to tell me. Wasn't this that Argus guy? 

"Turned out it was" Percy said 

"Argus is the best at watcher duty" Will mumbled with nearly all the demigods agreeing. 

The witches and wizards looked on confused and slightly disturbed at the sight of so many eyes.

When i finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than i was used to. I was sitting outside in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills on the distant and strawberry covered fields. The air smelt like the fruits. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck and back. All that was great but my mouth felt like a bunch of scorpions has used it as a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt. 

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful," a familiar voice said.

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, not the goat boy.

"I still don't get why it's bright orange of all colours. Like, you couldn't choose something that didn't basically scream 'oh look i'm a demigod'?"

So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ..

"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.

"With us it never is" Annabeth said jokingly but you could see the hidden pain in her eyes.

"The Minotaur," I said.

"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea—"

"When is it ever a good idea, but he still does it. And gives me heart attacks at the same time" murmured Sally.

"Sorry mom" Percy replied look sheepish

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"My mom. Is she really ..."

He looked down.

I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of
us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

People in the hall gasped as the screen shifts and shows the camp scenery.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

"I know how that feels" Apollo says, hugging Astrea closer to him

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm—I'm the worst satyr in the world."

"You're really not Grover"

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled. Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. 

"Please don't shave my head" murmured Grover, looking slightly afraid because knowing Percy, he would actually do it

All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.

"Live with that bastard?" scoffed Astrea, "as if i would let you be alone in this word Percy."

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever—looked as if he expected to be hit.

I said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."

"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swim-ming.

"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy.

My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay while my Asty hugged me from the back and ruffled my hair like she always did when i was upset.

"Mom's the best" Nico muttered so only few of the surrounding people could hear and the children from cabin 7 nodded in agreement.

Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.

"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."

"Only if you wanted me to burn up from the inside and die"

His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home-made."

He sighed. "And how do you feel?"

"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"
"What do you mean?"

He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."

"Ooo! I can't wait for this"

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse. My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.
We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. 

Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. 

In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.

"Home" all the demigods sighed happily

 Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavoured pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them and next to her was...Astrea?!

"SURPRISE!"

 The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels— what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.

Everyone looked towards Dionysus to see his reaction but his face was hidden by a magazine. Though you could hear a soft scoff at the description.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody except Aster. And you already know Chiron and Astrea...."

 He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.

First, I realised he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognised the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B .

"What? Forgotten me have you?" I heard a familiar voice say.

"Aster!" I half-shouted, throwing myself into her arms. I finally felt some kind of comfort and safety. 

"Ah, good, Percy," Mr.Brunner said. "Now we have five for pinochle."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hit-ting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

"Don't mind dear old D here Perce. He's just a little softy inside even though he denies it." Astrea teased the man but i wasn't going to be taking any chances

"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called out to the blonde girl.

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."

Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."

She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, 'You killed a minotaur!' or 'Wow, you're so awesome!' or something like that.

"Annie? Never" Thalia stated with a smirk on her face

Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."

Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her and Astrea burst out laughing. 

"Best first impression ever!" Apollo's voice  called out among the laughter heard all around the Great Hall. 

Percy blushed in embarrassment and scowled at home. 

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Sya Notes !

Chapter 5 (pt.1) is officially out. I tried putting in more reactions so tell me if it's fine or you guys want more. 

And i promise after my exams are over you don't have to wait to long!

Enjoy reading!

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