Hello! Well here's the next part. Hope you enjoy it :)

I don’t think that any of them knew what to say to that. And in all honesty, neither did I.

What do you say to your parents after you’ve just had to tell them off? What do you say when those parents are Olympian gods? There should be an instruction booklet for this sort of thing.

A sudden flash of light brought us out of our awkward standoff.

I turned to see Hermes holding a camera in one hand and a bowl of popcorn in the other. He was grinning cheekily, obviously having just taken a photo.

“Sorry but I couldn’t resist. The shock on your faces was priceless. I had to get a picture of it.” He chuckled before stuffing a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

My shocked expression then turned to one of anger and I glared at Hermes too.

“I told you I’d bring popcorn.” He said still grinning, seemingly unaware of my bad mood.

“Don’t think that I’m not angry at you too.” I told him sternly.

“What? But I wasn’t even here!” Hermes whined like a toddler.

“No, you were just disgracing a temple.” I said giving him a flat look. “Anyway, it was still your idea to use Iceland.”

“Oh come on, you can’t blame me for that. They weren’t agreeing on anywhere. This was the best that we could come up with!” Hermes complained, pouting.

“This island should never have been an option in the first place. Not when there are people who live here.” I said, sticking to my opinion.

“Well, then where do you suggest that they go?” Hermes huffed, putting his hands on his hips.

“Back to Olympus. That place was designed to contain these sorts of arguments. The earth wasn’t.” I stated simply. It really was the only option. They couldn’t continue anywhere down here without causing some major natural disaster.

“But what about the market place? And all the people in it?” Hermes interjected.

“They can be the ones relocated. It wouldn’t be hard to move the market, temporarily, to another location. A safer location. And once this has all blown over, then we can move it back.” I suggested. To me that made much more sense and from the look on Hermes face he agreed with me.

Honestly, sometimes I feel as though I should have chosen to be the goddess of common sense because it seems to be the thing that my parents are missing!

“Okay gods and goddesses it’s time to get your butts back to Olympus and stop destroying the planet!” Hermes chirped happily, clapping his hands in a ‘chop chop’ motion.

No one moved for the longest time. I think they all still found it awkward after my outburst and didn’t quite know what they should do, but eventually they did start to disappear.

I let out a deep sigh of relief once they had all gone. I had never shouted at them like that before and none of us were really prepared for it. I didn’t quite know how to act around them after screaming at them, so I was glad that they didn’t stick around for long.

I’m sure that the next time I see them it will have all blown over and we’ll be back to normal but I think that we all need a little bit of space to get our heads around what happened. However, the Olympian gods are known for holding grudges so who knows, it may be centuries before they’re really over it. But I doubt that, when it comes to me they tend to forgive and forget pretty quickly.

I jumped when a hand rested on my shoulder. I had thought I was alone. I turned to see Hermes standing behind me with a warm smile on his face.

“I just wanted to say how proud of you I am.” He said gently.

“Proud? Why would you be proud of me? I just shouted at my parents, including you, usually you lot aren’t really a fan of that.” I asked completely confused.

“You stood up to the Olympian gods and goddesses, you were brave enough to speak your mind to them and not just go along with whatever they wanted to do. And what you were saying is exactly what all of us need to be reminded of. At times we can forget what our actions do to the people around us. We’ve lived so long and the only constant things in our lives are each other. Our children and humans can sometimes seem ... so temporary compared to the long expanse of eternity. We become complacent about their importance, so we need someone to tell us that they do still matter. Their lives may be shorter than ours are but that doesn’t make them any less important or mean that we have a right to make them any shorter. So yes, I think that there’s a lot to be proud of in what you just did.” Hermes said with a soft smile still on his face.

I didn’t know what to say. My mouth dropped open and I tried to string some words together but none of them really seemed adequate so I shut my mouth and stayed silent. Hermes seemed to understand as his smile grew ever so slightly wider and he leaned in and kissed my forehead before he too disappeared.

I knew that Zeus and Poseidon had probably already kicked off their argument again but I also knew that I could trust Hermes to move out all the people in the market place, so I didn’t feel the need to go back to Olympus with them. My intention this morning had been to try and calm down the argument between Zeus and Poseidon but after seeing their shouting match and the way that the others were watching it like a sport I knew that there was no way to try and diffuse it. The best I could do was try to contain it, and I had managed that. I had sent them all back up to Olympus where they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone and where they’d be out of the way. The weather would still be terrible but if the worst thing that’s happening on the ground because of their argument is a little bit of rain then I can live with that.

Feeling slightly better about myself, I decided that it was time to leave. I had closed my eyes and was just about to go back to camp when a thought struck me and I changed course.

I walked slowly down the house-lined street, peering briefly through each window that I passed, looking for one house in particular. It didn’t take me long to find the one that I wanted.

Through the window I could see a woman standing in a doorway which looked like it led into a kitchen. She had a worried expression stuck on her face and was talking quickly into a phone. But she wasn’t what caught my attention, it was the young boy playing with a remote control car on the floor that made me stop.

Ben glanced up from his toy, apparently sensing my gaze and grinned at me through the window. I returned the smile and waved. Ben immediately stood up and ran from the room. For a few seconds I was confused as to where he had gone, but then the door to the front of the house opened and Ben came charging down the small flight of steps. I grinned as he hurtled towards me, only slightly worried that he would trip on one of his untied shoelaces and land on his face. Luckily, he didn’t fall over and he came to a stop a couple of feet away from me, the small garden fence still cutting us off.

“Did you do it? Did you make the booms stop? There hasn’t been a boom for a while but Momma says that they might come back so I shouldn’t leave the house. She’s on the phone to Daddy now. We may be going on a holiday!” Ben said excitedly. I don’t think the kid really understood that his parents were planning on leaving the island to get away from the ‘booms’. He just thought that they were taking an impromptu family trip.

A flutter of anger at my parents stirred in my stomach when I thought about how they had caused these people to be so scarred that they felt the need to evacuate.  But I pushed that aside, I had shouted at them, they had gone back to Olympus, the problem was sorted. There’s no need to bring it up again.

“Yeah kid, I stopped the ‘booms’.” I chuckled. “You won’t have to worry about them ever again. I promise.”

“You did? How?” He asked, his eyes full of awe. It felt nice to have a kid look at you as though you were superman. It helped to ease the tight feeling in my chest that had been there since I shouted at my parents. If this kid was looking at me like this, what I did couldn’t have been wrong.

“I told you earlier, I’m magic.” I said whilst wiggling my fingers. Although Ben giggled this explanation didn’t seem to be enough for him this time.

“How are you magic?” He asked tilting his head to the side, with an adorable confused puppy look on his face.

“I got my abilities from my parents. They are magic too.” I explained, in a drastic oversimplification.

“Your parents gave you magic? That’s so cool! My parents have never given me anything that cool.” Ben said, with a cute frown.

“What about that car you were just playing with? I think that’s cooler than magic.” I said tilting my head back to the window I had spotted him through. His eyes seemed to light up at the mention of the toy and he ran back to the house. I smiled and shook my head thinking that he had lost interest in me but he soon reappeared with the toy.

He carefully placed the car by his feet and started pushing the toggles on the remote making the car speed up, slow down and spin around in circles. Whilst he made the car move he started spitting out all sorts of facts about it, like how a boy called Sammy from across the street had one like this but his was blue and couldn’t go as fast and how they had raced them at break time but Sammy’s had lost.

Ben was so lost in his own story about how his parents had given it to him for his birthday last month that he didn’t notice his mother come out of the house and join him in their garden.

“What are you doing out here, honey?” She asked whilst smiling and crouching down next to him. The woman was putting on a relaxed face for her son but I could hear the strain in her voice and her hair was slightly stuck up from where she had been running her hands through it. She was stressed and anxious, but didn’t want Ben to know about it. I once again silently cursed my parents for doing this to her. If only they could see the consequences of their actions.

“I’m showing my magic friend my car.” Ben stated simply, not looking up from the toy whizzing past his mother’s ankles. She couldn’t see me because of the mist and so she chuckled, obviously assuming he meant an imaginary friend.

“Oh yeah? What’s your magic friend called?” She asked, playing along.

“Izzy.”

“That’s not a very magic name, is it?” His mother said with a gentle smile.

“That’s what I thought. But she’s probably in disguise and using that name to blend in. I think she must have another more magical name that only other magical people know about.” Ben said, still looking down at his car. I couldn’t hold in my laugh at that. This kid was too cute. His mother obviously thought so too, as she was laughing as well. She then stood back up, lovingly stroked the top of his head and went back inside.

Once his mother had closed the door, he looked back up at me, with a serious expression.

“She couldn’t see you, could she?” He asked. I couldn’t answer at first, I was still in shock at how clever he was. He had noticed that she couldn’t see me even though nothing in the conversation gave that away.

“No, she couldn’t.” I confirmed.

“Then how come I can see you?” He asked.

“Because you’re magic too.” I whispered, bringing my hand up to one side of my mouth to shield my lips from view.

“I am?” Ben gasped.

“Yeah, you are.” I chuckled. A grin slowly spread over his face and he started to jump up and down in excitement.

“I’m magic too! I’m magic too!” He chanted happily.

“Now, there are some rules that come with being magic.” I said in a serious tone. Ben immediately stopped jumping and nodded. “Rule number one is that you aren’t allowed to use your magic for evil. Rule number two is that you’re not allowed to boast about your magic to your friends. The magic world is a secret and you must protect that secret. And rule number 3 is that you must use your magic responsibly. Do you think that you can stick to these rules?” I asked and immediately Ben’s head was bobbing up and down vigorously.

“Yes, I’ll stick to the rules. I’ll be good and rebonbible and won’t boast.” Ben promised eagerly. I had to try hard not to chuckle at ‘rebonbible’.

“Good. Then you are officially a member of the magical society.” I told him in a formal tone.

“Yay!” Ben cried. Forgetting about his toy car, he ran back into the house shouting “Momma, I’m magic too!”

I chuckled and decided that it was time to head back to camp. Ben had managed to put me in a much better mood. His happy giggle seemed to be infectious and I couldn’t help but feel lighter after having heard it.

I walked towards my cabin planning on taking a nap before rejoining the others in their activities, but was stopped when I found Alex lounging on my bed.

“I think it says something about the relationship when a guy has to break into his girlfriend’s house just to see her.” Alex said, without making a move to get up from my bed.

Guilt started to pool in my stomach. I had been so worried about Percy these last few days I hadn’t really had time to think about much else. It had been ages since I’d seen Alex and I knew that that was entirely my fault.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that so much has been going on lately, what with Percy and my parents and –” I started to apologise but I didn’t get very far before I was interrupted by Alex’s lips. When I had started speaking he had quickly risen from my bed, crossed the room and kissed me. He only pulled away when he was sure that I wasn’t going to carry on speaking.

“I meant it as a joke. I know that you’re under a lot of stress at the moment. That’s actually why I’m here. I heard about what you said to your parents and wanted to know if you were ok.” Alex said gently.

“You heard about that? How?” I asked incredulously. It had only just happened a few minutes ago. I doubted my parents were going to be talking about it so I was stumped as to how Alex knew.

“The gods weren’t the only ones watching Zeus and Poseidon have at it. A few wood nymphs were watching from the surrounding trees and you know how badly they like to gossip. Within minutes it was all anyone was talking about. I know that nymphs are prone to exaggeration but please tell me that my favourite part of the story actually happened. Apparently you swore at Zeus, called him an airhead and claimed that his brain must have been fried from being shocked one too many times by his own lightning bolts.” Alex chuckled whilst wrapping his arms around me and pulling me down to sit between his legs on my bed.

“I hate to disappoint you but that didn’t happen. Sorry.” I say, leaning back into his chest and taking a deep breath, feeling all of my muscles relax as I do so.

“You never disappoint me.” He said whilst resting his chin on the top of my head.

“I did shout at them though.” I admitted. I know he didn’t ask, but I always felt better after talking to Alex.

“Good. They were starting to get ridiculous. Someone needed to say something to them.” Alex said, tightening his grip around my stomach.

“So you didn’t want to volunteer for that job then?” I teased.

“Are you kidding? Your dads already don’t like me because I’m dating you. I don’t need to give them an excuse to rip me to shreds.” Alex said in a slightly panicked voice. I don’t know why but I always quite liked that he was worried about what my parents thought of him. I think it’s because it shows that he wants to impress them. He wants my parents to like him. Connor never really cared. He knew that my parents didn’t like us dating but he never really made an effort to try and change their minds.

“They DO like you.” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true. I know that most of my parents liked him. It’s just that some of them were still wary of anyone I want to date.

“Yeah, that’s why they glare at me as though they want to shoot me each time they see us holding hands.” Alex said, laughing. “And anyway you know that no one other than you could have done this job. They wouldn’t have listened to anyone else. You’re the only one that can get through to them.”

I know what Alex said was true. They would have struck down anyone else who tried to interrupt them before they’d even gotten one full sentence out. But I wasn’t so sure that I had gotten through to them. Yeah, they were no longer causing earthquakes in Iceland and that’s a small victory, but I don’t think that they really got the bigger point that I was trying to make. They still weren’t going to think about what this was doing to their children.