Chapter 55: Proving to Clarisse.
Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! Newbies!"
We looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.
"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"
"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."
"Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which we somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though we had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward us. "Who's these little runts?"
"Percy Jackson, James Jackson," Annabeth said. "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."
We blinked. "Like . . . the war god?"
Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"
"No," we said, recovering our wits. "It explains the bad smell."
Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy, Jamie."
"Percy." "James."
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you guys."
"Clarisse-----" Annabeth tried to say.
"Stay out of it, wise girl."
Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and we didn't really want her help. We were the new kids. We had to earn our own rep.
My little brother Percy got ready to fight, but before he knew it, Clarisse had him by the neck and was dragging him toward a cinder-block building that he knew immediately was the bathroom.
He was kicking and punching. He'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged my little brother Percy into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and Percy was thinking-----as much as he could think with Clarisse ripping his hair out-----that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.
Clarisse's friends were all laughing at my little brother.
"Like their 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed my little brother toward one of the toilets.
Her friends snickered.
Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.
Clarisse bent my little brother over on his knees and started pushing his head toward the toilet bowl.
We both got so furious that the toilets and showers shot water straight towards Clarisse and her friends. The water was blasting so hard that they went straight out of the bathroom, then we felt the tug in our guts lessen, and all the water shut off as quickly as it had started.
The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at us in shock.
We looked down and realized we were sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around us. We didn't have one drop of water on our clothes. Nothing.
We both stood up, our legs shaky.
Annabeth said, How did you guys . . ."
"We don't know."
We walked to the door. Outside Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave both of us a look of absolute hatred. "Your both are dead, new boys. You both are totally dead.
We probably should have let it go, but we said, you want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."
Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.
Annabeth stared at us. We couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at us for dousing her.
"What?" We demanded. What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want both of you guys on my team for capture the flag."
Chapter 56: Half-bloods
Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately.
Wherever we went, campers pointed at us and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.
She showed us a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together of you didn't get to the top fast enough.
Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.
"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."
"Annabeth, we're sorry about the toilets."
"Whatever."
"It wasn't our fault."
She looked at us skeptically, and we realized it was our fault. We'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. We didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to us.
We had become one with the plumbing.
"You guys need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.
"Who?"
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."
We stared at the lake, wishing somebody would give us a straight answer for once.
We wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at us from the bottom, so our hearts skipped a beat when we noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if we were long-lost friends.
We didn't know what else to do. We waved back.
"Don't encourage them," "Naiads are terrible flirts."
"Naiads," We repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed.
"That's it. We want to go home now."
Annabeth frowned. "Don't you guys get it, Percy? James? You both are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."
"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"
"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."
"Half-human and half-what?"
"I think you both know."
We didn't want to admit it, but we was afraid we did. We felt a tingling in our limbs, a sensation we sometimes get when our mom talked about our dad.
"God," We said. "Half-god."
Annabeth nodded. Your father isn't dead, Percy, James. He's one of the Olympians."