by Rick Riordan
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 –’
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. ‘Now, honey –’
‘I know,’ I grumbled. ‘A month erasing textbooks.’
That wasn’t the right thing to say.
‘Come with me,’ Mrs Dodds said.
‘Wait!’ Grover yelped. ‘It was me. I pushed her.’
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs Dodds scared Grover to death.
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.
‘I don’t think so, Mr Underwood,’ she said.
‘But –’
‘You – will– stay – here.’
Grover looked at me desperately.
‘It’s okay, man,’ I told him. ‘Thanks for trying.’
‘Honey,’ Mrs Dodds barked at me. ‘Now.’
Nancy Bobofit smirked.
I gave her my deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare. I then turned to face Mrs Dodds, but she wasn’t there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
How’d she get there so fast?
I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I’ve missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counsellor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.
I wasn’t so sure.
I went after Mrs Dodds.
Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr Brunner, like he wanted Mr Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr Brunner was absorbed in his novel.
I looked back up. Mrs Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.
Okay, I thought. She’s going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.
But apparently that wasn’t the plan.
I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.
Except for us, the gallery was empty.
Mrs Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.
Even without the noise, I would’ve been nervous. It’s weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…
‘You’ve been giving us problems, honey,’ she said.
I did the safe thing. I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. ‘Did you really think you would get away with it?’
The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.
She’s a teacher, I thought nervously. It’s not like she’s going to hurt me.
I said, ‘I’ll – I’ll try harder, ma’am.’
Thunder shook the building.
‘We are not fools, Percy Jackson,’ Mrs Dodds said. ‘It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.’
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they’d realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Ma’am, I don’t…’
‘Your time is up,’ she hissed. Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.
Then things got even stranger.
Mr Brunner, who’d been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
‘What ho, Percy!’ he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
Mrs Dodds lunged at me.
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn’t a pen any more. It was a sword – Mr Brunner’s bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.
Mrs Dodds spun towards me with a murderous look in her eyes.
My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.
She snarled, ‘Die, honey!’
And she flew straight at me.
Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.
The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!
Mrs Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.
I was alone.
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.
Mr Brunner wasn’t there. Nobody was there but me.
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must’ve been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.
Had I imagined the whole thing?
I went back outside.
It had started to rain.
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, ‘I hope Mrs Kerr whipped your butt.’
I said, ‘Who?’
‘Our teacher. Duh!’
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.
She just rolled her eyes and turned away.
I asked Grover where Mrs Dodds was.
He said, ‘Who?’
But he paused first, and he wouldn’t look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.
‘Not funny, man,’ I told him. ‘This is serious.’
Thunder boomed overhead.
I saw Mr Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved.
I went over to him.
He looked up, a little distracted. ‘Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr Jackson.’
I handed it over. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it.
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘where’s Mrs Dodds?’
He stared at me blankly. ‘Who?’
‘The other chaperone. Mrs Dodds. The maths teacher.’
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. ‘Percy, there is no Mrs Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?’
2 Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death
I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs Kerr – a perky blonde woman whom I’d never seen in my life u
ntil she got on our bus at the end of the field trip – had been our maths teacher since Christmas.
Every so often I would spring a Mrs Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.
It got so I almost believed them – Mrs Dodds had never existed.
Almost.
But Grover couldn’t fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn’t exist. But I knew he was lying.
Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.
I didn’t have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.
The freak weather continued, which didn’t help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.
I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.
Finally, when our English teacher, Mr Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.
The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.
Fine, I told myself. Just fine.
I was homesick.
I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.
And yet… there were things I’d miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I’d miss Grover, who’d been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he’d survive next year without me.
I’d miss Latin class, too – Mr Brunner’s crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.
As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn’t forgotten what Mr Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d started to believe him.
The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.
I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.
I remembered Mr Brunner’s serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.
I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.
I’d never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat ‘F’ I was about to score on his exam. I didn’t want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn’t tried.
I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr Brunner’s door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.
I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover’s said, ‘… worried about Percy, sir.’
I froze.
I’m not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.
I inched closer.
‘… alone this summer,’ Grover was saying. ‘I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too –’
‘We would only make matters worse by rushing him,’ Mr Brunner said. ‘We need the boy to mature more.’
‘But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline –’
‘Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can.’
‘Sir, he saw her…’
‘His imagination,’ Mr Brunner insisted. ‘The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that.’
‘Sir, I… I can’t fail in my duties again.’ Grover’s voice was choked with emotion. ‘You know what that would mean.’
‘You haven’t failed, Grover,’ Mr Brunner said kindly. ‘I should have seen her for what she was. Now let’s just worry about keeping Percy alive until next autumn –’
The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.
Mr Brunner went silent.
My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.
A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner’s office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer’s bow.
I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.
A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.
A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.
Somewhere in the hallway, Mr Brunner spoke. ‘Nothing,’ he murmured. ‘My nerves haven’t been right since the winter solstice.’
‘Mine neither,’ Grover said. ‘But I could have sworn…’
‘Go back to the dorm,’ Mr Brunner told him. ‘You’ve got a long day of exams tomorrow.’
‘Don’t remind me.’
The lights went out in Mr Brunner’s office.
I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.
Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.
Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he’d been there all night.
‘Hey,’ he said, bleary-eyed. ‘You going to be ready for this test?’
I didn’t answer.
‘You look awful.’ He frowned. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Just… tired.’
I turned so he couldn’t read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.
I didn’t understand what I’d heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I’d imagined the whole thing.
But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.
The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I’d misspelled, Mr Brunner called me back inside.
For a moment, I was worried he’d found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn’t seem to be the problem.
‘Percy,’ he said. ‘Don’t be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It’s… it’s for the best.’
His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.
I mumbled, ‘Okay, sir.’
‘I mean…’ Mr Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn’t sure what to say. ‘This isn’t the right place for you. It was only a matter of time.’
My eyes stung.
Here was my favourite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.
‘Right,’ I said, trembling.
‘No, no,’ Mr Brunner said. ‘Oh, confound it all. What I’m trying to say… you’re not normal, Percy. That’s nothing to be –’
‘Thanks,’ I blurted. ‘Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.’
‘Percy –’
But I was already gone.
On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.
The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.
They asked me what I’d be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.
What I didn’t tell them was that I’d have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I’d go to school in the autumn.
‘Oh,’ one of the guys said. ‘That’s cool.’
They went back to their conversation as if I’d never existed.
The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover but, as it turned out, I didn’t have to. He’d booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.
During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he’d always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I’d always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.
Finally I couldn’t stand it any more.
I said, ‘Looking for Kindly Ones?’
Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. ‘Wha – what do you mean?’
I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the exam.
Grover’s eye twitched. ‘How much did you hear?’
‘Oh… not much. What’s the summer-solstice deadline?’
He winced. ‘Look, Percy… I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon maths teachers…’
‘Grover –’
‘And I was telling Mr Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs Dodds, and…’