Chapter 5 Field Trip

Lucian invited himself in while Percy followed behind him. "Mom I'm home!" Shouted Percy. "I'm over here honey!" We followed the voice which led us past the kitchen and into the small living room where we found Ms. Jackson ironing clothes. "Oh you brought Lucian over?" I nod my head toward her. "Hello Ms. Jackson, I hope I'm not imposing or a bother."

"Not at all honey! Please make yourself at home. Would you like anything to drink?" I shook my head. "No thank you." Percy on the other hand served himself some lemonade that was on the table. "You know mom, I think this dyslexia thing is getting worse." I turn to him. "Dyslexia?"

"Its basically when one can not read words properly because it's hard to distinguish the letters. For me whenever I see words, they sort if start moving around." Percy informed me. "Is that why you couldn't answer the question today in english?" Percy nodded. "Hey Lucian, wanna hang out in my room?"

Just when he said that we heard the door close and a man calling out "Woman!" He came into the kitchen and sat down. "Hi Gabe." Ms. Jackson said while she ironed the clothes. "Where's my beer?" He said while he got himself comfortable. "Its in the fridge." Ms. Jackson pointed the iron toward the fridge. "So what, it's supposed to magically float from the fridge and into my hand?" Ms. Jackson took that as a que to go and hand it to him. God this man is a real asshole, mother Medusa would have turned him to stone just because he looked at her. Lucian had a whole new found respect for Ms. Jackson for being able to put up with someone like him, although he did not know why she did.

When she passed Gabe to get to the fridge he said "Hustle" playfully and smacked her ass. This triggered Percy. "Oh come on man, do you have to do that right here?! That's disgusting, we're in a kitchen, we have guests!" Gabe seemed to get a little irritated as he set down his glasses and picked up the beer that was just handed to him. "Yeah real charming you got there, really." Percy said to his mother as she got back to ironing the clothes. "Show some respect, ok. That's my mom right there."

Gabe got up and looked between me and Percy. He had a surprised look on his face, probably from seeing such a godly handsome young man. He slowly walked up to Percy and pulled his head back onto the wooden beam behind him by his hair. Not hard enough for it to hurt, but enough to seem threatening. I was ready to jump in of he actually hurt Percy. I saw that Ms. Jackson was really trying to hold herself back from jumping in too. "This is my house. You show some respect." He said and gave a final look toward me, then walked away.

"Why do you stay with that pig? He smells like a sewer, he sleeps till noon every day and he cant even hold a job! Why do you stay with him?" Percy started to question his mother. Ms. Jackson looked like she was having an internal affair in her head. "He's been good to us Percy, in ways you just dont understand." Percy shrugged sarcastically. "Your right, I dont understand. I dont get it." He went toward the fire escape and I followed him.

We were leaning on the guard rail looking down at the city. "You okay?" I asked him. "I guess I'm just mad at my shitty life. Sometimes I ask myself if it would be different if my dad was in the picture." I turn my head to the right to look at him. "Where is he?" Percy was silent for a moment then gave a small shrug. "I dont know, he could be dead and I wouldn't know. I never met him." He gave a small chuckle, but it was not the type of chuckle that finds something funny. "Me too. I've never met my father, or my real mother." Percy looked at me. "Your adopted?" I nod my head. "I'm sorry man. Me ranting about my inconsequential problems probably sounds like a child whining to you huh?" I shake my head and laugh. "Haha not at all. I find myself thinking how different my life would be if I knew my father."

"Yeah, dads can be dicks sometimes." Percy laughed, I along with him. We hanged out for a few hours just talking about sweet nothings that popped up in our heads. I then said my goodbyes to Ms. Jackson and Percy and went across the hall into my own apartment. I did my Latin homework that was assigned by Mr. Bruner, who was actually in a wheelchair. I spent the rest of my day working out after being done with my homework. Life without mother Medusa is pretty bland and boring.

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|The Next Day|

Lucian woke up to another alarm clock that he had to get from the lobby lady, she gave it to him for free even though Lucian offered to pay. He got dressed like yesterday and wore a normal white thin hoddie and a Jean jacket over it. He had white ripped jeans and white Van's for the lower body. He combed his hair the usual messy style and brushed his teeth, then he waited outside for Percy to come out.

"Hey, thanks for waiting." After waiting for 5 minutes Percy came out. "Grover is waiting for us outside." We went downstairs and saw Grover standing on the side walk. "Hey, you guys ready? The class should almost be there." He said as we started walking to the museum. "Are we always supposed to go to the field trip location on our own?" They both look at me. "No, when we go on field trips we usually go on a big yellow bus. But since we live so close to the museum, it's okay to go on our own." I nodded in realization as we continued to walk for about 10 minutes. We finally made it to a big building that had a sign that read 'The Metropolitan Museum Of Art.' We climbed up the stairs that many people were using to go up and down.

We met up with the class that were already there and were paying attention to Mr. Bruner who was about to start his lecture. "Ah, your just in time. We were about to begin." Mr. Bruner says seeing us join them. "There are 12 Olympian Gods, 3 of them are the brothers Zues, Poseidon, and Hades. They obtained power by overthrowing their father, Cronus. Chopping him up into little pieces, and the 3 gods have been rival's ever since. Always arguing...always threatening war."

"Several occasions they would come down to earth and um...how should I put this?" Mr. Bruner said while turning his chair around and the group followed. Grover decided to finish his sentence. "Hook up?" He said loud enough for everyone to hear making them laugh. I just tilted my head at the word, since I did not recognize it. I'm guessing it means sex.

Mr. Bruner pointed at Grover like that was an acceptable answer and continued. "They would hook up with mortals.The children of these humans were half god half mortal...can anyone tell me what they were called? Percy?" Mr. Bruner looked toward Peecy who had his ear phones in and not paying attention. Grover pushed him a little to get his attention. Percy quickly took off his ear phones. "I'm sorry, what? What Mr. Bruner?" Mr. Bruner rolled his wheel chair closer.

"What is the proper name of the offspring of a human and a God?" Percy thought for a while. "...Demigod" one is standing right before you, rejoice you MORTALS! Lucian laughed in his head.

"Exactly, and many of them became great heroes. Like Hercules, Achilles...can you name another?" Percy shook his head. "I'll give you a hint. You have something in common." Me and Grover look at Percy who was looking at the stone wall that was cut out from the original source behind Mr. Bruner. It was a man fighting a snake looking figure, above it was greek writing but I could read it perfectly. It read 'Perseus Defeats Cetus.'

"Percy...Perseus?" Percy said the first part in a whisper where only Grover and I could here. Can he read Greek? "Correct." Said Mr. Bruner as he moved his wheel chair to a different part of the museum.

"Now over here we have a depiction of Hercules defeating the Nemean Lion...Hercules killed the beast with his bear hands and took the skin as a trophy." Mr. Broner continued talking but I was no longer paying attention because I heard the substitute english teacher Ms. Dobbs whisper to Percy that she wanted to talk to him about something and to follow her.

They separated from the group and went to a more secluded spot of the museum where they were doing construction. I tell myself not to be nosy but I'm naturally a curious cat, so I secretly followed them.