CH 2] THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH

We were used to the occasional weird experience, but usually, they were over quickly. This twenty-four-seven hallucination was more than we could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on us. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs.Kerr—a perky blond woman whom we had never seen in our lives until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often Aqua and I would spring a Mrs.Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if we could trip them up, but they would stare at us like we were psychos.

It got so we almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

[Yea, almost made us insane, Percy..]

[So, so much chaos that we both caused…]

But Grover couldn't fool us. When Aqua mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But we knew he was lying. Even Aqua tried to use Leviathan as a weapon to get Grover to spill more but she failed because the traitorous snake used him as a cuddle bed instead. Something was going on.

Something had happened at the museum.

We both didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs.Dodds with talons and leathery wings or also the sight of Aqua's blooded ear would wake us up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help our mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in our 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.

We both started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. Our grades slipped from D's to F's. We got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her ugly friends. But Aqua got even more physical fights than I do with the mean kids like Nancy Bobofit but sometimes worse, I had to pull her off most of the time which is weird because I usually join in. We were sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

[I know that I'm worse than Percy…]

[Aqua is a bit of a wildcard than I am…]

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr.Nicoll, asked us for the millionth time why we both were too lazy to study for spelling tests, we snapped. I called him an old sot but I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

And my twin, Aqua did something worse, she looked up from her desk to glare at him and snapped at him with a bit of venom in her tone, "Κλείστε το γαμημένο στόμα σας!"

[Ow! What did I do?!]

[I knew that she would do that to you Aqua!]

[You are so down, Fish boy!]

[Guys, help!! She's going after me]

Mr.Nicoll looked confused about what she said, but I'm pretty sure it's not good. Plus it is my sister, anything that comes out of her mouth is not pretty.

The headmaster sent our mom a letter the following week, making it official: we would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, we told ourselves. Just fine.

We were homesick.

Aqua acted like she didn't care about anything but I know her inside and out. She is sad that we were kicked out yet again.

We wanted to be with our mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if we had to go to public school and put up with our obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. But I know that Aqua would cause more trouble or physical fights with him that I had to stop because I know she really, like really hates him for some reasons that our mom didn't know.

I hated him too for what he did to us, more importantly, what he did to my sister.

And yet...there were some things that we would miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out our dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, and the smell of pine trees. We would miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.

We were worried about how he'd survive next year without us. Aqua was a bit of a standoff, acting like she didn't care about him but I knew better. If people actually bother to know her.

Aqua, is actually a nice and cool person like me sometimes or she is comfortable enough around people that she knows and that she always wears her heart on her sleeve. My twin really cares about Grover as he was her family.

[Grover does actually feel like a part of the family!]

[Grover is awesome!]

We would miss Latin class, too—Mr.Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that we could do well.

But I know that Aqua would miss the mock fight between Greek and Roman with fake swords. She always boasts that she defeated me in the mock fight but I defeat her sometimes in revenge. But she didn't take it very well so she did this with a vengeance by drawing my face with a blue sharpie while I was sleeping.

Never make her angry or petty enough to come back with an act of revenge…

Mr.Brunner had the class choose a side by mine for Greeks and Aqua's side for Romans. It was so much fun.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test we studied for. We hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told us about this subject being life and death for us. We weren't sure why, but we started to believe him.

So, we both decide to try out tutoring for a month, and for the first time, we try to separate from each other. It didn't work out because turns out that I'm too jittery, distrusting of strangers, way sarcastic, and not paying attention at all. They banned me from going to the tutoring because the multiple tutors had quit and sobbed that they failed to teach me at all…

In another hand, Aqua did try but she was evicted straight right away for causing a sudden riot and a fire broke out in the small section of the library.

With just one tutor and on the first day and all…

Because turns out that she's intense, a bit wild and violent, joking around too much and a bit excessively extreme. I was not even sure how she did that with just books, paper, and pencils. But when I asked her about that, she miserably smiled and shrugged as if she didn't even know how that happen.

Something else really did happen in the library and she won't tell me why…

[Ask Dad, Percy.]

[What has Dad to do with this time?]

[Just ask him and he'll tell you why that I'm acting that way..]

[Okay?…]

The evening before our final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across our dorm room. And Aqua yelled out in curse words as she repeated hitting the same-titled book as I have into the wall, making a dent in the wall. I hurriedly got off my bed to run but accidentally tumble over her, grabbing the book out of her hands to minimize the damage that she caused.

Leaving her to growl at me like some sort of a scary demon which I did not faze at all and told her off, "Stop acting like a demon gremlin and be a normal person for once."

She glowers at me and sighed in defeat. I was kind of relieved that I don't have to call Mom as a last resort to calm her down again. I watch my twin drop down on her bed like a bear flop on it while she asked, "What are we gonna do with this fucking book that we can't even remember it?"

I shrugged my shoulders in response, not knowing how to answer that question. I looked at the book, trying to force myself to read the chapter slowly.

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 can feel Aqua's stares burning through me as she was waiting for me to say something else. But I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes.

I will accept only the best from you, Percy, and Aqua Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. And I turn to my sister, "Aqua, grab the notebooks that we need for this stupid book." I ordered.

Aqua looked surprised and obeyed me, she went to the desk that has our notebooks that has a bunch of her insane good doodles on it that kept us entertained but has a lot of blank pages. We don't usually study a lot often, because we were distracted enough to play roughhousing each other for fun.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before even Aqua too. To be honest, it is Aqua, after all, it's like taking her to an interrogation room and making her admit that she is guilty of it. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give Aqua and I some pointers. At least, we could apologize for the big fat F, we were going about to score on his exam. We didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking We hadn't tried.

We 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.

Aqua and I were three steps from the door handle when we heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "...worried about Percy and Aqua, sir."

We froze.

We took a glance at each other in a second and back at the door. We were not usually eavesdroppers, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you and your twin to an adult.

We inched closer.

[How could we not listen in while someone is talking about us!]

[My sister is indeed correct, how could we not!]

"...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 them," Mr. Brunner said, "we need the twins to mature more."

"But the twins may not have time. The summer solstice deadline- "

"Will have to be resolved without them, Grover. Let the twins enjoy their ignorance while they still can."

"Sir, they saw her..."

"Their imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince them 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 and Aqua alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud, startling Aqua as she jumped a little.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, and I picked up the book as my sister and I backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than our wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

Aqua opened the nearest door and we slipped inside. A few seconds later, we heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside our 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. We waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Aqua whispered, "Are they gone?" I hushed her down to keep her quiet, in fear that we might get caught. Aqua looked around and she suggested me to the hallway for a quick exit.

Thank god, she had memorized her backup plans for escaping the prison types like this school.

Finally, we slipped out into the hallway and made our 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 nor did Aqua. It was unusual for her to be not that quiet.

"You guys look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just...tired." I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

"Just sore from fighting against the idiots," Aqua respond, making Grover disappointed in her. Aqua as usual doesn't care at all, so the only person that Aqua does care about and feels regrets over her own actions is the disappointed or angry mom.

Aqua and I look at each other and we didn't understand what we heard downstairs. I wanted to believe we had imagined the whole thing.

But two things were clear: Aqua was with me as I was with her. And second, Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me and Aqua behind our backs. They thought we were in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as we were leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, I can tell Aqua is angry enough to pulverize the exam so badly and destroy everyone in the room except me…Then Mr. Brunner called us back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about us eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "Percy, Aqua," 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 and angered Aqua. 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.

"Πήγαινε στο γαμημένο Τάρταρο!" Aqua growled out, breaking out our usual twin talk. Making Mr.Brunner widen his eyes in shock as he understands her very well. I quickly jabbed my elbow into her rib to shut her up.

[Ow! Why me!]

[Guys, come on, Aqua's swearing is a sailor trait thing..]

[Don't believe us? Then ask our dad then!]

She looked at me with a sour look and rubbed the spot that I jabbed her into.

We both mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean..." Mr. Brunner ignored what Aqua had said to him before, he 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. Aqua grabbed my hand and tightened it so hard that I lose a feeling in my arm but I didn't care about that.

Here was our favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling us that we couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in us all year, now he was telling us that it was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," we said, trembling.

"Είσαι γαμημένος γιος του μαλάκα!" Aqua angrily yelled, breaking out again which startles the other students in the classroom and even Mr.Brunner. I held my twin back and now noticed that Leviathan had peeked out a little in her bra, forking its tongue out in a sour mood.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say...you're not normal, Percy, Aqua. That's nothing to be—"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding us." Pulling my angry sister with me. Flat-out ignoring everyone in our way. 


"Percy, Aqua—"


But we were already gone.


On the last day of the term, we shoved our clothes into one big suitcase. Aqua and I share a lot of things like we are one person as always. Which is weird to others but they eventually got used to it.

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 us, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, ambassadors, or celebrities. Aqua and I are nobodies, from a family of nobodies.

They asked us what we be doing this summer and I told them we were 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 our free time worrying about where we go to school in the fall.

And Aqua replied that she would be training in gymnastics back in the city. What she didn't tell them was that I'd have to watch out for her because my sister is wild as she can be. I mean, she's like a destructive tsunami that causes chaos to other people but mostly to delinquents like us or a bit older and using her reflexes in action to avoid cops more often.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."


They went back to their conversation as if we never existed.

Aqua scoffed at them and went back to shoving clothes back in the suitcase like she angrily putting a body into it.

The only person we both dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover, but as it turned out, we didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as we 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 us 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 Aqua and I couldn't stand it anymore.

We both said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?" We both confessed to 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?" We both took a quick glance and asked as plainly as possible.

He winced. "Look, Percy, Aqua...I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers..."

"Grover—" We both tried to interrupt him but he continued.

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." We said in unison as his ears turned pink.
 From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." The card was in fancy script, which was murder in our dyslexic eyes, but we finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill
Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half—" We both asked in unison.


"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um...summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly, breaking out the twin bond. "So, like, if I want to come to visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."


"Why would we need you?" Aqua flat-out said. It came out harsher than she meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, Aqua, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you both."

We stared at him.

All year long, we got in fights, keeping bullies away from him. We both lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without us. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended us.

"Grover," Aqua and I said in unison, "what exactly are you protecting us from?" Even Aqua looked confused by Grover's statement.

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes of clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover, Aqua, and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. Aqua growled at the sight of so much garbage on the natural land. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with the afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters that I know Aqua would give to Nancy Bobofit, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me and my sister.

We looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" We both said. "Hey, man-" I broke out the twin talk again.

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?" Aqua said teasing.

I giggled softly at my sister's joke.

"Not funny, Percy, Aqua. Not funny at all." Grover growled.

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. We heard Grover catch his breath.

[Yeah, I dared to mock the grannies.]

[They can't touch us since we are protected by the rulers of the sea..]

"We're getting on the bus," he told us. "Come on."


"What?" We both said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."


"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but we stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching my sister and I. The middle one cut the two were in braid together yarn, and I swear we could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.


"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" Once we got going, Aqua and I started feeling feverish, as if we'd caught the flu.


Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.


"Grover?" We said plainly.


"Yeah?" he responded.


"What are you not telling me?" We asked again.


He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, Aqua, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man?" I said, breaking out the twin talk.

"They're not like...Mrs. Dodds, are they?" Aqua herself said slowly.

His expression was hard to read, but we got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the two braid together yarn." Aqua quickly said.

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost older.

He said, "You both saw her snip the cord."


"Yeah. So?" But even as we both said it, we knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?" We asked in unison in confusion.


"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."


"Grover," We said in unison, we look at each other because he was really starting to scare us. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to us, but we both promised he could.


"Is this like a superstition or something?" We both asked.


No answer.


"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" We both said as we slowly look at each other.


He looked at us mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers that we like best on our coffins.

[Well, that's morbid, bro..]

[So, what; we are demigods anyway, Aqua.]

[True.]