Chapter 4 I Narrowly Avoid Human Sacrifice （and Also Bagpipes）
I Narrowly Avoid Human Sacrifice (and Also Bagpipes)
Every morning back home, I’d wake to the smell of freshly made coffee and the sound of the stove fan blasting while Mom cooked breakfast.
My first morning at Camp Half-Blood, I woke to the smell of freshly made body odor and the sound of kids cackling.
“Wake up, Sleeping Cootie!” a boy’s voice sing-songed near my head.
“Mmf. Go away!” With my eyes still closed, I batted the air where I guessed he might be. Then someone caught my swinging arm and dragged me from my cot onto the hard cabin floor.
“What the heck?!” My eyes were wide open now, taking in the half circle of kids surrounding me. They were all dressed in orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirts and shorts or jeans. Clarisse stood at their center, arms crossed, scowling as usual.
“Wake-up is at seven a.m., roll call is at seven forty-five, and breakfast is at eight,” she said. “It is now seven thirty-five. If you ruin my perfect attendance record, I’ll sacrifice you at dinner tonight.”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Instead of…sacrificing me at breakfast?”
I honestly had no idea what we were talking about, but the other Ares kids laughed and hooted like I’d just insulted Clarisse.
Her scowl deepened. “Your smart mouth is saying some very stupid things,” she warned. “You have five minutes to get dressed and join us on the porch.”
Then she pivoted on her heel and stormed out of the cabin. The other Ares kids followed, laughing and pushing one another.
From the back of the group, the boy who’d called me Sleeping Cootie chortled. “Ten bucks she washes out by the end of the day!”
Washes out? Was that a possibility? I couldn’t let that happen.
I stared at Grant’s bunk—still empty, like it had never been slept in. I wasn’t surprised, but I was disheartened. If he’d returned, he definitely would’ve woken me up to let me know.
The wave of trauma from last night came crashing back over me.
My insides felt like mounds of burlap trash bags with a giant white earthworm called Guilt tunneling through them.
I had to find Grant. But first, I had to get through the morning without becoming a human sacrifice.
And I had to do that on two hours of sleep.
I struggled to my feet. I yanked off my pajamas and pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a new Camp Half-Blood T-shirt someone had left on my cot. I glanced at the other cots, all with their blankets tucked in smooth and tight. I hurried to make my own.
A flash of silver caught my eye, followed by a clink-clink-clink as something fell from my blanket onto the floor.
The ring Grant had found.
My arms broke out in goose bumps as I picked it up and shoved it in my jeans pocket. The ring was another mystery I needed to figure out, but first things first.
Two swipes of deodorant and a ponytail later, I put on my shoes and hurried out of the cabin, my laces still untied. The clock on the cabin wall read 7:39, and I would rather have tripped over my shoes than deal with the wrath of Clarisse and her cronies.
As I emerged onto the front porch, I fixed a smile on my face and announced in my most cheerful voice, “Let’s do this!”
The other Ares kids stared at me.
Clarisse curled her lip. “I’ve really got to punish the perky out of you, Kim. Everybody, fall in!”
The Ares kids formed a quick, evenly spaced line, and I hurried to the back of it.
Clarisse led the way to the common area, where the other cabins were also assembling.
The only person not scrambling into line was a little girl who sat at the edge of the fire pit, leisurely tending the flames with a stick. She caught my eye and smiled.
There was something odd about that kid—her calm aura, her long Greek dress, and the way the sunlight seemed to blur her outline. I remembered seeing her yesterday when I first got to camp, but everyone else had walked right past her like she was invisible. Maybe I was hallucinating her.
Just like Clarisse had said, roll call started promptly at 7:45. A pretty girl with long dark hair and blue eyes stood to one side with a clipboard.
“Welcome to our new campers. I’m Silena Beauregard, counselor-in-training for the Aphrodite cabin.”
She smiled and then started calling off names from her clipboard.
It was a way briefer greeting than I’d received from Clarisse but somehow also way nicer. The first three cabins were easy—Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon—because none of them had any campers present.
Silena started at Cabin Four. “Carolina Aponte?”
“Here!” called a girl with flowers woven in her hair.
As Silena checked off the children of Demeter, I scanned the lines for my comrades in misery from last night. Zuri stood with the Apollo kids. She was squinting in the morning sunlight like it annoyed her, which was funny, since her dad was the sun god.
Harper stood arm in arm with his fellow Aphrodite kids as if they were about to bust out singing “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.
” He was in sweaty running clothes, like he’d gotten up early to jog a few miles around the camp, which I couldn’t even imagine wanting to do.
At least he seemed to have been accepted right away, and why not?
He was ridiculously good-looking and easy to get along with, which did not make me jealous at all.
Benny milled around in a crowd of Hermes kids and unclaimed demigods. Apparently, the Hermes cabin didn’t do “lining up.” Despite his lack of sleep, Benny looked alert and ready for anything. Maybe he was used to getting up early on the family farm.
In turn, all three of them caught my eye, each asking the same silent question. I shook my head. No sign of Grant.
Finally, Silena appeared in front of me with her clipboard. “Katie Kim?”
I gave her a big Charybdis smile. “That’s me!”
Silena tilted her head. “A friendly child of Ares. I didn’t know he made those.”
“Just keep it moving, Beauregard,” Clarisse grumbled.
“Aww, somebody’s grumpy this morning.” Silena winked at her, which made Clarisse’s cheeks turn red.
When Silena called Grant’s name, there was no answer.
“Grant White?” she tried again.
Silence.
The campers all looked around as if Grant might suddenly pop out from behind a building.
“Where’s your other newbie?” Silena asked Clarisse.
“Obviously not here.” Clarisse glared at her, clearly not willing to elaborate.
“Oookay.” Silena whistled under her breath. “Guess we’ll have to circle back to that.”
She moved on to the Athena cabin.
“Anna— Oops, no.” Silena scribbled on the clipboard. “Annabeth’s giving mortal school another shot this year, so she’s actually out.”
Once roll call was over, we filed into the dining pavilion for breakfast. I had already gridded out where everyone sat the night before, each cabin to its own table.
Four of the tables were empty. According to the stories Silas had shared with me on the road, Zeus, Hera, and Artemis didn’t currently have kids with mortals.
It was forbidden for Zeus, not a good look for Hera, the goddess of marriage (and Zeus’s wife), and not of interest to Artemis.
The fourth empty table belonged to Poseidon, who had also been forbidden to have kids, but oops. His son Percy Jackson had shown up last year and apparently caused a huge commotion. Percy only attended camp during the summer, though, so he wasn’t here now.
Even at the occupied tables, there were plenty of empty seats.
I’d heard that fewer than half of demigods stayed at camp during the school year.
I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for that or not.
On the one hand, it meant fewer people to worry about.
On the other hand, it meant less of a crowd to hide in.
Clarisse sat down at the head of the Ares table and gestured for us to settle in.
For such a rowdy group, I was surprised at how orderly our cabin was when it came to eating.
Nobody tried to take up extra space on the benches.
Nobody crowded anyone else. There was even a decent-size space left at one end of the bench for me.
Unfortunately, it was right next to Sleeping Cootie Boy, who I realized had been one of Clarisse’s archers in the woods the night before.
As I sat down, I braced myself for nasty comments from him, but he was too busy talking to his goblet.
“Hot chocolate,” he ordered, “heated to one hundred thirty-six degrees and made with milk—none of that watered-down stuff. And marshmallows shaped like stars.”
I wondered if he might be just a little out of his mind. But then, with a trickling sound, his goblet filled with the creamiest, chocolatiest-looking liquid I’d ever seen.
Bloop! Bloop! Bloop!
Three puffy, star-shaped marshmallows bobbed to the surface of his drink.
All around our table, and at other tables, kids were giving drink orders to their goblets, too.
From what I could tell, people were mostly going for hot chocolate, coffee, or orange juice, but I spotted a few more elaborate concoctions with fresh fruit garnishes, bubbling dry ice, and tiny umbrellas.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Cootie Boy grinned at me. “Alcohol isn’t allowed. But otherwise, ask for whatever you want. Try it!”
I eyeballed my own cup and licked my lips.
“Sun—” I paused.
Sunkist was my favorite drink. Mom always brought an icy-cold two-liter bottle whenever we went to the beach. But she wouldn’t approve of that for breakfast. She’d expect me to drink something more wholesome—bonus points if it was something Korean, like hyeonmi-cha.
Except I didn’t really feel like rice tea. I wanted the Sunkist.
Olivia would ask for hyeonmi-cha. No question.
She’d been born in Korea to two regular mortal Korean parents. She could speak the language fluently. She was Korea.