As I walked with Chiron through the camp, it seemed like everywhere I looked someone was milking a satyr.
“What’s with all the satyr-milking?” I said.
“We use the milk to make satyr cheese, which we then pass off as goat cheese and sell at an enormous profit,” said Chiron. “It pays all our expenses!”
“Aren’t you worried someone will find out?” I said.
“Nah,” said Chiron. “I’m much more worried they’ll discover we’re selling centaur sweat as apple juice.”
Eventually we arrived at the cabins. There were twelve of them, arranged in the shape of a U. “There’s one cabin for each of the twelve major Greek gods,” said Chiron. “Every Half-Wit lives in the cabin belonging to his or her god parent.”
As I glanced at the various cabins, I noticed that all the kids hanging out in front of each cabin looked like each other. Which made sense, since they all shared a parent. I pointed at one of the cabins where the kids looked kind of Asian.
“Hey, in that cabin all the kids look part-Asian,” I said. “But which of the twelve gods is Asian?”
“None of them,” said Chiron. “That cabin belongs to Apollo, God of Light. He kind of has a thing for Asian women.”
“How about that cabin?” I said, pointing at a cabin where all the kids were really geeky-looking and had their heads buried in books.
“That’s Hephaestus’ cabin,” Chiron said. “Or as we like to call him, Nogameos, because he has no game with women. So the only girls he can get to date him are the nerdy girls nobody else asks out.”
“So which cabin am I in?” Even though I didn’t believe any of this, I was kinda interested in finding out which god they thought was my dad.
“You’re in Cabin 11,” said Chiron, “which belongs to Hermes. But it’s also where we put all the ‘undetermineds’—kids whose god parent we haven’t yet identified.”
“So you have no idea who my god parent is?” I asked.
“Uhhh…yeah…no idea whatsoever,” said Chiron. “Hey look, there’s Annabeth’s cabin!”
Chiron quickly led me away from Cabin 11 and walked me over to a cabin that looked like a sorority house. It was a gorgeous building with Greek letters on the front and a beautiful lawn, and every girl hanging out there was smoking hot.
“Which god’s house is this?” I asked.
“Aphrodite, Goddess of Love,” Chiron said.
“You know what, I just remembered that Aphrodite is my god parent,” I said. “So I’ll be living here instead of Cabin 11. Thanks.”
I began walking toward the front door, but after only a few steps I felt something wrap tight around my waist. I looked down and saw that Chiron had lassoed me. As he was pulling me back toward him, Annabeth came out of the cabin.
“Hey Annabeth,” said Chiron, “I have to go teach advanced archery class. Would you mind showing Percy here to his bunk in Cabin 11?”
“No prob!” said Annabeth.
Chiron galloped away and Annabeth walked me back to Cabin 11. I peered inside the window and saw that the place was absolutely packed. In addition to rows of beds, there were air mattresses and sleeping bags everywhere.
“Wow, are that many kids undetermined?” I said.
“No,” said Annabeth. “It’s just that Hermes is, well, a bit of a player.”
Annabeth walked me inside and all the kids looked up at me.
“Cabin 11,” said Annabeth, “meet your new resident: Percy Stinkson.”
Everybody laughed at my name. Then a guy who was a bit older than the rest and wearing a CAMP HALF-WIT STAFF T-shirt stepped forward. “Now, now, campers, just because his name is hilarious doesn’t mean we should laugh at it,” he said.
“This is Luke, your counselor in Cabin 11,” said Annabeth. “You’re lucky: he’s one of my faaaavorite counselors!” It was totally obvious she had a crush on him. Great. The path to dating her just got about a thousand miles longer.
“Nice to meet you, Percy,” said Luke. “As you can see, we’re pretty crowded at the moment, so just find a space wherever.”
“Why do they put all the undetermined kids in Hermes’ cabin if Hermes has so many kids already?” I asked.
“Hermes is the God of Traveling – that is, of anything that involves going from place to place,” Luke said. “Since you’re travelling to Camp Half-Wit from the outside world, Hermes is the proper god to welcome you.”
“Hey, what’s that smell?” said one of the kids.
“Ew! Who farted?” said another.
Everybody turned and looked at me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I get nervous meeting new people.”
Annabeth grabbed my wrist and quickly began leading me out the door.
“My apologies for dragging Percy away,” said Annabeth, “but he’s gotta go to…uh…that thing he has to go to right now. Bye!”
As soon as we were outside, she turned to me looking displeased. “Stinkson, are you serious?”
“What?” I said.
“Letting one loose in a crowded room?” she said. “And I thought you were the one.”
“Well you know what they say: first impressions are always right!” I said. “How ‘bout we grab dinner and a movie tonight and I can prove it to you?”
“Not that kind of one,” she said. “I meant the one who’s going to save the universe from being destroyed. After all, you did kill the minotaur.”
“You mean Frank Minotarski,” I said. “Come on, Annabeth, you can’t tell me you actually believe in all this gods and monsters stuff. Zeus, Hermes, the minotaur…it’s all just made-up!”
Thunder roared.
I rolled my eyes. “Ok, enough with the fake thunder already, it’s getting old.”
Thunder roared again.
“Omigod, is there anything I can say without it thundering?”
Thunder roared again.
“If you thunder you’re a loser!”
No thunder.
“Ha ha, got ya!”
A lightning bolt hit six inches away from me.
“Percy, everything we’re telling you is true,” said Annabeth. “Want even more proof? If you weren’t part-god, the nectar wouldn’t have worked on you and tasted like chocolate chip cookies. It would’ve just tasted like the satyr boogers it’s made out of.”
I felt like I was gonna barf.
“Well, well, well!” said a husky voice. “Fresh meat!” I looked over and saw a tall, muscular girl walking toward me with several large girls behind her.
“Ugh,” said Annabeth, “it’s Clarisse and the other girls from the cabin of Ares, God of War.”
“So, Poopsy, did Annabeth tell you about our initiation ceremony for newbies?” said Clarisse.
“It’s Percy,” I said. But Clarisse wasn’t listening. Instead, she and her friends were dragging me into the girls’ bathroom. I actually was kind of excited about this, because I’d always wanted to see what a girls’ bathroom looked like. Would there be like flowers and kittens everywhere?
I was disappointed to see that it looked pretty much like the boys’ bathroom. And I was even more disappointed when I found out the “initiation ceremony” involved sticking my head into a toilet.
Clarisse’s friends laughed as she held my head inches away from the toilet water. “Okay,” I said, “I’m ready for the part of the ceremony where you let me go and say ‘Welcome to the club’ and there’s a big party in my honor.”
“You got the wrong club,” said Clarisse. “The only club you’ll be joining today is the Dunked in Toilet Water Club.” The girls all laughed and Clarisse pushed my head down toward the water.
I closed my eyes and waited for the disgusting wetness…but it never came. Instead, I got this weird tingling feeling, and then I farted. But this fart wasn’t invisible like farts usually are. It was a cloud of gas…in the shape of a man.
The fart man took a deep breath and blew a stream of fart gas directly into the faces of Clarisse and her friends. “Ugh, I can’t breathe!” said Clarisse, and she and her friends ran out of the bathroom, gagging.
The fart man offered me a fist-bump and I returned it, which I realized wasn’t such a good idea afterwards when I smelled my hand. Then he waved goodbye and wafted out the window.
I turned to leave, and saw Annabeth standing in the doorway, mouth open in shock. She’d seen the whole thing.
“How did you—?” she said.
“I didn’t do anything!” I said.
She just kept staring at me.
“What?” I said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” she said, “that I want that guy on my team for Color War.”
