Absolute Mortality

Chapter 5

An annoying, loud buzzing followed by a groan from across the room woke me up the next morning. I sat up groggily to see Thalia doing the same. I got up and opened my drawer to begin sifting through my clothes while Thalia turned off the alarm clock on her nightstand.

I began to get dressed and in ten minutes, I was wearing black pants, a dark grey t-shirt, and my usual flats.

I opened the window and felt the temperature outside, then decided to pull my jacket off the wall and put it on. It was a CHB letterman jacket that I got for joining the track team last year. It was an orange and purple design, our school colors, a centaur with an eagle flying right above him on the right breast, our school mascot, and "Track '09" on the left breast. On the back were the letters, "CHB" and right underneath it was the word, "Chase," my last name.

I picked up my phone, a boring flip phone, and stuffed it in my pocket before grabbing my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder.

I pulled out my schedule and looked at my first class. "Algebra 2 with Dodds."

Thalia looked over at me. She was wearing here usual dark, torn jeans, Green Day t-shirt, and black leather jacket. "Me too," she said.

"Cool," I said. "Let's go."

At the end of the hall, we stopped in the bathroom to use the facilities then continued down the staircase and stepped out into the cold, morning air. Kids were already swarming from the dorm building to the educational building. We joined the hoard and walked through the double glass doors.

Mrs. Dodds's room was the first door to the right of the entrance. Thalia and I entered and sat together at the back of the room. There were three other kids already seated around the room. One of those three was the new black haired boy with green eyes that befriended Nico di Angelo and Grover Underwood.

I waited to see if Piper was going to come in too. I never compared our two schedules myself, so only Piper knew exactly what classes we had together.

In less than five minutes, the entire classroom filled up and there was no Piper. But there was Phoebe who promptly sat right next to Thalia.

As soon as the bell rang, the scrawny old lady that was Mrs. Dodds stood from her desk and walked to the front of the room. "Alright, welcome to another year at CHB. I'll be teaching your second tier of algebra. But first thing's first: Everyone stand up so I can get you in your proper seats." The whole class groaned and stood.

She picked up a binder off of her desk and flipped the cover open and began naming students and pointing to desks, simultaneously taking roll call. In two minutes, everyone was seated where she'd assigned. I was sitting to the left of the green eyed boy whose name I still didn't know.

"Alright," Mrs. Dodds said. "Let's get started. All I have for you today is a pretest. It will not count against you, but take your time. Your results will determine what of this class's curriculum may or may not need to be taught. Someone help me pass out papers." When no one volunteered, she dropped the papers on one of the front row student's desk, who reluctantly stood and started handing them out.

I set to work as soon as I got mine. I did pretty well on the first little bit as it was just stuff that we'd gone over last year and the year before, but I didn't know anything on the rest of the test.

I was one of the first ones to finish. I stood and handed it to Dodds and then headed straight back to me seat. I opened my bag and pulled out a book. It was about a girl struggling with her mental sanity. It's very reminiscent of The Yellow Wallpaper, but it was a full length novel and set in the present.

I flipped it open to about halfway through, where my bookmark was, and started to read.

Thirty minutes into class, Dodds looked up from her desk. "Is everyone done?" she asked.

When no one objected, she said, "You're free to do whatever you wish for the rest of the period. Just no yelling."

I was about to continue reading my book when a voice to the right of me said, "Hey."

I looked up cautiously. "Hi," I said.

"I'm Percy."

"Annabeth."

"Chase?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"It's on your jacket," he said, smiling.

"Right," I said, trying not to blush at my own stupidity.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

I showed him the cover and his face showed recognition.

"You've read it?" I said.

"Yeah. I'm Percy Jackson." He pointed to the author's name, Sally Jackson.

Then it hit me. "Is she—?"

"My mom, yeah."

"Oh. So do you get a lot of attention because of it?"

He snorted. "You kidding? Her books are good sellers, but you're about the first teenager I've seen read any book of her own free will. Plus, they're aimed at more mature audiences."

"Well I guess that's a good thing then. I wouldn't want that attention. My best friend's dad—" I stopped myself. Piper would never have forgiven me had I told some random guy her dad was Tristan McLean, the famous movie star.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Never mind. So do you read a lot of other books?"

"Not really. I only read her first book because she's my mom, but it turned out I actually enjoyed it, so I read the other two out of pure interest. But I can't really keep interest when I try reading other books."

"Oh. So what do you like to do?"

"I like to swim, but I hardly ever get the chance to. Does this school have a swim team?"

I shook my head. "No, sorry."

"That's too bad. None of the schools I've gone to have had one."

"How many schools have you been to?"

"Just about every one in Albany," he said sheepishly.

"Were you expelled from all of them?"

"Yep. Bad luck kind of follows me around."

"Well hopefully it didn't follow you into New York," I said with a smile.

"We'll see." The bell rang. He smiled at me. "See you around, Annabeth." He left the room.

I stuffed my book in my bag and slung it over my shoulder. Thalia gave me a look I couldn't identify right before she too went to her next class.

I went to the end of the hallway where the staircase was. After climbing two floors, I stepped off and entered a room several doors down.

I saw Piper and sat in the desk next to her. I looked around. Grover was in here, but Percy and Nico weren't.

I was going to say something to her, but then the bell rang signaling the start of class. The teacher was a man of about forty, possibly less. He looked pretty good for his age. I assumed he was Mr. Blofis as that's what my schedule said.

"Good morning class," he said. "None of you will have had me before because I'm strictly an English 12 teacher. I am Mr. Blofis. First, let's call roll."

The rest of the day went pretty smooth. After that class, I had engineering, but I knew no one in that class. And for fourth period, I had P.E. Percy and Grover were in that class too, but Thalia and Piper weren't.

"Alright, cupcakes!" Coach Hedge said at the start of P.E. "I'm going to teach you the fine art of physical education. Sadly, we're not getting into any exercising today, so I'm going to lecture you on what's expected of you. I'll be assigning each of you a locker in your gender specific locker room. After school, I expect you to go to your lockers and put some proper running shoes in it as well as clothes suitable for working out. Shorts, tights, t-shirts, the like are all acceptable. Nothing baggy. If you're dressed casually, I will mark you down points, and I'll punish the entire class with an even more vigorous activity. The first thing you do when you get to this class is dress down. You'll have five minutes after the second bell rings and you'll be out on the track's starting line. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," several of the students said.

"Now. Once you're all dressed down and waiting on the starting line, I'll blow my whistle and you will run one lap, no more. Then you have a two minute break before we warm up. That's when we start whatever activity I have planned for you. Now. Everyone make a neat line in front of me so that I can give your locker number, lock, and combination. Once I give you the lock, make sure the combination works. Then go find your locker number and put the lock on it. Then you're free to do whatever you wish for the rest of the period." We did as we were instructed and then Percy and Grover caught up with me and the three of us talked for the majority of the class.

After P.E. was over, we had lunch. After that I had Chemistry, which Piper was also in. Then I had Spanish II with no one I knew. Finally, I had History. Piper, Percy, and Nico were in that class too. Percy smiled at me from across the room but didn't come over to chat.

"You know him?" Piper said.

"We talked in first period and fourth," I said. "His name's Percy."

"Well," she said, giving me a sly smile, "Percy's really cute."

"I guess."

"You guess? Come on, he's clearly already one of the hottest guys in school."

"If you like the way he looks so much, then ask him out," I said.

"Annabeth, you know I don't ask out guys just based on their looks."

"Then why bother bringing up?"

"I was just pointing it out. Plus you clearly like him."

"I don't like him. We've talked like two times."

"Alright," she put her hands up in surrender. "That's fine."

"While we're on the subject, when are you going to ask out Thalia's brother?"

"Jason?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Never."

"Why?"

"I don't know if you noticed, but he has a girlfriend."

"They'll break up any day now."

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't you seen them together? It's awkward, and they really don't have that much in common. It won't last."

"Well, whatever. I don't care if they do break up."

"That's a lie."

"Just drop it, okay?"

Class ended and then we parted ways. I went to the track to jog a couple of laps to find Percy already there. He was about to start jogging until he noticed me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey. Mind if I join you?" I asked. He nodded his head.

A/N: Still looking for a name change on this story. Please review and give me suggestions.

Also, I released the first chapter of the story I mentioned in my last author's note. Click on my name and check it out if you're a fan of Caleo. But again, this story will be taking priority. I won't be writing on that unless I've put up a chapter here.