Annabeth's POV

"So, Zoë, Luke, tomorrow is gonna be your first day at pre-school! Are you excited or are you excited?" Percy grinned.

Luke furrowed his brows. "But Daddy, the two choices are the same." he said.

Trust Luke to take it seriously. Percy was actually more excited than the kids.

"I want a lot of friends." Zoë said simply. She was bashing two Barbies' heads together. "Or I will not go to school anymore."

I laughed. Zoë was really funny in her stubborn kind of way.

"What's the school name again?" Percy asked me. "I forgot."

"Um...lemme see. I think it's called Willow Oak or something."

"Esperanza's dog is named Oak." Zoë said suddenly, completely out of the blue. "She says it's because he's brown."

"Uh, yeah, right." Percy said to her. "So, Wise Girl, have you got all that stuff ready for Zoë and Luke?"

"Yeah, yeah." I laughed. "Seaweed Brain, you've asked me about a thousand times already!" I swear, they say mothers are supposed to be the fussy ones, but in this family it's completely opposite.

"It'd better be nice." Zoë said promptly while Luke nodded his head solemnly.

----🌊💖🦉----

We stood in front of the school the next morning with the rest of our friends and their kids, including Will, Nico and their adopted daughter, Bianca Solace-di Angelo, who was going to the elementary school two blocks away. Bianca was eight and a real cutie at that. She stood by shyly, quietly murmuring to the other kids even though they were only about three.

Hazel and Frank had brought Sammy even though he was only about two years old. Hazel pointed to the school. "See, Sammy? That's where you're going to go next year." she whispered.

Apparently Hazel had gotten pregnant again. She was now about two months pregnant, so it was barely showing through her purple sweater. "I hope it's a girl!" she had said to me excitedly before.

"Bye, Mommy! Bye Daddy!" A voice jerked me out of my thoughts. Zoë and Luke were waving goodbye to Percy and me.

"Oh, I hope they will be alright." I whispered to Percy.

Percy smiled and kissed me. "Don't worry, they will." he whispered back.

----🌊💖🦉----

Zoë's POV

I was so excited for pre-school! I told Luke I'd race him but he said no. Luke's no fun at all. I'd rather have Espie for a sister. She's so much more fun! I raced her up the steps instead.

I won! Okay, Esperanza won by a second. More like half a second. Still, it was only half a second, so I almost won, which means I did win.

AN:  I barely remember anything from my pre-school days, so I'm just gonna wing it, ok? I'll try my best to describe it.

There was this awesome big corridor with loads of rooms. Mommy said my classroom was the giraffe classroom, so I looked around for a giraffe. There was no giraffe, but Esperanza said the elephant classroom was next to the giraffe classroom. I looked and looked but there was no elephant either.

Esperanza looked very cross when I said there was no elephant classroom and she called me silly. "It's just the classrooms' names." she scowled.

I felt very silly indeed so I stuck out my tongue at her when a thin man and a fat lady came out of two classrooms across Esperanza and me. They looked even more cross to see us. The lady did, anyway.

"Are you two Esperanza Valdez and Zoë Jackson?" she said crossly.

"I'm Zoë." I said. "That's my not friend Esperanza Bigmouth Valdez because we were having a quarrel and---"

"Now, now, Zoë, you can talk about your quarrels later." said the fat lady. "I'm your teacher Mrs. Cherub, Zoë, and Esperanza's teacher is Mr. Fulcrock." she pointed.

I scowled and crossed my arms. Why should Esperanza get the nice looking teacher and I get the stupid fat ugly teacher? Esperanza must have known because when the teachers weren't looking, she stuck her tongue out at me. We're not friends anymore.

Mrs. Fatty led me into a normal classroom  that was not a giraffe at all. It was just a normal room! The teachers are stupid, I thought, the pre-school is stupid, Esperanza is stupid. I hate them, I hate it, I hate her.

Mrs. Fatty told me to sit at the front right under her fat bulgy nose. I squirmed under her hard gaze, but she wasn't staring like that at the rest of the class. How stupid.

While she droned on about ABCs, I looked around to see if any of my friends were in this class. There was only Jasper, who I did not like very much anyway. But I'd have to make do because Luke was in the other class and I was not talking to Esperanza even if she was in my class.

Jasper sat at the back. I scowled. How dare Mrs. Fatty put him there while I'm here? It made it very hard to talk to Jasper. I hated Mrs. Fatty so very much.

"Psst, Jasper!" I called to him quietly. I tried to be quiet, anyway, but somehow Mrs. Fatty heard me.

"Zoë, if you would like to talk, please do so after class is over." she said. What a meanie.

Mrs. Fatty said a bunch of boring stuff about A is for Ant and B is for Boy. If my daddy were here he would have smacked her to death because she was so boring.

I stared down at my piece of paper. It was called a worksheet, Mrs. Fatty told us. I did not like the worksheet. When Mrs. Fatty wasn't looking, I ate it.

Mrs. Fatty got very cross when she found out. She spoke into the phone and another teacher came to the classroom, who looked much nicer. I hoped Mrs. Fatty was going away.

She was! But she pulled me out with her as well. Maybe she was going to throw me out of the school. That would be awesome! Maybe Mrs. Fatty wasn't so bad if she was gonna do that.

She wasn't.

The moment we were out of the classroom, Mrs. Fatty changed. She did not look normal.

"Now, listen, you little brat of a demigod." she hissed in my ear. "You may act nice to hold off your death until the end of this school year. But if you don't, I will kill you right now."

I blinked. "What's a damigod?"

Mrs. Fatty roared. It sounded like a monster's roar. I stepped back.

I needed Daddy and Mommy! I had always thought that they would protect me from bad guys. I remembered when Mommy said I must never show my power to bad guys. But Mrs. Fatty already knew. Maybe she wanted my power!

"Nope, fat lady, no power for you." I said, my legs trembling. "You won't kill me, 'cause I will kill you first!"

Mrs. Fatty roared like a monster again. "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! YOU SHALL DIE, DEMIGOD SCUM!"

Her breath was stinky. I took another step back.

"I will karate-chop you!" I screamed in my loudest voice. If she wanted to kill me, good luck with that, fat lady.