Late in the afternoon we finally arrived in Great Britain. Clarisse fixed her bandana, while I was letting the air stream out of the rubber boat until it was looking like a floopy piece of meat. In the meantime, Hazel was looking around. We had a problem: Hazel and Clarisse didn't know more about the wizarding world than I did, and my knowledge only contained the facts, that they were bald and noseless. And Hecate was their patron. Oh, and Chiron had had an affair with a witch or a wizard.

"What should we do now, Prissy?", Clarisse asked me.

"Sending Hecate an Iris message?", I asked back. Clarisse shrugged, when Hazel came running towards us. "I've found something!", she yelled.

~~~

It was a tiny, tiny clue, but it was enough: In the front of a shop, which was selling motorbikes, there was scratched a boar. To make it even more obvious, flames were licking out of its sockets.

There was somebody related with Clarisse, I reckoned.

That's why Clarisse was leading us into the shop. In the shop windows were motorbikes on display, like you could only find on trash dumps. I hadn't been able to see them from the outside because the windows were dirtier than Zeus' and Hermes' clean slates together. Also, there were posters sticking everywhere, which showed motorbikes, leather jackets or heavy metal bands with motorbikes and leather jackets. Just like in the Ares cabin, bobbins of barbed wire were lying around, mostly the wires were draped decoratively around the bikes or just used as trip wires.

If it shouldn't be clear yet that this shop belonged to an Ares junior, the smell would have exposed it: leather, steel, dead pineapple and a bit of blood.

Clarisse also smelled like that, just like every child of Ares.

No clue, what Clarisse thought, but suddenly she knelt down to pick up a bolt and started to suck it. Either this was a secret greeting of Ares' children or she really liked bolts.

"Nibble, nibble, gnaw, who is nibbling at my little house?", suddenly a deep voice echoed out of the depths of the shop. Clarisse spit the bolt out, grunted "Imperial gold" and pulled her magical hair clip out of her straggly mane. Hazel, who was behind me, had had her hand anyways on the handle of her Spatha and I just grabbed my ballpoint pen.

Hoping to find unknown speaker, we fought our way through the piled up shop until Clarisse had enough of it (after 2,7 seconds) and snapped in her typical manner: "Just show yourself, you maggot. By Dionysus' paunch!" She as demigod of course knew how to worship gods.

Surprisingly she indeed convinced a young man to step out of his hiding spot, which was a loose tower out of metal plates. His kinky hair, his dark skin and his blue overall were full of grease. "So you know, how this kind of metal tastes? Interesting."

Clarisse grunted. "You are building machines to kill monsters?", Hazel made a conclusion out of the facts, that the bolt was out of Imperial gold and this shop was selling vehicles.

"Motorbikes", the man rectified.

Clarisse' reaction was very untypical for her: She whispered: "Cool!" Apparently she liked the concept of deadly motorbikes. Probably another Ares thingy.

"Aaaaand who are you?", I asked. After all, it was possible, that he was somebody famous, who wanted to harm us? Just like Daedalus, who was nice but famous. I would have preferred to know that Quintus was Daedalus instead of dreaming his story out of the blue.

"I am Bond." 

"James Bond?" Aha, famous but not Greek.

"No, Bond Erickson. My mother has just watched too many movies..." Okay, he wasn't famous. Hazel hit me lightly on the back of my head, Clarisse kicked me in this sensitive spot between my legs. I wheezed like a guinea pig. Thanks, Circe.

"Daughter of Ares?", Bond asked. "Son of Ares?", Clarisse gave back. "Seems like a 'yes' to me." Clarrise snarled her question again in a very enamoring way, which got answered this time with a "Yes".

"And you are?" Bond looked at us. "Percy", I introduced myself vaguely. Hazel followed my example and said: "Hazel." Who knew how he would react to the fact, that the Big Three had broken their promise.

Bond shrugged and Clarisse scoffed. "Prissy and Stony", she rectified. "Daughter of Ares", Bond laughed. Clarisse was probably rolling her eyes right now.

"Do you know something about the British community of witches and wizards?", Hazel asked. Apparently she wanted to end this mission very quickly and ignored the possibility that the wizards were living undercover next to the 'normal' people.

Bond rose an eyebrow. "Coincidentally, I am a wizard."

"Destiny!", I yelled dramatically. "Thank you, Moerae."

"Demigod and wizard?", Clarisse questioned. A godly beam of light illuminated the gloomy shop. Apparently we were the favourite travel destination of the gods. Or - Attention, there is a deep thought coming! - we were attracting gods because they were also monsters. If I should ever voice that, I was dead. The gods didn't think highly of the freedom of opinion after all.

"It is possible. The parent, who isn't a god, just has magical instead of normal blood." I turned around and briefly bowed to Hecate. She nodded as a greeting. "Mostly, such a connection is increasing the power of the child. Just like it does with you two", Hecate explained and pointed at Hazel an I. 

Hazel couldn't decide wether to blush or to pale and bit her lip. "So my mother was a genuine witch?"

"Even an oracle. Your family of your mother's side is blessed from Apollo." Aha. So Hazel would give us a prophecy?

Wait!

"I?!" I couldn't believe that my mom should be a witch. She had never hexed anything. As far as I knew. Clarisse giggled and Bond seemed to do the same, just really deeply, so the shop was vibrating lightly.

"Sally is a squib. This means, that the blessing of magic has skipped her, but like everybody with magic in the blood, she is able to look through the mist." Hazel's mist had to be an exception, as even demigods could be fooled with it. And with Hecate's it had to be similar as she was the goddess of mist.

"Why are you giving us so much information right now?" Hazel sounded suspicious and Clarisse grunted approvingly.

"Contrary to others I would be able to live in a community, so I know how to behave", Hecate said.

"Because you have your own community?" Hazel stepped on my foot warningly. Either the question had been too bold or the joke too bad.

  Hecate didn't lower herself to my level and ignored my question, in her opinion I was just an changeable hero. Despite this, her golden eyes still sparkled dangerously. In this moment she reminded me quite much of Kronos.

"I can't do magic", Clarisse said ruefully.

"Why have you taken her with you, Perseus?" "Percy", I corrected. "Hero." This poor girl was probably in the middle of puberty, I couldn't explain her always changing mood in any other way to myself.

"I understand, why you take her with you", she pointed at Hazel, remebering names didn't seem to be her bag, "after all, she is a half witch. But her?" Her finger pointed at Clarisse. "I have a cabin full of magical children, I have thought, it would be logical to take a child of the goddess of magic with you, when you travel into the wizarding world. Zeus seems to be right. You aren't very bright." After this epic speech, Hecate pointed again at Clarisse.

In my head I tried to reconstruct this one rhyme, which was about the love between people, who point at others. I think. 

But because I had promised to Annabeth, not to kill myself if she would die in the war or willingly drive somebody to kill me, I stopped making fun of Hecate in my head. We had promised it on the Styx to each other and the possibility, that Hecate was able to read my mind was quite big.

However, Hecate wasn't confessing her undying love to Clarisse as she said very harshly: "Hecate, goddess of magic, mist and crossroads blesses you, so you are able to perform magic." Then the goddess started glowing and we locked our eyes. Done and away.

"And, how does it feel to be magical?", Bond asked. Everybody else would have started shooting with bad hit ons like "I have always been magical, I could show you" but Clarisse just said: "I am now capable of wannabe Latin." Bond smirked. "Wizards call this charms."

"Can you speak normal Latin?" Hazel had grown curious. 

"Chris is learning Latin."

"Where have you been in your youth to train?" I was very interested in this, as every camp had its own peculiarities and benefits and if Bond hadn't been trained, it would be a incredible to survive. He was ancient for a demigod, at least 22. Like a dinosaur.

"Camp Ichor. Aren't you from there too?" Bond sounded very confused. Just as we hadn't known from Camp Ichor, he didn't know of Camp Halfblood.

"Camp Halfblood", Clarisse grumbled. Hazel stayed quiet, she didn't seem to want to destroy Bond's worldview even further.

"Imaginative name", he meant with risen brows. "So that's the reason for your shirts." Now that he mentioned our shirts (contrary to Clarisse and me, Hazel hadn't zipped her jacket open), I noticed, how striking they were. I was so familiar with the flashy orange, I didn't even notice its strange colour anymore.

But what had Chiron thought, when he had designed them? "We need much mist around the camp, so the mortals won't be able to see anything - demigods in their 'natural' surrounding are just so conspicious. We should make the camp as unflashy as possible." "Okay, but which colour should the camp shirts be?" "Let me think... what is with... I have it! LOUD ORANGE!"

Perhaps Chiron had hoped, that the monsters would get blind when seeing our gaudy shirts? If it had been like this, he had to be more than just disappointed.

But why hadn't I ever noticed it? Wasn't I attentive enough? I would have to change my behavour so I could take care of my friends better. Attention was also necessary for fights. If I had found Annabeth earlier, noticed Jason and Piper not so late... They would still be alive. I had to pay more attention. I had to grow stronger, better.

Clarisse elbowed me very ungently. "What is it?", I asked her, while getting perforated with her nasty gaze.

"Quit looking like a mourning tuna when we want to speak with you. Dork!", she scolded me.

"Tuna is so cool!", I beamed. My mood fluctuation was probably worse than those of a pregnant Zeus.

At least I didn't kill anyone except monsters due to them.

"I wanted to know, if you are on a mission-" "So you are James Bond!", I interrupted him. Three hands clapped, but no applause.

"No, Percy", Bond sighed. "So, the third time..." Apparently he had already asked this, when I had been absent. "Do you have to fulfill a task? Because you are a trio and stuff." 

I nodded. "We have to go to the wizards because something bad is going to happen. However, we don't have a clue where to go."

"I guess, you have to go to Hogwarts." Bond shrugged.

"Why?", questioned Hazel, while Clarisse at the same time asked: "What is Howards?" I stood next to them, quiet like a tuna. Okay, this comparison was really bad, as tunas were even more tattling than Hermes, but for the others I seemed like a tuna.

"Hogwarts is a wizarding school." My imitation of a tuna got risen to a new level, as I started to open and close my mouth, when I heard the word "school". The others seemed to think similar, at least they produced very indignant sounds. Why school? Didn't we already get tormented enough?

"The school isn't that bad, even though wizards haven't ever heard something of sports, if you don't include quidditch." Why weren't wizards capable of genuine English? Why pseudo English and pseudo Latin? Couldn't they just call their things normally? Magic High for example? Every pubescent would love to attend Magic High, but Hogdats? Never.

"Well, it is an unspoken fact, but Hogwarts is one of the centres of the British wizarding society. If you go there, there is a percentage of seventy, I'd say, that you are in the right place. And you can't enter the Ministry of Magic, so Hogwarts is your only chance."

Suddenly the door to the shop burst open and somebody stormed to the end of the shop, where probably the workshop was located. "Who is this?", Hazel asked politely.

"My girlfriend, Lindsay. She is a daughter of Hepheastus and builds the motorbikes, I am just here to arm our babies."

"And then you knock down monsters with them!", Clarisse crooked with sparkling eyes. She seemed to love this concept really much. Maybe I should send Chris an Iris message and warn him because he got a rival.

"It would probably be the best to investigate undercover", I reckoned. Hazel hit the back of my head again, even though I didn't know of any mistake I had made. Maybe she just wanted to ensure, that my brain would continue with producing such clever ideas. Annabeth had always joked on the Argo II, that a light hit on the head would increase the ability to think.

Clarisse rose a brow. "I am always surprised, when you say something, what isn't completely dumb." Then she snarled. "It doesn't happen very often, though."

Bond chuckled. It seemed like he shared his sister's humour. I didn't want to know, what would have happened, if he had also met Friedlinde. Our boat would have probably sunk.

"If we want to act like wizards, we need the stuff for school. Where do we get this, Bond?", Hazel wanted to know. 

"Diagon Alley. There you will get everything, you need: wands, caldrons, books,..." So we really had to wave around with sticks and scream "Abracadabra".

"How will they admit us? I mean, nobody knows, we are here and we don't even know where Hogwarts is." I had to approve with Hazel in this point. The wizards didn't know that we existed and as a consequence they couldn't invite us to their school. Fortunately, Hecate decided to help us and let a envelope smack down from the ceiling.

"Thanks, Hecate!", Clarisse hollered to the ceiling. Seldom, I had seen her this polite.

In the meantime, Hazel had picked up and opened the envelope. There were a form, a list and three tickets. Due to my dyslexia I read 9 3/4 on the tickets.

Hazel looked at the form, at us, at the form and then to Bond. He got the issue, took the paper and began to read it. "This is a confirmation for your registration. There is an empty field for the name of your school. Either you have to write it or it is charmed so it fills itself as soon as you say the name of your school."

"We will try the option with the charm first, won't we? If it doesn't work, you just write it down", Clarisse decided.

"Okay, how should we name our school? It should be an ordinary, normal name... Maybe even one of an existing, American wizarding school...", Hazel muttered.

I beamed. "Tuna Rainbow High!"

The form briefly glowed, it was indeed charmed. Hazel gaped at me, totally flashed due to the cool name of our school. I could completely understand that. Even Magic High paled next to Tuna Rainbow High. Bond started laughing. "How do you come to this idiotic name, you idiot?" Clarisse seemed bewildered.

"Tunas are really cool and you have compared me with one, and because everybody likes tunas-", I overheard Clarisse' "Yuck!", "- this is a good start for the name of our school. The rainbow is a sign for our acceptance no matter which sexuality or whatever and also shows our communicaton per Iris message. And the 'High' comes from 'Magic High'." I was really proud of myself.

"And your emblem?", Bond giggled. "Hogwarts' shows its four houses and in the middle there is a H. It looks very noble. How does the Tuna Rainbow High presentate itself?"

I also had a answer for this question. "The background has the colours of a rainbow, and in the front there is a dancing tuna, surrounded of magical sparkles. But we don't need this, do we?"

The form started glowing again, while Bond was crying because of joy. Hazel was hiding her face in her hands, Clarisse performed an epic facepalm. I was waiting for Annabeth's "Seaweed brain", but it didn't come. It wouldn't ever come again.

Who is the monster?, I asked Annabeth. They, because they kill us or I, because I am happy even though you aren't here?

But she wouldn't ever tell me the answer.

Oh man, Hansel and Gretel sounds really awful in English, the qoute of the witch doesn't even rhyme.

Btw, the chapters will get better soon! (at least i hope so)