The next morning, when I walked onto the school grounds, Piers walked right up to me,

"Hey Percy, I have a favor."

I nodded suspiciously. Technically, Piers is still a bully, but for whatever reason, he had taken a odd liking to me. I couldn't tell if he was being manipulative, or if he honestly needed help with something. He must have sensed my hesitation, because he added,

"I'll pay you."

Immediately I was in.

Now, you might want to tell me off for being bribed by money, but you have to remember, I'm an orphan. My father may have set up a school fund, but other then that, I had no money. We didn't get allowance in the orphanage, because chores were just a way of life. But, I mean, a boy needs money. Also, this was a rich kid school. Piers was paying me a solid 100€ (115$ for you Americans). That's like, over 50 king size candy bars.

Oh, and I was already planning on doing his 'favor' anyway. You see, Piers was paying me to tail Dudley and be annoying. He had seen how much I annoyed Dudley, and realized that a bold orphan with no sense of fear following around a idiotic bully might be very entertaining. Of course, I didn't think Piers knew I was an orphan, but my lack of fear was rather evident.

100€ for something I was already planning on doing. Man, I loved Smeltings. Though, the knickerbockers were still a horrible decision.

When Dudley walked into the schoolyard, only 1 minute before the bell rang, I sauntered up to him with what was supposedly a stupid grin on my face.

"Hey Big D, what's hangin? You know, you're probably going to be late to class, unless you run."

In reply, he grunted at me. I just smiled wider,

"I could run ahead and tell Mrs. Elidavé you're running late, or would yo--" Dudley cut me off,

"Not even you could get there in time to not be tardy, it's already the thirty second warning bell. I'd like to see you try, Jackson."

Without hesitation, I took off through the courtyard, yelling over my shoulder,

"I'll let her know to excuse you!"

I made it with time to spare. Well, with seconds to spare. When I came bursting into the room, Mrs. Elidavé raised her eyebrows. I shrugged,

"Dudley's running late. Well, I don't think he's running, but..yeah."

I hadn't meant to throw shade, but I did, and the class thought it was hilarious. I took a dramatic bow and sat down, only to more laughter. Mrs. Elidavé began class. Technically, it was the third day of school, but it was the first day of curriculum. We started with parts of a sentence. My dyslexia made it impossible. I had enough trouble with reading, that writing was near impossible.

About half way through the lesson, Dudley waddled into the room.

"Mr. Dursley, you're late." Mrs Elidavé reprimanded. The class snickered. She continued,

"But, one of your classmates told me you were a bit behind, so I will excuse it this one time."

Dudley glowered at me. I smiled and waved back at him. His scowl deepened. I turned back to class. I felt Dudley's glare for the whole rest of the hour. It was rather annoying, but I knew how to get him back.

Pretty soon, the bell rung, signaling the beginning of passing time. I hurried out of the classroom before Dudley, and waited outside the doorway. When he came out of the classroom, I slung my arm around his shoulder,

"Hey Dudley, I was wondering if you understood the lesson? I know I didn't, but if you did, you could totally like teach me. Or maybe-" Before I even had a chance to finish my sentence, Dudley pushed my arm off of his shoulder. The only reason he hadn't shoved me sooner was probably because I had caught him by surprise. He turned towards me and grabbed the collar of my shirt. Kids started forming a circle around us, ready to watch a fight.

"You listen here, New Kid. I don't know who you think you are, or what you think you're doing, but I am in charge here. Me, not you. Leave me alone if you know what's good for you."

That would have been a good threat, but there was one problem; I don't know what's good for me. So, instead of cowering and backing off, I yawned dramatically. The crowd held their breath.

"Okay big guy. Whatever you say, now if you could let go, I would appreciate that. I need to get to science class."

He didn't let go. Instead, pulled me off the ground and towards his face.

"This is not a joke."

He threw me to the ground and stalked off. Once he was out of hearing range, I started laughing. I stood up and took a deep breath. The onlooker had departed, though there were a few stragglers watching me wearily. I went to science class. Miraculously, I found the way by myself. Dudley was already there. He sneered at me when I walked in, but I caught Piers winking at me over his shoulder. That boosted my mood a little. I sat in my assigned seat, right in front of Dudley. I heard him growl at me, so I turned around,

"Hey, I can't help where my assigned seat is, so stop growling."

Piers laughed, but Dudley quickly silenced him with a glare. I turned back around as the bell rang and Mr. Casallas walked in. Immediately, he started talking about organelles or whatever. I fell asleep pretty quickly. I had a dream about mermaids, but one of them was Dudley, and he kept running into whales, but for every whale he ran into, he got bigger. It was really bizarre.

I woke up five minutes before class ended. Everyone was working on an assignment or something. I looked behind me and saw that Dudley was asleep. Piers was working on the homework, but was obviously struggling. I didn't blame him. Science was hard. I hadn't even started the assignment when the bell rung. I gathered my stuff and was about to leave when I had an idea. I turned around and tapped Dudley on his head. He blinked awake. Before he was fully aware of his surroundings, I screamed. No, I didn't scream loud enough to alert anyone or get in trouble, just loud enough to startle Dudley. He jumped up and fell out of his chair. I sprinted out of the room, laughing my head off. I heard a few other people laughing as well. I also heard Dudley yell some very rude words, which only made me laugh harder.

I completely forgot that we started the wrestling unit in gym today. Had I remembered, I probably would have not pissed him off as much. Now, he had the perfect excuse to beat me up. Yay. Though, most of the time wrestling was separated by weight class, and I didn't think Dudley and I were at all close, especially in that regard. Then again, no one at Smeltings would be in the same weight class as Dudley. I don't mean that offensively, just an observation.

I was right.

At the beginning of class, Mr. Vilgar separated us by weight. It was really embarrassing. Apparently, I'm the lightest kid in my class, at 35 kilograms (77 lbs for Americans). As expected, Dudley was the heaviest. Kids laughed at both my weight and Dudley's weight. Like, I don't even look that skinny, but no, I'm a solid 7 kilograms (15 lbs) lighter than everyone else. No one else was put in my weight class, that meant that Dudley and I were the only ones without a wrestling partner.

I was prepared to just sit out, but Mr. Vilgar had a different idea. He thought it would be smart to pair me up with Dudley. Additionally, it turns out that Dudley had been the star member of Smelting's wrestling team last season,and he was training to be the captain this year. . He has never lost a match. Granted, there aren't many people in his weight class for him to compete against, but still. I had never wrestled in my entire life. I had gotten into many fist-fights before, but that's different.

Mr. Vilgar had us set out some mats and run over the basic rules of wrestling. Dudley was sneering at me the entire time. We split into our assigned wrestling groups and begin warming up. We rang through holds in slow motion, and practiced basic movements. Surprisingly, Dudley didn't beat me up right away. I assumed it was because he wanted to follow the rule of wrestling so he didn't get kicked off the team. I wasn't complaining. After warm ups, we got a water break. Mr. Vilgar said that after our water break we would do a tournament. As everyone else ran to the drinking fountain, he pulled me aside. This was the first time I got to get a good look at Mr. Vilgar. He was a tall black man with a bald head and a long beard. He had a thin yet muscular build. I had noticed that before, but know I noticed that he had a dimple on his right cheek, and he had his left ear pierced. He smiled at me. His teeth were perfectly white.

"Mr. Jackson, I know I shouldn't have paired you up with Dudley, but you are fast and agile, so you might be able to outmaneuver him. Use the bony parts of your body. Now go get some water and hurry back."

I wasn't quite sure how to answer, so I just nodded respectfully and rushed to the drinking fountain, where kids were horsing around and splashing water on each other. I stood off to the side and waited for everyone else to be done. Some random kid accidentally splashed some water onto me and profusely apologized. I assured him I didn't care. Once everyone had gotten their share of water, we went back into the gym and sat around the center mat. Dudley and I were going first. I was fine with that, I mostly just wanted to get this over with.

We stepped onto the mat and squared up. Dudley smiled cruelly. I knew this would be the end of Perseus Jackson. I felt sweat drip down my face and land on my upper lip. I licked it away. Dudley started to circle the mat. I felt like I was a prey animal being circled by a hungry predator. I pushed my hair out of my face and began circling the mat as well. I faintly remember Mr. Vilgar telling me that I was agile. I swallowed. More sweat came rolling down my head. Some got into my eye, blurring my vision. I reached up to wipe my eye, but just then, Dudley lunged at me. With my vision still blurred, I launched myself at him. I felt my feet go over my head and come into contact with something hard. I heard a groan and gasps from the other students. I landed on my back with a hard thud. I heard an even harder thud in front of me. Finally I wiped my eyes free of sweat. Dudley was sitting on the ground clutching his forehead. That's when I realised that I somehow managed to get both of my feet above my waist and kick him in the head. Dudley starting standing up, and he was mad. I lept to my feet before he could get all the way up, as to not give him an advantage. Before he could get all the way to his feet, I used his back as a vault to jump over him and kick his knees out from behind. He face-planted into the mat. I sat on his back and got his head in a headlock, arching his back at a extremely uncomfortable angle. I heard whistle blow, and Mr. Vilgar announce that I was the winner. I blinked and let go of Dudley. I subconsciously offered my hand to help him up and he unknowingly took it. He was still dazed from his rather embarrassing loss.

"Great job Mr. Jackson! You should consider trying out for wrestling. You two can go get water. Next group to the mat!"

As Dudley and I walked out of the gym and to the water fountain, I noticed that we were both shaking. I stopped walking, and so did Dudley. I turned towards him and opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it.

"Wrestling was the only thing I was good at. Why did you have to one up me?"

I was rather taken aback. I shook my head meekly,

"I didn't mean to one up you Big-D. I'm not sure what just happened," I laughed, "I couldn't do that again if I tried."

Now it was Dudley's turn to look taken aback. He shook his head and scoffed,

"With training, almost anyone would be able to front flip like that. Especially when you can land on your back."

"Woah woah woah. Wait. I front flipped? Like, my feet went over my head?"

Dudley laughed,

"Yeah, what did you try to do?"

I shrugged,

"I don't know, I was just trying to not die."

Dudley laughed again,

"You should join wrestling. It's not about hurting other people, it's about the showmanship."

I smiled and nodded,

"Wouldn't that threaten your top spot?"

Dudley's smile dropped as he thought for a moment,

"No. I'll still be captain. It'll just give me more chances to snap you like the twig you are."

He started walking down the hall towards the water fountain once again. I started after him, while shouting,

"I thought you just said it wasn't about hurting others? Olivia would never forgive me if I got huge bruises."

When we got back to the gym, I asked Mr. Vilgar for a wrestling information sheet. He happily obliged. Tryouts were next month. I decided I would talk to Olivia about it. I'm capable of making my own decisions, but sometimes, I like having people to talk it out with first.

It was actually pretty fun watching all the other wrestling matches. My personal favorite was between these kids named Grover and Zach. Both of them were technically excused from PE because of muscle and bone diseases, but Mr. Vilgar asked if they wanted to try a little, and they both agreed. All they did was hug each other and spin, while laughing. Then they got dizzy and fell over. It was hilarious.

As I was changing out of my sweaty gym uniform and back into my knickerbockers, I caught Grover watching me. He had already changed and seemed to be sniffing the air. I smiled at him and he quickly looked away. I shrugged it off, and headed off to lunch.

2465 words. It's a little short, but I think it's really good. I had to re-write it many times before I got it right, but I think I finally nailed it