ii. GWEN MEETS THE GOD OF DIET COKE AND PINOCHLE
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Gwen had been told to pack for a week or so, which, in her dad's lingo, meant "way longer than a week." Once she stepped into her bedroom, she flung her backpack into the corner and proceeded to beat the crap out of her pillow.

Tears stung her eyes. Why did she have to pack? Why didn't her parents want to hear her side of the story? And they wondered where she got her stubborn side from. Hypocrites.

It would probably be useful to know more about her parents.

Her mom worked as a lawyer, which was pretty cool, because Gwen got to hear plenty of crazy courtroom stories. And her mom was beautiful. Like, actually. She had long, wavy black hair and dark eyes. Oh, and a killer sense of style, because lawyers apparently always had to dress fancy for court. Angela Rosales was not to be messed with.

Her dad was cool, too. A lot of people probably wouldn't like hearing that he was a stay-at-home dad, but he was. Sort of. He had gone back to college to get his degree. On weekdays he drove Gwen to school, spent some time at college, and usually made it back in time to pick her up.

Sometimes Gwen giggled at the thought of her dad, Santiago Rosales, with his graying hair and smile lines, sitting in a classroom with kids twenty years younger than him. And then her mom would say, "Eso no es un mamey. Disculparse con su papá," which roughly translated to, "That isn't easy. Apologize to your dad."

Oh, yeah. She knew Spanish. Another cool thing about having Hispanic parents... Until they started being mushy with each other and forgot that she also spoke Spanish. Yuck.

When Gwen finished stuffing a duffel bag with clothes, she stepped out of her room to see her mom's office door cracked open. Through the crack, she could see her mom grab something off of her desk.

It was the folder.

"The folder" was an old manila filing folder that her mom kept tucked away in her office. Gwen had always been told that she shouldn't go into it― which was about as useful as putting a grizzly bear in front of a heaping plate of salmon and telling it not to chow down.

One time, Gwen had gone rifling through her mom's office. She'd come across the folder, and even though she tried to hold back, her curiosity won out. Looking through it, she saw the basic stuff― her birth certificate, adoption papers, school records, her official ADHD and dyslexia diagnosis― and then her mom caught her.

But before getting grounded until she was thirty, Gwen caught a glimpse of words scrawled onto one of her mom's yellow legal pads. Pegasus? Cyclops? Hellhound?

Gwen had absolutely no clue what that meant. But also, seeing that her mom threw the book at her for even looking into the folder, she wasn't too worried about hellhounds and pegasi.

She had told her parents the pegasus and cyclops stories on a whim. What were the odds they'd understand, right? But hellhounds... She didn't remember any hellhounds trying to eat her face or suck out her soul or anything.

Her mom must have seen her looking, because she called out, "Come algo, gordita. We aren't going to be able to eat dinner on the drive."

"You just called me fat, I'm not eating anything!" Gwen shot back, but she made her way to the kitchen anyway.

Her dad caught her shoveling Cheez-Its into her mouth. Not her most dignified moment by a long shot.

When they finally got back on the road, Gwen kept fidgeting. She didn't like the silence in the truck, or how her mom kept going through the contents of the folder, or the fact that her parents now had to find a school to take her in for the last two weeks of the year. How was she supposed to take her final exams now? Would she have to repeat seventh grade?

Her mind kept going back to Mrs. Giles. Gwen mostly thought about how she had totally evaporated when that ball-and-chain hit her. Oh, and the fact that Mrs. Giles was a bird. And the fact that her favorite pin turned into a weapon.

She loved her parents and all, but ever since they got home, they had been acting a little too calm. Especially considering their daughter had just gotten kicked out of school. Instead of yelling at her or something, they just drove on, humming along to an old Frankie Ruiz song.

"Are you going to ask me about what happened, or what?" Gwen finally asked, about an hour or so into the drive.

Her dad turned the music off and frowned at her in the rearview mirror. "What do you mean?"

"What did they tell you?" She pressed. "At school. What did they tell you?"

"They told us you berated this kid," he said. "And they had footage to back it up."

Footage? Footage? She had never berated Zach. Okay, she screamed at him, but why wasn't CCTV on her side this time?

Actually, CCTV never seemed to be on her side. Gwen remembered last year, when she had caused a minor explosion in the science lab. It wasn't her fault, the stuff just... Blew up. When she got expelled, she angrily told the principal to check the footage. CCTV failed her that time, too.

"That's not what happened," she said quickly. "It's not."

"Then what did you see, Gwen?" Her mom countered.

Gwen told them everything. Zach being a jerk to her, as always. How he kind of lost it and went catatonic. Mrs. Giles turning into a bird and trying to kill her. Her pin turning into a ball-and-chain. How she killed the school nurse, and how she ended up getting called into the office five minutes later.

The truck went silent again after that. Her mom and dad exchanged looks. Gwen hated when adults did that, but she especially hated when her parents did that.

"So?" She muttered.

"Do you remember the story of how we adopted you?" Her mom asked.

Of course she did. Her parents had been telling her this story ever since she was in diapers.

It was a simple story, really. Once upon a time, there were two people who wanted to have a baby, but couldn't. They tried everything, but they just couldn't have kids. And then with the help of an adoption agency, a baby called Gwen came into their lives, and they lived happily ever after. The end!

Gwen didn't like where this was going. "Um... Yes?"

"Do you remember Mr. Baker?"

Mr. Baker? She had to rack her brains to bring back any memories of a Mr. Baker, but she kind of remembered him.

He had dark skin and a scruffy gray beard. She remembered that because of how light the gray seemed against his skin. And he worked with the adoption agency that gave her a home. Otherwise― oh, he rode around in a wheelchair. That felt like a detail worth remembering.

Bit by bit, pieces of Mr. Baker came back to Gwen. Did he have tortoiseshell glasses, or had she made that up? How long had it been since they'd last met, exactly?

"Sort of?" She frowned. "Why are you asking about him?"

Her mom sighed. "Give us a minute to explain, Gwen―"

A lot of things clicked into place very fast for Gwen. Why she had been told to pack a bag. Why her parents had brought the folder that contained all of her legal information with them. Why they began asking about Mr. Baker.

She was getting adopted again.

It made sense, really. She had all these stupid conditions that made it hard for her to be normal. She had been kicked out of her eighth school today, and how many parents would want to deal with that? It was a wonder she hadn't been given up earlier.

"I know I've been a lot of trouble," she said meekly. "Please don't give me away."

If her dad could have slammed on the brakes in the middle of the highway, he probably would have. Gwen knew she had screwed up when her mom whipped around in the passenger seat, a look of total hurt on her face.

"What are you talking about?" She asked. "Gwen―"

Tears welled up in Gwen's eyes, and she tried to blink them away before anyone saw. It was useless. Her mom had already reached back and taken Gwen's hand in hers.

"We are not giving you up," she promised. "We would never. Okay?"

Something in her voice made Gwen believe her. "Okay."

That moment threw her mom off, too, because it took her a minute to get her thoughts in order. Gwen used that split second of silence to ask a question of her own.

"The nurse said my parents caused her a lot of trouble," she said. "Is this about my birth parents?"

Actually, Mrs. Giles had said that her parents caused "us" a lot of trouble. Whatever "us" was. But Gwen didn't really think about it, because she had been one wrong move away from dying at the time.

She knew that she'd gotten it right when her dad swore. Normally, hearing her sweet old dad drop an F-bomb would have made Gwen laugh. Now it just made her stomach churn.

"...Yes." Her mom looked at the folder in her lap. Something flickered in her eyes. "Your birth parents aren't normal, Gwen."

"Were they druggies?" Gwen asked. "Do I have fetal alcohol syndrome?"

"What?" Her mom stared at her. "No. Gwen― how do you even know about that?"

"Zach―"

She huffed. "Oh, forget I asked. They aren't druggies, Gwen. Your birth parents aren't normal because they're gods."

"God?" She asked, and pointed to the roof of the car. "Like the big guy up there?"

She had never been religious. Her parents had tried to raise her as a Catholic, but she usually ended up creating a huge fuss during Mass, even when her mother sat with her outside of the main... Hall, or whatever that room was called. Gwen didn't know. She hadn't been to church since the third grade. Her parents seemed okay with letting her make her First Communion and then never going back.

"Not God," her dad said. "Gods. Plural."

"Is that why I don't have parents? Was I immaculately conceived?" Gwen grinned. "Am I Jesus Christ?"

"Gwen." Her mom shot her a look. "Stop goofing around."

It occurred to Gwen that her parents might be serious. And that only made her think that maybe they were the druggies.

She frowned. "Okay, well, this is funny and all, but I need you to stop lying."

"We're not lying to you," her dad said. "This is real. You are the daughter of Greek gods―"

"No, it's not!" She snapped. "This is not real! I'm not a child of God, or any god. If this is another trick to get me to start liking myself, it isn't working. ADHD sucks! Dyslexia sucks! Nothing is going to fix how I see the world! There is always going to be something broken about me, and none of your sayings are ever going to change that! Okay?"

Silence blanketed the truck. For what felt like years, the only sounds came from Juanes singing about La Camisa Negra on the radio and her heart thundering in her chest.

Her mom started to cry.

Her face burning, Gwen curled up in the back of the truck and waited for the sniffling to stop. Even after that, she refused to speak. She knew she'd messed up big-time by making her mom cry. And honestly, staring out the window and watching the mile markers go by was the only thing that made the guilt go away.

But eventually the guilt seeped back in, and Gwen mumbled an apology to both of her parents. Puffy-eyed, her mom smiled weakly and leaned back to pat her leg.

"It's about time you looked at this," she said, and handed Gwen the folder.

Inside, past all of her information, sat the yellow legal pad. Her mother had scribbled more than just weird monster names in it― she had pretty much documented every strange instance from Gwen's childhood that she knew of.

It felt like reading a textbook from her history class. Her mom's handwriting didn't make reading the notes any easier, but at least the subject interested Gwen... Seeing that she was the subject.

Her mom had documented the stories about the pegasus-turned-airplane and the cyclops museum director almost word-for-word. Maybe that came from her lawyer background, but Gwen figured that she wrote this all down in such detail for another reason.

There were more stories, too. Apparently, when she was a toddler, a big black poodle had come up to her parents at the park. Its owner kept it on a leash, but toddler Gwen must have sensed something, because she kept wailing at the sight of it. Her mother had titled the story "HELLHOUND(?)"

Her dad made some edits, too. In his smaller, messier handwriting, he'd written about the time he took her on a daddy-daughter date for ice cream and she had flipped at the sight of the server. She had said that the lady had claws. Apparently, not even ice cream calmed her down. That entry was titled "????"

When she had struggled through the bulk of the stories, Gwen looked up from the legal pad. "So?"

"So..." Her mom shrugged. "Are you starting to believe us yet?"

"What does this mean?" She pressed. "And why are we leaving?"

"It was a matter of time, Gwen," she said. "We tried to keep you safe, but... That doesn't always work. The adoption agency told us that when things got bad, we had to send you away."

"So you're―"

"We aren't giving you up," her mom said. "It's only for the summer."

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According to her parents, this special summer camp was in Long Island. That explained the four hour drive. But the long drive didn't bother the usually hyperactive Gwen, who had taken to poring over every single page in the folder, even if the tiny font made her head hurt.

Actually, it made her head hurt a lot. Like, a head-splitting-migraine type of hurt. Mix in forty-five minutes of upbeat Tejano music, and she was about to cry on the paper. When she couldn't take any more of the letters floating off the page, she handed the folder back to her mom.

"Any questions?" She asked.

"...If I am the kid of some Greek god," Gwen began, "then who's my super-cool-and-powerful godly parent?"

Her mom sighed. "They never told us."

"Seriously?" She huffed. "I mean, that's the least they could have―"

"Look!" Her mom said. "This is it."

Gwen looked out the window to see a brilliant sunset and... Fields. A painted sign read PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES.

Really? This was the summer camp her parents had been told to send her to? Nothing but strawberry fields?

The car slowed to a stop after a few more minutes, and her dad turned around in his seat. "This is as far as we can go."

"I mean, it's really not." Gwen gestured to the road. "Like, you could just drive a little further."

"It's the property line, Gwen. We're not allowed past that tree."

She followed his gaze to a pine tree sitting at the top of a pretty big hill. There weren't any fences to establish a property line, but her parents seemed to believe this, so Gwen went along with it.

Her parents both got out of the car to see her off. It was a little more tearful than Gwen would have wanted it to be― she had to push her mom away, muttering, "Relájate, mami"― but she made it through.

Her mom made her take the folder with her. "It's for the people in charge," she had said. Gwen thought she was crazy, but she tucked the folder under her arm anyway.

Duffel bag slung over her shoulder, Gwen climbed up the hill, almost to the pine tree. She turned around one more time, just to get a last look.

Maybe she shouldn't have, because her last look was of her mom crying on her dad's shoulder. He had never been shy about crying or anything, but he was looking a little misty-eyed, and she knew that if she saw both of them crying, she probably would lose it.

Gwen managed to wave before she turned and walked straight past the tree... And onto what looked like a real summer camp.

First, she noticed a giant blue house. Behind that glittered the surface of what looked like a decent-sized lake. To her left lay what she assumed were strawberry fields.

At least the sign hadn't lied.

The more she looked, the more buildings seemed to crop up. A sandpit, where some kids had struck up a game of volleyball. A different area full of little cabins. More pavilions. There was even an archery range.

Gwen didn't realize that all of them had been styled after Ancient Greek architecture until she looked to her right and saw an open-air amphitheater, just like the ones she'd seen in history books. A group of campers were chatting in the rows of seating, and she decided that she might as well start there. They'd know how to check in a new kid, right?

All of the kids she'd seen had been wearing orange T-shirts. Gwen stuck out in her hoodie and blue jeans, carrying a ratty old duffel bag. She realized that when all of them stared at her like she had three heads.

A tall, dark-skinned boy stood and walked over to her. Actually, he towered over her. He had to be a head taller and twice her size. Gwen got the feeling that she'd end her first day with having her face ground into the sandpit.

Then he broke into a smile, and the menacing aura around him evaporated. "New camper?"

"Yes," she managed to squeak out.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "C'mon, let's get you to the Big House."

The Big House ended up being that blue house she'd seen from the hilltop. It had to be three stories high, painted baby-blue with a white trim and a wraparound porch. The kid― who introduced himself as "Beckendorf," followed by a pulverizing handshake― led her around the porch to the back of the house.

Two men sat around a table, a deck of playing cards between them. The one facing Gwen looked up, and she froze. Scruffy gray beard, tortoiseshell glasses, the back of a wheelchair visible over the shoulder of his tweed jacket...

"Mr. Baker?"

The man in the wheelchair smiled. "Hello, Gwen."

Beside her, Beckendorf cleared his throat. "I'll find Luke."

"Thank you, child," Mr. Baker said. He looked expectantly at the man across from him, who finally heaved a sigh and turned to Gwen.

He looked like someone she might have seen at a Margaritaville. He had curly black hair, a bushy beard, and wore a tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirt... And he was clutching a can of Diet Coke in his hand. She would have expected a piña colada.

"Welcome to Camp Half Blood," he said, with so much grandeur it felt mocking. Turning to Mr. Baker, he added, "There, Chiron. I hope that makes you happy."

"Chiron?" Gwen turned to Beckendorf, looking for an answer, but found no one.

Mr. Baker smiled. "I'm afraid I had to lie to you, Gwen. Mr. Baker was an alias. My real name is Chiron."

"Right." Gwen looked at Margaritaville-man again. "And he is...?"

"This is Mr. D," Chiron said. "He's the camp director."

"Uh-huh. And since this is some weird Greek summer camp thing, I'm assuming the 'D' stands for... Dionysus?"

Mr. D glared at her. "Names are powerful things, Grace."

"Gwen."

"Exactly."

She turned to Chiron. "Is he always like this?"

He managed a smile. To her left, Mr. D said, "Ask Grace here if she's going to play, would you?"

"Ask me yourself," Gwen retorted.

"Now, Gwen," Chiron said quickly, "it's dangerous to be impolite to an Olympian."

She was about to say that Mr. D looked harmless, but something in his stony gaze told her that maybe insulting him would end badly. So, reluctantly, she took a seat and picked up the cards that he tossed her way.

"We need four to play pinochle, Chiron," Mr. D lamented.

"Pinochle?" Gwen frowned.

"Yes, pinochle," he retorted. "Do you know how to play?"

"No," she said. In her head, she added, because I'm not eighty years old.

"Luke should be here soon," Chiron said. "Until then, we'll talk."

Talking with Chiron seemed like a good idea. Talking with Mr. D did not. But Gwen grit her teeth and stayed in her seat, although she scooted a little closer to Chiron's wheelchair.

"So my parents are gods," she said.

"Something like that," Chiron replied. "One of your parents is a god. It's why you're allowed into camp. You are a half-blood, or demigod. Part god, part human."

Gwen nodded. "Like... Poseidon. Or Apollo."

"Names have power," Mr. D grumbled. "If I were you, I wouldn't use them so flippantly."

"I'm afraid you're no daughter of the Sea God," Chiron said. "The Big Three― Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades― swore off of having children decades ago."

"But did they really?" Gwen asked. "I mean, if they're all-powerful, what could make them honor that kind of promise?"

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Odd, because the sky was as clear as anything.

Mr. D scoffed. "Really, Chiron, are you going to let her speak that way?"

"Mr. D is right, Gwen," Chiron said. "It's unwise to speak that way about the gods. I'm afraid they don't like having their honor questioned. They see it as an insult."

Gwen was about to mention that none of this had convinced her about gods being real... Until she saw Mr. D wave his hand and summon a bottle of red wine.

Cue another round of thunder.

Mr. D huffed and looked at the sky. "Sorry! But really, you should hear how this girl is talking―"

If anything, the thunder worsened.

Another huff, and the wine bottle vanished. Mr. D begrudgingly picked up his can of Diet Coke. He must have seen the look on Gwen's face, because he adopted a smug grin.

"Do you believe in gods now?" He asked.

Chiron cut in before Gwen could sock him. "As I said, Gwen, there is no chance you could be the child of one of the Big Three."

"Because I can't be one, or because you don't want me to be one?" She replied.

"Because you would have been at camp long ago if you were," he said. "The mortal world isn't safe for demigods. It would be much worse for a forbidden child of the Big Three."

Gwen turned to Mr. D. "So you're... Dionysus."

"Well, of course. Do I look like Artemis to you?" He shot back.

"What's with the wine?"

She regretted that immediately. Mr. D huffed and said, "If you must know, Grace, my father sent me here as a punishment. One whole century with these brats, and not a single drop of wine!"

"Your... Father." Gwen racked her brains. "Zeus."

"For someone who doesn't believe in the gods, you sure know their names," he muttered. "But yes, my father punished me for― what do you kids call them now, crushes? For having a crush on a wood nymph."

The idea of this middle-aged man having a crush would have been laughable if Gwen didn't get the feeling that he'd smite her for even grinning about it.

Chiron cleared his throat and set his hand of cards down. "Ah, Luke. This is Gwen, our newest camper."

An older boy stood on the wraparound porch. He stood about as tall as Beckendorf, but without as much muscle. He had a mop of curly black hair and a grin that, while polite, gave Gwen the feeling that he'd try to nick her wallet from her duffel bag.

"This is where we part ways for now, Gwen," Chiron said. "I'll see you at the campfire, won't I?"

Gwen paused. "Um... Yes?"

"Excellent," he said, and turned back to his game of pinochle. She could have sworn that she heard Mr. D mutter something like "good riddance" as he shuffled the deck.

Duffel bag in hand, Gwen followed the older boy― Luke― down to two rows of cabins, all styled differently. He took her to a cabin on the end of one of the rows, painted brown and looking a little worse for wear.

A few kids looked up when Luke stepped inside, Gwen trailing behind him. Some of them had sprawled out on beds, others sat cross-legged on the floor.

One kid piped up after a moment of silence. "Regular or undetermined?"

"Undetermined," Luke said, and the kids all groaned.

He showed her to a spot on the floor. "It's not the Ritz, but it's all yours, Gwen."

"You're funny," she muttered. When he looked confused, she added, "I mean, there are beds right there―"

"Oh, those are for the Hermes kids," he said. "The ones who've been claimed."

"Hermes."

"Yup. My dad. God of travelers, merchants... Thieves."

He grinned again, and Gwen held her duffel bag a little closer to her chest. "So... You know you're his kid? Like, for sure?"

"Yes ma'am," he said.

"Why can't I just... Move into another cabin?" She asked. "I mean, this one is packed."

Luke grimaced. "You don't choose your cabin, Gwen. It depends on your godly parent."

Right. Her godly parent. The one who had yet to show up at all, and who was now allowing her to sleep on the floor of this dingy old cabin. Thanks, Mom... Or Dad.

"How long will it take for them to... I dunno, send me a sign?" She asked.

"It depends."

"Of course it does," she muttered. "Is there something I have to do, or―"

Luke slung his arm around her shoulder. "C'mon. The singalong starts in five."

That didn't answer any of her questions, but Gwen didn't have it in her to argue. She dropped her duffel bag on the patch of hardwood floor meant for her, then glared at the other kids, as if that would stop them from pickpocketing her.

The campfire was a huge fire pit situated in the middle of the two rows of cabins. Gwen sat with a handful of other kids, all wearing orange T-shirts, all from the Hermes cabin. One group of kids led a singalong― Luke said they were the children of Apollo― and it wasn't half bad.

She did see Chiron at the campfire, but to her shock, he hadn't come in his wheelchair. Instead, he stood taller than any of the other campers, his human half grafted smoothly to the hindquarters of a great black stallion.

"No one told me about that!" She'd exclaimed, and the group of Hermes kids around her burst into laughter.

"You'll get used to it," Luke told her. "Nothing's too out-of-the-ordinary here."

Gwen thought back to Mr. D summoning the bottle of wine. "No kidding."

Once the campfire burned away to just a few embers, all of the kids began to head back to their cabins. Luke and about a dozen others, Gwen included, made for the brown cabin at the end of the row.

She trudged her way over to the place she'd left her duffel bag. She hadn't even been given a sleeping bag.

With a long sigh, Gwen laid down on the wood flooring. She tried using her duffel bag as a pillow, but it only made her neck hurt. She spent the next ten minutes trying out every possible way to sleep, with no luck.

"It gets better," one of the girls across from her said.

At first, Gwen felt a pang of embarrassment. Had her tossing and turning been that loud? Did the other kids hear it?

Then the girl laughed. "I've been here for years. You get used to sleeping on the floor after a while."

"Yeah, but you have a sleeping bag," she muttered.

"You'll get one soon enough." The girl smiled and said, "Luke wouldn't let you go without one."

That wasn't much help. Still miffed, Gwen only nodded and laid back down. Camp didn't seem terrible yet, minus the lack of a sleeping bag and the cranky director. But she wasn't totally sure that she was going to like it, either.

She didn't know how late she stayed up, but that night she fell asleep thinking about her parents. Not her adoptive parents, but her godly ones. She tried imagining what Hades would look like, or Aphrodite. Mentally, she thought Poseidon would look like Mr. D, with some disgustingly vibrant Hawaiian shirt and a beard.

Gwen didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke up to sunlight filling the cabin and Luke shaking her shoulder.

"C'mon," he said, grinning. "Let's get some breakfast."