In Which a Special Guest Star Is Introduced

"That's it," Annabeth muttered to Frank. "I'm calling it. There is no such thing as a normal day working here. When I asked what a day in the life looks like during my interview with Mr. D, he fuckin' lied."

"Uh, duh," Leo said. "Mr. D is a fucking liar."

Frank wrung his hands and said, "I prefer to think of a day in the life at Olympus as things like... this..." He trailed off, waving at the scene in front of them.

Percy Jackson, assistant manager of Olympus Auto, was frantically digging through every drawer, cabinet, nook, and cranny in existence, looking for crayons. Or colored pencils. Or markers, but preferably not the Sharpie Drew was using to tie up her hair because Sharpie bleeds through paper, and it gets all over hands, and-

"Where is it?" Percy demanded. "C'mon, I know you guys had a package of fun highlighters in here!"

Leo held out his empty hands. "Sorry, boss man, but they were all yellow. We don't have the luxury of good colors."

"I happen to like yellow," Frank said softly. Then, he turned to Percy. "I have a blue pen."

"We all have blue pens, Frank," Annabeth said, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. Percy would never buy a different color, which was probably why he was now in desperate need of more colors.

Percy groaned. "Seriously, guys? I'm kind of in a pinch here."

Maybe if Annabeth's boss had paid attention to the color-coded schedule Nico sent out on Google, he would have been able to plan his day around his little sister's visit home for Thanksgiving break. Because he couldn't be bothered, he was now scouring the entire property for something she could color with.

"Have you guys ever met Percy's sister?" Annabeth whispered to Frank and Leo. Sure, it was sweet that he was going out of his way to prepare some things for his younger sister to do, but this was excessive. Annabeth couldn't say she was exactly sibling of the year material, but she always thought visits like this were supposed to be fun.

"Yeah," said Frank. "Sometimes, when she's home for breaks and her parents can't get a sitter, they leave her here with Percy, which means that Will tries to keep her busy while Leo and I assess the damage."

It felt weird to have this conversation while Percy was right there, but he wasn't paying attention. He was too busy adding to his collection of miscellaneous writing utensils.

"I take it she's kind of high maintenance?" Annabeth asked.

Leo scoffed. "If you ask me, Percy does it to himself by worrying all the time. Estelle's not a baby anymore; she's... Gods, Frank, you think she's like twelve now?"

"Something like it," Frank agreed.

"She's a good kid," Leo continued. "She's just... so much younger than Percy, and he's such a committed older brother, that she's sort of got only child syndrome."

"It doesn't help that she goes to a fancy boarding school back in New York," Frank added. "When she's home, she's really spoiled."

"But Percy's more the problem. She's not that bad," Leo said. "She's not rich, at least."

Frank nodded in agreement. "At least there's that."

Annabeth lowered her voice more if that was even possible. "So on a scale of one to ten, how much is today going to suck?"

Leo pursed his lips, but he never got the chance to answer Annabeth's question because of Percy's what-should-have-been-a-side-quest.

"Aha!" he shouted. "I knew you guys were holding out on me!" He held up a red bingo dauber like some kind of trophy.

"Why do we have that?" Annabeth asked.

Leo seemed offended at the very implication that the mechanics don't need a bingo dauber. "Just in case."

Percy turned to the mechanics and said, "We're getting Chipotle catered for lunch. My mom says that Estelle is really into that right now."

Leo groans. "For real? A chain Mexican restaurant? We could at least get food from somewhere authentic like Papi's!"

"I'm not qualified to weigh in on what constitutes good Mexican food, but even I know that Papi's is the shit," Annabeth said.

Percy snapped his fingers. "And that reminds me: please try to keep the swearing to a minimum today. My mom is already kind of pissed that Estelle's started saying crap. I mean, she's mad."

"Gods forbid anyone says crap," Leo said.

Percy shot him a nasty glare and then went back to turning the office supply drawer upside down. Annabeth couldn't speak for Frank and Leo, but she sure as hell wasn't about to clean that up.

The side door to the garage opened and Will's blonde curls appeared in the space, half in, and half out. "Percy, she's here; your stepdad wants to see you."

Percy jumped to his feet and pocketed the office supplies he had stolen from the garage. "Coming!" He turned to Leo, Frank, and Annabeth. "C'mon, I want you guys to meet Estelle."

They obliged, trailing a few paces behind him.

"Don't you guys already know her?" Annabeth asked.

Frank nodded. "Yeah, but we have to go introduce ourselves every time. I can't blame her for not remembering us, but you know..."

Everyone was gathered in the lobby to greet Percy's sister, which once again begged the question: did anyone at Olympus Auto do any actual work? What was Annabeth's productivity compared to everyone else's? Who the hell ran Olympus Auto when the entire staff was doing shit like this?

Leo and Frank's guess was right; the girl stealing candy from Nico's dish seemed about twelve years old. She had dark hair like Percy's, but she didn't have his mesmerizing green eyes. She was the spitting image of the man standing next to her, who Annabeth assumed to be Percy's stepdad, Paul... Paul Blowfish?

"Stella!" Percy shouted, bending down for a hug.

As any typical preteen would, she shrugged off the hug and turned to Paul. "I do not need babysitting, Dad."

"It'll be a great opportunity for you and your brother to spend some time together," Paul said, sounding very much like Percy. "When's the last time you saw him?"

"We're going to have so much fun!" Percy said. "I got a coloring book, and we're ordering Chipotle for lunch!"

Piper's jaw dropped. "You didn't tell me we were getting Chipotle!"

Nico shuffled behind the reception desk. "Uh, I don't think we have a coloring book back here."

"We should have two," Percy said. "There's a princess one and a Batman one."

"Oh my god, Percy," Estelle said. "I am way too old for princesses."

"But not Batman!"

Color rapidly rose to Nico's face as Percy sifted through the drawers.

Will cleared his throat. "I think I have a deck of cards in my car."

Percy wasn't ready to give up on the coloring book. If you asked Annabeth, Estelle was too old to find entertainment in coloring books but not old enough for the nostalgia that comes with coloring in some line art of Batman and Robin.

"Aha!" Percy said for the second time that day. He was going to need to stop saying that before he got on Annabeth's nerves.

He held a coloring book up in the air. "You may be too old for princesses, but I've got this Batman coloring book!"

"Okay, first off," Estelle said, "That's a Justice League coloring book. Also, I am not coloring. Don't you have any games on your phone?"

Annabeth did not want to be watching this family squabble, and judging by the way her friends were shuffling awkwardly, neither did Frank and Leo.

Evidently, Percy's stepdad Paul wasn't into watching this either. He said a quick goodbye to Estelle and thanked Percy for watching her before bolting out of the lobby and onto the lot.

Completely ignoring his stepfather, Percy flipped through the pages of the coloring book as if that would entice Estelle. "Look, there's Batman and the Joker, and this one has the Flash on it, and... Alright, who drew a monocle on Wonder Woman?"

Nico snickered. "Sorry. Sorry."

"Nico!" Percy scolded. "Did you color every page in this book?"

"No!" he said. "Will colored some too!"

Yep. Annabeth needed to get back to work.

"Well, what about the princess one?"

"It's okay, Percy. I really don't want to color," Estelle tried to interject.

"Nico!" Percy shouted as he sifted through the Disney princess coloring book. "Why are some of these torn out?"

"Because Piper said she wanted to hang my Megara art in her bedroom."

"Nuh-uh!" Piper shouted. "Do not drag me into this!"

Estelle simply rolled her eyes and reached into Nico's candy dish, sifting through the Jolly Ranchers until she found all the blue ones. She unwrapped one of the candies and popped it in her mouth. How many had she eaten already? Her lips were beginning to turn blue.

"What is she supposed to do now?" Percy asked although it seemed pointed more at himself. He dug through the drawers once more. Poor Nico flinched every time one of the carefully organized files hit the floor.

Percy slammed a drawer hard enough to send Nico's man-purse tumbling to the floor, and out came... toys?

"Perfect," Percy said, picking up the tiny figurine.

Nico snatched it out of his hands and said, "No."

"Cough 'em up, Nico; we'll give them back."

"Are those MythoMagic figurines?" Frank asked.

"No. Yes. Maybe," Nico said.

"Cool, so it's fine if Estelle plays with them?" Percy asked, retrieving two more figurines from Nico's bag.

Annabeth was more of a Pokémon kid, but she stopped collecting those cards by the time she was in middle school. Also, there was that incident where her baby brothers took her rare Charizard card while she was at summer camp, but that's beside the point. Annabeth was an adult who no longer played with Pokémon cards.

Then again, the Pokémon Go craze had quite a grip on her.

"You cannot play with these!" Nico explained. "They are rare collectibles!"

"Please, Nico!" Percy begged. His position had him conveniently on his knees—the perfect position for begging.

"Percy, I do not want to play with your friend's stupid toys," Estelle said. "Where's the bathroom?"

Leo pointed to the back of the room. "Right over there, little mamacita!"

"Thanks," she said.

Annabeth couldn't take it anymore. When Estelle disappeared into the bathroom, she said, "Percy, your sister is too old for that kid stuff."

"She had fun coloring in the summer," he said.

"I hate to agree with Annabeth," Drew said, "but she's right. Your sister is in middle school now. Middle school changes people."

"No, it doesn't," Percy said dismissively. "It didn't change me."

"It's different for girls," Drew said. "She's either reading smutty fanfiction or making TikToks in the bathroom. No in-between."

"Middle schoolers don't do that stuff," Percy said.

"Yeah, they do," said Drew. "I used to skip English class so I could make Musical.ly videos in the bathroom, and I bet Annabeth used to skip gym class to read smutty fanfiction in the bathroom."

"No, she didn't," said Percy.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I was pretty into the Arrowverse fandom."

"Arrowverse?" Piper asked. "C'mon, you could've read like, Batfam fanfiction or something. Maybe those Avengers ones where everyone had their own floor in the tower."

"I read that too." Annabeth didn't need to tell them she used to read those character/reader pairings. Nobody was going to find out about that if she could help it.

"Hey," Leo said. "Crazy idea... Nobody has to indulge me, but... Now just hear me out-"

"Everyone's listening, Leo," Frank said softly.

"Huh," he said. "That doesn't usually happen. What if Estelle hung out with us in the garage? There's not much going on, but we do have superior tunes."

Annabeth fought to keep from groaning at the very thought of listening to more Aerosmith and Journey music.

Instead, she found herself saying, "Yeah, maybe we could like, teach her how to check the oil in a car. She'll need that soon enough."

"You would do that?" Percy asked. "You guys are the best!"

"Of course!" Frank said. "I love kids!"

When Estelle came out of the bathroom, Drew looked at Percy with raised eyebrows.

"She doesn't even have a phone yet!" Percy said.

"Uh-huh," Drew said. "Come on, Piper. Let's go... anywhere else."

"Coffee run?"

Drew nodded. "Hold down the fort, Will."

"Hey!" Will said. "There's a page in here that hasn't been colored yet!"

"Yeah, because nobody wants to color the Black Canary, Will. Nobody even knows who she is besides me, and probably Annabeth," said Nico.

Annabeth shrugged. She'd been known to read some Black Canary fanfiction in her day. If she could find her old fanfiction.net account, she'd probably uncover some Black Canary/Huntress fanfiction that she wrote before she knew proper dialogue rules.

"Come on, Estelle!" Leo said, taking his energy from zero to a hundred. "I'm Leo. We're going to the garage!"

She looked at Percy with wide eyes.

Percy shrugged. "The mechanics offered to teach you a few things about cars."

Annabeth nodded, even though she was already beginning to regret agreeing to this offer. How was she supposed to get any work done if she was entertaining Estelle? She didn't even know Estelle! She could be a demon child for all Annabeth knew!

Frank liked kids, and Leo made the offer in the first place. They would have to carry.

"If it sucks, I'm not giving you any of Mom's cookies."

Leo gasped. "You have Sally's cookies and didn't tell anyone?"

"Well, you can have some," she said, color rising to her cheeks.

"Can I have some?" Frank asked, only to be ignored altogether.

Annabeth looked behind her before retreating into the garage. Perhaps Percy would see the fear in her eyes and change his mind. Maybe he could play Netflix for Estelle on the computer in his office.

Instead of rescuing her, he gave Annabeth a cheesy grin and a double thumbs-up.