I Get Schooled by an Old Friend First, I tried to find Eudora, my supernatural guidance counselor.
Since she was the Nereid in charge of gifts from the sea, I thought maybe she could supply me with a magical fish that attracted hellhounds, or a pirate’s leg bone that acted like catnip for polecats …. I don’t know.
Something.
But Eudora was AWOL. Her office was empty. The candy jar on her desk contained no Jolly Ranchers. Bummer. I glanced at Sicky Frog, the purple cartoon wall painting left over from the time when this room used to be an elementary school nurse’s office.
“I get the feeling Eudora is trying to avoid me,” I told him. Sicky Frog looked miserable.
“Why is she so scared of Hecate?” I asked. Sicky Frog had no answers.
“Good talk,” I said. “Hope you feel better soon.”
Second idea: I stopped by my history teacher’s classroom. Dr. Sharma had her prep period when I had English. Since we were watching a movie that day in English, I figured I could miss a few minutes.
Dr. Sharma was pretty cool—and not just because she’d said Very good, Mr. Jackson the day before. She knew a lot about ancient cultures.
She’d been bugging me to pick a topic for my paper on a forgotten historical figure. I’d been avoiding it, since I’d met so many forgotten historical figures and killed them all. Now, though, maybe I could ask Dr.
Sharma what she knew about Hecuba, queen of Troy. She might be able to tell me something that would help me find the hellhound. If it saved me from breaking my brain against a mountain of history books, all the better.
I strolled up to her open doorway and froze when I looked inside.
The man who was eating a late breakfast at Dr. Sharma’s desk was definitely not Dr. Sharma.
His dark hair and beard were flecked with gray. He wore a rumpled tweed jacket, tie, and dress shirt, with a flannel blanket over his lap. His old- fashioned wheelchair had hand-pushed steel wheels and well-worn black
leather armrests. He held a half-eaten bagel in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in other. I registered all these details with perfect clarity, but
somehow, I still did not recognize him.
The best way I can describe the feeling is like bungee jumping. One second, you’re at the top of a cliff. The next, the river is hurtling toward you. Your
senses are screaming on high alert. You see the water. Then, suddenly, it’s racing away from you again as you recoil into the air, and you’re left halfway between, not sure if you’re in two places at once or nowhere at all.
Finally, my brain caught up.
“M-Mr. Brunner?” I stammered.
I hadn’t called him Mr. Brunner since I was twelve years old, but old habits die hard. Seeing him back behind a teacher’s desk after all these years …
He glanced over with a smile. A dollop of cream cheese clung to his beard. “Percy! Hello, my boy.”
My mind raced. What year was I in? I instinctively started worrying about whether I’d done my Latin homework, because back in sixth grade, he was the only teacher I’d cared about doing well for. My disorientation was even worse because Mr. Brunner looked exactly as he had back then, being secretly immortal and all.
“You teach here now?” I asked.
“Just filling in as a substitute.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Your stepfather recommended me.”
“You know Paul?” I tried to remember when the two of them might have
met—the Battle of Manhattan, maybe? I’d been too busy at the time to keep track of who everybody was meeting, fighting, or killing.
Mr. Brunner chuckled. “Of course. Paul is an excellent teacher. He got me on the substitute list for the district.”
“So, you’re watching over a possible demigod at AHS?” I wondered who it might be, and why they hadn’t started manifesting their powers until high school. Molly Leary was always constructing Lego murder-bots in the engineering lab and sending them into the halls to terrorize people.
Potential child of Hephaestus?
“No, no, Percy,” Mr. Brunner assured me. “The only demigod I know of at AHS is you. I simply like to teach from time to time, to keep my skills
fresh!”
He sounded as if he meant it … though how anyone could enjoy being a substitute teacher was beyond me. That was like volunteering to be the target on an archery range.
He set his cup down on a stack of papers. “I wasn’t expecting you until later in the day. Dr. Sharma has you for fourth period, yes? Ancient Cultures. My favorite!”
I found myself smiling. I couldn’t believe my good luck. This was even better than talking to Dr. Sharma, because with Mr. Brunner, I could tell him everything.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said. “I need—”
“Just a moment, my boy.” He winced as he shifted in his wheelchair. “I rode here this morning on the Long Island Railroad. My back legs are killing me.
Since you’re here, would you mind watching the door while I get out and stretch?”
“Oh, uh, sure.”
Because why not make things more awkward?
I kept lookout as Mr. Brunner undid his wheelchair. The blanket-covered
fake human legs swung sideways like car door. He grasped his armrests and slowly pulled himself out of the chair, which was a magical storage space big enough to contain his true form. First the front legs of a horse emerged, then the full body of a magnificent stallion, until standing before me was
the centaur Chiron, activities director of Camp Half-Blood, immortal trainer of heroes, his head nearly brushing the fluorescent light fixtures.
He clopped around the classroom, flicking his tail, shaking his back legs, and knocking the student desks out of alignment.
Nobody came down the hall. I’m not sure what I would have said if someone did.
Oh, hi, just lounging in the doorway of this classroom. Those clopping sounds? I don’t hear anything.
What bothered me more was the way Chiron limped on his back left leg.
I’d noticed it for the first time last summer, which makes me sound super inattentive, I know. In my defense: 1) every summer I’d attended Camp Half-Blood, I’d actually spent ninety percent of my time not at camp, running around the world on quests, trying not to die. I’d never focused on how Chiron walked when he was in centaur form. Also, 2) I was, in fact, super inattentive.
Once I noticed the limp, I kind of fixated on it. It gradually occurred to me that the guy didn’t use his wheelchair just as a disguise. For him, walking was painful. Sometimes he needed a break. Once I spotted him with a leg
brace. Another time I stumbled across him in the Apollo cabin, getting some herbal lotions to rub on his knee.
Finally, I’d asked Annabeth what the deal was. She’d looked at me like she wanted to whack me upside the head with a two-by-four piece of DUH.
“That was Hercules’s fault,” she said. “He wounded Chiron in the leg with a poisoned arrow.”
“Why?”
“It was an accident. He was aiming for another centaur.”
“Stupid Hercules,” I grumbled. “Wait, you mean this happened thousands of years ago, and it hasn’t healed yet?”
“It can’t heal,” Annabeth said. “And I can’t believe you’re just noticing.
Chiron is in agony every day of his eternal life. He does a good job hiding it, but the main thing that keeps him going is that he cares about us, the
demigods he trains.” Wow.
After that, I’d felt super guilty. Not once had it occurred to me that Chiron was in pain. I’d never asked him how he was feeling. I’d never sent him a card on Centaur Appreciation Day. I hadn’t told him Thank you for putting up with me nearly enough times. And after more than five years, I felt awkward saying anything at this point.
Chiron stretched his back leg one more time. He winced, gritting his teeth. “Yes. Much better, thank you.”
From his tone, I guessed it wasn’t much better. Chiron backed into his wheelchair, closed the fake-leg hatch, and once again he was Mr. Brunner, a mild-mannered substitute teacher with a tweed jacket and a half-eaten oat bagel.
He straightened his tie. “So, Percy, was there something I could help you with?”
On one hand, I felt bad dumping my problems on him. On the other hand, he looked like he was really interested in hearing them. Chiron had always been a good listener. Maybe he welcomed the distraction. I was nothing if not distracting.
I told him about Hecate and our little situation with her broken-down mansion and missing pets.
If my goal had been to make Chiron look even more pained, I succeeded beautifully.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “Yeah.”
“And Hecate returns Friday night?”
I nodded. “How bad have we messed up?”
He drummed his fingers on his armrest. “Well … I’ve seen worse. When Sinon convinced the Trojans to let the wooden horse inside their gates, for instance, or when Salmoneus pretended to be Zeus and got his entire city destroyed.”
“Great.”
“At least Hecate won’t destroy all of New York. She owns property in Manhattan, so that borough’s probably safe ….”
I guess my expression must’ve been pretty dismal.
Chiron cleared his throat. “Let’s not dwell on worst-case scenarios. You say Annabeth and Grover are helping you.”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, I have full confidence. Together, you three are a powerful team. Do you have a plan?”
“Uh … my first thought was Hecate’s torches. She said we could use them in case of emergency.”
“No!” Chiron yelped so loudly I almost fell over. “No, Percy, Hecate’s
torches raise ghosts to do her bidding. At this time of year—what you call Halloween—the torches become even more powerful. You cannot risk it unless you want an army of angry spirits to tear you apart. Why Hecate would tell you to use them, I can’t imagine … unless she is trying to test you.”
I gave that some thought. If a god was going to test me, I would’ve preferred multiple choice. Then again, Hecate was all about multiple choices. She stood at the crossroads, waiting to see which direction you would take.
Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that she’d left a strawberry-flavored experiment behind—with a loose lid, at that—to tempt Grover. Or that
she’d suggested I use her torches. Or that she’d mentioned her tantalizingly dangerous library … which Annabeth would be exploring right about now.
A feeling of dread crept down my back.
But why would Hecate set us up to fail? When it came to her pets, she was the original helicopter mom. She wouldn’t want to lose them. As for letting us wreck her mansion … it seemed like a pretty convoluted way to get her insurance company to pay for a remodel.
“Okay, no torches, then,” I said. “I’ve been attacked by enough spirits of the dead for one lifetime.”
Chiron’s expression darkened. “Ah, but not all ghosts are souls of the departed, Percy. Some of the worst ghosts can be memories, regrets … the choices we’ve made, or failed to make.”
Great.
I remembered the flickering blue image of the child on the bicycle. I wondered if that had been a departed soul, or a living memory, or if it mattered, because either way it had freaked me out.
“So, Plan B,” I said. “I went by Eudora’s office to ask for her help, but she’s been in hiding ever since Hecate showed up.”
Chiron nearly choked on his bagel. “The Nereid Eudora? She’s here?”
Silly me, assuming all the immortal beings who passed through my school knew about one another. Alternative High was like Ancient Greek Grand Central Station. I told Chiron about my questionably helpful counselor, and how she’d made herself scarce when the triple-headed trick-or-treater appeared.
Chiron sipped his tea. “That must have been a shock for Eudora.” “Those two have a history?”
“It’s not my story to tell,” Chiron said. “But yes … a complicated history.”
“Having to do with choices?” I guessed. “Regrets?”
He looked at the remains of his breakfast as if they had personally disappointed him. “Something like that. Do you have a Plan C?”
“I was going to ask Dr. Sharma what she knew about Hecuba, maybe get a lead on where she might go. But since you’re here …”
Chiron relaxed his shoulders. “That I can help with. Hecuba was the last queen of Troy. When the Greeks took the city, they killed her children and enslaved her. Hecuba despaired and threw herself into the sea. She would have died, but the goddess Hecate took pity on her and turned her into a
dog.”
I made a mental note never to earn Hecate’s pity. Being a dog didn’t sound like much of a consolation prize.
“So … would she go back to the sea?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Chiron said. “For Trojans, bad things always came from the sea
….” His eyes lit up. “Like the Greeks! Hecuba hated the Greeks. She still would. She might be looking for opportunities for revenge.”
“Please don’t tell me she went to Greece.”
“She wouldn’t need to,” Chiron said. “She would follow the nearest scent. There are many enclaves of Greek immigrants nearby. Why, we’re presently in one.”
“Alternative High School?”
Chiron showed his immense patience by not laughing in my face. “No, my boy. Astoria. This part of Queens has a huge Greek community.”
“You mean Hecuba might be around here right now?”
Somehow this seemed both reasonable and annoying—that the dog I was hunting for would be, like, right next door, chewing on some poor dude with Greek heritage.
“That is one possibility,” Chiron said. “If so, she will be hunting at night, looking for mortals to scare to death. Casting spells of mischief. Causing bad luck. You must find her.”
I shuddered. “I guess I can go back to the mansion, get her treats, and search Astoria tonight.”
“Treats might work,” Chiron agreed. “But there is another possibility.
You said you called on Mrs. O’Leary last night. When she started following a scent, where did it lead her?”
“Straight to the nearest hellpuppy,” I said. “Which was kind of sweet. But also, not so helpful.”
“On the contrary, my boy. Female hellhounds have a strong maternal instinct. Mrs. O’Leary proved that. While Hecuba is no longer human, she is still haunted by the deaths of her children. She would be very, ah, motherly, in her own way. This puppy of yours might prove useful.”
A plan started to form in my head. It was a strange sensation, actually having some idea of what I was going to do.
“That’s really helpful,” I said. “Thanks, Mr.—Chiron.”
The old centaur smiled. “You may call me Brunner or Chiron, as you wish, Percy. I am happy with both identities. Unfortunately, even if you find Hecuba, you’ll still have to locate Gale and fix the mansion. So many problems, so little time.”
“That’s kind of my life story,” I said. “I don’t suppose you could write me a note, get me out of school for the rest of the day?”
Chiron frowned. “Now, Percy, you know you have a quiz in Dr. Sharma’s class. We can’t let you miss that, can we?”
Suddenly I remembered the downside of having Mr. Brunner as a teacher.
He believed in me, which meant he believed in my grades. He always insisted on me trying my best.
“No, sir,” I mumbled. “I guess I’ll wait until after school.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Run along to class. I know you will do well on the test!”
