Chapter 1
Merri sighed leaning her head on the window as her mother drove her back to camp. She wasn't sure if it was from the jet lag she was experiencing or the fact that she had to spend another year in this place. Don't get me wrong, the camp was great and she liked it there better than any school she'd gone to so far, but that didn't mean she liked to go to school.
To be honest, she loathed school. The problem wasn't learning, she actually liked that, but the teachers and the other kids there. She had a problem with sitting still for too long so her teachers constantly nagged her about it. It also didn't help that they were so dull, boring and monotonous and she would quickly lose interest in the lessons.
Aside from the teachers who never liked her, the biggest problem were the other students who tended to bully her because of her hair, the fact that she didn't have a father, had attention span problems and could be really jumpy in some situations. The bullying was the real reason she hated going to school.
Nervously, she started fingering the hemline of her navy blue T-shirt with a Pikachu on the front. No matter how old she got, she still loved to watch Pokémon, even had an Umbreon plushy, which was currently safely tucked inside her black backpack. Out of the corner of her eye, Jane, her mom, smiled at her nervousness.
''I'm sure everything will be just fine once we get there, Merri. The cam couldn't have change that much in the last month'', a reassuring look on her face managed to calm Merri's nerves, if only a tad bit.
''That's not the real issue,'' she admitted. '' I'm just worried that the others might start teasing me like kids at school do.'' Merri looked back out the window and saw that they were just close by the camp so she turned back to her mom. '' You can stop right here; I'll walk the rest of the way.''
''Are you sure, sweetie?'' Jane asked while stopping the car. Merri just smiled at her.
''I'm sure, mom. It's not so big of a deal, anyway. The camp is just a 5-minute walk from here, maybe a bit more. Don't worry, I'll be fine,'' she reassured her. She'd walked this road so many times by now that she was sure she knew where every stone, tree and bush stood. In her eyes, there was no reason to panic.
After about 10 minutes of reassuring her mom that she would be perfectly fine going to the camp alone, Merri bid her goodbye, took her sea green suitcase out of the trunk of their car and, without looking back, made her way to the entrance of the camp.
Despite the blazing heat of the August sun, she wore a black leather jacket she got from her Uncle Cole and Aunt Jill for her seventeenth birthday last December.
She also wore dark blue ripped skinny jeans and a pair of her favorite red Converse with neon green laces. On her wrist, there was a golden bronze bracelet she got from her father just after she was born, or so her mom told her, that she never took off. The man may have left them while she was just six months old but that didn't mean she didn't want to have something from him to remember him by.
After her dad left her and her mom, Jane moved back to her parents (they were all still living in Melbourne at that point) and stayed there for about four years. During that time, Jane met an American named Jack Samuels who was living in Melbourne at the time. They started dating and, about two years later, they got married and Merri got a step-father. Not long after, they moved to Seattle with Jack and have been living there ever since.
To Merri, Jack was a nice guy who didn't kiss up to people and who treated her like an adult because he knew she hated being treated like a child. He was never mean to her or tried to rub in the fact her father left her and was great to her mom. And she had to say, the man wasn't hard on the eyes as well.
Despite the fact that her mom and step-dad have been married since Merri was four and a half, Merri never called him 'dad' or anything like that. Her mom asked her about it once, a few years back, and Merri said that it wasn't because she wanted to be disrespectful of Jack, since she really liked him, but because she just can't force herself to call him her father when her real one might be out there somewhere. Merri even apologized to Jack in case he felt offended by this but he just shrugged it off and told her that he doesn't mi d her calling him by his name.
Merri didn't have a big family and she was okay with it, although, there could be about 150 people at the Rafter family reunions. She had her grandparents, Nicholas and Ellen, who still lived in Melbourne and with who she would usually spend at least a month during the summer. Then there was her Uncle Cole, her mom's big brother, his wife, Jill, and their two children, Corey and Sally. They too used to live in Melbourne but moved to Sidney when her uncle got a job offer there.
Trekking through the woods, Merri soon got where she was headed. In front of her stood an arch on which it said 'Camp Half-blood'.
Yes, Merri was a demigod like so many others and she kept it hidden from the world. The only people who knew were her mom, uncle and grandparents. Both Jack and Jill (no pun intended) thought her father was some sort of a Marine or something and that he disappeared on a mission. Merri knew the truth as to not only that her father is a god but also his true identity, something not even her mom knew. Her mom knew her father was a god but she didn't know which one. Merri knew but was warned not to reveal his identity until the right time or she could put herself and her family in danger, so she hid this little piece of information for the last ten years.
Merri had at first attended Camp Half-blood during the summer but started attending if full-time when she turned twelve. She still spent a month or two in the summer with her family and also celebrated birthdays with them.
Due to her solitary personality, Merri didn't have many friends at camp. To be honest, she had none. She usually tended to stay away from people and was a part of the group only when it couldn't be avoided. What can she say; she likes to have her privacy.
Assuming this year would be like all before it, Merri took a deep breath and passed Thalia's barrier thus entering camp grounds. But boy was she wrong.
