Leah and I Make a Friend

The rain pattering on my window, I pulled myself out of my bed and threw on a jacket and sneakers before stumbling out the front door to check the mail. The point of checking my mailbox became unclear after a while, as I rarely got letters from my father and never from my mother.

So when I reached my hand into the small opening and found a letter, with Hermes’s certification stamp and everything, I was shocked. I trudged up my driveway as I opened it, still confused as to why I had a letter at all. Once the letter was safe in my dry bedroom I clicked on my piano music from my record then pulled the letter out of the envelope and read over it, still in shock.

 

Dear Halia,

Your father has let me know about the portal closing. I’m so disappointed because I was actually trying to get permission to visit you, but Apollo your father wasn’t sure whether it’d be a good thing for you.

I want to let you know how disappointed I am that I won’t be able to see you without permission from your father, Zeus, and Hades. Hopefully I can get a quick approval soon and come see you. I want to know what you look like and how you’ve changed in the past… many years. Gosh, it’s hard for me to think about how long it’s been since I’ve seen you.

I really want to see you. I miss you.

 

Love,

Mom

 

I stared at the paper. “Yeah right,” I said aloud as a remark to the “I miss you” part. It took me a minute or two to realize why I was so shocked, even for getting a letter from my mother I haven’t seen in seven years; she’d written the letter in English. And I could read it.

“Miss Burrows!” I shouted into the phone. “I can read English!”

“I’m coming over right now!” she shouted, hanging up the phone before I could politely decline her an invitation. Any other day I’d be fine with her visit, but I hadn’t even taken a shower yet. I didn’t have enough time to shower, so I gave up the thought and soon found myself sitting at my piano thoughtlessly. My mind didn’t have to think about what I was playing; my fingers just kind of crawled over the keys and knew immediately what notes to play and when to hit them.

A knock came at my door. I reluctantly left my piano to welcome my English teacher inside. “Hi,” I said with no expression, trying to hide the fact that I was disappointed in her interrupting my playing.

“Is it true? Show me the letter!”

I held the letter from my mother to her, even though I didn’t want her to know what she wrote to me. As her eyes raked over the letter carefully I noticed the corner of her mouth twitching every once and a while. Even though I failed to mention it, it annoyed me.

Then Miss Burrows pulled me into an unwanted hug and said, “You’ve passed the class as long as you can read it out loud to me!” Then she handed me the letter back and waited for me to read it.

As I stared at the paper my head pounded and my eyes filled with tears, realizing that something was wrong. The letters floated around, refusing to stay in place for me to read them. “No,” I whispered, squinting my eyes together and trying to read the letters without success. I held my head with my hand and moaned. “I swear I could read it, I can tell you what its about… the ability just kind of comes and goes, I can still read English, I can still pass… I’m sure it will come back soon. I think.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Miss Burrows said disappointedly before walking out the door again, leaving me there to cry all alone.

 

Leah came racing over to me, her arms outstretched. Until I saw her up close I thought she was just happy to see me, but then I saw the tears.

“Leah?” I said, blinking back my own tears; I always cried when other people cried. It was impossible to explain, because it didn’t make any sense, but I tried to resist it all the time, never with any success. “Hun, what’s wrong?”

She held onto me for a moment before replying, “Christopher is missing! Everyone’s looking for him but he’s nowhere to be found!” Tears spilled from her eyes onto my sweater. “He’s my best friend, besides you of course, and he’s practically disappeared off the face of Pontadonas.”

Instead of replying with some snide remark like I usually would, I cried with her. Christopher was missing? One of my very best friends in the history of my life? It felt as if my stomach had a deep gash in it and somebody just punched the already-hurting spot really hard. Almost like it was Hades himself beating me up. The noise around me of the other half-bloods eating in the cafeteria was muted by the pain of Christopher’s loss that radiated inside me.

“What’re we going to do?” Leah finally asked.

I sniffed and blinked until my vision was clear. Then I responded firmly, “We’re gonna go find him.”

 

Okay, so this wasn’t my greatest idea. But at least I had an idea at all, unlike Miss Evangelia over here, whose shoulders we sagging and whose feet were being dragged along behind her in silence.

Leah and I were trudging ourselves through the woods. Yeah, those woods near the tennis court. The forbidden ones. Yep, that’s the forest I’m talking about.

“Christopher!” I shouted, my hands cupped around my mouth in a makeshift megaphone. I paused and listened for an answer, but we didn’t receive one.

“I give up,” Leah said exasperatedly. “I love Christopher like my own brother, my own life even, but he’s not in here. If he was in here he would have answered you the first time.”

I shot her a sharp look. “You’re truly giving up the fight for his life?”

“It’s not a fight for his life!” Leah argued. “He’s missing, not dying!”

My arms crossed across my chest, I answered, “How would you know if he’s alive? For all you know he could be out here in the forbidden woods somewhere, half-eaten by a wild animal and you’re giving up!”

She pulled back her shoulders and stopped dragging her feet to reply, “There aren’t any wild animals in Pontadonas. It’s supposed to be a safe place for us half-bloods, not a spot for monsters to eat us like finger food.”

And, just our luck, she spoke too soon. Heavy panting came from behind, getting louder very fast. I was reluctant to turn, but I had to when Leah looked like she was about to pass out in fear. When I managed to turn around without any sudden movement I was staring down—more like staring up at—what could only be described as a terrifying, green-skinned beast.

Then, as if we weren’t scared enough, it loud out a loud roar that had both Leah and I trembling even after the ground stopped shaking.

So we ran.

And it chased us.

Then somehow we ended up flying in the air, Leah and I sharing her pair of flying shoes. She flew high in the sky with me on her back.

That thing howled beneath us, its many arms reaching up to us.

“What the…” I muttered, staring taken aback at the monster below as it ran to stay in line with us. As if it could reach us.

“Don’t you dare drop me or I swear you will be haunted by my ghost forever!” I said in Leah’s ear. She disregarded my threat and swerved out of the way of a tall tree, as if she were trying to knock me down into the depths of a forbidden woods where an evil monster was waiting to devour us.

She giggled. “Wouldn’t dream of it, darling. Never.”

It was silent for a while as we both searched for something to say. “It was always Christopher that ended the silence, wasn’t it?”

Leah nodded but didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry I’m being harsh.”

She shrugged and still didn’t say anything.

“We’ll find Christopher, I know it. And if we don’t I’m sure he’ll—”

ROAAAR!

“OH MY GOSH!”

“HALLIE! MY GODS!”

So the monster had friends…

My heart beat was pounding so quickly I was sure I would have some heart failure or something. The new monster was tall—and I mean really tall. It seemed to be a mutated form of an Earth giraffe. Much bigger, with a blue tint, and much fatter, but still with the long neck and legs.

Leah swerved around as the monster bit at our feet. We both squealed as it caught hold of one of Leah’s wings and I was sure we were done for.

“Kick it off!” Leah screeched at me. “Get it off!”

My eyes met the monster’s for a minute. It didn’t make much sense with me being a half-god, but the crazed, greedy look in its eyes scared me.

“Hallie!” Leah shouted. “We’re going down! Dear gods, Halia, would you kick it off?” Her voice stressed urgency and fear. And when she was afraid she cried. Not only would I be crying now, but she wouldn’t be able to see where to steer us.

So I reached my foot down and slammed it down hard. When I pulled it back up again I discovered that I didn’t help at all and instead part of the rubber lining on my sneaker was missing. And then I spotted it in the giraffe’s mouth.

“Let go!” I shrieked, smashing my foot down with all my body weight and bonking the monster right on the nose. “Go away!”

“Hallie,” Leah whimpered. I could tell she was having trouble seeing, so I had to come up with a plan quickly…

I took a deep breath. “Just fly up and to one side until it lets go when I tell you to. Even if the monster gets the wing we have to keep going, okay?”

She nodded and readied herself. “When?”

I glanced down at the forest below and waited until the trees got a little thicker. “Right… now!”

It felt as if someone was jerking my stomach and my legs and my arms all in different directions. I felt a little nausea, but I tried not to let Leah know that.

Staring back at the monster I realized what it was that scared me about it the most; not only did it look crazy and greedy, but it seemed like it wanted especially me.

But why? Why in the world would a stupid giraffe want anything to do with me?

 

Author's Note

Again, this hasn't been edited but go ahead and review however you wish

Reviews

[Dylan I. Cree]

A good chapter to fallow the first. Can't wait to see where you take this. All you need to do is some grammer corrections and you're all set.