Demigod University--The Greek Life

Substitute teachers are just pretty much always monsters, end of story. Although, technically this is the beginning of a story. But why get technical?

Josh put in his earbuds and turned up an album by Jason Aldean. He should’ve known his teacher was a monster by the music she listened to, but he was so busy clearing his head of “Top Twenty Jazz Yodeling Hits” that he didn’t sense the trap.

“Mr. Carter,” called the stern-looking woman from back in the classroom. He couldn’t hear her through “Dirt Anthem” blasting; she called a bit louder.

“MR. CARTER!”

Josh slipped his ear buds back into the breast pocket of his FFA t-shirt and tried to muster up the Southern politeness his grandmother had drilled into him.

“Do you need something, ma’am? Because it’s the last class of the last day of summer school and I would really like to go home now.”

The seemingly ancient woman (seriously, how was she even able to stand, let alone teach?) merely smiled as sweetly as her withered face would allow. Her teeth were yellow, as if they never saw daylight.

“I was only going to inform you, Joshua Demetri Levi Carter, that you forgot your jacket. Nothing to fuss over, dearie, really.”

Josh’s neck hairs rose at the use of his full name; no one used that but his family. The school system didn’t even have his full name on record. More alarmingly, the substitute was somehow holding his weathered denim jacket and that was the one possession Josh never let out of his sight. It was his last gift from his Dad.

Without word or explanation, Josh slipped his pencil out from his back pocket and it grew into a formidable hickory staff. He eyed the substitute with eyes green as fields of grass in summer but hard as stone. The teacher plucked her “Hello! My name is: Mrs. Coleman” nametag off of her ghastly puce sweater and let it flutter into the wastebasket with a chuckle that sounded like squeaking rats.

“You cut to the chase, don’t you little hero? But no need for violence. I just want to talk, or I’d have killed you already.”

“I’m not one to chit-chat,” was all Josh replied, “Now give me back my jacket.”

He advanced with his staff.
Now most people don’t attack seemingly helpless old ladies with very little provocation. But most people aren’t half-bloods.

Surely enough, the old woman’s fingernails extended into wicked talons and her already aged features morphed into the gruesome form of a hag.

“You are making a mistake, you fool!” she snarled as she sidestepped the staff with surprising agility.
“My employer can make you a handsome offer. Even now it is not too late!”

But it was too late for the hag. With a feint and spin out of the reach of the hag’s razor-sharp talons, Josh swung his staff into the stomach of his senior lit substitute and she burst into a cloud of yellow dust. He cleaned up the mess with a broom in the corner and folded his jacket back into his backpack. Then he rushed through the halls to catch the bus.

Sitting on the bus, Josh thought about what had just occurred. After nineteen years of dealing with monsters, the hag should have known Josh wouldn’t hesitate long enough to listen to any sort of bargain. That normally was a trap, nine times out of ten. Still, he hated to think that he had gotten calloused from his hard life like his hands were calloused from hard work. She hadn’t put up much of a fight, which was suspicious. But Josh shook those thoughts from his head. A hag offering a deal with a mysterious employer screamed “send me to Tartarus,” slow to fight or not. Josh had never been one to negotiate with strangers.

The bus rumbled down the dirt rode as Josh Carter put his earbuds back in.

ΔΦΔΦ

“Joshua Demetrius Levi Carter, you had us worried sick! Weren’t we worried sick, Jethro?”

Josh cringed. That was the second time his full name had been used within the last three hours. He hoped this wasn’t a pattern, or worse, an omen. As a demigod, Josh had really started hating omens.

At least the woman using it now wasn’t a withered, disgusting hag but a stout older woman with dry brown hair tied back behind a cloth and calloused hands smoothing the wrinkles in an off-white apron. Josh admired his grandmother, even if she did drown him with worry every time he came home more than two minutes late. After all, she had plenty of things in Josh’s life to worry about.

“Weren’t we worried sick, Jethro?” repeated Ma Janice Carter, hitting the arm of the burly white-bearded man in the checkered blue shirt standing next to her.

Pa Jethro Carter wore thick-rimmed glasses over his thick nose, which often made people assume he was old and slow like most men of his age. But those people couldn’t see his sharp blue eyes, darting back and forth to take in all details, purposefully hidden behind clouded lenses. He could tell a faulty tractor from a good one, a wild colt from a broken, and an overripe tomato from the perfect with just a glance. Josh had learned to read his eyes long ago, and now they filled with annoyance followed by grudging compliance.

“Yeah, we was worried a bit. Mostly curious as to why you’d be gettin’ home so late,” he ignored a glare from Ma Carter, ”but worried too.”

Josh shrugged off the pained look from his Ma. “I missed the first bus load, had to take the second. You know how much of a difference that can make, the bus stop being so far away and all.”

Ma Carter was not mollified yet.
“And why did you miss the first load?”

Josh set his bookbag down at the kitchen table now that they had walked inside. He stuck his head in the fridge to get a glass of lemonade so he wouldn’t have to see Ma’s reaction.
“My English substitute ending up being a hag,” he said casually. “I took care of it, though.”
He could hear Ma’s sharp intake of breath and could imagine her face twisting with worry again.

“Ma, I took care of it.” Josh turned around to face his grandmother, who was still standing with a furrowed brow though her husband sat at the table with a newspaper. Josh put his hands on her shoulders, a good foot and a half shorter than his 6’3”, and smiled with a mouth full of teeth as white as fresh cow’s milk.

“I always will. I’m trained, I’m experienced, and I know better than to leave this earth without asking my Ma’s permission first. You raised me right.”

“I know,” Ma Carter said miserably, “but you know how I hate these monsters. How am I supposed to sleep at night, knowing you are all by yourself in Athens?”

Josh sat at the table with his lemonade and cookie and gave a wry smile.
“When a monster attacks, I don’t hesitate. I don’t flinch. I don’t consider the options. I attack, I conquer, and I win.” He looked up at his grandmother with no trace of humor. “I’m telling you, Ma, my reputation will be one of a half-blood who doesn’t ask questions before he goes for the kill. Monsters will fear ME, not the other way around, and once they do they’ll leave me alone. I’m going to college, I’m going to get my education, become a farmer, live a normal life, and never get caught off-guard.”

Again. He added silently to himself.

Not entirely convinced by her grandson’s speech, but finally mollified somewhat, Ma Carter moved off to busy herself about the house while Josh finished his snack in thoughtful silence.

Could he back up his claims? Josh took his pencil out of his pocket and twirled it in his hands. He was good at staff fighting. He found that out long ago, during summers at Camp Half-Blood. Now he was 19, about to attempt college, and could fend for himself well. But despite his boasts he made no hesitation, he still didn’t like killing. He didn’t even like fighting. But he desperately wanted a normal life, as normal as a demigod could ever live. He wanted to graduate the University of Georgia, get himself a farm, and never deal with another bit of magic ever again.

Then there was Mom. She had given him his magic pencil when he was nine to start growing into it. Now he had. How would she feel about all of this, about going to college? If she wanted him to return to Camp Half-Blood as a counselor, he would have to tell her no. Could he really kick his own mother out of his life?

Almost as if she read his thoughts (she probably did) a knock was heard at the door. Josh knew who it was before Ma Carter even opened it.

ΔΦΔΦ

There stood a beautiful woman in knee-high brown leather boots, form fitting denim jeans, a golden honey colored silk shirt with a rippling neckline and a sweeping of dark auburn hair that shone with ruby red luster in the early summer evening sun. Her skin was evenly tanned as if she spent her days on a farm like most people in the area did, but there were no sunburns, scars, or blemishes of any kind. She looked out on the world with green eyes flecked with yellow; it felt like you were looking into a cornfield and you would start filling with energy and a desire to go outside. Oftentimes Josh would end up punching a friend in the jaw for making a crude comment about his mother because she looked like she was twenty-something. By now they had learned not to say anything or even give a low whistle, but they still looked wistfully the few times they caught a glance at her and Josh couldn’t really blame them. With her thumbs tucked into her front pockets and her pleasantly rounded figure, she was a farm boy’s dream girl.

“Hello, Demeter,” Ma Carter said with a tiny hint of displeasure. She still held it against the goddess for wooing her only son. Demeter always told Josh that it didn’t bother her because she couldn’t really blame a mother for that.

“Good afternoon,” she said in a proper Southern drawl. “Is Joshua—Josh!”

She caught sight of Josh as he appeared behind Ma Carter. He placed his calloused hands on his grandma’s sturdy shoulders and looked at her with tenderness in his eyes.

“We’ll go out to the garden to talk, alright?”

She took his hand and held it a moment, the displeasure melting in her eyes and being replaced by appreciation and shame. It wasn’t in her nature to act cold towards any living thing but she couldn’t help but miss her son and want to assign blame for what happened to Josh’s father. Those feelings always surfaced when she spoke to Demeter.

Demeter herself stood patiently on the white porch while the silent understanding passed between Josh and Ma Carter. Then Josh followed Demeter to the back of the house while Ma Carter gently closed the door behind him.

ΔΦΔΦ

Kids at Camp Half-Blood always complained of how little they saw of their parents. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to have only seen their godly parent once or twice in their lifetime so far, even after the agreement Percy Jackson had bound them to. It was never like that for Josh. Demeter showed up quite frequently in his life, had an interest in what was going on, and acted like a real mother. He couldn’t even understand his siblings, whom Demeter only saw occasionally. He hated thinking she was playing favorites, so he didn’t. He just pushed those kinds of thoughts from his mind.

They sat down at the iron-wrought table in the garden and as they did, tendrils of honeysuckle worked their way through the openings until a pile of fresh buds covered all surfaces. Demeter and Josh plucked them and started drinking the nectar as they settled in to talk. Josh told her about the hag and all the frustrations of summer school.

“But that’s not your fault, Josh,” admonished Demeter in her sweet drawl. “When the hydra attacked you did what any demigod would do, it doesn’t matter that school property got a little scratched up. Your being in summer school in no way reflects badly on your character, in fact it’s really a sign of how good it is.”

Josh hated how she was so nice to him right now. So proud, so defensive of him. How could he turn his back on her if she wanted to keep him from Athens? He didn’t respond to her as he drank more honeysuckle nectar. The air fell flat as Demeter recognized his stiffness.

“So,” she began after the awkward silence, “you want to go to the University of Georgia?”

“I’m going,” he said firmly, “and nothing will change that, Mom. I’m sorry if that isn’t what you wanted, but I’m so tired of living this life. I want things to be different, to be simple. I want to have a farm of my own, and…” he paused, “a family of my own.”

He didn’t look her in the eye and prepared for the worse. Then she laughed like a fiddle.

“You think I don’t want you to go?” She asked incredulously once the laughter subsided.
Josh blinked and stared at her.

“But I’m turning my back on the life of a hero. I’m saying no more quests or adventures or saving the world. You aren’t mad?

“Joshua,” she smiled, “I’d love nothing more than for you to be a farmer. Not every demigod has to be some epic hero, the Fates allow for normalcy sometimes. I know Camp Half-Blood puts a lot of stock in being the hero,” Demeter took her son’s hand, “but I think your choice is the wiser one.”

Josh ran his fingers through his hair, trying to release all the nervous energy stored up inside him from thinking he would have to say goodbye to his own mother. He smiled.

“So you want me to go to UGA?”

“Honey,” Demeter smiled as well, “if you were going anywhere else I’d ask you to reconsider. Georgia is the best option for you, the safest option.

Josh frowned.

“What do you mean the safest?”

Notes

It's long because I like to make my chapters the length of real novel chapter. It is divided in parts, however, so you can rest for a while if you need to break it up.