Chapter 59: Luke's Past
We both could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard our stomachs growl. She told us to go on, she'd catch us later. We left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.
Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, We noticed that a lot of campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.
Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to us as We walked over to our spots on the floor and plopped down.
The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.
"Found you both a pair of sleeping bags," he said. "And here, I stole you both some toiletries from the camp store."
We couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.
We both said, "Thanks."
"No prob." Luke sat next to us, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"
"We don't belong here," we said. We don't even believe in gods."
"Yeah," he said. That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."
The bitterness in his voice surprised us, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.
"So your dad is Hermes?" We asked.
He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second we thought he was going to gut us, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah.
Hermes."
"The wing-footed messenger guy."
"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're both here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."
We figured Luke didn't mean to call us nobodies. He just had a lot on his mind.
"You ever meet your dad?" We asked.
"Once."
We waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell us, he'd tell us. Apparently, he didn't. We wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.
Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. James. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."
He seemed to understand how lost we felt, and we were grateful for that, because an older guy like him------even if he was a counselor ------should've steered clear of a pair of uncool middle-schoolers like us. But Luke had welcomed us into the cabin. He'd even stolen us some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for us all day.
Chapter 60: Our Dinners Goes Up In Smoke
Come on, it's dinner time."
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, We knew it was a conch shell, even though we'd never heard one before.
Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"
The whole cabin, about twenty one of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course we was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.
We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion.
At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"
Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"
Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! Our glasses was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it.
Whatever you want---nonalcoholic, of course."
We said, "Cherry Coke."
The glasses filled with sparkling caramel liquid.
Then we both had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."
The sodas turned a violent shade of cobalt.
We took a sip. Perfect.
"Here you go, Percy, James," Luke said, handing us two platters of smoked brisket.
We loaded our plates and noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire.
We finished the burnt offerings and started our meals. Once we were done, Chiron told us that the next capture the flag game is Friday.
Then we headed back to our cabins for bed.