Percy Jackson is twelve years old.
He isn’t really anything special. In fact, if he was just less stubborn, he might even have some friends. But he is stubborn, and loyal, and nothing will convince him to stop being friends with his roommate, who wouldn’t be popular no matter who he was friends with.
And because he’s stubborn and because he’s friends with Grover and maybe for a couple of other reasons too, Percy Jackson tends to fade into the background when nobody is going out of their way to pick on him.
Something is off about him, and maybe people don’t really notice it because he fades into the background, but something about Percy Jackson just isn’t quite right. Quite normal.
Maybe it’s the distance behind his eyes when he zones out. How he seems to be looking not just through people but past them, like he can see to the end of the world and isn’t quite impressed with anything in it. Or maybe it’s something else, the way the air seems to thicken at the same speed his frown grew, the way his eyes seemed to darken when he was angry and flash bright blue when he laughed, shifting between blues and greens, lights and darks.
Whatever it is, it makes it easier for people to brush him off and ignore him. To not pay much attention when he starts imagining teachers that never existed, pushing people into fountains. When he starts snapping at teachers, stops holding back the biting insults his classmates had only ever heard whispered under his breath before.
Something about Percy Jackson is just…off.
Keep reading