Penn Not Pen: Chapter One: What Cousin? And I'm Just Saying, Don't Break My Window

It’s always the day you want to be normal, that isn’t. Actually, everything is like that. Despite what most demigods will tell you, not all of us come to camp with satyrs. Mostly because some, like me, walk away from the satyr. Tells you a bit about me.

Anyways, I was trying to walk home, and nothing happened. Other than one of the other kids tried to walk home with me, which I find the reason later, no one really bothered me. Actually, he was walking home with me. We didn’t really talk, I didn’t really know each other's names.

Ice crunched under my feet, it not being cold enough for it to freeze completely, but still cold enough for a thin layer. The kid didn’t really seem to be able to keep up, so I tried to slow down and still keep walking.

We tried to talk, but everything seemed to come out as ‘awkward, awkward, we should just keep walking’. I know, I should’ve tried harder. The kid was starting to freak me out, ok.

The air seemed to cool down as I walked down to my house. Not that I could tell, consider it was the middle of winter. The kid, on the other hand, sniffed the air and scrunched up his nose.

“What’s wrong?” Hey, I thought I might as well ask.

“Nothing….” the kid shook his head. I sensed an ‘I hope’ was wanted to be added. I think, and I really don’t hope that's true.

There wasn’t anytime to ask once we got to my house. The kid offered to come with me, which seemed extremely strange. People don’t normally ask to go into your house. So, I said no and slipped into my house.

There wasn’t anyone at the entrance, not that strange honestly. What was strange was that when I walked farther into my house, I found my mom. She’s normally isn’t home until six. She was arguing with my sister about something. I couldn’t exactly pick it up. So, I just walked closer. Problem solved.

My mother noticed me and waved me over, “Honey, please explain to your sister that your cousin is coming over for the weekend.”

“We don’t have a cousin!” Bree grabbed our mother’s arm. I had to agree with her, we don’t have a cousin. We didn’t even have aunts or uncles. Unlike Bree, I didn’t have the courage to point that out, though. I just nodded and pulled Bree away.

She finally shook away when we got our bedroom, “Don’t say you're crazy too!”

I shrugged, “Maybe I am, but I don’t think we have cousin.”

“We don’t!”

“We don’t know that,” I said, starting to wonder if this was going anywhere, “it’s not impossible that we just don’t know them. Maybe-”

Bree interrupted me, “Maybe it has to do with our dad? That’s what you always say. It doesn’t, mom’s just crazy.” It was hopeless, and I knew it. I knew it since Bree started talking.

I just decided to wait, it was easier to just wait for it to happen than argue with Bree. As mother had said, a kid had appeared at our door around noon the next day.

“Hello Auntie,” the child grinned up at her, “may I come in?”

That was when Bree and I agreed on one thing, we weren’t related to this kid. No one in our family was that polite. Our grandparents would push you over before asking to come in, my mother would say something some what passive aggressive about you being slow, and Bree would shove you over. Me? I wouldn’t even be the one ringing the doorbell.

Still, my mother stepped aside and said, “Yes dear, it’s so nice to see you.”  The child stepped into the house and gave my mother a sickly sweet smile. Nothing really happened to be honest. Though, our ‘cousin’ seemed extremely jumpy until around three, when my mother left. Then it got really uncomfortable.

“Alright you! What did you do to my mother?” Bree pointed her finger at our ‘cousin’.

He just smiled and help up his hands, “My name is Jay. I’m just here to help you, we need to get out before-” Jay was cut off by the sound of glass shattering.

Bree forgot her anger and the three of us ran into the kitchen. I may or may not screamed like a little girl. Glass covered the floor from the shattered window. That’s not why I screamed, it could be explained by a baseball or something. No, it was the large creature on the ground, flapping it’s wings and trying to turn itself back onto it’s feet. I took a quick note of the looks. Do lions normally have bird heads? I don’t think they do.

“Griffin!” Jay dragged us to our room, “It won’t be able to get up for a bit. Quickly, grab some clothes and whatever you can fit in these bags. Don’t try to cram.” He tossed two bags onto the bed.

We decided to do as told. I scampered around grabbing clothes and shoving it into the bag. It didn’t take long for it to fill up, and by the time I was done, Bree was too. Also by then, a crashing sound was coming closer to us. Jay all but shoved us out of the window, and we were lucky that we only had one floor.

When Jay took off running, we decided it was better to follow them. We followed him, and the shriek of anger behind us nearly shoot the ground. The fact that we couldn’t see the griffin a few blocks later, I guess that shriek meant it couldn’t find us.

We climbed onto a bus and Jay dropped a gold coin to the driver.

The driver looked from the coin to Jay, and then to us. “Camp H-B?” Jay nodded, and the man tossed the coin back, “Keep hush hush, can’t have people thinking they’ll get out of paying.” Jay lead us to the back of the bus.

“What’s going on?” Bree had finally put her foot down.

“I’ll explain,” Jay raised his hands in surrender, and he did explain.

It made no sense.