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Percy was different.
Percy was different, and everyone else thought it was pretty funny.
They liked to push at him, make him mad because he always came up with the funniest comebacks.
They were random and didn’t make any sense, especially to a twelve-year-old. If you were really paying attention, you would find that they were pretty accurate and actually really mean .
But no one was paying attention, so they just sounded stupid.
At Yancy, the kids depended on rumors about as much as they depended on food. The crazier the story, the more widely accepted it was.
The rumors about Percy Jackson were the most widely accepted.
They started the moment he walked through the door. No one knew who he was or what he had done to get there, but they knew it wasn't good.
People don't go to Yancy for being good.
At first, the talk was pretty mild, he was new, and that piqued some interest, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.
On the first day, he didn't share any information other than his name, his age, and the fact that his favorite color was blue.
Everyone else had overshared. Everyone else had told their entire life story. Everyone else had explained what their parents did for a living, how much money they got for allowance, how annoying they thought their siblings were.
Percy didn't do this, and people took notice of that.
Then they took notice of him.
They listened around, gathering all the information they could and loving the stories that came with it.
He had bruises all over when he first showed up.
A black eye, Green from age, already fading, a ring of black and blue around his wrist, and a mark on his neck that was shaped suspiciously like a hand.
He was really poorly dressed.
His uniform was too big, too old. It was frayed and patched in several places. One leg was longer than the other. The knot on his tie was too fat. There was someone else's name in the collar of his coat.
He was way too skinny.
His face too thin, his shoulders too sharp, his wrists were too bony. Even if his uniform was the right size, it would be too loose in the middle and too bulky in the shoulders.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on.
It was hard to find a student at Yancy with a good home life, but at least none of them were poor, none of them were starved, none of them were abused.
And none of them, no matter how bad they had been, had been kicked out of more than two schools.
Percy had been kicked out of six.
For the most insane reasons.
Dunking his class in a shark tank, blowing up a school bus, pretty much anything and everything you could think of.
The students thought it was hilarious.
The stories spread like wildfire passing through the halls, between kids, behind hands, they talked loudly and insensitivity barely lowering their voices as he walked past.
How could this skinny, weak, poor boy do any of those things?
So people kept pushing at him, kept spreading stories, waiting to see what would get him expelled from this school.
They were all a bit disappointed when they found out he was expelled for calling their English teacher a rude name.
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Percy was different, and everyone else felt sorry for him.
He was weird, he acted different from the other kids, he was jumpy and moody and distant.
But people left him alone.
Because he had been kidnapped over the summer, he had been held hostage for months and had god knows what done to him.
No one wanted to be the heartless idiot who bullied the boy who had seen hell
At Merriweather, the kids depended on rumors about as much as they depended on food. The crazier the story was, the more widely accepted.
The rumors about Percy Jackson were the most widely accepted.
They started the moment he walked through the door. Of course, they did. Percy Jackson was the most interesting thing that had happened to the school since Matt Sloan's car crash.
The kids listened around, gathering all the information they could.
They all had their own theories about what had happened to him over the summer.
He had scars all over his body.
A huge one on his hand, indented into his skin, a thin one running elbow to palm, a thick one all along his back, and a small one at his temple all shiny and pearly white against the tan of his skin.
He was constantly on edge.
He jumped at the smallest noises, flinched away when people tried to touch him. His shoulders were always tense, he always preferred to sit at the back of the class, and he was always moving, bouncing his leg or tapping his pen.
He was always tired.
The bags under his eyes were deep, dark purple, and bruise-like. He had a habit of falling asleep in class, and he always woke with a start, even when the room was completely quiet.
Nightmares, the kids whispered he must have terrible nightmares.
He only ever hung around Tyson, which no one understood. Out of all the kids he could have chosen to be friends with he had picked the big hairy guy.
The one that looked the most like a threat.
The one that everyone had assumed Percy would have wanted to stay far away from.
Eventually the kids got bored of tiptoeing around him.
Matt started picking on him, which he probably would have done from the start if not for the whole kidnapping thing.
No one was really surprised when Percy blew up the gym - although it was really only Matt who said that. All the other witnesses claimed it was the new kids, and that Percy had been the only one brave enough to try and fight them off.
Everyone just sort of assumed it was because he had already been through so much worse.
The kids were even less surprised when they found out he had been expelled.
They had all heard about how he had been expelled from his previous schools, and it kind of seemed inevitable at this point.
Even if the gym wasn’t really his fault.
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Percy was different, and everyone else thought he was super weird.
He didn't try to make friends, he couldn’t sit still, and he had funny looking scars all over his body.
All the kids knew about what had happened to him, they had all heard the story of his kidnapping.
But that had happened over a year ago and not all of them could comprehend that it might take time to get over something like that.
At Ridgewell the kids depended on rumors about as much as they depended on food. The crazier the story the more widely accepted it was.
The rumors about Percy Jackson were the most widely accepted.
They started the moment he walked through the door.
The kids listened around, gathering all the information they could.
They all wanted to know what made him act the way he did.
He was always alone.
He didn’t have any friends, it didn’t seem like he wanted any friends. He sat by himself at lunch, and alway worked alone if given the option.
He could never sit still.
He was constantly on edge, always bouncing his leg or tapping his pen or pulling at his hair. He didn’t like sitting at his desk for more than five minutes and would usually take advantage of any opportunity he had to get up and move.
He almost never smiled.
He did but very, very rarely. His face was usually set in a broody, kind of scary glare. If he did smile it was wide and mischievous.
It made everyone wonder what on earth he could be planning.
Because they had all heard of the expulsions from his previous schools.
Eventually people got used to it, and stories of Percy ran dry.
That was until they came back from winter break.
Percy’s eyes were sadder, his leg bounced faster, and he had a weird new streak of grey in his hair.
He had new scars all over his body.
Three long ones along his upper arm, three more at his back, and one at his neck.
His smiles were all but gone.
His shoulders slumped with a weight only he could see but somehow at the same time he seemed lighter, He stood taller.
It completely freaked everyone one out and they were all relieved when they found out that he would not be attending the local high school the next year.
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Percy was different and it freaked everyone out.
He set the band room on fire, before the school year had even started.
He had been kidnapped a few years back and apparently suffered from severe trauma.
He never stayed at a school for longer than a year.
Everyone knew that the only reason he was even allowed to attend Goode was because Mr. Blofis was dating his mom.
At Goode the kids depended on rumors about as much as they depended on food. The crazier the story was the more largely accepted.
The rumors about Percy Jackson were the most widely accepted.
They started the moment he walked through the door.
The kids listened around, gathering all the information they could. What they learned absolutely terrified them.
He was jumpy.
He sat straight up whenever someone opened a door, jumped when people dropped their books, flinched away when someone got too close. If anyone even looked at him too long his head would snap around and he would give you a glare that would send even the bravest person in the world running for their mom.
He almost never turned in his assignments.
He rarely ever did any of his work. When he did, from what the students could see, it was always scribbled half heartedly across the paper, half done, and usually completely wrong.
He had scars all over his body.
Burn marks, claw marks, knife marks. Pretty much every injury you could think of Percy had suffered through.
People gave him a wide berth when he got changed for gym class. The sight of the scars scared them too much.
It was obvious that the kidnapping wasn’t the only reason for his trauma.
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Percy was different.
He was just…different.
And this year the stories about him were different too.
His eyes were sadder, but his leg bounced slower.
He didn’t have any new scars.
The grey in his hair was starting to fade.
He was more relaxed.
He was calmer, less jumpy. He could sit at his desk for an entire class period without becoming too much of a distraction. He didn’t react when the door opened, he didn’t flinch away from touch.
He was always tired.
He fell asleep in class. Probably way too often. He would have gotten in trouble for it if the teachers weren’t just so relieved that he felt safe enough to do so.
He turned in his assignments.
He didn’t have a single missing assignment. He was trying for the first time since he arrived at Goode.
He smiled more often.
No one knew what had happened to Percy over the summer but they all knew it was something.
It had changed him.
But it had changed him for the better.