Isabel's Bunk

Isabel wakls slowly into the Apollo cabin. She looks around shyly and makes her way to an empty bunk.

She sits down and places her large duffel bag under the bed. She is still going over the moment when she found out she was a demigod in her mind.

She had just been kicked out of her 14th school. She'd stayed at this one the longest, almost 2 years. She was starting to make friends when another incident happened. Monsters, she reminds herself. They were monsters. It's still hard to process everything that had been going on. Her mom told her that her father had been one of the gods of Olympus. That they were real. The satyr that brought her to New York (she'd always wanted to come to the Big Apple, but not like this) told her he couldn't believe she had survived this long without coming to camp.

Then Apollo had claimed her and she had moved out of the Hermes cabin into this one. At least it's not crowded, she thought. She pulled out her bag and opened it. Her mom had hastily thrown her things into it the moment her school called telling her mom she was expelled. Her mom had decided it was time to go to Camp Half-Blood. Isabel pulled out sheets and a pillow case. She blushed when she saw that it was her Winnie-the-Pooh bedset from when she was a little girl. I guess Mom grabbed what was clean.

She hastily dressed her bed before anyone could see and drew the comforter over it. The comforter was only white with bees and beehives and flowers. Not as bad as the sheets and pillow case with Winnie-the-Pooh plastered all over them. She rummaged through the clothes her mom packed and sighed with relief that it was full of clothes from this decade. On her back she carried her school bookbag full of stuff from around her room she thought she might want to have. Like the picture of her and her mom when they took their one and only vacation to Disney World. Her journal and a pen. Her music, from other composers and some composed herself, and, of course, her sketch books.

Then she pulled out what was once her favorite item. It was a picture of when she was a baby, just weeks old. She was being held by a man, but the person taking the picture (probably her mom) was most likely concentrated on Isabel because the guy was cut off from the shoulders up. All you saw was little Isabel in the arms of what looked like a young man. Her mother had told her it was her father, a few weeks before he died in a car accident. But now Isabel knew the truth. She wasn't even sure the guy in the picture was Apollo. She didn't know and she didn't care. Why would Apollo bother to see her as a baby when he never showed up after? She rolled her eyes and shoved the picture back in. But after a few moments she pulled it out again. Even if it was Apollo, and he did abandon her for the next 16 years, it was the only thing she had of him.

She remembered where she was and told herself not to cry. She glanced around. No one was there anyways. Still, she would not cry on the first day of camp. Strange, she thought, I guess I was getting used to the crowdedness of the Hermes cabin....

Isabel looks up from the sketch of her house in Florida, when she was 7. It was her favorite house out of the 14 her and her mom had lived in. Still, the cabin remained empty. Where was everybody? It was getting late. She realized she hadn't eaten dinner and set down her sketch pad and went to the bathroom to freshen up. Then she planned on going to the Mess Hall. She left the cabin.

Isabel walked back in. She dropped her bag back onto her bunk. Still empty. "I don't think I like camp," she said to no one in particular. She walked out again.

I walk back into my cabin. There are people here now, but I keep hidden in my hoodie. I sit down on my bunk and gently scoop Sybil off my shoulder and onto the bed. She meows in protest, but quickly settles under my warm comforter. I smile and fish out a treat for her from my bag. I stuff it under the blanket. I grab my bag and head to the bathroom. I change into navy blue sweatpants and a white shirt with the Magic Kingdom logo and the words, "Where Dreams Come True." I brush my teeth and head back to bed. I quickly slip under the covers lest someone should see my Winnie-the-Pooh bed set and make myself comfortable. Sybil curls up in my arms, comforming to my chest and neck. To fall asleep faster, I think of a dream where I'm walking along the beach with my mom and her sister, my Aunt Gloria, surrounded by my cousins, Paola, Mariana, Daniel, Jeremy, Carolina, Daniella, Samantha, and all the rest of my big family. In the distance, I see the figure of a man, glowing like the sun, and, only in my dreams, I imagine that it's my dad, finally coming to see me.

I wake up. I've slept in, I think. That's odd, I'm usually up to see the sunrise. But with this new environment and all this change and craziness going on, I guess my body recovered by sleeping it off. I stretch, upsetting Sybil. She quickly jumps off the bunk and runs out the door. "See you later," I say to the air. I make my bed and grab my bag and head to the bathroom. I change into jean shorts and the orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt they gave me when I came. I put on my regular low-top, black and white Converse. I brush my teeth and my hair and tie up my hair in a high ponytail, leaving my side bangs out. I slip on a thin gold chain with a small golden unicorn hanging from it. It was something my grandpa gave me before he died. I had only met him once. I took one last look at the mirror. I realized that the gold highlights that usually appeared in my hair during the summer hadn't gone away, on the contrary they seemed to have increased. It's an Apollo thing, I tell myself, allowing a small smile to take over my lips. I leave the cabin.

I come back into the cabin after a day of training. I shower and French braid my hair, bangs and all. I put on a long sleeved white shirt and light blue denim skinny jeans. I slip on my red Converse and head out, scooping up Sybil onto my shoulder from my bunk.

I walk in and change in the bathroom into my p.j.s. I pull out my book and settle down with Sybil on my lap, purring.