[Original] Zachary Leonard, The Griffin's Nest Chapter 1

1. The School Janitor Is a Donkey

I woke up with a start. Thunder rolled over the skies like someone was playing bowling bowl on the room above our apartment. Well, that couldn’t be true, now can’t it? I stood up from my bed, and stretched a few stiff muscles, then, headed to the kitchen to get some water and went back to my room. I was feeling a little jumpy that night, maybe, because tomorrow was a gruesome day for me—resuming of classes.

It was already the 24th of May and I want it to stay like that (Weird resuming of classes, huh? Apparently, the state, with some neighboring others, was hit by a freak storm, Signal Strength #3, which caused my classes to be blessedly canceled). I studied at the Metropolitan Academy of Special Kids, a private, private school run by Doctors that specializes on retard-ism and a lot more illness, which teaches kids with, uhh, specialties. I think I am special, well, yeah, special as in I-can’t-shut-up-in-a-single-space kind of special because I was ADHD. My dad, a psychologist, had a friend at this school that is why he chose it so that he ‘could keep an eye’ out for me. Pshh.

So, there I was, just sitting there, on the side of my bed, when my door opened and dad came inside. “Can’t sleep, Zach?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “It’s kinda hard to sleep with thunder rumbling over head.”

“You should try to go back sleep again. Big day tomorrow, kiddo.” He smiled at me.

I looked at him in the eyes, and arched a brow to the skies. “‘Big day’? Dad, I like school. I just hate that place.”

My dad was standing at 6’-flat, and had a bushy dusty brown hair. I, on the other hand, had blond hair. I asked why so, but dad only told me that mom was blond. That’s about it, end of story.

“You tell me that about every school you go to,” he stated, “You’re a bright kid, Zach. Just think of it as a waiting shed. Summer is about to start, and I enrolled you to a summer camp. You would enjoy it, really.” He was right. I was one of those kids who could’ve been one of the honor students which were impossible for me because of all of the weird things that kept on happening to me. He was talking to me intently, like he didn’t even want me to go that stupid camp. But, why bother to enroll me if he didn’t want me to go? I thought it was just another re-adjustment camp that he used to enroll me for the last five years.

I wasn’t used to my dad talking to me like that. He even sounded like he was really scared of that place. Maybe, so, but, I would just have to endure it for the next two days. At the 27th, he would take me to camp anyways. So, there’s no point asking him about the camp.

“Sure, dad,” I yawned, “Let’s just sleep now, okay? ‘Big day, tomorrow.’” With that, I laid down the bed and turned my back on my dad. I felt him scruff my hair and go outside. I closed my eyes and the dreams swept me away.


I was standing on some deserted woods at Long Island Sound for some reason that I don’t know. I went fifteen paces forward and abruptly stopped. I touched the air like it was some kind of barrier. It was a barrier! As soon as I touched, it crackled just as wires would crackle when put together.

“Blast it!” I said, “The barrier is still strong as ever.”

And, the dream faded.


I woke up at 6:30am because my school starts at exactly after an hour. I went to the bathroom, showered for school. I got dressed to the uniform (Yes, a uniform) of my private school; black satin pants, a plain white polo with an emblem of the school on the upper left side, and a blue necktie that symbolized my year, freshman.

I went down the stairs and was shocked to what I was seeing. Dad was cooking my breakfast. And, when I looked at the clock, I could tell that he was already late for is work. Very late. “What are you doing, dad?” I asked, “You’re going to be late, aren’t you?”

“I am,” he answered, “And, I am late—” (told you) “—I just wanted to take you to school today, Zach.”

“You” actually think that I think that you “—would?”

“Yes. Is there something the matter? Did you do something at school, again?”

“Other than the exploding chemicals and unwanted food spills, nothing.” I muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, I’m hungry. That was my stomach. Bacons please!”


At a quarter after seven, I boarded my dad’s Toyota Camry, and headed to M.A.S. He drove in a steady speed and slow speed which was very unusual since at this rate his boss would be very mad at him. “Dad,” I broke the ice, “What’s going on?”

He glanced at me with a quizzical look and returned his gaze to the road. “What do you mean?”

“Dad, you seldom take me to school. And, this is actually just the third time you did that.”

“Is there the matter? I wanted to spend some time with my son. Tell me, Zach, don’t you want that?”

“I know that dad. You’re just creeping me out.”

He whispered something I didn’t comprehend. I just understood the words: “You don’t know anything about creepy.” Which to that, I just kept my mouth shut and trained my eyes on the road.

When we arrived at the school grounds, he patted my back and said, “Off you go.”

I answered with a smile and a nod. Dad was really, really, weird this day. I got off the bus and walked to the school gates.


The school was a huge lot with three buildings: Arts and Crafts, Mathematics and Sciences, and Reading Comprehension and Language, positioned in an inverted U style. The rest of the lot was composed of a small air-conditioned cafeteria, two out-door wash rooms, and a covered gymnasium. The atmosphere inside the school was very different since there were just about 100 students attending it. It’s like you’re always walking alone the school grounds.

My first class, perhaps my last class on that day, was Chemistry. Dr. Peaches, our teacher, explained on how the early Egyptians did their mummification processes. My partner, a girl with wistful red hair, was really not taking the descriptions that much. She was always gripping my shoulder and clearly her face was beginning to become pale green. After jotting down all of the notes at my notebook, I slid it back to my bag, and begun entertaining Bridgette. “You know, the mummies of Ancient Egypt isn’t really that bad. Well, of course, they were dead and a lot of them smell like rotten rats, but they’re still a little fascinating.” I said, while smiling.

She glared at me, “Keep talking about that, and like make you drink this chemical.” She held up a vial with a blue-green chemical inside. We used that chemical to make baby fireworks inside the Chemistry laboratory. She smiled when she saw my reaction; I really thought she was going to do it.

Just then, a fast moving shadow loomed over the windows. “Did you see that?” I asked her.

“See what? Dr. Peaches’ big fat tummy which is showing from his lab gown? Well, yes.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” I point to the windows. “There was a shadow over there. A very big shadow.”

“Mmm-kay.” She smirked and then went back to writing on her notebook. “Keep telling that to yourself,
Leonard.”

She didn’t see it? Impossible. The shadow almost took up all of the windows. How did she—

Then just like magic, the shadow loomed again, but it came in contact with the windows, smashing them to bits. Everybody in the room screamed, and stumbled their way out the doors. Bridgette, my partner, was busy looking at the creature that glared through us. It looked like a huge dog—no, lion with a very feathery head, like an eagle. I saw those monsters before on a book I read, was it sphinx—no, no, a griffin.

“A rhino!” Bridgette screamed.

A what? Impossible that was clearly a griffin-like thing. I took a look again, and the creature’s form flickered sometimes a lion-eagle crossbreed mode and sometimes a rhino. What is happening in this place? I gripped Bridgette’s arm and darted to the doors. She was trembling from what she saw, but she had to pull it together or we’re going to be bird/rhino food. I slipped in one of the liquids that spilled over the commotion and went face down on the ground. Bridgette was trying to help me stand, then the rhino-eagle-lion monster loomed at us. “Run, Bridgette! I got this!” (I did not ‘got this!’)

She nodded or trembled or whatever a couple of times and went out of the room saying, “I’ll get help.” Then, she ran.

I looked at the monster and it leered at me with its golden eyes. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I said, “Easy, birdie. You do not want me as food.” I slowly stood up, my hands in front of calming the monster. I darted my sight into some of the chemicals and I saw the blue-green vial Bridgette was holding up a few minutes ago. I walked to the vial, the monster looking at me intently with its eyes. I held the vial up and said, “There, there, little birdie. I’m not going to do anything.”

I lifted my hands and then threw the vial to the direction of the bird. It backed up a little and when the fireworks subsided, it tackled me and I flew to the end of the room and hit my head on a table. The monster flew away and left me there, alone. My vision went a little haywire. I saw the janitor, Mr. Green. But, it couldn’t have been the janitor. I mean, he looked him but from waste down he looked like he has a furry pair of legs. “Mr. Green?” I asked.

He went next to me and held me up, “Yup.”

“Why do you look like a donkey?” My head was spinning.

“I am not a donkey, I’m a satyr. Come on, I’m taking you to camp.” He helped me stand, and at once, my sight made a 360-degree swirl, and I blacked out.

2. I Ate With a Bird on Top

I was chided back to reality by a sound of a buzzing argument. I managed to open my eyes and move my head. I was in a room with a green motif color and very peculiar grapevines seemed to crawl on the walls. The argument of two people was being more of a sense now because I could understand them quite a bit.

“Joseph,” a girl said. She was about fifteen?––sixteen? She had blond hair like mine that fell like ringlets of gold down her back and sides. She was shouting at Mr. Green like she was a higher ranking officer, which by the looks of her, she probably was. “Half-bloods are supposed to be brought and claimed at the age of thirteen. This kid is already, like, my age. He must’ve had a lot of monster sightings.”

Half-blood? Was that another term for a delusional kid like me? And, this blond-girl was actually talking about the monsters like she had a meeting with a lot of them before. Maybe, there are kids like me who could see weird shape-shifting animals.

“Annabeth,” Mr. Green was raising his hands to his front trying to calm that Annabeth girl down. “It isn’t my fault, he enrolled at the school only this year. So, I kinda only knew him for like ten months or so. And, he didn’t smell like a half-blood until the griffin attacked.”

Smell? Oh-ho, this has got to end.

“Ugh-kah!” That was all I could manage. It felt like my throat is being chainsaw-massacred to the core. Annabeth looked at me and ran to my side. She looked at me straight in the eyes and her gray eyes looked like it swirled around like a mist. She has the same eye-color as me; maybe, weird-seeing kids all have that feature.

“Hey, uhh, kid. What’s your name?”

“Huah,” I croaked. "Z-zach."

She smiled and tapped my forehead. She made a tsk-ing sound and opened a small refrigerator beside the bed I was sleeping in. She opened a box and held out a big mush of pulverized, uhh, cookie? Well, so she fed me food like it was baby food. I obligingly ate and as the food came in contact to my tongue; my body began to warm up. It tasted like the bacon and eggs dad made me earlier in the day of my griffin meeting. “That’s ambrosia. You like it?”

I coughed a little and said, “Yeah, it tastes like bacon.” I smiled tentatively.

She kept on feeding me a half a bowl of the mushy bacon-paste––what did she call it? Ambrosia? And, my body felt like I had a very high fever. She stopped abruptly, and placed her hand on my forehead. “That’s enough for the afternoon. You would burn up.” She looked back at Mr. Green and said, “I got this now. And, I think he’s my brother. Tell Chiron that we have a new camper.”

“Sure, Annabeth.” And, he left me in the room with the girl.

“Hey,” I managed. I sat up and my head started to feel dazed. Annabeth helped me up in an sitting position on the bed. “What do you mean about the food burning me up? And, me? Your brother? My dad had another wife?”

She constrained a little laugh. “No. No. No. You’re dad has nothing to do with our relationship (Oh, thank Heavens I’m still an only child). But, you’re mom does, well, maybe.”

My jaw fell, “Impossible. Y-you mean, you know my mom?”

“Yeah, but, I’m still not sure, okay? You need to get yourself claimed first. See that hair and eye color of yours? It’s our trademark. But, I’m not still sure. There was an Aphrodite with a same features and another in Ares. So, still not pretty accurate.”

“Claimed? Ares? Aphrodite? Why? Is my mom a really rich business woman who thinks she could just claim her children and, then, disappear? What does she think she is? A god?”

The room felt like a cold rush of air pass through. “What was that?” I asked.

“She doesn’t think of it, Zach, my mom–– or, in any case–– our mom, is a goddess. She is Athena, Lady of Wisdom.”


After a few hours of talking to Annabeth, I had a very weird understanding of what I am. She said: I was a Half-blood, my father was a mortal and my mother was one of the Ancient Greek Gods. Athena might’ve been my mom, but, she was still not sure until I am claimed, which is a process that gods use to tell the world, “Hey, guys look! This is my child. Cool, huh?” She also told me that the camp, Camp Half-Blood, was a camp for kids who have a mortal and a godly parent. It had twenty one cabins shaped like a very peculiar Greek omega. We were walking from the Big House, a huge mansion colored blue that was used to be the HQ when there is a war, to go see the array of weird cabins. (Oh, and yeah, her last name was Chase. She’s an architect. So cool!)

“You see those two large buildings over there?” She pointed to two adjacent buildings made from crystal white marble; the left one was larger than the other.

“You designed those?” I asked.

I looked at her and she just shook her head, the universal gesture for no. “I couldn’t have made any of that, silly,” she answered, frowning, like she wanted to do it just like I said, “Those are for the children of Zues and Hera(she scowled a the word Hera). Plus, the children of whatever god or goddess parentage must fix or design their own cabin. Of course, you could ask help from some other campers to help you build it. Now that’s another topic.”

“So, you designed the cabin of Athena?”

“Cabin Six? Nope. Camp Half-blood was found on the early 1800s, I think. And, the cabin of Athena, with the eleven other major gods, was built on the same time period. The only new ones that were made were that black cabin with a skull on the door, and everything adjacent it’s direction.”

We reached the middle of the cabin grounds and she asked me to sit beside her at the foot of the brazier fire in the middle.

“Oh, wait, uhh, last set of questions, do the Senior Counselors officiate the whole camp? If all of these cabins are for the claimed children, where do I go? And, uhm, who trains us? We do it ourselves?”

She looked at me with a little funny expression, “Do you always question people, like that?” She shinned back. I shook my head, “Good. For your answers, firstly, no, the Senior Counselors only oversee all of the demigods that are under his or her cabin. He or She acts as a leader of some sort. We have two officiators here at camp, Chiron and Mr. D.”

“Chiron? The one from the stories?”

She nodded. “Yup, the centaur. Second, you are correct that all of these cabins are for the claimed. But, the Hermes cabin, cabin eleven––,” she pointed to a very creaky looking wooden house beside a clockwork cabin. “––is obliged to take in the new arrivals since their father is the god of the road and travelers.” She looked at me like she was expecting me to ask a question but I just looked at her and told her to continue. “Lastly, just like in the stories, Chiron, the centaur, and Mr. D., Dionysus, trains us.”

“Whoa, wait, Dionysus, the Wine-God?”

She nodded, “He was sentenced here by Zeus because of an offense. So, he would reside here and train demigods for 50 years or so.”

“Wow, I don’t think I could take in all of these in one day.”

“That’s fine. We all become disoriented during the first day. We still can’t formulate if we believe these gods or not. Just an assurance, again, remember what I told you, okay? Keep an eye out for a lot of things. The gods tend to sometimes give out very unreasonable claiming processes.” She stood up and walked to the Hermes cabin. I followed. “Travis!” she called out. A kid with wispy brown hair and blue eyes came out of the cabin wearing a Camp shirt, orange with the words: ‘Camp Half-blood’.

“What?” he asked, he was scratching his head like he just got up from a good nap.

“I have a new camper for you.” Annabeth looked back at me and said, “Travis, this is Zach. And, Zach, this Travis Stoll, one of the Senior Counselors of Hermes.”

“I thought there was only one Senior Counselor in every cabin?”

“They are a special case. Connor and Travis oversee Cabin Eleven together. Connor officiate the Hermes demigods, while, Travis officiates the new recruits.”

“Well, hello, and welcome to Cabin Eleven. Come on, let’s get you a bunk, and, boy, you must’ve been bored to death with Annabeth. Let’s make things cool on your first day, okay?”


Travis told me to pick a bunk anywhere since there were a lot of free ones. “Careful on your belongings. A lot of people in this cabin might get a little picky, if you know what I mean.” He laughed like we were having an inside joke. “After you arrange your things, just tell me and I’ll give you a camp tour, Travis-style.”

I arranged everything I own on the top of my bunk that includes a spare of clothes, three camp shirts and three pair of pants exactly my size from the camp store. I sat down on the bunk and drank the apple juice Annabeth gave me. It tasted like one of those chocolate milk drinks I used to drink with my dad when I was five-years old. “I thought this was apple juice.” I said, looking at the glass she gave me.

“Why? What does it taste like?” Travis loomed overhead smiling broadly at me.

“A chocolate milk drink dad used to give when I was a kid.”

“Well, it’s always different to everybody.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nectar and Ambrosia,” he said, pacing back and forth like he was lecturing me on something. ”are the drink and food of the gods. When wounded or ill demigods eat or drink it, we recover some of our energy but we are in danger of bursting in to flames. The taste however is the best, isn’t it? It changes to the consumer’s preference for example, whenever I eat ambrosia, it tastes like cordon bleu, my favorite dish. You get what I’m saying?”

“Yup. So, it always tastes like my favorite food?” He nodded. “Cool!”

“As cool as it can be, we’re late for Archery 101. Chiron will get mad, you know.”


Camp was great! My first day was already full of surprises. After the Archery Class, Chiron, the camp Activity’s Director, excused me and told me that my dad called in and asked if I was okay, “He was very nervous, you know? Good thing, Joseph called him back and said you were already here in camp.”

“Mr. Green? He was the guy dad knew at M.A.S.?”

Chiron nodded. I was always looking up when I am talking to him. I mean, him being half horse would mean he was really tall, taller than everybody at camp, I suppose. He had a white coated horse body and was wearing a white shirt that read: want a hoof? He told me that this was the camp dad said he enrolled me and that it would I wouldn’t be able to see dad until the end of the summer.

“Why? Can’t he just come here?”

“No,” he pointed to the highest hill at the borders of camp. “That tree on top of Half-blood hill protects the camp from being invaded by both monsters and mortals. The barrier does not allow anything that hasn’t been blessed by any of the Senior Counselors and directors to pass through.”

“Oh,” I remembered the dream that I had a couple of days ago. I was about to ask about the dream but I decided to subside it. I didn’t want to reduce my reputation to zero because of a delusional dream.

“By the way, Joseph told me that you were attacked by a griffin?”

“You mean the shape-shifting monster?”

He creased his brow and then his expression lightened like something dawned on his mind, “The mist was messing with you that time.” I arched a brow. “The mist is a veil that keeps the mortal mind to see different things when being confronted with such sightings of monsters.”

“But, I thought I wasn’t mortal?”

“Yes, you are right. But, even demigods can be confused by the mist. The mortal blood that runs through your veins prevents you from fully seeing monsters.” He looked at his Swatch hand watch and curse in Ancient Greek. “I am late for my game of Pinochle with Mr. D. I must get going.”


He left me there and told me to continue in my camp activities and such. I went to the Climbing Wall to see what was going on. Travis saw me and came up to me in an instant, “You want to try climbing it?”

“Uh, sure, I did a lot of that at––” then at the top of the wall a lot of lava poured down and the campers scrambled a lot falling from the wall and a few dodged the hot liquid like it was nothing. “On second thought, I’ll try it for another time.”

He laughed again. “Okay. Okay. Come on, let’s get to the Pegasi table.”


The day at camp went very fast and fun. I fell of my Pegasus twice. Butch, the Senior Counselor of Iris cabin, told me to stay on the sides first. He didn’t want a demigod to die because of a haywire horse. After that, we went to the canoe lake and raced with the water nymphs. The water nymphs won hands down because all of the canoes sank to the bottom after ten meters of canoeing. The Hephaestus cabin helped some of the new campers to get new weapons, including me. Jake Mason gave me a thirty-inch Celestial Bronze sword with a bronze leather hilt.

“Celestial bronze,” he said, “together with Imperial Gold and Stygian Iron, is one of the only weapons that could harm monsters but it doesn’t affect any mortal as long as there is no godly blood on their veins.”

After trying it out with a sparring session with the Ares cabin, a conch horn blew and Travis called the whole group of Hermes campers and headed to an open-air dining pavilion. Everyone from camp seemed to go and sit down on separate tables; five tables seemed to be evacuated. A Hermes camper, Francis Fields, told me that the five tables were the tables of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, and Artemis. “The Poseidon table should’ve had a camper sitting there, but, he’s on a quest right now with the son of Hades.”

Mr. D., a pudgy black haired man with purple eyes, was talking about how the camp would start and we should enjoy the rest of our ‘puny human lives’. “There isn’t any other thing I would like to say to you `kids. So, yeah, sit back and eat up while you still have a chance.”

Chiron stood up and lifted his goblet and said, “For the gods!” The whole camp raised their glasses and followed suit.

After all of the people have placed down their glasses, the room lit up in a silvery glow, and everybody started to train their eyes on me. No, they weren’t looking at me. They were looking above me. I looked up and saw a huge––no, an enormous, owl which flickered over and coo-ing a lot.

“What’s happening?” I shouted trying to swat away the owl.

“You’re being claimed.” Chiron said stiffly with a smile crawling through his face.

“What do you––?” I screamed.

Chiron stood, with all of the campers who knelt in front of me, and declared. “Lieutenant of Kings. The Gray-Eyed One. Hail, Zachary Leonard! Son of Athena, Lady of War!”