Chapter Two
Flash Floods and Birth

​Ellis felt like he was thrown into another world. His dad was Apollo. But nothing ever suggested that could happen when we learned Greek mythology last year, Ellis thought. How did this happen to me? That was one of his questions swirling in his mind.
​Soon, Ellis saw himself thrashing about in the waters, heading to Long Island. He was on the shoreline by then, coughing in the murky greenish water. There was a pine tree ahead. He crawled over to the tree and sat there, dripping and exhausted.
​Two people had come out of nowhere and helped him up. Ellis was dizzy and could only make out a blurry sight of them. They seemed to be wearing bright orange shirts. Ellis had dyslexia, so it was hard to decipher what it said. It seemed to say:
AMPC H-LABFOOLD
​“Are you okay?” One of the two said that, but Ellis’s temporarily blurry sight made him unable to know who said what.
​The other one asked, “Who are you?”
​“Ellis,” he replied, so raspy it was almost incoherent. He had only hazy memories of the past hour.
​“Hi, I’m Annabeth.”
​The other one didn’t greet, but the one named Annabeth hit the boy in the elbow and he replied to Ellis.
​“Okay, okay! I’m Percy.”
​Ellis spit something out of his mouth. It was the birth certificate, somehow still in one piece. The one named Percy got it and read it.
​Percy showed it to Annabeth, and her eyes widened.
​“Welcome to the club,” she said.
​“Huh?” Ellis was dumbfounded.
​“Camp Half-Blood,” Percy said. “Do you have dyslexia?”
​Ellis nodded.
​“That makes sense. Can you play an instrument? Apollo’s the god of music.” Annabeth turned to Percy for extra truth.
​“How am I supposed to know?”
​Ellis played something suddenly. It was a golden lyre, what Apollo is depicted playing.
​“Yup, you’re the son of Apollo.”
​The two kids from Camp Half-Blood helped Ellis up and truthfully told him what Camp Half-Blood was. They didn’t want to get on Apollo’s bad side, since he was also the god of truth, the reason why Ellis’s drawings always come true.
​“… It’s awesome,” Percy said.
​“It is,” Annabeth said for reassurance.
​“How did you get here? Your certificate says that you were born in Connecticut. That’s TC, right? I have dyslexia, too.”
​“I thought it was CT,” Ellis replied.
​“Who cares about the abbreviation of Connecticut? We’re about to cross the property line,” Annabeth said. “Oh, by the way, that pine tree you saw was Thalia’s pine, basically. Everyone knows the story. Do you?”
​“We did Greek mythology in class last year. Although now that I see this, I don’t think it’s a myth anymore. They should call it truth-ology.” Ellis gasped for breath after speed-talking.
​Percy and Annabeth cracked up as they crossed the property line.
​“The only safe haven for demigods,” Annabeth said as they approached.
​“Huh?”
​“Demigods is another way to say half-blood, dummy.”
​“Percy, he’s new! Don’t call him a dummy. Call me one.”
​“I already called you a dummy and the opposite,” Percy said.
​“Whoa,” Ellis gaped at Camp Half-Blood.