Chapter Text
Okay, so I wasn't actually there for this.
Obviously. I was probably back at my mom's apartment—our apartment, I guess, since I technically live there now—trying to figure out if my pre-algebra textbook was written in Simon's mother's handwriting or just regular, impossible-to-understand gibberish. With my dyslexia, it could honestly go either way.
But if I had been there, watching my friend Simonna Thérèse Lin Abbott-Holland-Thorn wake up on his first day of seventh grade—and yes, that is his real full name, and yes, he will kill me if he ever finds out I got it down—this is how it would've gone down.
You get used to filling in the blanks when you're a demigod. Your brain starts doing it automatically, like a weird, mythological version of subtitles. Except instead of translating Spanish to English, you're translating "normal person who has no idea monsters exist" to "oh gods, everything is trying to kill us."
Which, to be fair, I do. But that's never stopped me from being nosy before.
…
Tap tap. Tap tap tap.
If there's one sound that's worse than the morning alarm on the first day of school, it's the sound of a pigeon with a serious lack of manners and a serious need for a breakfast buffet. Right outside your window.
Simon Thorn's eyes flew open.
He lay in bed, breathing like he'd just outrun a hellhound—which, honestly, he had done before, so that wasn't even an exaggeration—and squinting against the early morning light that was way too cheerful for a day destined to suck. He'd been in the middle of a dream. The kind that feels super important but vanishes faster than nectar on a hot day, leaving behind nothing but the ghost of a feeling.
He couldn't remember the details. But he had a gut feeling his mom had been in it.
Or maybe it was Maya and—
Simon's breath hitched. His fingers flew to his leg, brushing over the healing scar—a not-so-fun souvenir from a dagger back in St. Louis—before he forced himself to relax.
And Luke? His brain unhelpfully supplied.
He didn't have the energy for that thought. Not today.
Tap. Tap tap tap.
He rolled over, blinking at the ceiling. The cramped New York City apartment he shared with his uncle Darryl smelled like breakfast—but not just any breakfast. He caught the warm, buttery scent of jianbing hitting a hot pan, the sharp tang of soy and sesame, and underneath it all, something sweeter. Maybe the povitica that Peter always sent over from the bistro, the nutty swirls of Croatian-German bread that Irene had taught Darryl to make years ago.
His stomach did a complicated flip that had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the date on his phone.
September second.
First day of seventh grade.
Not even a mountain of chocolate-chip pancakes could make up for it being the first day of seventh grade.
Simon dropped back onto his pillow and stared at the water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like a bear riding a unicycle. He'd named it Bartholomew two years ago when he couldn't sleep because Luke had been telling him stories about the Titan War until three in the morning.
Luke.
His chest constricted.
He didn't want to think about Luke. Luke Holland. Luke Thorn. Luke Lin-Abbott. The name changed depending on the day, depending on who was mad at him, depending on how much they wanted to claim him or disown him. But Simon had known him as all three, and now—
Now his brother—his brother, the one who'd taught him how to hold a sword, the one who'd patched up his scraped knees, the one who'd promised him that Camp Half-Blood would always be his home—had tried to kill me, Percy Jackson, on the last day of summer.
Some brother, Simon thought bitterly. Some home.
And then there was the other thing. The super embarrassing thing that he was trying very hard to repress, thank you very much.
A few weeks ago, he'd been on live TV across the country. A bunch of clueless reporters had called him "Simonna" (which, okay, technically accurate, but still) and made him kiss me on the cheek for the cameras.
I, for the most part, would've been way more okay with the whole cheek-kiss thing if it hadn't been a) forced, b) on national television, and c) under a name that wasn't even Simon's. Even if that name was technically on Simon's dog tags—and it was, I'd seen them—it still didn't feel right. Simon was Simon. Not Simonna, not really. Not whatever name the Mist decided to slap on him to keep mortals from asking too many questions.
I'd spent the whole time mentally screaming at the Mist to do its job better, even if it had to use that name. I thought Simon had handled it with way more grace than I would have, but what do I know. I once turned a water fountain into a geyser because a teacher looked at me wrong.
Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap.
A pigeon was perched on his windowsill, treating the glass like its own personal drum set.
Simon groaned, rolling toward the window. "You're too early. Come back later."
The pigeon ignored him, tapping more insistently. This was standard pigeon behavior. Simon—and his older-sister-by-choice, Maya Lin Abbott—had long since decided pigeons were, as a general rule: rude, entitled, and absolutely convinced the world revolved around their next meal. Which, to be fair, to them it kinda did.
"Food!" the pigeon cooed as Simon finally shoved the window open.
A dozen more pigeons materialized on the fire escape like they'd been waiting just out of sight. Which they probably had. They were organized in a way that would've been impressive if it wasn't so annoying.
"Food! Food! Food!" The chant rose from a dozen beaked throats.
"I don't have any yet," Simon said, his voice raspy with sleep. He rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up enough to negotiate. "It's literally seven in the morning. Give me like, an hour."
"Do, too," insisted the first pigeon, flying into his room with zero regard for personal boundaries and landing on his nightstand. The others jostled for space on the windowsill, wings flapping. "Smell it. The cooking human is making everything."
The others buzzed in agreement.
"Yeah!"
"Smells like France!"
"The good France, not the tourist France!"
"FOOD!"
Simon sighed. They weren't wrong—the apartment did smell incredible. But that didn't mean he had any to share yet.
"I'll see what I can do," he promised. "But you have to be quiet. If my uncle finds you in here again, he's going to lose his mind."
"Lose his mind about us?" The pigeon puffed up its chest indignantly. "We are guests."
"You're pigeons."
"We are distinguished visitors."
"You're literally standing on my homework."
The pigeon looked down at the crumpled worksheet from last spring that Simon definitely should have thrown out months ago. "This is not homework. This is garbage."
"It was homework."
Simon tried to shoo them toward the window, but it was like trying to hold back the tide with a broom. They flowed around his hands, resettling in new locations with infuriating determination.
Normally, he didn't mind this. Animals were cool. They didn't care that he was scrawnier than most twelve-year-olds—twelve and a half, he corrected himself internally, because that half-year mattered—or that his haircuts were... adventurous. They were usually around to talk to, and they never judged him for the weird things that came out of his mouth.
But this morning, his nerves were already stretched thinner than Ares's patience. First day of school. Luke's betrayal. The TV incident. The scar on his leg that still ached when it rained.
"If you don't leave," he threatened, "my uncles are gonna come in. And you know what they do to pigeons."
That got their attention. They glanced at each other nervously, feathers ruffling.
"Us... food?" said the first pigeon, its voice suddenly much less confident.
"Yeah," Simon bluffed, laying it on thick. "My uncle Darryl? Big guy? Scars all over? He loves pigeon pancakes. Can't you smell the batter? And my other uncle Ajax? He's Malaysian. You know what they eat in Malaysia?"
The pigeons exchanged alarmed looks.
"Everything," Simon said darkly. "Everything."
"And your girl!" one of the younger pigeons squeaked. "The scary one! She sharpens knives in the morning!"
Maya. Of course they remembered Maya. She'd once chased a rat through the entire apartment with a broom, screaming in Mandarin, and the pigeons had not forgotten.
"My sister’s the one you should be worried about," Simon agreed. "She's been practicing her throwing knives. Says she needs moving targets."
The pigeon ruffled its feathers skeptically, but it took a cautious step backward.
Darryl was a big, scary-looking dude—six-foot-something of muscle and construction-worker build, with a network of scars covering his body and a nasty one cutting down his left cheek. Simon knew he'd never actually hurt a living creature (except spiders, which he declared war on with extreme prejudice—apparently, that was a Germany thing, something about a childhood incident Irene still laughed about). But the pigeons didn't know that.
Maya, on the other hand? Simon wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't try to wrestle a pigeon into submission. She had a thing about pests. Last month, she'd chased a raccoon down three flights of fire escape stairs armed with nothing but a broom and a lot of creative swearing.
For his entire life, Darryl's one unwavering rule had been: Stay away from animals.
And for most of his life, Simon hadn't had a problem with that. He liked animals fine, but he'd never wanted a pet. His uncle was usually diligent about keeping bugs and rats out of the apartment, and Maya helped reinforce this rule whenever she could—whether it be forcing her father, Ajax, to keep away their two giant German shepherds whenever he visited their fairly modest place in New York, or threatening the animals herself.
That last part always made Simon laugh. Maybe because Maya would get down to the animal's height and berate them like a disappointed drill sergeant, or maybe because she genuinely didn't look like the type of person to do that. With her sharp features, dark eyes, and the kind of resting face that made people cross to the other side of the street, she seemed more likely to start a fight than to negotiate with a pigeon.
But that all changed a year ago, when Simon woke up to what he thought was his neighbor's TV, only to realize the conversation was coming from the pigeons on his fire escape.
And he could understand every word.
And they could understand him.
...
It had been three in the morning. Simon was eleven years old, small for his age, and absolutely convinced he was losing his mind.
The pigeons had been arguing about bread crumbs.
"—mine, I saw it first—"
"—doesn't matter, you can't just—"
"—watch me, you overgrown—"
Simon had sat up in bed, heart pounding. He'd pressed his hands over his ears. The voices didn't stop.
"I'm dreaming," he'd whispered to himself. "I'm dreaming, this isn't real, I'm dreaming—"
"He can hear us," one of the pigeons had said.
"Don't be stupid," another had replied. "Humans can't hear us."
"Then why is he looking at us?"
All three pigeons had turned to stare through his window, their tiny black eyes fixed on his face.
Simon had screamed.
Darryl had burst into the room five seconds later, still in his boxers, holding a kitchen knife. "What?! What happened?!"
"Nothing," Simon had gasped, staring at the window. The pigeons were gone. "Nothing. I just… bad dream."
Darryl had looked at him for a long moment, scarred face unreadable. Then he'd nodded slowly, lowered the knife, and said, "Do you want tea?"
Simon had said yes.
He hadn't slept for the rest of the night.
…
It wasn’t just pigeons. He could chat with alley cats, dumpster rats, Maya’s dogs (who had decided he was their favorite human-sized bed long before he could talk to them), and even the mosquitoes he swatted. He’d thought he was cracking up. He still wasn’t totally sure he wasn’t. But ever since, animals had been drawn to him, and hiding it from Darryl was getting harder and harder.
Why not from Maya? Because she’d caught him scolding a pigeon one day and had WWE-wrestled the truth out of him—ouch. She was two years older, from a military family, and had once body-slammed him onto the floor of Cabin Eleven when they first met. His limbs still remembered that. Luke had to save him.
Thankfully, Darryl’s sheer size and scarred-up intensity scared most animals off without Simon having to make empty threats. Simon didn’t know why Darryl hated animals so much, but he and Maya had a theory it was connected to the network of scars covering his body, especially the nasty one down his left cheek. No matter how many times they asked, Darryl never talked about them.
“I’ll have food for you later,” Simon promised the pigeons. “But not—”
A sudden gust of wind blew through the window, scattering the pigeons. Before Simon could feel relieved, a massive golden eagle landed in their place. Simon froze. He’d never seen an eagle up close. This one looked like it had been in a fight—feathers askew, missing an eye.
The remaining pigeons freaked out. Simon frowned. “Listen, I don’t have anything for you yet. If you come back in thirty minutes—”
“I’m not interested in food,” said the eagle, its voice all lofty and important.
“Then what do you want?”
The eagle fixed its one good eye on him. “You’re in grave danger, Simon Thorn. If you don’t come with me at once—”
“Simon?” Darryl’s gruff voice echoed from the hallway. “Who are you talking to?”
Styx.
Simon slammed the window shut, cutting the eagle off. Unfortunately, that trapped the first pigeon inside his room. He dove across the floor and shoved his foot against the door just as Darryl tried to open it.
“What’s going on in here?” Darryl asked, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes and trying to peer into the room. The pigeon on the nightstand edged toward the window, looking guilty.
“Nothing,” Simon said, his heart hammering against his ribs like a drum. “I was just getting ready for school. Where’s Maya?” Outside, the pigeons started cooing again and Simon winced.
Darryl’s jaw tightened. “Did you feed them again?”
“I accidentally left my window open on Saturday,” Simon admitted. It was half true. He had left it open. But he’d given his sandwich to a sick pigeon, not had it stolen. “They stole half my sandwich.”
His uncle grumbled. “How many times do I have to tell you? If you feed them once—”
“They’ll come back again and again until their stupid pigeon brains rot,” Simon recited dutifully. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Darryl scanned the part of the room he could see, and Simon could’ve sworn he heard a low growl. “Just keep your window shut. Maya’s in the living room. Breakfast in ten. You’ll need your protein today.”
Simon felt like he’d need a lot more than protein. A divine intervention, maybe. “I’ll be right out.”
The second Darryl’s footsteps faded, Simon rushed back to the window. The eagle was gone. He bit his lip. Grave danger? How did it know his name?
He opened the window a crack for the trapped pigeon. “If I were you, I’d get out of here before my uncle and sister really do serve you for breakfast.”
“Far away, far away,” the pigeon agreed, fleeing without a backward glance. Simon felt a twinge of loneliness. Pigeons were rude, but they were usually around for company.
“You should tell Darryl and Maya about the eagle,” squeaked a small voice from near the floor.
Simon groaned. “Today’s going to be bad enough. If Darryl finds out I lied, I’ll be grounded for a month. And you know Maya: stab first, ask questions later… though, she’s gotten better.”
A brown mouse scampered up his pajama leg. “Better than being in grave danger, whatever that means.”
“And how am I supposed to explain that? ‘A little bird told me’?” Simon scooped the mouse—Felix—into his hand. “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”
Felix rubbed his paws together. “I should go with you. Someone needs to watch your back.”
“I’m a thousand times your size. I’d be protecting you from becoming eagle lunch. Or getting impaled by one of Maya’s throwing knives.”
“But—”
“No buts. If something goes wrong, I’ll come straight home.” Simon set Felix on his pillow. “And no TV while I’m gone. One day Darryl’s gonna catch you and you know what he’ll do.”
Felix huffed, and Simon headed to the bathroom. He and Maya had found Felix half-starved in his closet eight months ago. After Simon nursed him back to health (with Maya reluctantly helping patch up him all while calling the mouse a “dirty no-good pest”), Felix had moved in permanently. Their deal was simple: Simon provided food and shelter, Felix stayed hidden from Darryl, and Maya didn’t try to turn him into a pincushion. It was a shaky truce at best.
After brushing his teeth, Simon tried to do something with his shaggy, brownish-blonde hair. It was almost time for a haircut, which he dreaded almost as much as pre-algebra. Darryl tried his best, but his big hands were made for construction work, or beating up guys in a bar, not scissors. The result was always… lopsided.
Simon didn’t really care, and Maya always supplied him with hair clips to mitigate the damage while Ajax usually curled his hair so no one could tell how messy it was, but the kids at school definitely cared. Their taunts never got easier.
Other than the haircuts, he figured he looked pretty normal. Blue eyes, freckles, kinda skinny with a head that was maybe a tad too big for his body. Not a total freak.
He didn’t get why his classmates loved picking on him. Last year, his best—and only remaining normal—friend, Colin Hartwood, the guy who taught Simon how to play pinochle thanks to his uncle, told him it was because he sometimes talked to animals like they understood him. So he’d stopped. In public, at least. But the taunts just got worse.
Even Colin had started avoiding him. Which made today even more important.
The folks at Camp Half-Blood thought his animal-talking was cool. Strange, but cool. The Aphrodite cabin did their best to fix Darryl’s haircut disasters. But after everything that went down, Darryl had laid down the law: Simon was forbidden from going back.
“Here you go,” Darryl said when Simon entered the kitchen. Maya was already at the table as Darryl handed Simon a plate piled high with bacon and lopsided chocolate-chip pancakes, then gave Maya her own, more reasonably sized portion.
Maya, already in her crisp private school uniform for St. Agnes School for Girls—the place she went to instead of Simon’s school since her application was taking some time and Ajax had to place her somewhere that wasn’t camp after the ban—instead of her usual camo jacket and flowy skirt, handed him a hair clip. It was shaped like half a constellation—Gemini, the twins.
Their star sign.
“Morning, Twiggy.”
“Morning, Mynx,” Simon yawned, clipping the stray curl behind his ear. “Good luck in eighth grade.”
“You too, in seventh.” She clipped the matching half into her own hair.
A few years ago, Simon might have protested the hair accessories, but he’d learned Maya’s “gift-giving” look was as persuasive as Darryl’s glower. And they worked.
“I packed you a lunch, too,” Darryl added, looking between them with that somber expression he got sometimes. “Peanut butter and jelly isn’t suddenly uncool, is it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Simon said, sitting down. His stomach lurched at the first bite of pancake.
Maya nudged him. “Don’t say that. You got a camp laurel, Twiggy.”
He shook his head. The quest hadn’t proven he was strong. It had just gotten him an intensive check-up that left him wrapped up like a mummy. Yeah, he had the laurel. But the kids at school didn’t care about that. All of camp would’ve tiptoed around him more now because his brother was the traitor, Luke Castellan, and his sister was the still terrifying Maya Lin Abbott.
“Nervous?” Darryl asked. Simon shrugged. “Don’t be. It’ll all be fine.”
“If it’s anything like last year, it won’t be.”
The chair groaned as Darryl sat, making Maya giggle. “We can’t control what other people think of us, but we’re the only ones who get to decide who we really are. As long as you act like yourself—”
“I can’t lose. I know,” Simon muttered, stabbing his pancakes. “Colin said he wants to join the wrestling team this year. Thinks it’ll make the popular kids like us.”
Maya did a silent cheer—she was one of the best wrestlers at camp and had always tried to get him into it, despite his complete lack of the right body type or skill.
“Keeping your enemies close isn’t a bad strategy,” Darryl said.
“Not when it gives them an excuse to beat us up every day.” Simon had spent all summer hoping to be invisible in seventh grade. But with Colin avoiding him, joining the team felt like his only chance to keep his friend. “Tryouts are next week. You might want to buy some frozen peas.”
“After I show you a few moves, they’ll be the ones needing peas—I taught Maya everything she knows,” Darryl said. Maya nodded proudly, reaching for a pancake on Simon’s plate until Darryl lightly smacked her hand with a spatula. He turned back to Simon. “This year will be better. Trust me. I know things have been rough, especially with Castellan and your mom, but—”
Simon and Maya stood up simultaneously. He was nauseous enough without that topic. Maya looked furious that Darryl had brought it up. “I have to finish getting ready. Thanks for the pancakes. I’ll eat the rest in my room.”
“Simon…” they both said, guilty.
“It’s fine. Really.”
“Darryl!” Maya snapped. “Why’d you have to mention them!”
Ignoring their protests and the argument that followed, Simon took his plate to his room. He closed the door, set the plate on his desk next to his charging beat-up phone, and sank into his chair. On the wall in front of him hung the a hundred and twenty four postcards his mother had sent since she’d left him with Darryl. They arrived once a month from all over the country, each with a picture of an animal. He’d memorized the loopy handwriting on the back—the same writing that gave every other demigod at camp a dyslexia-induced migraine, but which he could read perfectly.
He knew her words better than he knew her face.
She was a zoologist, so most postcards were about the animal on the front. But sometimes she wrote how much she missed him. Those were his favorites. Next to the postcards were his favorite photos. There were no pictures of his mom, though he desperately wished he had one. He’d sometimes ask Selena Beauregard, a daughter of Aphrodite, to shift her appearance to what he faintly remembered—fair skin, blue eyes, blonde hair.
But Selena’s power worked on the viewer's idea of beauty, and his memory was so fuzzy her face would often shift into the opposite: dark hair, dark eyes, sun-kissed, scarred skin. Selena said she didn’t mind the change from the usual flawless looks, but Simon still felt bad for shocking her entire cabin.
The photos were mostly of Simon and Darryl all over New York, from the Bronx to Coney Island. Lots were with his siblings (Simon couldn’t bring himself to cross out Luke, no matter how much Maya said he deserved it). Some were with his friends from camp—the place he was now forbidden from. The rest were with his former, normal friends before they abandoned him, those he had the dignity to cover up their faces with stickers.
He and Darryl never talked about his mother, unlike Maya and Luke, who’d asked so many times Darryl had literally tossed them out the fire escape—allegdly, but Simon will tell you Darryl throws everyone, it’s a whole thing. His mom traveled for work, dumping Simon with his uncle. Darryl and Ajax were the closest things he had to parents as much as Luke and Maya were his siblings. She’d sometimes show up for Christmas or his birthday, but only for a few hours, always distracted. Her visits had gotten less and less frequent. The last time he’d seen her was a year ago, right after he’d learned he could talk to animals.
More than anything, he wanted her to come home. He could handle the taunts if she were there. He’d eat lunch alone forever if he could have dinner with her. She’d understand about the animals. She wouldn’t think he was crazy.
Luke had understood. Luke had spent almost every day with him for the last three years. And then Luke had betrayed them all.
But that was different. Luke was his brother. She was his mom.
He needed his mom. He didn't need Luke. Not anymore.
No longer hungry, Simon dropped some bacon and a pancake under his desk for Felix and tossed the rest onto the fire escape for the waiting pigeons. The eagle hadn’t returned. When he emerged from his room, Darryl was waiting with his brown-bag lunch. Maya was already gone.
“I have time to walk with you if you want.”
There was nothing worse Simon could imagine. “I’m supposed to meet Colin,” he said. Or he thought he was.
To his relief, Darryl didn’t argue. Instead, he knelt, bringing them nearly eye-level. “Nothing lasts forever, no matter how it feels. Remember, you’ll be my size someday. No one’s gonna mess with you then.”
“Today isn’t someday,” Simon muttered.
“No, it’s not. But in the meantime, do your best and be yourself. That’s all any of us can do.” Darryl stood and pressed a scratchy kiss to Simon’s forehead that I was fifty percent sure the scruff would leave a mark. “Do good, kid. Make me proud.”
Simon stuffed his lunch into his backpack and left. He trudged down the steps and waited on the corner where he and Colin always met. Colin wasn’t there. He was usually the one running late.
Simon checked his watch. Ten minutes. If Colin wasn’t here in ten minutes, he wasn’t coming.
He tried to act casual, leaning against a street sign, pretending his palms weren’t sweating. Nine minutes and thirty seconds. Colin lived down the block; he had to come this way.
A loud screech in the street made the hair on his neck stand up. For a second, he thought it was the eagle. Peering over the curb, he saw half a dozen rats attacking a balled-up newspaper. Then the lump screeched again. Horror shot through him. It was a pigeon.
“Hey—cut that out!” he yelled, jumping into the street. “Leave him alone!”
The rats froze, looked at him, and bolted for the sewer, leaving the injured bird. Simon knelt beside it, aware of people staring. He couldn’t just leave it.
“Are you okay?”
The pigeon cooed weakly. “Fly,” it said, struggling into the air. Simon watched it round the corner and disappear.
Over the next eight minutes, Simon witnessed several more pigeon-rat fights. He broke them up as best he could—a habit from being Camp Half-Blood’s unofficial mediator, a job Mr. D and Chiron had given him for some reason. No one else seemed to notice the animals acting weird. The eagle’s warning echoed in his ears. Maybe he should’ve stayed home.
Finally, the ten minutes were up. No Colin. His heart sank. Maybe Colin was already at school. Maybe he was waiting in Central Park.
Darryl had expressly forbidden him from going into the park alone, which, naturally, meant Simon snuck in all the time with instructions from Maya and Luke. A thrill ran through him as he darted up a path that shaved ten minutes off his walk. The trees, the grass, the smell of dirt—it brightened his mood. Since the path was empty, he even dared to greet a few ducks.
“I see you did not heed my warning, Simon Thorn.”
Simon whirled around. The golden eagle was perched on a branch above him. “What was I supposed to do? It’s the first day of school.”
“Some things are far more important.” The eagle flew down to a bronze plaque on a bench. “You must come with me immediately—for your own safety.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have wings,” said Simon. “How do you know my name?”
“Because,” the eagle said with a long-suffering sigh, “your mother told me.”
Out of everything the eagle could have said, that was the last thing Simon expected. “You—you know my mother?”
“Indeed,” said the eagle. “If you would come with me—”
A snarl cut through the air. The eagle took flight instantly. Simon cursed. “Wait—come back!”
But the eagle was gone.
Muttering, Simon looked for the source of the snarl. Before he could find it, a chorus of snickers started behind him.
“Talking to animals again, Psycho?”
Simon’s blood ran cold. Bryan Barker and his gang of eighth graders. The biggest, meanest boys in school. Bryan, with his sudden growth spurt and broad shoulders, was a shoo-in for wrestling team captain—if Maya didn’t overtake him when she transfers. Getting on his good side was why Colin wanted to join. Simon was pretty sure Bryan didn’t have a good side.
Just like Luke didn’t have a backbone, if he was going to abandon Simon twice.
Simon hurried down the path, hoping they’d leave him alone. But their footsteps got louder, surrounding him. Running would just give them an excuse to pummel him.
“Answer me, Psycho.” Something bounced off his backpack—a rock. “Or did you forget how to speak human?”
Two boys, Alex Slater and Tyler Jefferson, cut him off, grinning like sharks down at their prey. Simon whirled around. “If you don’t let me go, we’re all going to be late for—”
A pale boy with a round face peeked out from behind Bryan. Simon wilted. “Colin?”
He was the only seventh grader shorter than Simon. He wore thick glasses and looked shocked to see him. Colin stared at the ground.
Simon didn’t care about the four tough guys surrounding him. All he saw was his best only normal friend who couldn’t even look at him. “I thought you were going to wait for me at the corner.”
“Is it true, Colin? Is Psycho Simon your boyfriend?” Bryan taunted. The others laughed. Colin turned beet red. Simon’s own face heated up, but for a totally different reason.
“He’s—he’s not even my friend,” Colin stammered. “He’s crazy.”
The words hit Simon like a physical punch. The world tilted. He swallowed hard.
“Don’t cry, Psycho. I’m sure the rats still like you,” Bryan said. The older boys shoved him as they passed. Simon didn’t fight back. He just looked at Colin, who was trudging after them, carrying five backpacks.
“Colin—” he started.
Bryan made obnoxious kissing noises. Colin’s face turned purple. “M’sorry,” he mumbled, and walked away.
Simon stood frozen until their laughter faded. He wanted to believe Colin would change his mind, but he knew better. And now he was alone.
He dragged himself the rest of the way through the park, their taunts buzzing in his head. He tried to convince himself they didn’t matter.
Bryan didn’t matter. Colin didn’t matter. Luke Castellan didn’t matter.
But they did.
They all did.
He ducked his head and walked up the empty school steps. By now, half the school probably knew. He considered ditching. But the thought of Darryl’s disappointment and the certain knowledge that Maya would drag him up the stairs by his ankles made him climb them. He couldn’t do that to them. Bryan would forget eventually. It couldn’t get much worse.
“Simon!”
A hair-raising screech came from the street. Simon spun around. The golden eagle was perched on a street sign, staring right at him.
Simon narrowed his eyes. Everything that happened was the eagle’s fault. If it had just left him alone, Bryan wouldn’t have overheard. Maybe he’d have had a chance.
He turned his back on the eagle and walked into the school. If the eagle wanted something, it could come back later. Right now, all Simon could think about was surviving the day ahead. And it was gonna be a long one.