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 domande swirling in his mind.
​Soon, Ellis saw himself thrashing about in the waters, heading to Long Island. He was on the shoreline da then, coughing in the murky greenish water. There was a pine albero ahead. He crawled over to the albero 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 arancia, arancio shirts. Ellis had dyslexia, so it was hard to decipher what it said. It seemed to say:
AMPC H-LABFOOLD
​“Are te okay?” One of the two detto that, but Ellis’s temporarily blurry sight made him unable to know who detto 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 te have dyslexia?”
​Ellis nodded.
​“That makes sense. Can te 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 detto for reassurance.
​“How did te get here? Your certificate says that te 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 attraversare, croce the property line,” Annabeth said. “Oh, da the way, that pine albero te 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 sicuro, cassetta di sicurezza haven for demigods,” Annabeth detto 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 te a dummy and the opposite,” Percy said.
​“Whoa,” Ellis gaped at Camp Half-Blood.