Night and Day: Prophecies in High School

[Harper Marowski]

Well, technically it's not Percy's birthday anymore, but hopefully it still counts. o.o You all know I've been working on this for a while, but I've never actually posted anything from it on here. Now I have. ^^ Enjoy, everyone!!

NIGHT AND DAY: PROPHECIES IN HIGH SCHOOL

Welcome to the small city of Oakville. But contained within the city limits is a fierce rivalry, that between Athens High School and the Legion Academy, two schools that have been enemies practically since they were founded. Follow the stories of ten students, five from each school, and discover what it’s like to live in Oakville.

Harper

“Hold on, hold on. Before we start Lady and the Tramp again, I have to feed Belle. She’s getting hungry.”

Harper Marowski rolled over on the bed of her very best friend in the world, Cameron Hale, and raised her eyebrows as said best friend had risen from the floor cradling his dark tabby cat. “I thought you just fed her like an hour ago,” she commented innocently, blinking as he made his way to the door.

Cameron, more commonly known as Cam, gave his friend a look. “Shh… you’ll make her feel fat. It’ll take me like two minutes.”

“I’ll come with you. Do you think I could grab some chocolate while we’re down there?”

“Harp, you know that my dad loves you to death. I don’t even think you need to ask if you can eat our food anymore,” Cam replied, giving her a look that suggested she was crazy for even asking.

Without another word, he turned and left the room. Harper swung her legs around on his bed to follow, and scurried after him as if afraid to get lost in his cozy two-story home that was literally right down the street from her own. Though, she mused, that wasn’t an uncommon thing in their small city, where everyone seemed to know everyone. Pretty much everyone she knew at school, which was a good deal of people, lived within three or four miles of her home where she lived with her single mother, Tricia Marowski, who’d taken care of her by herself for as long as Harper could remember.

The three of them (Harper, Cam, and his cat Belle) made their way downstairs to the kitchen where Cameron’s father, Mark, was making hot dogs for himself. He looked up as they entered the kitchen, grinned at them, and left the pair alone as he sauntered off back into the living room where he was watching some sports programming.

This had been the way Harper and Cam had been ever since they’d become fast friends freshman year of high school. They did practically everything together. They studied together, drove together, worked together on homework. They always attended each other’s events, looked out for the other, and above all had been as good a friend to the other as they could possibly be. Sleepovers were weekly and sometimes even a nightly occurrence for the two, and each other’s parents had become just as accustomed to having the other around the house as they were with their own child.

“You know where we tend to keep the sweets,” Cam told her as he put Belle gently onto the ground and went to fetch her food. “Help yourself.”

“When do you want to go to bed?” Harper asked as she pulled a chair over to the counter, as she was too short to reach the candy cupboard by herself. “Because I don’t want to stay up too late with school tomorrow.”

“Ugh, school, that unpleasant thing where your mind gets pillaged and plundered by knowledge you don’t even want,” Cameron groaned, pouring Belle some of her favorite cat chow that he and Harper went to buy at the pet store every Wednesday. “Are you sure that starts tomorrow?”

Harper gave her friend a look as she climbed onto the chair and reached into the cabinet to get a back of semi-sweet chocolate chips. “Please don’t tell me you didn’t buy your textbooks again this year.”

“I did!” Cam replied indignantly, frowning. “I just don’t want to go to school tomorrow. Even if it is our senior year.”

A sobering fact seemed to hit Harper just as she had made her way back down the floor with her chocolate chips in hand. Something changed in her chocolate brown eyes, as she realized that she would probably have to deal with him tomorrow. Cameron, as if of the same mind, seemed to sense the instant she’d had the thought, and as he let Belle get to munching on her dinner, he came over to where his best friend was standing, frozen.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just… Cam, what will I do?”

Seeming to know that this was not a conversation to have where his father could potentially overhear them, Cam pushed the chair Harper had climbed onto back into place before guiding her back up the stairs to his room.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Cameron didn’t even need to ask who. His face had darkened already with the notion.

Harper shrugged.

“Harp, if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to make you forget about his sorry ass this year,” Cam said in a determined voice, sitting beside on the bed and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to get you dating again, and I know plenty of guys who would be more than willing to have a beautiful sunny girl like you in a Facebook official relationship. You should give it a shot.”

Harper shook her head. “Cam,” she murmured, “I can’t.”

“And why on this fashionable green earth not?”

“Can’t we just forget about it for now? I don’t want to talk about it.” Gavin was still a reasonably sore spot for Harper, and she hated talking about him or even thinking about him at this point. She’d been thinking about him all summer, and she was getting sick of it. “I appreciate it, Cam, I really do, but I just…”

“Oh come on, Harp, it’s your senior year! You can’t spend it single.”

“I can and I will. Watch me.”

Cameron just eyed his friend in frustration. He and Harper had their tiffs every now and then like normal friends, but in the end they always forgave each other. It was simply the way their friendship seemed to work. “You’re so stubborn about the stupidest of things, Harper, my love,” he said as he rolled his eyes. “Come on. Let’s just restart Lady and the Tramp. Maybe we can watch Lady and the Tramp 2 later if you feel up to it. Maybe the romance there will inspire you to think about dating someone. Maybe like Will Riley, for instance.”

Harper eyed her best friend, frowning in slight distaste. “Cam, seriously, I’m not in the mood for matchmaking.”

“Oh, come on! Will Riley’s single. You’re single. You both need to date, it’s the perfect set up!”

“Cam, I said no.”

Cameron sighed, and picked up the remote. “Fine. But when we finally go to sleep, and we wake up, and we go to school, and you see Will Riley, you think of me. And you remember how I said that it’s your senior year, Harper Marowski, and I’ll be damned if I don’t see you happily dating for at least half of it.”

Luke

“So, big brother, deciding to spend the last night of summer brooding in your room and leaving me to hang out to dry?”

Luke Castellan groaned and sat up on his bed, to find his adopted sister, Avery, leaning against the doorframe of the entrance to his room, and wished that he’d actually shut the door and locked it. Not that it would have made much of a difference, considering Avery was a natural lock picker. His ‘brooding’, as Avery had come to call it, was a period of time he was using to consider what this upcoming year would be like. After various arrangements with the school, Luke was going to be allowed to return to the school after some rather questionable activities that he’d been participating in the year before.

Time after time, Avery had reassured him that everything was going to be fine. People were going to be cool with him coming back. But, as Luke was very much aware, Avery’s conception of reality was much different from what reality actually was.

“Ave, can’t you just go to bed? I’m not dealing with your morning attitude when we wake up tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to go to bed when the room across the hall from yours has its lights on full blast.”

Luke eyed his sister as if she’d just said something completely ridiculous. “There’s this ability called closing the door, Ave.”

Avery rolled her eyes and gestured back towards her room. “Well, when the ‘rents take away one’s door capabilities by removing the door entirely, I can kind of see the light under your doorway.”

“Next time, don’t try and sneak alcohol into the house.”

The snort he got in reply was enough of an answer. “That was the first time. You’re supposed to get easy punishment for first-time offenses. That’s the way it works with the law.”

“I think our parents are slightly different from the law, Ave,” Luke pointed out.

Avery sighed and pushed off his doorframe. She came over to his bed and plopped down on it, just like she used to when they were younger, before he’d left. The thought made something close up in Luke’s throat. His sister was gazing at him in concern. “Seriously, Luke, what’s going on? Spill your guts to little sis. Come on.” She slapped his leg as if that was supposed to be some kind of encouragement.

Luke tightened his lips and looked at his sister warningly, but she continued to grin at him as if she didn’t register his expression. After a brief pause, he realized that there was no point in trying to keep something from Avery.

“It’s Annabeth.”

Immediately, Avery’s expression darkened, and everything about her posture seemed to tense up. “What about her?” she demanded. “I told you it’s no use going on and on about her. She’s dating Jackson now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And with her position on student council? She won’t have time for us mere mortals.”

“Yeah, I got the message Ave. The first time you said it, and the thousands of times after that. I know you’ve got your differences, but honestly…”

“You want to spend your last night of freedom pining after some useless Feather Brain who only thinks about herself? You go ahead and do that. Make yourself miserable. But don’t think that, when you realize that all your brooding is for nothing, I’m going to baby you,” Avery snapped, shoving herself off his bed and storming out the door and into her own room. If there’d been a door to her room, she probably would have slammed it for good measure.

Luke groaned, just like he had when she’d entered, and rubbed his face in exhaustion. His sister was probably one of the most difficult people on the planet, and while he loved her to death, she was sometimes a pain in the ass. While he should have known better than to even mention the name Annabeth in her presence, Avery was still irrationally adamant in her hate towards the girl.

With a sigh, though, he went and took off his shirt, and got ready for bed. No matter whether he liked it or not, school was tomorrow, and he had to be well-rested. He had to make a fresh start here. He just had to.

Remus

Dinner in the Stone household had always been a somewhat tense affair.

Remus sat amongst his siblings, his younger brother Jace and his youngest sister Corinne, chewing slowly on the steak that his mother had dutifully cooked. Their father sat at the head of the table in his military uniform, as he always did, as silence reigned over the family. It was probably, Remus thought, the most unbearable part of being in the Stone family, sitting at the dinner table. But it was necessary, and so he found it in himself to get through it every day. It was what made him a Stone.

“After dinner, I expect all of you to be in your rooms by 20:00 hours and lights out by 21:00,” the General Stone dictated to his children after swallowing a bite of steak. “I will not have any children of mine ill-rested for their education, and you’ll be woken at 06:00 hours to get ready. Everyone has their school supplies prepared?”

“Yes, sir.” Remus was the first to reply, as always.

“Yes, sir,” echoed Jace, his brother.

“Yup.”

All eyes were drawn to Corinne as she took another bite of steak. She frowned when she realized that everyone was staring at her in a ‘What?’ kind of expression. Remus saw his father’s fist clench on top of the table, and his heart clenched in fear for his sister.

“Corinne.”

“What?”

The General scowled. “First of all, you do not take that tone with me, young lady. Second, you will address me as ‘sir’ and nothing else. I expect some respect in this household, especially from my own children. Now, amend your previous statement.”

“What, sir?”

Remus sighed and shook his head. Cori was digging herself into a metaphorical hole, and she probably knew it too, by the shrewd look in her eyes. It was never a good idea to try and tick off their father on purpose, though he knew that there was absolutely no way that the General would ever purposefully physically harm his children, that didn’t mean that alternate forms of punishment weren’t used around the house. Insubordination was probably one of the highest crimes in their father’s eyes.

“Correct yourself,” their father snapped.

“Corinne, don’t. You’re treading on thin ice as it is,” Remus finally said sharply, as Corinne had opened her mouth to reply to their father’s command. Whatever she had been about to say, he knew that it probably was going to be something that got her into further trouble. At the icy glare that his sister threw his way, he knew that she was going to stop. So he looked at the General. “I apologize, sir. She’s learned.”

General Stone huffed and went back to eating his steak, seemingly satisfied with what his son had said, and Remus resisted the urge to let out a relieved breath. Discipline had been drilled into the Stone children for as long as they could remember, though at times the youngest member of the family had a tendency to ignore it and go about her business.

Remus loved his brother and sister. He truly did, even though at times he yelled at them more often than not. He hoped they knew that, but by the death glare that Corinne was giving him at the moment, he was fairly sure that she would have something to say about it the second they were dismissed from the dinner table. Sending her a look, Remus went back to finishing his dinner, eating every last morsel on his plate. General Stone was a stickler for leftover food.

Dinner passed peacefully, and twenty minutes their father dismissed them to their rooms to prepare for bed.

The second they were upstairs, as expected, Corinne made her move. She grabbed Remus by the shirt and yanked him towards the wall, though he was strong enough to pull back to prevent the impact, a noise that would surely attract the attention of their father.

“What the hell, Remus?” she snapped. “Why do you have to do that?”

“I was doing you a favor,” Remus replied coolly, pushing his sister away from him. He brushed his shirt off brusquely. “Did you really think pissing Dad off at the table was going to accomplish anything?”

Corinne snorted. “Well, whatever I was trying to do, it’s pretty obvious what you were trying to do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Please, as if you’re not trying to be daddy dearest’s little lap dog on a constant basis,” Corinne growled, poking her brother in the chest. Remus resisted the urge to wince. His sister was stronger than she looked. “Do you think you can just boss me around all because you’re the favorite? You can just tell me to roll over and I’ll show you my belly?”

“Cori, that’s not what-“

“I know that all you want is to be worshipped by Dad, but next time maybe you should keep in mind that some of us-”

Jace came up the stairs just then, and Remus glanced at him.

“Alright, Cori, back off,” Jace said tiredly, as if he had witnessed this a hundred times before. “You were being stupid at dinner. But,” he added on the ‘but’ when Corinne opened her mouth to respond angrily, “Remus was kind of being a prick. Let Cori stand on her own two feet. If she thinks she can handle Dad, then let her try to handle him.”

Remus scowled but looked at Cori. She’d done the exact same thing, and simultaneously they both let breaths out. Sometimes, Jace was the only one who could calm the pair of them down, true to the form of being the middle child. However, that didn’t mean that the anger was necessarily gone – that much was obvious when Corinne gave Remus a last glare over her shoulder as she stalked back to her room, and shut the door behind her.

Remus sighed and looked at his brother. “Thanks,” he grumbled.

Jace shrugged. “The two of you are always going at each other’s throats. Consider it a part of the job description of being related to you two.”

The brothers grinned at each other.

“So,” Jace said, obviously changing the subject. His eyes were alight with a form of malevolent mischief. “How about the city tourney this year?”

Remus’ grin immediately grew larger. If there was anything that could take his mind off even the most stressful of problems, it was the discussion of soccer. He was the captain of Legion Academy’s boys’ soccer team, and as captain he took it on a personal responsibility to win the tourney every year. Because, in the end, it always came down to their school, Legion Academy, with Athens High School. Last year, the lowly Athens Lions had won. This year, Remus was determined to make sure that the Legion Academy Wolves came out on top.

“You know it’s in the bag,” he said with a smirk. “Athens doesn’t stand a chance.”

“There. Keep that in mind, then, whenever you get ticked,” Jace replied shortly. There was a smile on his face as he clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Might want to get to sleep before the General comes up here.” And with that, he left Remus standing in the hallway.

Remus sighed and glanced up at the picture that hang on the wall there. It was a picture of his father’s high school soccer team, and underneath it the caption read, ‘State Champions 1979’. More than anything, he wanted that title. And the only thing standing in his way was Athens High School.