Chapter 25: Questioning about why would we need to know this.
Some Snickers from the group. Behind Percy, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"
"Busted" Grover muttered.
"Shut up", Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.
I thought about his question, and shrugged. " I don't know, sir."
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.
Chapter 26: Lunch time.
Percy, Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said "Mr. Jackson.
Percy and James knew what was coming.
We told Grover to keep going. Then we turned towards Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"
Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go------ intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.
"You both must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told us.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how both your studies apply to it."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."James Jackson."
We wanted to get angry, this guy pushed us so hard.
I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted:
"What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshiped. But Mr. Brunner expected us to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that percy and James both have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and we had never made above a C- in our life. No----- he didn't expect us to be as good; he expected us to be better. And we just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.
We mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.
He told us to go outside and eat our lunch.