Welcome

Despite how girly Sophie liked to dress, the eleven year old also absolutely loved sports. Before coming to Camp, she had played on as many sports teams as she had time for, but soccer had always been her favorite. Unfortunately, Camp Half-Blood did not contain a soccer field, and Sophie didn't know too many people yet, so she had been limited to finding a clear spot to simply juggle her soccer ball. As much as she loved soccer, Sophie could only stand so much juggling before she found herself wanting to play an actual game, so Sophie decided she was going to try out volleyball. The petite girl didn’t actually have a volleyball, but she didn't see this as a problem- she would just have to make do with her soccer ball until she found one she could “borrow” from another camper, and she would be all set.

Soccer ball in hand, Sophie made her way from the mess hall, where she had just finished lunch, to the volleyball courts. It was then that she realized another problem: she didn’t have anyone to play with. Sophie supposed she could go find one of her siblings, but she was fairly sure they were still eating lunch, and she didn’t feel like walking all the way back to the mess hall when she could be doing something much more exciting. Another option would be for Sophie to ask a random person to play with her, but after her run in with that scary Ares girl at the creek, the eleven year old was slightly wary of approaching people she didn’t knew. Who knew what other kinds of crazy people were around this camp?

But Sophie was not about to let her lack of an opponent stop her from enjoying herself. She threw the ball as hard as she could over the net, and then ran under the net to the other side of the court in an attempt to hit it before it reached the ground. Unfortunately Sophie was too slow, and by the time she reached to other side of the net her soccer ball was already sitting on the ground. Hmmph. Well, she would just have to try again, wouldn't she? Sophie repeated this process twice more, to no more success than her first attempt, but she was not a quitter. More determined than ever, the young girl threw her soccer ball over the net once more for attempt number four.

Walking on ones hands was fun, but doing back flips was even more fun. Sidney decided to try traveling using only back flips. One after another he did flips as he headed towards the Volleyball courts. Not that he planned on playing but it seemed like a decent destination for his little experiment. He was surprised at how easy it was to flow these flips together. He supposed it was his father being Ares that put him in tip top shape to be able to do the flips with little fatigue.

He did one final flip and landed in the sand of the volleyball court, unaware that someone was the. "Ta da," he said and then gleefully laughed. He was a bit dizzy and tried to take a step forward, but the world was spinning too fast. He hoped he did not vomit. He hated the smell of vomit. He was pretty sure it came from the time when Bertha vomited in his face. She had a lot of broccoli that day. He still couldn't look at broccoli the same way. He used to love broccoli, because they looked like little trees. He used to pretend he was a giant and eat the trees and then pretend his gummy bears were the people. He still loved gummy bears, but he simply could not eat broccoli anymore.

His dizziness took over and he fell forward on is face, taking on a face full of sand. Sand did not taste good he noted. He also thought about how many people put their bare feet in this sand. Eww, feet fungus. He jumped up quickly and spit out a mouthful of sand. Bertha used to eat sand when they were younger. Sidney still could not understand what she saw in it. Now, mud that was a different story. Sidney used to eat mud all the time as a kid.

It was at that moment he noticed someone else was on the court. "Oh, hello. I don't think we have met. I like meeting people. Do you like meeting people? New people are cool? But old people are cool too. I don't mean like wrinkly old people, I mean like old friends. Although old people are cool too. They eat a lot of pudding because their lack of teeth. I can't wait until I'm old. I'll have all the pudding I ever wanted because it will be all I can eat. Do you like pudding? Do you want pudding? I have some."

Before Sophie could take off running after her soccer ball, she became distracted by something else. Sophie became distracted very easily, thanks to her ADHD, but this time the thing that distracted her probably would have distracted most people. For a boy, who had to be several years older than Sophie, had just appeared, doing back flips onto the volleyball court. The eleven year old stared in awe at him, and when he was finished she ran up to him. “Wow! That was so cool! Can you do that again? Can you teach me? Can you-“ Before Sophie could finish speaking, however, the boy had fallen into the sand face first. Sophie winced, and was relieved when the boy quickly stood back up. She wouldn’t have been equipped to help him if he had been hurt, so it was lucky for both of them that he was okay.

Sophie opened her mouth, about to begin blabbering away at him, but he beat her to it and began speaking. She listened, completely unfazed, as the boy rambled on. She was able to keep up with him perfectly, because to Sophie the way he was talking was perfectly normal. When he finally stopped talking, the eleven year old picked up right where he left off. “No, we haven’t met before. At least, I don’t think so, but there are a lot of people at this camp. I like meeting new people too! I’m Sophie Jensen. I don’t think I know any old people. Do they really not have any teeth? Can they talk? Have you ever talked to someone with no teeth? I don’t think I’d like being old if it meant I couldn’t have teeth. But I do like pudding, so maybe it’s not so bad.”

The only part of what the older boy had said that threw Sophie off was that he had pudding. Did he really carry pudding around with him? If so, he was probably the coolest person Sophie knew, besides Whitnee ‘cause she was Sophie’s older sister and had saved her from Angry Ares Girl. And hopefully he also carried a spoon around with him. “Do you really have pudding? I don’t want any right now, but thanks for offering. Do you carry food around all the time? If I carried food around I think it would be gummy worms. Or ice cream, but then it would melt everywhere.”

"Sure I can do it again and teach you, it is super easy. But I'm a bit dizzy right now. I'll teach you later. I'll teach you Tuesday. I like Tuesdays. My mom used to call them Puddin Tuesdays because that when she'd go to the store and buy a new pack of pudding. She'd get the variety pack even though I don't like chocolate pudding. It looks like poop. I have a friend named Bertha, and she likes to mix her pudding with her yogurt. But I think pudding is to pure to be mixed with other stuff. Like Root Beer. I like mixing soda's but never Root Beer."

He nodded frantically. "There really a lot of people at camp. I tried counting once, but then a butterfly passed by and I lost count. But I know there are a lot. Well some old people have their teeth, and others have fake teeth, but those are expensive. My friend Bertha got kicked in the face by mule and lost her two front teeth. She had to get them replaced with fake ones because they were adult ones, and no new ones would grow back. "

He looked at the younger girl as if she were crazy. I always have pudding. He kept a cup in each pocket. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vanilla pudding cup and held it out for her to take. He fished out a spoon from the same pocket. "You sure you don't want any now?" He liked to share, but if she really did not want any, more for him.

Sophie beamed at the older boy when he said he would teach her to do back flips, but by the time he was done talking she had already forgotten all about that and was busy thinking about mixing foods together and then about mixing sodas together. “I don’t think I’d like pudding with yogurt but my mom sometimes puts gummy worms in pudding with cookies on top and that tastes really good. She says they’re like worms in dirt, but I don’t think real worms would taste very yummy.”

This business about old people’s teeth was much more complex than Sophie originally thought. She furrowed her brows in confusion and asked the older boy, “Why do only some of them get to keep their teeth? Do they get tired of their old teeth and decide they want new ones?” Sophie ran her tongue over her teeth. She didn’t think she would ever get tired of them, even if she did live to be really, really old. She wondered if the boy’s friend Bertha getting kicked in the face with a mule and getting fake teeth had anything to do with her liking pudding mixed with yogurt. “Do fake teeth change your sense of taste?” Sophie asked, because this boy was obviously an expert on old people and their teeth.

Oh! So the boy really did carry pudding around in his pockets. And spoons! Sophie thought that was a great idea, but the eleven year old liked to keep her pockets empty for when she stole found things. Now that the older boy was offering her pudding for a second time, Sophie decided it wouldn’t hurt to take. Especially because it was vanilla and that was the best kind. Unless, of course, it was chocolate with gummy worms in it because gummy worms made everything taste better. “Okay, I’ll have some.” Sophie took the pudding and the spoon from the older boy with a smile and a “Thanks!”. The small girl plopped down right in the middle of the volleyball court and ate a spoonful of her snack. She looked back up at the boy. “This is really good pudding. Are you going to have some? Do you want some gummy worms? I don’t have them with me but I have some in my cabin.”