There I was sitting in my Spanish 4 honors class waiting for the rest of the students to finish the easiest test in the whole country. That’s where this story starts; I have always had a knack for reading; it was a passion of mine. So there I was, I took out a book while I waited, that moment was when my entire life changed. I was reading my favorite book for the 4th time in a month, Percy Jackson’s The Lightening Thief. Coming up was the part where Grover, Percy, and Percy’s mom were running from the Minotaur. That’s when it happened, all too fast, I felt a strange tug in the small of my back. Out of my chair, my body was lifted up and the room began to spin. Everything went black.
When I woke all that could be seen was that I was in some kind of makeshift hospital with brown canvas walls and cots lined up along both sides. I sat up and couldn’t believe my eyes, having to blink 3 times before I was sure what I was seeing was real. There were people milling around helping patients, but they weren’t human. They had furry goat legs with hooves! It dawned on me that I was in the next scene in my favorite book The Lightening Thief. You must think I’m crazy but I swear I am telling the 100% truth. Following this epiphany one of the satyrs walked over to me and asked if I needed any more nectar and I did the obvious thing, telling him that there was nothing wrong with me because if you drink nectar when you aren’t injured you could burn up. The satyr looked at me like I had 4 heads. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I told him. Then he stared at my arm and for the first time since I woke up I took a hard look at myself, noticing my elbow down, it was in a cast. I asked him “What happened and how did I get here?” His reply to me was something along the lines of a Minotaur fought with Percy and me, throwing me against a tree, which was how I broke my arm and passed out.
All this information hit me like a brick, my first question was for him to tell me who I was, and he told me my name was Annabeth Chase. This didn’t make sense to me because I have read this story many times and know for a fact that she wasn’t with Percy when he came into camp. I guess my presence here must have changed the story around. “What more can you tell me?” I frantically asked him.
“Percy carried you in in his arms. As he walked, in, he told us what happened. He is laying in the cot across from you, that’s all I know,” he replied with a strange look on his face. ‘Oh my gosh!’ I thought to myself as I leaned over to look at Percy. ‘I have to find a way home’ was suddenly the only thing I could think about. Long story short I decided to follow the story until I could find a solution. I couldn’t think of one the whole time and I didn’t figure it out until the last scene came, when I traveled up the elevator to Olympus with Percy and gave back the bolt. Standing there while Percy handed the bolt to Zeus, I noticed a light on wall to the right. I walked over to it and I felt the familiar tug in the small of my back. A moment and a lifetime later, I was again sitting in 5th period Spanish with people still taking the test.
I asked Mrs. Torres what day it was and she pointed to the whiteboard behind her. There on the board written in green marker was the date, Thursday March 23. That was the same day as when I left, meaning that time in the book didn’t pass in the real world. That night my friend, Emily, and I were Skyping, so I told her my experience in Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief. She thought that I had fallen asleep in class or something and didn’t believe me. I knew it wasn’t a dream because it felt just as real as my normal life. After the next month I forgot all about my trip. Every time I read a book, nothing would happen. At least, that was the case until the night of the football team’s senior night. I despise sports, mostly because I was bullied on the soccer team as a kid. All of my friends were going to this senior night and I really didn’t want to go, but they dragged me along with them because they thought that I “needed a night out”. I was sitting on the ledge of the rock wall overlooking the football field alone. Wow, some friends they were.
Tonight I was reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one of my top 10 favorite books. Then, all of a sudden I felt that tug in the small of my back and woke up in a daze in Professor Dumbledore’s office. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night Miss Granger?” Professor Dumbledore asked. I then replied going along with the variations I caused in the story, “Sorry Professor I must have been sleepwalking, I’ll go back to the common room.” I went through the story and remembered key events from the first time I read it, like when the death eaters attacked people at the quidditch world cup and Harry’s name flying out of the Goblet of Fire. However, the story changed a few events like how Barty Crouch impersonated Hagrid instead of Mad Eye Moody. In the end, I found that the way to get home was to touch the Triwizard cup that Harry won in the maze.
When I got back to the senior night, I told my friends I didn’t feel well and left to go to the library. I wanted to see if anyone had ever experienced what I have gone through. I found an old newspaper article of a man thought to be crazy because he swore he entered the books he read. The man was dead now but I knew I had a connection to this man. That night I realized that I had a unique talent. I eventually was able to control my ability and could enter books at will. My children never knew about my secret and when I told them stories at night of my adventures they believed I had made it up on the spot. In all my years I can truly say I have been a part of over 100 books. This ability allowed me to have a true understanding of life and I am proud to pass on my experiences to the world.