They're What?!

This Could Be Very Good or Very Bad

"Okay hear me out."

Annabeth looked up as Leo sat down at the table. "That never, ever ends well when you say it."

"Come on, I swear it's at least kind of normal. It actually makes a lot of sense. And I bet Percy would be on board."

"Percy's always on board because he's given up on personal safety." Piper pointed out.

Leo waved her off and unrolled a long piece of parchment.

"Leo- I'm trying to read!" Frank complained, pulling his book out of the way.

"Okay so look. The wizards can summon things, right? So they can git me what I need to make this. Then we can just talk to Percy's dad and maybe we'll have a kind of normal trip back home!"

"Normal is not a word that describes our lives in any way."

Leo shrugged. "You know what I mean."

Annabeth turned his drawing around to look it over. She recognized it immediately as a blueprint.

At first she was going to just reject the idea, but as she scanned over the dimensions and materials scribbled across the parchment in Ancient Greek, she began to wonder if it maybe should be entertained.

"Why is this spar here?" She suddenly asked.

Leo leaned over to look at where she was pointing.

"Well it needs to support the weight above it."

"But it should be there." Annabeth frowned.

"Yeah, in a house." Leo snorted.

Annabeth shot him a look. "Okay, what makes this different?"

Leo scampered around the table to sit next to her, so they could both see his drawing from the correct side. "So with a house, everything's stationary. That means the spars only have one force on them, going down like this." He dragged his finger over the drawing. The ink smeared a little and Leo made a sound of distaste before digging a pencil out of his toolbelt. He drew a small arrow off to the side.

Annabeth watched in interest. This was an aspect of architecture she didn't talk about or look into nearly as much as her temple designs.

"With something like this," Leo gestured to the whole drawing, tapping the parchment with the pencil, "you've got to deal with a lot of back and forth, you know? Side to side movement adds pressure at different angles. In best case scenario, here and here."

He drew two more arrows, at shallow angles from the up and down.

"Worst case scenario, which we can hopefully avoid with Jason and Percy with us, there's pressure coming from as far as these angles."

The next two arrows that were drawn were almost horizontal. Leo looked at Annabeth.

"Because of this, you have to place the spars differently. Usually it's a guessing game, but I've always been very good at placing them right the first time."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "And you're sure those spots will work?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Well I assume Percy and Jason would be aiding our progress, right?" She pointed out. Leo nodded. "Then you'll have extra force from here too- may I?"

Frank and Piper got up as Leo handed Annabeth the pencil to draw another line, towards the back of the side view that Leo had printed.

"They'll be arguing about that for hours." Piper chuckled softly. Frank nodded, tucking his book under his arm.

"Do you think it will work?"

Piper shrugged, glancing over her shoulder at her friends. Leo was shaking his head emphatically as Annabeth pointed to a spot on the blueprint.

"I think if they can get it put together properly, it will. Leo rarely has issues with that so I think it will be fine."

"Hey Pipes." Percy fell in step with them as he crutched his way out of his classroom.

"Hiya Fish Brain."

"Do you know where Annabeth is?" Percy asked, glancing around. "I thought she was with you."

"She was, then Leo showed up with a blueprint. Now they're arguing." Frank chuckled.

Percy exhaled slowly. "Oh boy. That could be interesting... what was the blueprint for?"

"Some crazy scheme of Leo's, I guess he thinks he's figured out a 'normal' way to get back to New York." Frank shrugged. "I didn't see the drawing itself though."

"I did." Piper grinned.

"What was it?"

"Looked like a small yacht. Had funky wing doohickies on the sides."

"Doohickies?" Percy raised his eyebrows.

"that's what I said, isn't it?"