Disclaimer: (Does it even have to be said?) I AM NOT RICK RIORDAN! I don't understand why I must keep reminding the cats of the Time Scissors Galaxy of that. Isn't it pretty obvious?
There were a few things that came in along with the light. A, another note, B, six chairs and C, two people. One was a girl with red hair, green eyes and paint splattered clothes. She looked around the age of 16. The second was a guy who looked oddly familiar to Percy, he just couldn't place the name.
"What the..." The girl started, but the her eyes went to Percy and Annabeth and she looked even more confused. "Is that Percy and Annabeth?" She asked Thalia.
"Yeah, pass me that note." Thalia said a bit impatiently.
Once she got it, she started to read,
"Dear Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, and now Rachel and Grover,
We thought you may be a bit uncomfortable on the grass so we sent chairs. These two have been sent here for mainly the same reasons as Thalia and Nico. Again, time is frozen outside the barrier, Percy seemed to have forgotten. These two will introduce themselves.
From, Apollo and the Fates.."
"I still don't understand.." The girl, Rachel, Percy guessed, said.
So that guy must be Grover... Percy thought.
"Me neither, sit!" Thalia said and quickly dove at a seat. Percy ended up sitting in between her and Annabeth.
"So, we're... reading?" Grover said who was inbetween Rachel, who was on Annabeths left, and Nico, who was on Thalia's right. (Just try to draw it out or something to understand where they all sit. Unless you are un-humanly smart and can figure it out in your mind.)
"Yup. Books about him." Annabeth said, jutting her thumb at Percy. "It's very un educational."
"Hey!" Percy protested while Rachel said, "I don't doubt it, so, do we just read now, or.."
"I'll read!" Grover said. So, after a quick explanation of what had already happened, he picked up the book and started to read.
GROVER UNEXPECTEDLY LOSES HIS PANTS
"And of course that's how it starts..." Grover said, red in the face, while the others chuckled somewhat.
Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.
"Really? Are you that stupid?" Annabeth questioned him. He looked down and shifted a bit in his seat.
Annabeth noticed this and was about to apologize, when Grover, wanting to spare her the loss of pride, continued, cutting her off.
I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"
"You better not still be on that." Tghalia threatened.
"How do you expect me not be be at this point in the book."
"I'm talking about now,goat-boy!"
Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, (cue a blushing half goat man) so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.
"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.
"So that's where you used to live. And live now, I guess." Rachel said, glad she knew, not really knowing why she was glad.
A word about my mother, before you meet her.
"Amazing." "Awesome." "Makes good cookies."
"That's three words, Nico." "Shut it, Thalia."
Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,
Percy smiled a bit.
which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.
"That really sucks." Annabeth said, frowning slightly.
The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.
"That's not true anymore." Thalia said, glad that Sally had Paul. Even if she was a Hunter of Artemis, she knew when to respect those who were in love.
I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.
"Most don't." Annabeth muttered.
See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important jour-ney, and he never came back.
Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.
"Truth in a lie, but not a lie at all, and no truth. I'm impressed." Nico said.
She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never com-plained or got mad. Not even once.
"I think she desrves more than one word to say how awesome she is. Putting up with Perce id hard work sometimes." Grover said, grinning, but wishing their Percy was there. He missed him, everyone did.
But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.
"I'm not even going to comment on that."
Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.
"Nickname accepted." Rachel said, wincing slightly at the thought of the smell.
Percy, on the other hand, was out of his mind worried that this chapter would contain details he doesn't want known.
Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.
Don't say it, don't say it...
I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.
"How can you survive like that?" Grover asked.
"Just because you're terrified by the thought that one day the world will be engulfed in garbage doesn't mean everyone is." Nico said.
Grover, Thalia, and Rachel glared at him a bit.
Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."
"Wow. He acknoleged me this time." Percy said, trying to sound like he wasn't looking for every possibility to leave.
"Where's my mom?"
"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"
"He asked you for money! What a pig!" Thalia said, grossed out at the thought of a man like that.
That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?
"If he had said that, I probably would have died of shock." Percy muttered angrily. Others looked warily at him.
Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.
"It doesn't." Annabeth said immediatly.
He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.
The clearing seemed more quiet than it had been before Thalia and Nico had arrived.
Percy fidgeted as all eyes turned to him.
"Percy," Annabeth said quietly, "take off your jacket..."
When Percy didn't move, Thalia and Nico sttod up and tried to pull it off. This ended up with Nico having a bloody nose, and Thalia holding the jacket, practiacally ripped in half, in her right hand, trying to flatten her now messed up hair with the other.
She and everyone else loked in hooror at Percy's arms which were full of bruises and scars.
"He hits you?" Thalia asked in a dangerously calm voice.
Percy hesitated, then nodded.
"How often?" Nico asked, voice quiet as Thalia's.
Percy muttered something, but nobody was able to distiguish it as words.
"What?" Nico asked again.
"Alot, whenever he can." Percy said softly, still looking down.
"Why didn't he ever tell us?" Rachel asked queitly.
" I doubt someone would want to bring that up." Grover murmured back.
Meanwhile, Annabeth was silently putting it all together. Whan she was done, she turned Thalia and Nico, who were still speaking in quietly dangerous tones, and said, "Stop."
"Are you joking? I am going to kill that- that- ugh, that PIG!" Thalia exclaimed, eyes now blazing with anger. "That- That thing, he hit Percy! How F*CKING DARE HE! HE- HE ABUSED HIM! AND YOU EXPECT ME TO NOT BE ANGRY!"
"I don't expect that. Personally, I want to rip his head off, too. But we're here to read, not maim mortals, no matter how much they may deserve it."
Thalia relunctantly listened to her, so she pulled Nico down into his seat, and threw Percy his jacket, who scrambled to put it back on.
"I don't have any cash," I told him.
He raised a greasy eyebrow.
Rachel and Grover looked like they were about to throw up.
Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.
Annbeth's eyes darkened, No, could it be...?
"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"
Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."
"At least someones halfway decent." Rachel said with a scowl.
"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.
Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.
Now Annabeth and Thalia looked like they could barf as well.
"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."
"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"
"Brain Boy?" Thalia snorted. "No offesnsePercy, but that is the single worst nickname for you Ever. Especially because it contrdicts the classic Seawwed Brain. Nice originality, by the way, Annbeth."
Annabeth blushed while Percy looked a cross between shocked and slightly angry.
I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.
"I'm sorry, but how are you not radioactive or something for living in those conditions?" Nico asked, perplexed, and still angry at Gabe.
I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.
"Ah, the uses of sarcasm."
Percy didn't even say anything back to Thalia, he just grinned a bit, agreeing.
Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.
"Yeah, I still remember it," Grover said, shuddering. "Then again, that may be this Percy I'm smelling..."
Percy shuffled a bitt in the seat, still confused. Grover seemed like a nice huy and all, but wasn't he faking being his friend?
But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.
Everyone in the clearing got a little tense, on edge, waiting to see what would happen.
Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"
Then they promptly let out a sigh of relief.
She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.
My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.
"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"
"She always says that..." Percy grumbled, but smiled at the thought of his mom all the same.
Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.
Nico pouted, "Lucky."
We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?
It looked as though Thalia was about to cough out something about Percy being a momma's boy, but decided, that if she were in his place, she would do the same thing.
I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.
Percy loked at the book in longing, having not seen his mom since Christmas.
From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally, how about some bean dip, huh?"
I gritted my teeth.
As did everyone.
My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.
"'Some jerk' is an understatement." Thalia growled.
For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started chok-ing up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.
Grover frowned, "That must have been one hell-of-a spin."
Until that trip to the museum ...
"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my con-science, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"
"No, Mom."
"You shouldn't lie to her." Annabeth said.
I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.
"It wouldn't." Annabeth said again.
Thalia frowned at her, "How did you know that?"
"Tell you later."
She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.
"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."
My eyes widened. "Montauk?"
Thalia and Nico snickered, of course Percy would get excited about goint to the beach.
"Three nights-same cabin."
"When?"
She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."
I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.
Then they both frowned.
Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"
I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.
"Horrible deal, beat the crap out of him already." Thalia stated.
"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."
Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"
"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."
"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."
"She really does know how to bribe someone." Nico said, grinning.
Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"
"Yes, honey," my mother said.
"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."
"We'll be very careful."
Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."
"He's kidding." Rachel asked.
Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.
"Do it." Everyone said immediatly.
But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.
Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?
"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."
" I would like to again state the loveliness of sarcasm."
"Nobody said anything against you, Thals."
Thalia looked at Percy, surprised and pleased. Percy also looked surprised at the fact that he had called her that.
Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.
"Yeah, whatever," he decided.
He went back to his game.
"Seems his brain is even tinier than we all thought, if that's even possible." Nico said.
"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"
For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.
But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.
An hour later we were ready to leave.
Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more impor-tant, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend.
"Can I punch him?" Rachel asked.
"No," Thalia replied, "do worse than punch him."
"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."
Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.
"Of course he would, why wouldn't he blame you for a seagull?" Annabeth said, sarcasm obvious.
Watching him lumber back toward the apartment build-ing, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.
The crowd-except for Percy, who was confused-was laughing.
I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.
"I've always wanted to do that." Nico pouted.
"Either that or jump in a cab and say 'Follow that car.'" Thalia said grinning.
Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded cur-tains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.
I loved the place.
*cough* "Kelp Head." *cough*
Heads turned to Thalia, who shrugged.
We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.
As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.
We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.
I guess I should explain the blue food.
"Actually, I never found out why Percy had such an obsession with blue food." Rachel said, frowning.
The others, except for Annabeth frowned as well.
Percy was hooked on Rachels use of the word 'had'. What happened to me?
See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than call-ing herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.
"Streak. It's more like all rebelious and two percent 'What is happening, anabeth, explain.'" Thalia said, laughing with Nico.
When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.
Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.
"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."
Thalia leaned closer to Nico and whispered, "Ya' know? They do look alot alike."
Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."
I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.
Percy shrunk in his seat while others looked at him.
It's true, he thought. My father wouldn't be proud of a kid like me.
"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"
She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."
"But... he knew me as a baby."
"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."
I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.
Annabeth looked shocked. His dad visited him?
I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ...
I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.
Cue more growls.
"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"
She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.
"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."
"Because you don't want me around?"
"Okay, that was just harsh." Grover said.
Percy shrunk down, of course they weren't telling him that she did want him, who would?
I regretted the words as soon as they were out.
"Good." A few peopl muttered.
My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."
Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy.
"Because I'm not normal," I said.
"Not in the slightest." Thalia said with a bit of a grin.
"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."
"Safe from what?"
She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.
Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, Grover and Rachel leaned foward. Percy shut his eyes, trying harder to repress the memories.
During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.
Annabeth's eyes darkened.
Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.
In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.
I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.
"Because as long as your at the beach, who cares in you're putting your life on the line, right?" Rachel said sarcastically, with fondness in her eyes.
"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."
"Don't worry, it's like his second home now." Grover said non-chelontally(- Definently spelled wrong).
"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"
"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."
My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?
"well, if you would just accept the truth, we could fill you in more." Annabeth said, slightly annoyed at how ignorant he was.
"The Greek gods don't exist."
"Yes, they do!" Everyone else said.
"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."
"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."
She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.
That night I had a vivid dream.
All the demigods-minus Percy- shuddered against their will, knowing full and well how vivid those dreams were.
It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful ani-mals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
Annabeth looked like she was going through all the possible explanations.
I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!
I woke with a start.
Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.
With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."
I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.
"What sound would that be?" Thalia asked, not actually having heard this story.
Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.
Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.
Some smirked, while Percy just groaned at the fact he was about to be even more confused.
"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"
My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.
"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"
I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"
I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.
Just like the box and letter... but that definently wasn't Ancient Greek. He tried to get another look at the letter, but couldn't find it.
I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...
My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"
I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"
Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.
Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.
"Okay, I think I'm ready to accept the whole Greek gods thing now."
"Good, now I can actually explain a bit more."
A/N: Sorry that it took me so long to update... again. I won't be working on the next chapter this weekend, but hopefully it will be up by next weekend, or later.. Again I would like to thank everyone who left me a positive review, and that I'm sorry for any grammar, spelling,or punctuation mistakes, etc. Hope you enjoyed reading. Until next time!