7. Petrifying Fast-Food

So there... A god, so as to not name any names - *cough...cough...Zeus...cough* - really wanted to eliminate us! Soaked, in the middle of the forest, out of sight of anything, without money, ambrosia, or nectar, and lost to boot, we had to find a way to get to Los Angeles.

I had a head quite muddled - how do you set up a plan worthy of Athena when you are lost in the forest? I really had a hard time drawing my strategy. I decided it was necessary to walk straight ... except "straight ahead" had nothing there. No more than to the right or the left. Despite that I forced the others to keep on walking, while Percy murmured something weird about gods and bad luck, and Grover was still in shock, complaining about the unfortunate loss of his provisions.

During this time, I was leading a true inner battle - on the one hand, I was disappointed. Disappointed because my beautiful plan (the one that consisted of distracting the Furies by removing Percy) had absolutely not worked, and in addition Percy had not even followed through with it.

For the other part, I was grateful to him for having neglected it, that crappy plan.

To distract myself, I decided to reflect upon this unsettling feeling that had been gnawing at me ever since the explosion, that told me that something was not right. So I mentally replayed the tape in my head of our battle with the Furies... But nothing came. Frustrated, I encouraged my group to bring us on to some known ground, or at least someplace inhabited.

"Go! Forward! The further away, the better!" I urged for the umpteenth time.

"All our money was back there," Percy responded to me. "Our provisions and our clothes. Everything."

Thanks for the optimism! I was trying like crazy to get us out of this mess, and the only thing he found to do was highlight the - too many - negatives of our adventure!

He wanted to be in bad faith? I could play that game too!

"Well maybe if you had not decided to join the fight..."

"What did you want me to do? Let them kill you?"

Touché.

My pride was really hurt. But all the same! I had been training since I was seven, he was a beginner, he had to trust my plans!

"You do not need to protect me, Percy. I would have gotten out of there just fine all by myself."

"The size of a coin," Grover murmured, "but just fine."

That satyr...

"Shut up, goat boy.

He recovered enough to complain and bemoan his lost aluminum cans.

Personally, I moped. Percy should have followed my plan. If he had, the bus would not have slipped. It would not have been struck down by Zeus. Our provisions would be intact. We would have money. But we'd be dead. So why could not I just thank him? "Thanks," it was not a complicated word, right? Why I could not swallow my pride? He just did what a true hero should do - save his companions..

But then why was I so upset?

Then I understood - I did not want Percy to die. An even more upsetting idea... Why? Why didn't I want him to die?

The only response I found was: Because this was his quest. Hence "Percy dead" amounted to "quest over," and thus a return to Camp. He had to stay alive. In order to save my quest.

Grabbing hold of my courage with both hands, I approached Percy again and said to him, "Listen, uh..." (Go on Annabeth, say it! I shouted internally) "I appreciate that you came back for us, okay? It was really courageous."

"We are a team, that I know."

He wasn't even annoyed! I had been odious, and he responded to me very naturally! I decided that he really merited some explanations. It was thus because of that that I said to him (without much tact though, I must admit) that if he died, I would be once more stuck in Camp.

At some point during our discussion, the rain had stopped, as if it was following my dealings with Percy - we get mad, it rains, we make it up to each other, it's nice out.

Stop your nonsense, Annabeth! I scolded myself I had started to think like a child of Aphrodite... Think like Athena!

And all in a flash, it clicked - my plan hadn't worked because it was based on the idea that the Furies were looking for Percy. But they weren't searching for him, not him, but rather something else? So the failure of my plan was normal! To confirm my idea (and repair my pride, I must say), I recited to myself the words of the Fury : "Where is it? Where is it?"

That's it! The Furies were looking for something else!

Before I had time to talk about my discovery with Percy, he demanded details about life (about my life) at Camp. I thus told him that to find out what a demigod is really made out of, you needed to go out on a quest in the real world.

He smiled at me (as far as I could tell given all the darkness), and told me, "You aren't half bad with that knife of yours."

I knew that he only wanted to reassure me. But behind that simple sentence, I guessed at a hidden message - Percy knew that despite the failure of my plan. we were not lost. He wasn't angry. And he was telling me that we could leave it behind us. Moved by his complement, which meant so much to me, I responded to him in an all tiny voice, "You think?"

"You, someone who can play the xylophone on the back of a Fury," he told me - respect.

I almost burst out laughing All the tensions disappeared, and I was about to tell him about the strange behavior of the Furies, when a horrible noise – which I immediately identified as those damned panpipes Grover has – echoed through the forest.

Despite the assertions of the satyr, who assured me that he could navigate us through safely, I firmly kept to my plan - walk straight ahead. Percy seemed entirely okay with that, even going so far as to murmur to me, "I feel like his 'find-path' song was plagiarized from Hillary Duff."

Holding in my laughter, I responded, "And you didn't hear him when he had it for the very first time, his flute... A horror!"

"What are you whispering about, you two?" demanded Grover.

"Us? Nothing at all, Goat boy," responded Percy with a smile.

While trying not to bang into trees (something that in all likelihood wasn't going to happen for Percy), talking about subjects of no importance, all three of us. Then we ended up – at last! – on a deserted road, where we saw yet more abandoned shops, and one that was still open. We smelled fried food maybe fifty yards ahead, and, poor me, my stomach growled.

Arriving at the front of the story, we stopped to read the neon red sign, in vain... Percy and I suffered from dyslexia.

Grover translated for us, "Auntie Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

It was a weird place, which apparently sold – as the sign noted – statues for gardens. Surely not the sort of place where they sold food. But the smell was really attractive.

Grover tried to hold us back, Percy and me, but hunger dominates reason. So we all entered, without considering the complaints and warnings from the satyr.

We should have listened.

When Grover tried to get us to leave a second time, a woman veiled from head to foot appeared. She was a little bit creepy.

"Children," she told us, "It's too late to be alone outside. Where are your parents?"

"They... uh..."

I tried in vain to find a response, but what could we tell her? "Well, in fact, ma'am, my father is a history professor, but he does not want anything to do with me, and my mother is a goddess who does not really care about her kids"?

"We are orphans" Percy said.

Well found, Percy!

"Orphans?" repeated the strange woman. "But certainly not, my dears!"

We had the impression that she wanted to adopt us on the dot, without any pity or compassion whatsoever.

"We were separated from our caravan," continued Percy. "The caravan of our traveling circus. The director of our troop told us to go to the gas station if we ever get lost, but maybe he forgot, or maybe he was talking about another gas station. In any case, we are lost. Is that food that I am smelling?"

Damn Seaweed Brain! He had messed it all up. Now, we would not be given food!

But apparently, the woman did not care. "Oh, my dears. Come in then, poor children. I am Auntie Em. Go a ways into the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."

I did not need to be told twice. I almost ran to the indicated place.

I laughed at Percy for his bizarre idea, then I examined the place, which was even more bizarre. It was full of life size statues, of men, women, children, animals, and even mythological creatures very close to the actual thing.

It should have put me on my guard, these creatures so well represented, no? In my defense, I said that I had not eaten for hours and I was tired and frozen, so the idea of a warm dry place, offering food, confusing my thoughts is totally normal!

Installed in the dining area, I almost strangled Grover when he confessed to our hostess that we did not have a a circle. Luckily for us (and for the health of the satyr), Auntie Em did not care for a second. I thanked her, while giving Grover a withering look.

Auntie Em stiffened when I spoke to her. I did not understand why. Some part of my brain sent up an alarm, but I did not pay any attention. The alarm redoubled in intensity when the strange woman said my name without me being introduced.

Auntie Em then brought us burgers, and I completely forgot about the wise part of my brain.

Percy entered into a conversation with Auntie Em, who thus started to tell him her life, like all old ladies. I was listening with one ear, when my whole brain sounded the alarm in "imminent danger" mode.

"I had two sisters"

"I only have my statues. That's why I make them"

Oh, no... And Grover had warned us!

When the strange women told me her story, there was no more possible doubt. Auntie "Em," Auntie "M," was none other than Medusa, the gorgon punished by my mother.

Our hostess wanted my skin, she was looking for vengeance!

I tried to convince Percy to leave, but this mutton-head wanted to stay. He even agreed to the monster arranging us for a "photograph"! She was going to petrify us, and sell us as garden statues, like she had done with all her other visitors! Sitting on the bench, I told myself that my quest would stop all that. Then Percy remarked that the light was very weak and would ruin a picture. Furthermore, the woman did not have a camera.

Seaweed Brain was going to realize something! Or maybe someone needed to make him understand.

"Percy..."

He did not look.

While Auntie Em was preparing to remove her veil, I made myself more insistent. "Percy, there is something that is not right."

"Not right?" purred Auntie Em. "Not at all, my dear. I am in such noble company tonight. What might possible be wrong?"

Then everything happened very quickly. Grover and I had shouted almost simultaneously, I put on my invisibility cap and pushed my two traveling companions backward.

When Percy started to look at Medusa's face, I felt the blood drain from my face.

"No! Don't look at it!" I begged.

While I ran to hide behind the statues, eyes closed, I heard Medusa tell how she had become this monster.

Maybe my mother had been a bit harsh at first towards Medusa, but now, what had been a pretty woman swore by the blood and cruelty. It had to be overcome, as was done by the original Perseus in cutting her head.

Perseus.

Percy.

He might be a beginner, he had a much higher chance than I to beat Medusa. Firstly, he had attended a training with Luke, and he was as good a swordsman as him. Then, Medusa hated Athena, but loved Poseidon. She would sacrifice me without hesitation, but she wanted to keep Percy intact (in concrete, but intact). And finally, a sword like Riptide was much more useful for beheading than my knife.

My thoughts were interrupted by Grover who was heading straight toward Medusa, guiding himself by hearing and smell. After the first shot that he landed ("for Uncle Ferdinand!"), I rushed to Percy, to tell him about my plan.

The poor guy started violently. Ignoring his complaints, I took off my cap and declared, "You need to cut off her head."

"What? You are crazy!"

I explained to him my plan (well, "plan" is stretching it a bit, in this case), which did not completely convince him. So I played on sentiment - heroic, I must say - the most prevalent in Percy - the desire to protect the whole world.

"Listen, do you want her to change more innocent people into statues?"

I had won. But I could not let him go into battle blindly (literally).

So I give him a glass ball. For, according to the law of Descartes, if the two circles are different refractive indices, this causes refraction, therefore a distortion of the image, thus also Medusa's petrifying powers.

In short, Percy could use it to look Medusa without ending giant garden gnome.

I pressed Percy, who immediately departed, Riptide brandished.

I felt useless. Grover had crashed against a stone bears, and Percy was shouting to attract attention of the monster. I doing nothing.

I could not even watch the scene for fear of getting myself petrified.

I heard Grover shout Percy's name, like a warning, then Medusa's "too late".

No, not him! I thought.

Then I heard a sound I knew well - a sharp sword killing a monster who disintegrates.

Apparently Percy's training had been useful. I wanted to give all the credit to Luke, but I could not deny the learning speed and talent of Percy.

I decided go help. I felt cowardly, to intervene when the monster was already dead, but I could not do anything else.

With a thousand and one precautions, I wrapped up the sickening head of Medusa, then we returned we sit.

Around the counter, I explained the legend of Medusa to Percy, and Poseidon's lack of respect for my mother. Then everything returned to normal: I grumbled to Percy about his naivety, he blamed my bad character, Grover told us to be quiet. Bad mood, I did not answer the question of Grover (actually, I do not even listened to the satyr.)

Suddenly, Percy got up, and paid me no attention, which risked infuriating me.

But him searching everywhere keep an old invoice woke up my curious side. I watched the boy pocket the money (mortal or not), and grab a Hermes Express box, such as those often used Chiron.

Then I saw Percy write on the back:

THE GODS
MOUNT OLYMPUS
600th FLOOR
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
NEW YORK, NY

With friendly greetings
PERCY JACKSON

Grover warned him that the gods would not be happy. And he was right. But, deep inside me, I understand Seaweed Brain while the satyr was unable.

Percy had the same feelings of abandonment as all the other half-blood. We had all been there. We asked ourselves questions, we suffered from a lack of parental attention and complained about the use of demigods by the gods as if they were pawns.

I understood Seaweed Brain. This does not prevent the fact that he had gotten even more gods mad at us.

I forced the others to leave Auntie Em's home, as I knew I would never find sleep into the abode of this monster, and in addition the wrath of Olympus hung above my neck. We took some clothes and food, and left into the woods.