11 WE VISIT THE GARDEN GNOME EMPORIUM
In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.
So there we were, Hinata and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.
Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."
I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Hinata kept pulling us along, saying: "Hustle, boys! We need to keep going if we want to be in the clear."
"All our money was back there," I reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything."
"You act as if that stuff is more important than getting out alive."
"This is coming from the girl who still has her backpack."
"Yeah!" Grover complained "You were so quick to get yours, you didn't even remember our stuff. Now me and Percy have nothing."
She stopped pulling us and kept her back turned to us.
Grover may have gone a little over the line.
Realizing his mistake, he started stuttering an apologize "I-I didn't m-mean...I-I'm-"
"I did think about your stuff, if I had a few more seconds I would've gotten all our stuff. But we didn't and I grabbed the bag that I thought had what we needed most."
"What could be more important than food and money?"
She put her backpack and took out three things: the book Annabeth gave her, a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia.
"You get why I grabbed this bag now?"
"No, not really."
She sighed "To me, this stuff is more important than clothes and food."
"I think food is very important"
"Hear, hear!" Grover agreed
Hinata gave us a pointed look "Yeah but it wouldn't help you if something happens" She held up the bag of ambrosia "We made it out unharmed this time but what about next time? Sure, we would have had food and money but how would that stuff help us if one of us gets hurt badly. We could eat until our bellies are full and have all the money we can imagine, but the fact remains: that stuff won't help us if we get seriously injured."
I thought about what happened when we fought the Minotaur and with capture the flag. We were injured pretty bad, if it wasn't for that stuff and that healing water trick, who knew how long we'd be in bed.
"Ok, I see your point, but what about the book?"
"How'd you think I knew what was doing when she was wailing. This book has very monster Annabeth knows and how to beat them. It also has other things."
"Like what?" Grover asked
"Anything you can think off that involves Greek mythology. Point is this book was too valuable to leave. I'm sorry about your things but I just had to get this." She stared at the ground, guilty
Grover and I looked at each other, thinking the same thing.
"It's ok"
She looked at me "Really?"
Grover nodded "Yeah, I mean who needs those tin cans any way. Those...perfectly good..."
I elbowed him
Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."
She packed up the stuff "I'll try to make it up to you guys, but for now let's keep moving."
We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.
After a few minutes, Hinata fell into line next to me. "You know..." Her voice faltered. "I never thanked you for coming back. I mean I am upset you didn't listen to me but.."
"I wasn't going to leave you. We're a team, remember?"
She was silent for a few more steps. "I know we are, but I would feel better if you didn't fight."
The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Hinata except the shine of her lavender eyes.
"You think I can't fight for myself?" I asked her.
"No ...I know you can but these kinds of fights, it would be better to leave them to me. My family-"
"The ninja clan."
"Yeah. It's a tradition to teach the next generation the way of their clan and how to defend ourselves." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At home, I would train and mediate, and spar with the adults. Which is great and all, however we never fought to our full ability, the adults are afraid they'll do permanent harm. Now it's different, now I know that the world outside of my home and the camp is where the monsters are. That's where I'll learn whether all those of training were a waste or not."
If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in her voice.
"You're the best fighter I've seen," I said.
"You're just saying that..."
"Hey, you went up against a Furry, a Minotaur and blasted a hellhound. I wouldn't want anyone else watching my back but you. "
I couldn't really see, but I knew she was smiling.
"Me too," she said, "I've got your back and you have mine...and I-"
Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.
"What the hell is that?!" She yelled over the sound
"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"
He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.
Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head.
Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.
"Well he found his way to a tree. Good job, goat boy." She said sarcastically while checking my head
"I thought I had it right" he grumbled
After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.
We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed- down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.
It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamin-gos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, sur-rounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.
To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.
"What the heck does that say?" I asked.
"Give me a second," Hinata said.
She loved reading so much, I'd forgotten she was dyslexic, too.
Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."
"I told you to give me a second!"
"That was a long second then."
Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.
I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.
"Hey ..." Grover warned.
"The lights are on inside," Hinata said. "It's probably still open"
"Snack bar," I said wistfully.
"No way," she refused
"I totally side with Hinata on this." Grover said. "This place is weird."
Normally I wouldn't ignore them, but my hunger was too strong.
The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover and Hinata the creeps.
"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"
"The way they are..." Hinata looked closely "it's almost life like."
We stopped at the warehouse door.
"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."
Hinata turned to me "I agreed. Perce, I have a very bad feeling about this place, I think we should get out of here."
"Again, I'm on her side! Come on, let's go!" Grover said
I turned to them "After everything that happened today, aren't you guys hungry?"
"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."
"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.
"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."
"Percy, let-"
Before she could talk, the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.
Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"
"They're ... um ..." Hinata started to say.
"We're orphans," I said.
"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"
"Well...actually..."
I knew she was trying get us out of here, so I cut her off
"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"
"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."
We thanked her and went inside.
Hinata muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"
"I would have thought of something better if you weren't trying to get us to leave."
"Excuse me for thinking if our lives is more important than your empty belly!" She muttered angrily.
The warehouse was filled with more statues people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.
Go ahead, call me an idiot for ignoring my friends and walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair-it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Hinata was glaring at Aunty Em for locking the door behind us.
All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.
"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.
"Awesome," I said.
"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."
"That's right!" Hinata said, almost relieved "If we can't pay, we can't eat. So we'll just be going now."
Before I could jab either of them in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."
"Well...if that's the case...then Thank you, ma'am." Hinata said nervously.
Aunty Em stiffened, as if Hinata had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.
"Quite all right, Hinata," she said. "You have such beautiful lavender eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew Hinata's name, even though we had never introduced ourselves.
Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.
I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.
Hinata just stared at her food.
Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.
"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.
I listened, but didn't hear anything. Hinata shook her head.
"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."
"I take vitamins. For my ears."
Besides me, I saw Hinata resisting the urge to face-palm her forehead.
"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."
Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head-dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.
"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?"
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."
"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.
Hinata had stiffened in her seat.
She sat forward and said, "Y-You had two sisters?"
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Hinata, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."
I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?
"Percy?" Hinata was shaking me to get my attention. "We need to get going. I mean, the ringmaster is already worried as it is, we wouldn't to make him worry more."
She sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.
"Your eyes are so unique, yet so beautiful. Yes, beautiful lavender eyes," Aunty Em told Hinata again. "My, yes, you almost remind me of when I was so beautiful. I'm quite jealous."
She reached out as if to stroke Hinata's cheek, but Hinata stood up abruptly.
"I really think we should be leaving."
"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"
I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while.
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
"You want us to pose? Like for a picture?" Hinata asked warily.
"Yes, my dear. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."
Hinata shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Our ringmaster is probably worried to death, I don't think we have time, ma'am. Come on, Perce-"
"Sure we can," I said. It was the first time I was irritated with Hinata for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, Hinata. What's the harm?"
"Yes, Hinata," the woman purred. "No harm."
I could tell Hinata didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.
Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."
"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"
"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."
"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."
She still had no camera in her hands.
"Perce-" Hinata said.
Some instinct warned me to listen to Hinata, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."
"Percy, we can't do this," Hinata insisted.
"Oh? And why not?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "There's no need to worry, dear. I have such noble company tonight. Everything is just right."
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.
"Don't look at her!" Hinata shouted. She slipped her ring onto her finger and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.
I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.
I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Hinata in another. But I was too dazed to move.
Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.
I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Hinata screamed, "Percy! No!"
More rasping the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.
"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick start his flying sneakers.
I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.
"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."
I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens- a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.
Aunty Em.
Aunty "M."
How could I have been so stupid?
Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?
But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.
"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "The cursed Athena turned me from a beautiful woman into this."
"Don't listen to her!" Hinata's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"
"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "That girl reminds of how beautiful I see why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is constant reminder of what I will never be again. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."
"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.
"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you both on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."
"Percy!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"
I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"
That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.
Thwack!
At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.
I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.
Ker-whack
"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit-ting.
Right next to me, Hinata's voice said, "Perce!"
I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"
Hinata took off her ring and became visible. 'You gonna have to cut off her head."
"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."
"You're the one that's crazy! Medusa is evil. I'd do it myself, but..."
"Then why don't you?"
Hinata sighed "You've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of a reminder of what she's not. You-you've got a chance."
"What? I can't-"
"Perce," She said softly "Do you really want her to continue turning more innocent people into stone?"
She pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.
Hinata grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically.
"What am I suppose to do with that?"
She tossed me the glass ball. "You can't directly look at her, so use this glass to see her."
"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"
"Roooaaarrr!"
"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.
"You have to hurry," Hinata told me. "I don't know how long can Grover keep her busy."
She grabbed my shoulder and squeezed tightly "Be careful."
I nodded and out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.
I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.
I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.
Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"
Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"
I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defend-ing myself.
But she let me approach twenty feet, ten feet.
I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."
I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass-the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.
From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"
Medusa cackled. "Too late."
She lunged at me with her talons.
"Perce!"
I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern, the sound of a monster disintegrating.
Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."
Hinata came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't look at the head."
Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.
"Are you okay?" she asked me, her voice trembling.
"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"
"It a spoil of war," she said. "same as your minotaur horn. But we still need to keep it wrapped. Dead or alive, it can still turn anything that looks at it into stone."
Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.
"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."
He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."
He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse.
We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.
Finally I said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"
Hinata flashed me a angry look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in Athena's temple. That's why She turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."
My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."
"It IS your fault!" She shouted "Grover and I tried to tell you but no what was important at the time was getting some food. I hope what we went through was worth it."
This wasn't fair. So I messed up, I get that but she doesn't have to make me feel worse than I already do.
Hinata straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "'It's just a photo, Hinata. What's the harm?'"
She shook her head, staring at the ground "You're a damn idiot, you never listen to me."
At that, I couldn't help but raise my voice a bit "That was uncalled for! I know you're mad but I do listen."
She stared at me, making me feel small "You listen? Ok, so why didn't you listen to me this time?
"Because..."
"Or the time want to see us alone?"
"Well...I..." I started to see what she meant
"Or the time when you wanted to ditch Grover?"
I looked at my feet in guilt. She was right, all those times she tried to get us out of trouble before it even start and I led us in like a dummy.
But what she said next made me feel even worse than before.
"I thought you believed in me."
We sat in silence for a while.
"Hey," Grover rubbing the back of his neck "I know things are tense and all but what are we going to do with the head?"
I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!
I was angry with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp, for making me make Hinata feel the way she does now. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.
What had Medusa said?
Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue.
I got up. "I'll be back."
"Percy," Grover called after me. "What are you-"
I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.
In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.
I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:
The Gods
Mount Olympus
600th Floor,
Empire State Building New York, NY
With best wishes,
PERCY JACKSON
"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."
I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!
"I am impertinent," I said.
I looked at Hinata, the way things were, I was hoping she would criticize or agreed with what I just did.
She didn't. Instead she looked at me with her eyes full of sadness and disappointment, which made my heart cringe, and sighed "Come on," she muttered. "We have to plan our next move."