CHAPTER 9 – WE GET GEOGRAPHY LESSONS FROM A LEGGY ENGLISHWOMAN

I lay in my solitary bunk in the Poseidon cabin, staring up at the ceiling.

I always thought that the ceiling was beautiful. Painted as the coral crystalline depths of the sea, with light breaking upon the surface, it felt like the entire room was drifting about underwater.

And for a kid like me with ADHD, I guess it's a calming influence too.

A labyrinth.

Now where in America could we find a labyrinth?

A shopping centre? It was a labyrinth for me every time we lunged into our nearby shopping complex for a reduced-price back-to-school frenzy. Although I really could not imagine a destructive pre-Titan immortal force snoring away beneath Starbucks.

A big city – one of the largest in America. That would mean New York. Chiron had mentioned afterwards that a labyrinth is a place where the unexpected leaps out at you, practically yelling and screaming. And I was – fairly – streetwise with New York. Nothing could be unexpected there.

I slipped on some clothes, and staggered outside.

Moonlight spilled over Camp Half-Blood like unicorn blood, over the mess pavilion, the archery grounds, the lake, adding a metallic glow to them. Even to the lava-dripping climbing walls looked less threatening.

I wandered over to the shoreline, as ripples of silver spread throughout the calm sea. My brain seemed to be balanced and in some kind of equilibrium (there I go, using fancy words I've only heard of and never bothered looking up)

My dyslexia didn't affect me reading the sea like a book. It seemed troubled and disturbed. I had heard that my dad was battling the older spirits of the sea – perhaps he was still doing so now.

I heard something click and snap behind me. I wheeled around and shrieked to find a pair of grey eyes level with mine. With a playful push from my disturber, I found myself falling backwards off the miniature pier that Beckendorf had built last summer.

I resurfaced, finding myself completely drenched in saltwater. My dad's protection from water must have been wearing off for me to be this soaked. I squinted upwards through eyefuls of salts to see Annabeth looking down at me, sniggering at my situation.

Now that made me mad.

I grabbed her ankle and dragged it down with me into the deepening water.

"Perseus Jackson, you – Muppet!" she shrieked, landing on top of me.

Hey, I used to watch that show when I was little – so don't disrespect the Muppets, Wise Girl.

"That was for pushing me in the water," I crowed triumphantly.

She pursed her lips and spat out a large mouthful of seaweed.

"And that was for pulling me in the water!" she snapped, pulling herself out again. I didn't bother – the water was my home climate.

An uneasy silence lay between us. That kind of awkward, tense silences that couples have together…

"So," she said glumly, "did you have any luck on guessing where that labyrinth was?"

"None. You?"

She shook her head, frustrated by her slight narrow-mindedness.

I splashed around for a while before hauling myself up on the edge of the dock beside Annabeth. For the second time that day, my hand – well – crept into hers. And for the second time that day, she did not pull away from it.

"I love you, Annabeth Chase," I murmured, drawing close to her lips. For once in my life, there was a great feeling bubbling up and churning around in my stomach. I was not entirely sure on what this feeling was called, but I suspect that it was something like love.

"I love you too, Seaweed Brain…" she murmured. Was that same cosy, great feeling bubbling around in her stomach too? They could be one together - two stomachs together. Ew.Gross.

Just as our lips were about to touch, I felt Annabeth's disappear, and her feet running away from me. I made a very hapless sound, like an injured animal. And all I heard was her cry dying away:

"I can't, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"

She was sorry, I was clueless.

----------------------------------------------------

Mr D was unusually excited throughout the next day, from when dawn broke.

I could hear him murmuring happily as he strode about everywhere as we packed our belongings for our new quest. He was wringing his hands with pleasure. The satyrs were ecstatic – he had been so happy that he had forgotten to beat them at pinochle. The campers looked a lot less strained as he left his routine inspection of each activity – he had been too cheerful to criticise their clumsy archery or shoddy canoeing.

"What's up with Mr D?" I whispered to Grover at the mess pavilions at midday.

"Dunno," Grover murmured as he stuffed his face with enchiladas and espressos, "but he was murmuring something like: she's coming, she's coming…"

"Mr D has a girlfriend?" I whistled. "Isn't that humanly impossible?"

"Mr D's immortal, not human," Thalia snorted, rolling her eyes. "And where's Annabeth this morning, anyway?"

I felt my face colour itself in with a noticeable shade of crimson. I hadn't seen Annabeth at all since last night. I wondered whether or not to tell Grover or Thalia about last night. Nah.

"Percy, you're going red…" Thalia sniggered.

"OH MY GODS PERCY, YOU'RE NOT SERIOUSLY…" Grover bellowed unintentionally loudly.

"Shut up, Hoovesy," I snapped. I thought about using that for future reference.

"But…" Grover whispered excitedly, "…you and Annabeth. You were so dead-set on saving her last year. And you danced with her…"

"Grover, I danced with you at the Winter Solstice," Thalia grizzled. "Don't get any ideas."

"But…are you and Annabeth…an item?"

I thought about saying, "well durr!" but then I remembered last night's romantic disaster. Instead I left it to Thalia to say:

"Well, durr!"

Grover beamed, and I simply sighed.

"I don't think so. She keeps pulling away – like she doesn't want to commit herself…I don't know if you guys knew anything…" I looked helplessly up to them for answers.

"Nope," Grover said, after Thalia nudged him sharply.

I've been a very good guesser for quite a while. I could tell what Thalia meant by that nudge, how she nudged it – hold on, that sentence went wrong somewhere…

"It's him, isn't it?" I said meekly.

They looked at each other, exchanged glances, before returning eye contact back to me. In severe doubt of themselves, they nodded.

I let my head drop and bang itself hard against the table, upsetting several nearby plates and horns.

"Luke."

-------------------------------------------------

Every camper was surprised at the new arrival to Camp Half-Blood. As we were just about to cross the boundary line near Thalia's Tree, our jaws dropped at the new sight.

A sleek black limousine had pulled up in the road outside. Argus humbly emerged from the front, dressed in an expensive chauffeur's suit. He hurried around to our side of the car, and opened the door for his passenger to get out.

A slim tanned leg in a red stiletto appeared, protruding from the door. It was followed by a tall woman in a shimmering scarlet prom dress, dark hair streaming down her back. She deftly removed her sunglasses between her immaculate fingernails, and gave a prim-and-proper little cough into a handkerchief.

"So," she said, showing off a clear English accent, "this is the place where my husband works his wine-sodden back off for a century."

She strutted up to me, and extended her hand, which was covered in countless rings and bracelets.

"Lady Ariadne," she breathed. "Charmed to meet you."

"Ari!" a hearty, jovial voice burst out from behind the mob of campers gawping at the touch of class brought to their Long Island camp. "Ariadne, my dear!"

"That's Mr D?" Thalia gasped.

I wheeled around to see Mr D striding up the hill, parting the campers like the Book of Exodus all over again. He had oiled his hair back, discarding his leopard-skin shirt for a smart, freshly pressed tuxedo. He swiped his sunglasses from his face just as Ariadne had done so moments before.

Mr D then seized Ariadne and plastered her, much to everybody else's disgust, with the sloppiest number of kisses.

---------------------------------------------

"Tell me, sweet," Lady Ariadne purred in her English tongue, stroking Mr D's beard in a feline way, "you must be so worn out and achy from your sojourn here at this summer camp. Let me relax you."

"Ah, yes," Mr D grunted. "That's lovely…"

"Excuse me, Mr D…"

Chiron, Eris, Arachne, me and everybody else in the room scowled at the lovemaking scene set before us like a dinner platter.

"You are forgetting the purpose of Lady Ariadne's visit," Chiron noted.

"To visit my darling husband, trapped for a century at a day care facility," Ariadne purred.

"Yes, yes, apart from that," Chiron intoned hastily. "Lady Ariadne, I must ask you about the labyrinth of your father, King Minos."

Ariadne's eyes snapped open rapidly. Her eyebrows elevated several centimetres.

"Such matters pain me." she snapped, her fingers still running themselves through Mr D's tangled hair.

"We could have a word with Lord Zeus as to stretching out your visit should you answer our questions," Chiron suggested.

Ariadne suddenly looked interested. Easy bait, I thought to myself.

"What is it you wish to ask me?"

"Where is the labyrinth of your father, that Daedalus himself built those years ago?"

"That is impossible to tell," Ariadne said quickly. "With every other place in mythology, the site of the famous Cretan labyrinth moves around the known world every time the beacon of civilisation changes nation."

"So the labyrinth is somewhere in America?" I suggested innocently.

She fixed me with a cold piercing stare.

"You are unwise to suggest that. The labyrinth was originally built on Crete, the small island always seeming to be second best to the Greek civilisation, despite being its origin. Patterns such as that remain throughout history.

"Think, young half-blood. If Greek civilisation is America at the moment, then where can you think of in the world that is second best to America and that is a small island?"

And then, the metaphorical rock hit me on the head and reminded me that I was incredibly stupid at times.

"So you're saying…"

"That's right," Ariadne read my thoughts before I even put them into words. "The great labyrinth of Daedalus is at present in the United Kingdom."

A/N: So, was that a twist and a half or was that a twist and a half? The whole labyrinth-is-in-the-UK thing is a bit self-serving. I know Britain better than I know America, so I thought I'd move the action across the pond a bit.

And I'm sorry. This new idea came into my head quite randomly, and I forgot to put in the 'Luke vs. Percy tearing each other's heads off' thing because I was preoccupied with this.

Anyways… Once more unto the breach my friends, and clog up with your reviews! Do you think I should stop doing Mickey-takes of Shakespeare quotes?

NEXT TIME… on The Chaos Code

Chapter 10 – We Screw Up Already

HEADS WILL ROLL! Percy and Luke are about to tear each other's heads off. Nothing new there, but this time Annabeth's in the middle of it all.

SNAKES ON A PLANE! You'll never look at transatlantic aeroplanes the same way again! Does all it says on the label, and more!

MONSTERS! BUST-UPS! LOVE! JEALOUSY! BRITISH AIRWAYS! All next time on… THE CHAOS CODE!