"Remind me again why I'm coming with you?" Percy whined.
"Because," Annabeth reminded him, "You love me enough to go grocery shopping for Halloween."
Despite Percy's grumbling protests, he walked beside Annabeth as they made their way in to the store. Annabeth steered him toward the fruit and vegetable section, their first stop.
"Alright, here's what we need. Cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, carrots, bananas, and pears. You get the first three, I'll get the latter. Let's go, go, go!"
"Ma'am yes ma'am!" Percy replied with a salute and went off to find the food. Let's see, he thought to himself, what's cauliflower? It must look like a flower, right? Yeah, this must be it. And he tossed the vegetable in to the cart. Tomatoes… where are the tomatoes? They're red and round… aha! There you are. Throwing it in to the cart, he looked for onions. What do onions even look like? They have layers, right? And they're roundish? Found it! He grabbed a couple and placed them in the cart, meeting Annabeth back at the fruit section.
"All set, Annabeth!" She looked up from where she was selecting the ripest bananas and smiled.
"Great! Okay, next stop is…" She trailed off. The seafood section.
"Meat?" Percy asked.
"Yeah, uh, a type of meat." And Annabeth led him through the labyrinth that is the grocery store until Percy realized where they were and nearly fainted at the sight of the beady fish eyes staring at him, the crabs strung up by their claws, and the live lobsters in a tank, waiting to be cooked. He gave a small yelp when we saw it, and stopped dead in his tracks. There was an overwhelming feeling of guilt as the lobsters sensed him. Free us, lord, please! Please, my lord. Help us! Save us! Annabeth saw his pale face and faced him.
"How about you… go get some ice cream. Strawberry and Vanilla. I'll get what we need from here." Percy nodded blankly and nearly tripped over himself getting out of there. He headed towards the freezers, trying desperately to get the lobsters' pleas out of his mind. We walked with a determined gait to the ice cream, and suddenly his thoughts were somewhere else. Strawberry and vanilla ice cream? Why would anyone want those? Please, chocolate was much better. So he took three tubs of chocolate ice cream instead and put them in the basket. While he was headed to the cashier to meet Annabeth, he paused as he thought of the lobsters. Please, lord. Save us. Percy felt obscenely guilty at the thought of what he was going to do, but he couldn't just leave them. He felt that familiar tug in his gut as he willed the water to expand, breaking the glass and allowing the lobsters to flee. Hearing the shrill screams of customers from that end, he smiled gleefully and added a bag of chips to his basket in celebration of a job well done. When he met Annabeth at the cash register, she was sopping wet and had multiple pinch marks on her calves. Percy couldn't whether to laugh or run for his life, so he tried a poker face as he handed his collection of food to Annabeth.
"What happened?" He asked innocently. It might have worked, if it hadn't been for the battalion of lobsters that had scuttled in front of him, bowed, and then left through the front door. Annabeth glared at him.
"Just give me the food." She said in exasperation. She looked through it incredulously. Annabeth had asked for cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, and seafood. What had she gotten? Broccoli, apples, radishes, and tons of lobsters' pinches. Note to self, she thought, don't bring Percy to the grocery store.