Raindrop here, so obviously we aren't dead, I'm sorry for keeping you guys waiting so long. I got caught up in a whole lotta crap, and Hart couldn't do anything until my chapter was done, so I feel really, really, really bad. But, anywhore, on with the disclaimer! Tratie, would you do the honors?
Katie: Tratie, what's a Tratie?
Travis: Whatever, so, Raindrop and Hart… they don't own us. *aside to me* What is Tratie?
Me: *whispers into Travis's ear* It's what we fans call you and Katie. Like, your celebrity couple name. Grover and Juniper are Gruniper, and Percy and Annabeth are Percabeth.
Katie: *flushes with jealousy and annoyance*
Travis: Oh.
Katie: Hello? What is going on here? And what the Hades is a Tratie?
Travis: *kisses Katie*
Katie: *blinks*
Travis: That is a Tratie. Or, at least a Tratie moment.
Katie: *faints*
Me: And we're back!
(EPOV)
I have to admit, I actually was enjoying the books, and now that we'd had a little break, we were getting ready to read the next two chapters. We, and by 'we' I mean myself, Tana, Michaela, Travis, Connor, Katie, Annabeth, Percy, Nico, Grover, Juniper, Thalia, Rachel, Malcolm, and the two ghosts Krystal and Bianca, all gathered back into the least cheerful cabin at camp. We all sat in our positions from before the little randomness that had occurred. Nico had just finished up his chapter, and next would be Bianca.
"Bi, it's your turn," Tana said.
"I, um… can't hold the book, neither can Krys, I'm sorry," Bianca sighed. Tana blushed.
"Oh yeah," she looked down, embarrassed. The majority or our group laughed at her expense. She pulled her knees up to her chest.
"I suppose that means I'm next," Rachel grinned from the other side of Krystal. Tana smiled at her gratefully.
"Ok, so, Here we go… this chapter is called
"GROVER UNEXPECTEDLY LOSES HIS PANTS"
"Oh no… this is where it all starts…" Grover groaned. The rest of us, especially Tana and Percy, lauged loudly at this statement.
"Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal."
"Percy!" all the demigods except Tana roared at the son of Poseidon.
"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 be sixth grade?""
"Grover, you know he probably wouldn't have left if you had stopped that," Nico looked at the satyr with a furrowed brow.
"Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, 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.
A word about my mother, before you meet her."
"Mom…" Percy sighed with a smile.
"She's awesome!" Annabeth cried.
"Totally," Thalia agreed.
"She's the best…" Nico nodded as well.
"She really is…" Tana trailed off with a faint smile. The demigods in the room looked at her, knowing she hadn't met the woman, but I guess from what she knew from the books was enough.
"Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck."
"Your mom doesn't have rotten luck!" Thalia shouted.
"Nowhere close!" the children of Hades agreed
"She used to," Tana and Percy muttered in synch. The first understandingly, and the former, gritting his teeth as he remembered what happened to her.
"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."
"Ok, I take it back... That sucks," Nico sighed.
"It really does bite," the Stolls agreed.
"At least it gets better," Annabeth murmured to her boyfriend, trying to calm him down.
"The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad."
All the girls in the room other than Tana cooed. It was just so sweet!
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.
See, they weren't married.
"Well, of course not! He's already married!" Michaela shouted, causing everyone to laugh.
"Well, meeting her was definitely not a happy experience," Percy murmured.
"Tell me about it… meeting your godly parent's godly spouse is A-W-K-W-A-R-D!" Thalia chuckled nervously.
"At least you weren't turned into a dandelion!" Nico accused, glaring at Tana.
"Well, my step dad tried to kill me!" Tana glared right back.
"Oh will you two just kiss and get it over with!" Rachel shouted, causing them both to go very bright red as everyone else laughed.
"Not a chance!" Nico hollered, and I noticed something in Tana's eyes drop, but other than that her face remained unchanged. With all that done, Rachel began reading again.
"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 journey, and he never came back. Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea. She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.
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."
"Stupid Gabe," Grover, Percy, Tana, Nico and Michaela muttered.
Having all of them agree on something made me and the others curious, so Rachel kept reading.
"When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts."
"You're telling me!" Grover huffed, and Juniper kissed his cheek to calm him down.
"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.
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.
Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."
"Where's my mom?"
"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"
That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?"
"Asshole," Thalia, Nico, Bianca, Krys, ok, well the entire room other than me, Juniper, Malcolm and Katie chorused.
"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."
"Gross!" I squealed in disgust, Rachel, and Juniper joining me, but all the others had their noses crinkled.
"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.
"I don't have any cash," I told him.
He raised a greasy eyebrow.
Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.
"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."
"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.
Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.
"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose.""
"Me too," Annabeth, Malcolm, and Tana muttered.
""Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"
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.
"Wow, he's totally disgusting," Travis said.
"And that's coming from us…" Connor agreed.
"I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.
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."
"That bad?" Nico, Bianca, and Krys asked with shock.
"Yepp!" Tana exclaimed excitedly while Percy said the same words in a more calm way. Tana was having way too much fun with this, but it was so nice to see her happy, that I don't think anyone, even Annabeth and Malcolm, were willing to make her stop.
"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.
Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"
She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted."
"Mama's Boy!" the Stolls teased. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover gritted their teeth, while Tana snapped.
"It's not a bad thing you know! Neither of my parents really cared enough to get involved in my life! Even my grandmother doesn't really care! Percy is extremely lucky that he has someone who cares about his well-being that isn't his age," she growled, and both of the brothers gulped visibly. I felt sorry for the boys, Tana's deluxe "I'll Kill You Later" glare was set on them, at top value. Rachel seemed unsure, but she kept reading
"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."
Everyone smiled, Percy and Annabeth smiled widest though…
""Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"
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.
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?
I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.
From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"
I gritted my teeth."
Much like he, and almost the rest of the kids in the room were.
"Where is this idiot and how painfully can I kill him?" Thalia was seething.
"Oh, he got what he deserved," Nico smiled evilly, like he had something to do with that personally. Tana, upon hearing his statement wore a similar evil smirk.
"What happened to him?" Katie asked. They both just shook their heads.
"Ask again at the end of the book, if you remember," Tana told her sincerely, and almost everyone made a note to remember that.
"My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.
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 choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.
Until that trip to the museum ...
"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"
"No, Mom."
"Liar!" Connor called Percy out.
"I know," Percy said, at the same time that Tana muttered "He knows,"
"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.
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?"
"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.
Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"
I wanted to punch him,
"DO IT!" the entire cabin, even Juniper, Grover and the ghosts shouted.
"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.
"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."
"If he doesn't let them go, I swear…" Thalia trailed off, but Annabeth looked just as murderous.
""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."
Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?""
"That cruel, insignificant, dirty, rotten, no good, son of a batch of chocolate chip cookies, butt-faced, idiotic, sadistic, awful, filthy, pig-insulting, horrific, sorry, pathetic excuse for a human being!" Katie snapped, Travis looked at her with awe and adoration.
""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."
Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week."
"Do it Perce!" Thalia shouted at the book.
"He can't," Tana said, before Percy could open his mouth.
"Too bad…" Connor sighed.
"That would've been interesting" Malcolm agreed.
"I'll say," Michaela butted in.
"Can we please continue? Wasn't one of Tana's ground rules "No interruptions"?"
Tana sighed, "Yes, that was one of the rules, but it looks like none of those are going to be followed," she smiled sadly, muttering under her breath something that sounded like "Nobody ever listens to me"
"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."
Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement."
"So… was there?" I asked Percy.
"None that he could detect," Percy grinned, along with all the people in the room, seeing as Gabe was now their least favorite person in the world.
""Yeah, whatever," he decided.
He went back to his game.
"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 important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.
"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch.""
Everyone laughed.
"Like he'd be driving," Annabeth glared.
"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.
Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, 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.
I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.
Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, 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."
"Did that matter?" Bianca laughed, apparently remembering a time when she was alive. Percy flushed, apparently remembering the same memory.
"Nope!" Tana announced happily.
"I loved the place.
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."
"What's with the blue?" I asked, extremely confused.
"If you would just wait a few seconds, he explains in the book…" Tana droned.
"I've always wondered too…" Annabeth looked at her boyfriend.
"It explains in the book" Tana muttered.
"Yeah, that is pretty weird Percy… what's the story?" Rachel asked.
"The book holds the information you seek," Tana's voice got louder.
"Yeah, Perce, what is up with the blue food?" Nico asked with a teasing tone, just to push Tana's buttons, seeing her seething.
"SWEET MOTHER OF BABY ZEUS! THE BOOK EXPLAINS THE HADES OUT OF EVERYTHING! IF YOU WOULD JUST LET RACHEL READ THE GODSDAMNED GREEN, PAPERBACK, WORN OUT, AMAZING, BOOK, YOU WOULD KNOW WHAT THE HADES WAS GOING ON!" Tana screamed, shocking everyone. Rachel took that as her cue to start reading again.
"I guess I should explain the blue food.
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 calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe.
She did have a rebellious streak, like me.
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."
"I know what you mean…" Nico trailed off, looking down.
"It's ok Nico," Tana hugged her stepbrother/crush… wow, that must be awkward.
"No, it's not…" he trailed off. She made him look at her.
"But it will be," she said with such certainty, it seemed as though she had consulted a psychic.
""He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."
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.
"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.
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.
"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?""
"Percy!" All the girls, even those who didn't know Sally, shouted accusingly.
"I know," Percy looked away. I saw Annabeth grab his hand to console him.
"I regretted the words as soon as they were out. 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.
"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.
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.
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.
"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."
"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?
"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."
"Not good…" Annabeth muttered.
"Not good at all," Grover agreed.
"Extremely not good," Tana joined.
"Ok! We get it! It's not good!" Percy growled, and Tana shrunk back.
"It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, 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 chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
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. Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door."
"Poseidon must be pissed," Thalia laughed.
"No kidding?" Krys laughed.
"Right about that," Bianca joined the other ghost.
"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."
"What do you mean he wasn't Grover?" Travis was confused.
"It was the first time he had seen me as a satyr," Grover confirmed.
"Oh, so you were exactly you," Annabeth smiled.
""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. 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—
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!"
"You better go!" Katie sighed.
"With your luck," Thalia laughed.
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.
"Well, do we want to read another one?" Rachel asked as she finished the chapter.
"Of course!" Everyone chorused. Rachel passed on the book, into Juniper's hands.
"Um… I can't really read… I'm a nymph… we don't really need to read," she smiled, embarrassed, and passed the book to Grover.
"Looks like it's my turn then!" he smiled.
"MY MOM TEACHES ME BULLFIGHTING," he read, and then he winced, "oh just my luck," he muttered.
"We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants."
"Sometimes… I wonder how you come up with this…" Annabeth sighed.
"Me too, and I've read these books loads of times!" Tana giggled.
"But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"
Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."
"Watching me?"
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"
I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat."
"I'm still miffed by that by the way… donkey!" Grover huffed to the side.
"Goat!" he cried.
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter."
"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"
"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"
"You were still hung up on that?" Krys asked in shock.
"Yeah…" Percy trailed off, "I just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy"
"Of course."
"Then why—"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious.
"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."
"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"
"How do you do it?" Travis asked Annabeth.
"The same way I do it with Erin," Tana deadpanned.
"Hey!" I exclaimed.
"Not my fault no one listens to me," she shrugged, and I sighed. Everyone came to her for advice, and never followed it, everyone went to her for homework help, but never learned… it must get old quick.
"The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what? Who's after me?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
"Where are we going?" I asked."
"The most awesome place ever!" Connor shouted.
"Yep," Malcolm agreed.
"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."
"The place you didn't want me to go."
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn."
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."
"Whoa. You said 'you.'"
"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"
"You meant 'you.' As in me."
"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."
The room burst with laughter. Nobody could stand it, if this was what Percy's first adventure was starting out like, I can't wait until everything was said and done and we could move on to the next book!
""Boys!" my mom said.
She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
"What was that?" I asked.
"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.
"As I do constantly." Annabeth muttered and Thalia smiled as she did the same.
"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.
Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded."
"Dad!" Thalia shouted at the sky, her own electricity sparking around her.
"I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.
I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."
"Percy!" my mom shouted.
"I'm okay..."
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!
Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.
"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
I swallowed hard. "Who is—"
"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking"
"Oh fuck!" Nico cursed, and Tana blushed and bit her lip, hearing the word coming from his mouth.
She always did have a thing for bad boys and potty mouths.
"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"
"What?"
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"Mom, you're coming too."
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …
"Finally he gets it!" Malcolm was the one to scream, only to be slapped on the chest by his sister.
"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."
"But..."
"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."
I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull."
"Temper, temper," Nico chucked dryly.
I honestly couldn't see how Tana was attracted to him… Who knows, her love life, not mine.
"I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."
"I told you—"
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."
I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.
Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—
I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms
The room exploded in laughter again!
—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.
I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"
"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.
"At least your mom knows a lot…" Annabeth sighed, looking at her boyfriend warily.
"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."
"But he's the Min—"
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.
I glanced behind me again.
The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.
"Food?" Grover moaned.
"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"
"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."
As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage.
He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.
Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying."
"Oopsies," Thalia was sarcastic.
"Oops."
Everyone laughed at the similar statements, while Thalia cringed.
"I think like a seaweed brain…" she pouted, causing everyone to laugh.
""Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"
"How do you know all this?"
"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."
"Keeping me near you? But—"
Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.
He'd smelled us.
The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.
The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.
My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."
I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.
He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.
The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.
So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.
The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.
"No," Thalia blanched. Percy grimaced.
"Percy…" All the other demigods who didn't know, including myself trailed off.
We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.
"Perce?" Nico was confused as well, and both Tana and Percy were starting to look annoyed.
The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.
"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"
But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air."
"NO!" Everyone shouted. Percy was silent. Even those who had known, had never known the full story, and were utterly shocked to see that it was so vividly recalled in the books.
"Sally!" Thalia, and Nico looked heartbroken.
""Mom!"
She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"
Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.
"No!"
Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.
The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.
I couldn't allow that."
"Cue kick-ass Percy," Nico grinned
.
"I stripped off my red rain jacket.
"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"
"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.
I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all."
"Are you sure your brain isn't full of kelp?" Thalia wondered.
I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.
But it didn't happen like that.
The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down.
My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.
How did I do that?
I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.
The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.
"Gross…" I muttered, being vegetarian.
"The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.
Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.
"Food!" Grover moaned.
The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel."
"Damn, cue kick-ass ninja Percy." Thalia grinned.
"Cue kick-ass, pissed off, ninja skilled Percy," Nico corrected.
"I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap! The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.
The monster charged.
Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.
"POWNED!" the Stolls, Nico, Malcolm and Grover shouted, causing most of the girls to jump, and Percy just to grin.
The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.
The monster was gone.
The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry,"
One of the Stolls was about to open their mouths, when Tana and Michaela both said
"Don't. You. Dare," and Rachel kept reading without any warning.
"but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.
The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's."
"A PRINCESS?" Annabeth screamed, "you compared me to a FREAKING PRINCESS?" she was glaring daggers at her boyfriend.
"Princesses are pretty! And I was about to pass out! Gimme a break!" he tried to defend himself, causing everyone to laugh
"They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."
"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside.""
"Well, that's the end of the chapter, and it's pretty dark out… I think we need to head out…" Annabeth said logically.
"I'm with ya!" Thalia agreed. Soon, everyone headed out to their own cabins, and got themselves ready for bed and all that jazz. When I went to bed, I also had a weird dream… Annabeth's brother, Malcolm was in it… and so was Tana, and Nico, and Michaela and Connor… and Aphrodite was looking at all of us with approving smiles… At least… that's all I remember.
Well that's all for now, Expect Michaela's POV next.
~Raindrop