AN: I don't own any of this, all goes to Rick Riordan.
"I'll read" Said Katie, taking the book out of Travis' hands.
"I Play Pinochle With a Horse." Chiron stomped his foot. They all laughed a little bit.
I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.
"That's a weird dream even for you." Clarisse said.
"I know." Percy said.
I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.
"Thank you." Percy said, kissing Nico's lips and held him closer to him. Glad that Nico was there especially after the memory episode that the Fates had decided to let be shown.
They got a few stares for that, but nobody said anything.
When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"
"That's what we want to know." Zeus said looking at Athena.
"No sorry not telling." Athena said.
I managed to croak, "What?"
"Yes what?" Hera and Hephaestus asked.
"Mmm not telling." Athena and the future demigods said.
She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"
"What was stolen?" Ares asked.
"Think about it, now those who thinks they've figured it out raise your hand and don't tell anyone." Percy said. Artemis and Apollo raised their hands.
"Who stole it?" Apollo asked.
"Nope not telling." Nico said.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..." Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.
"Nice way of getting him to shut up." Conner said.
"I like the other way better." Nico and Percy said.
"That comment was unnecessary," Thalia remarked.
The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.
A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.
"Argus." Percy guessed.
"Yeah that's him." Hera said smiling remembering her friend.
When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.
"Kind of like Demeter." Hades said.
"Is that a compliment or insult?" Demeter asked.
"For once a compliment."
"Oh thank you."
There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.
"Ouch." Thalia said.
"I know hate that feeling." Percy said. While Nico wrapped his arms around him.
On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it."Careful," a familiar voice said. Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.
"I wouldn't, I just got your mom killed." Grover said.
"No you didn't that was me."
Percy then turning invisible so did Nico, since he's with him.
"How'd he do that?" Thalia asked.
"No clue but that's cool." Connor said.
"I think I know but I won't tell." Poseidon said.
Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.
"Not you too." Grover said.
"Goat boy!" The Demi gods said hugging Grover.
"Guys can't breathe." They soon backed off.
"Sorry."
So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...
"Sorry not the case this time." Hestia said sadly.
"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this." Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.
"Why would he want a shoe box?"Travis asked.
"I think it's what's inside of the box." Chiron said.
Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.
"Does he still have it?" Hermes asked.
"Yeah." Annabeth said.
"The Minotaur," I said.
"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-" "That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."
"Like to live on the edge does he?" Hades asked.
"Pretty much." Thalia said.
"It's going to be interesting watching him grow up I dare say I'm going to have fun with this."
Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?" "My mom. Is she really ..." He looked down.
"Nope," Annabeth muttered happily.
I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight
Thalia smiled a little bit.
My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.
"That's deep man real deep." Apollo said.
"Percy can be deep when he wants to." Thalia said.
"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world
"ARE NOT!" The Demi gods yelled.
He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.
"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.
Thunder boomed. "Ohh Grover cursed." Travis said.
"Shut up like you don't curse ether." Grover said.
Thunder rolled across the clear sky.
As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.
"Dude." Conner said. Beckendorf took out a razor.
"Conner don't try and shave Grover's head!" Chiron said.
"Sorry got to." Grover took his reed pipes out and played and trees surrounded him.
"Hey I got it right for once." Grover said. "Dang now I can't see."
But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.
I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?
"NO! don't even think about it Percy." Annabeth said.
"I'm missing Percy, can you bring him back?" Katie asked. Poseidon waved his hand and Percy and Nico appeared making out. Hades cleared his throat and it broke the kiss.
"Yes Dad?" Nico asked innocently.
"You know what you both can do that later." Percy and Nico blushed.
"Let them have their fun," Poseidon commented.
No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.
"I doubt he'll get away with that." Ares snorted.
Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.
"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."
"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.
"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.
I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.
"I taste cake," Thalia said.
"I taste blue birthday cake," Nico said.
Percy just smiled.
"Olives," Athena and both Annabeths said.
"Fish," Poseidon said.
"Meat," Ares and Both Clarisse's said.
"Okay enough of that," Demeter said.
And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.
"The relationship with your mother is strong." Hera said.
"Yep and it gets stronger." Percy said.
Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.
"Was it good?" Grover asked.
I nodded.
"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.
"You always feel guilty." Thalia said.
"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."
"NO!" Grover yelled.
His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."
"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."
He sighed. "And how do you feel?"
"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."
"That's good." Apollo said.
"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"
"What do you mean?"
He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."
"Oh good now we can see how he sees us." Chiron and Dionysus said.
"That might not be the best idea," Thalia muttered.
The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.
My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.
As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.
"I love that place." The demigods said.
We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture
"It was." Annabeth said.
an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.
"I know and I have fun with them." Percy said.
"Yeah, you're always talking to them with Nico." Thalia said.
"They do tell some great stories." Annabeth said.
Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.
The man facing me was small, but porky.
Dionysus glared at Percy who hid behind Nico.
He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.
"WHAT WHY YOU LITTLE…" Poseidon made his trident appear in his hands and glared at his nephew.
"Don't even think about." Everyone laughed at the description.
He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.
The mood soon turned sour.
"A two year old can out gamble that man." Hermes said. Everyone agreed with him.
"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.
"That wasn't polite one bit." Dionysus mumbled.
"NO, but it was funny." Chiron said.
"Oh nobody asked you Pinky." Chiron glared at his friend.
"Very funny Mr. D."
The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,
Percy then lays his head on Nico's lap water traveling beside him so he could lay down for a few.
"Tired?" Nico asked.
"Mmm." Percy fell asleep. Nico just combed his figures in his hair.
but she's been here longer than just about anybody.
"True." Clarisse said.
And you already know Chiron..."
He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.
First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.
"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.
"You heard me call him Chiron didn't you?" Grover asked.
"Yeah but I was use to Mr. Brunner."Percy said in his sleep.
The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.
"Questo sarà solo rendere più facile per deporre le uova di Poseidone." Athena said.
" Eppure, che li rende dubbio è la risposta giusta, Lady Athena." Chiron said.
"What?"
"It's Italian, Percy" Nico said automatically.
Chiron and Athena directed their attention to the son of Hades.
"My mom was Italian." Was all that was said.
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."
He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."
"You really hate it there don't you?" Zeus asked.
"Pretty much."
"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because,if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.
"I'm not a stranger." Dionysus said.
"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.
She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."
"You guys really need to claim your kids, I mean there's too many at my cabin and I can't make more room right now so please people claim you kids." Hermes complained.
"I claim mine at birth so." Athena said. Apollo and Demeter snapped their fingers and their kids were claimed.
"I claim mine as soon as they get to camp." Ares, Aphrodite and Hephaestus.
Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."
She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking.
"Oh yeah much more athletic then you Seaweed Brain." Annabeth said.
With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.
"What's that's supposed to mean?" The two stormy gray eyed girls asked.
"He's just saying that most California girls have blue or brown eyes not stormy gray."
They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty,
but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.
"I was." Annabeth said.
"That's my girl." Athena said smiling at Annabeth, who moved to Athena and sat by her feet."
"Love you Mother." She said. "I love you too."
She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say,You killed a minotaur!orWow, you're so awesome!or something like that.
"I would never." Annabeth said.
"Yeah right Percy." Nico and Thalia said.
Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."
Everyone laughed at that. "Your son is so cute." Hestia said.
"I know." Poseidon and Nico said.
Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.
"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"
"Nice way of breaking the ice." Nico laughed. While leaning into Percy.
"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."
"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"
"Drunk, dork, stop me when you hear a winner." Apollo said. The demigods laughed.
Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."
"Agreed." The gods said.
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."
"House call?"
"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."
I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.
"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.
"Ego." Nico said.
"Yours is bigger." Percy argued in his sleep.
"Is not."
"Is too, read Katie."
"How does he talk in his sleep," Thalia asked.
All she got was shrugs, they honestly didn't know.
Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.
We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test.
"Which I failed at." Thalia said before Percy splashed her in his sleep.
"Dude how do you do that in your sleep?" A snore was his only response.
"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"
"He gets your name right?" Hephaestus asked.
"Yeah." Grover asked.
"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.
"Oh maybe because he'll VAPORIZE me." Grover said.
"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.
"I'm afraid not," I said.
"I'm afraid not,sir," he said.
"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.
"So do we." Chris whispered and the demigods laughed before getting shut up by Dionysus' glare.
"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."
"Do you know how to play football?" Travis asked. "Yes everyone here loves it, well not Aphrodite." Dionysus said. "Dude you have to play with us all of you, it might be fun." "All right." Travis high-fived Conner.
The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.
Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was,I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.
"I do that for all the kids. Chiron said.
"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'
"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."
Percy snuffled in his sleep. "Shh." Nico whispered. While threading his fingers in his hair luring him back to sleep.
"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"
Aphrodite took off her shoe and threw at Dionysus. "OW!" The shoe hit his forehead.
"Nice shot." Hephaestus said.
"Thank-you." Aphrodite blushed.
"What?" I asked.
He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.
"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."
"Orientation film?" I asked.
"It's a pretty cool film." Conner said.
"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."
I stared at the others around the table.
I waited for somebody to yell,Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.
"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"
"Eh? Oh, all right."
"Aww that was sweet of you." Hera said. Dionysus blushed.
Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.
"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."
"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."
"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"
"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."
"Smaller?" The gods asked. Chiron whistled innocently.
"Smaller?"
"You all think like Percy." Katie laughed.
"That's not a bad thing," Nico said.
"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."
"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."
"I really wish they would say Olympians, makes me feel left out." Artemis said. Apollo patted her back.
"Sorry Big sis."
"You just said big sis?"
"I know." And Artemis actually gave him a warm smile.
And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud less day.
"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."
"And so you should." Zeus said. "Sorry." Percy said in his sleep.
"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."
"Real not science sorry." Percy said.
"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"
"Dude he said his name right." Clarisse said.
"I know." Chris said.
-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective.
"Some of our friends are mortals." Nico said.
They think they've come so-o-ofar. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."
I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't.
"I'm not."
It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.
"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is thatimmortalmeans immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"
"Had the chance, but I'd rather be with Nico." Percy said. Nico smiled at that.
I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.
"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.
"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"
My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."
"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."
"Oh I love to see you all try, he can defend himself in his sleep and he'll blast you with water all the way to the Mississippi lake." Nico said.
Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."
"Thank you Grover." Poseidon said.
"Y-you're welcome Lord Poseidon." Grover said.
"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"
He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.
"Son." Zeus warned.
"Sorry."
My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.
"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.
"Notice how it said feigned." Athena said.
"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"
More thunder.
Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.
Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."
"That's a nice way of putting it." Chris laughed.
"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.
"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."
"Yeah." The demigods said.
Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.
"He is."
"I would argue but I fear Athena and her spears." Dionysus said.
"Good idea." Athena said.
"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."
"Di immortales,Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."
I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.
"No our boss." Grover said.
"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."
Wine appeared in everyone's hands that was odd enough. "Sorry it does that." Dionysus said.
"It's fine one glass." Zeus warned. Dionysus smiled and slowly sipped.
Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"
"Y-yes, Mr. D."
"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"
Aphrodite glared. Dionysus cowered under her glare
He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.
"I'm not so laid back as Apollo or Hermes." Dionysus said.
"Oh very true." Hermes and Apollo said.
"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.
"No. No, sir."
The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."
"Hey I won for once." Dionysus said happily.
"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."
"Never mind."
I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.
"I'm tired," Mr. D said.
"Sore loser much?" Artemis asked.
"Sore yes, loser no." Dionysus said.
"I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk,again,about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."
Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."
Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."
"You should talk." Hades said.
He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.
"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.
"Thanks buddy." Grover said. Percy snored and everyone laughed softly.
Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."
"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"
"Yep we're in it Prissy." Clare said.
"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."
"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?"
"Can we skip this part?" Ares asked.
"No." Hermes phone rang. He took it out.
"Hermes you have a package to deliver." Martha said.
"Ok let me have the package." A package appeared in his hand. "Oh no."
"What?"
"I have to deliver a package to…" Hermes gulped "Khione." Everyone looked sorry.
"Good luck dude." Apollo said.
"Thanks." Hermes appeared in snow gear and disappeared.
"Ok, so I'll read it but no interrupting at all and it'll get done faster." Katie said.
"Fine." Ares said.
"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."
"The what?"
"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."
"And then they died."
"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.
People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either
- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."
It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we,as if I were part of some club.
"Now I want to start a club." Apollo said. Artemis smacked on the head.
Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."
"Mmm the best father figure you could have." Annabeth said.
And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.
I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.
"Not funny Chiron." Percy said.
"He's not here went for a walk." Annabeth said.
"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."
"That's then end." Katie marked the page.