Prompt from sonofthetrigod: "If I had 10 apples and you gave me 30 coconuts how many teeth would a canary have?"
There's a light swww-p, and a brrz. There's the buzz of background conversation, and a close statement of "How do you put the cassette tape in–?"
"It's already there, Grover. Look at the light on the side… No, other side… With the screen…" A sigh. "You're kinda useless around technology."
"Maybe your dumb technology from the early two-thousands–"
"Hey, it works fine!"
"Yeah, sure…"
There's the brrz again, and some scattered laughter in the back.
"Grover," says Percy, "Why did you bring us here? Aren't you against the cruelality of zoos?"
"Not a word–"
"I am indeed, Percy. That's precisely why I'm recording this atrocity. Making a lion press a button… Awful."
"Uh–?"
There's a lull in their conversation again, some more buzzer noises and amused chuckles. Then–
"So you guys love riddles, right? I mean, who doesn't?"
"I actually hate them because I can never–"
"Besides the epitome of abnormality that Nico DiAngelo chooses to be, everyone loves riddles."
"I mean, I guess, Percy…"
"Thank you for the support, Annabeth. So, here's a question for you all: If I had 10 apples and you gave me 30 coconuts how many teeth would a canary have?"
"I– uh– forty?"
"Um, canaries don't have teeth–"
"Is this one of those things that's like 'penguins are black and white and the sky has white clouds and clouds look like foam and the sea has foam and foam is white and white rhymes with night and that's why penguins are the universe'?"
"Uh, guys, where did that clown come from…?"
"Nevermind that creepy atrocity, the lion just grew like thirty feet larger…"
"How do you grow thirty feet larger–?"
"Shut up and get your dumb sword out, Jackson!"
"Don't harm him–"
"Grover it's not Mufasa, it's the friggin' Nemean lion!"
"But the crowd…"
Screams echoed, and there was a collective "hmm".
"Well." A sigh. "Better do this, then."
Whrr-click.