9. I AM GIVEN A QUEST

The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.

I didn't have to share with anybody obviously. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag.

And I was absolutely miserable.

Just when I'd started to feel accepted I'd been separated out yet again.

The other campers avoided me like the plague. Cabin eleven was too scared to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Clarisse and her friends in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he said. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she was distracted.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan ..."

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would try something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

The only people who would even talk to me were Charles Beckendorf from the Hephaestus cabin, who I had fun with, experimenting with different weapons from my old life and him teaching me how to use more strength, even with a kid body by twisting my body(I already know how to do that, but it's nice he thought to teach me that) and Michael Yew from the Apollo cabin, who I had kunai throwing competitions with. (I say throwing but half the time it was doing trick shots and making rhymes that were insults to Clarisse.)

I knew someone at camp hated me (how original), because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News. I almost went back outside to beat up whoever I saw when I read it.

BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER

FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

'Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.'

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me (Not New York).

Down the surf, two guys were fighting. They looked like wrestlers with beards and long hair. Both wore Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them. I knew that If they continued something terrible would happen.

For some reason, the harder I ran, the stronger the wind got, so it felt like I was running on a very extreme very windy treadmill.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back!

I yelled, Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and I heard a deep laugh.

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

I woke up, thinking I was still falling.

I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in"

Grover trotted inside "Mr. D wants to see you."

"Eh?"

"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

For days, I'd been expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. It's not like I'd let them kill me of course. I may not have chakra but I'm still a ninja.

A curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.

"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed at the storm. "Someone should tell that to the weather"

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo cabin were playing a game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making them grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense.

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table with Chiron sitting across the table in his fake wheelchair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.

"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."

I waited….

"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.

"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.

"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.

"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."

Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a security pass.

He snapped his fingers.

The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then wind and then he was gone.

Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. And Grover."

We did.

Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

"It surprised me," I said. "If I hadn't gotten the sword up in time I'd probably be dead."

"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done."

"What now?"

"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"

I said, "you haven't even told me what it is yet."

Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbled across the valley.

"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable that was stolen, aren't they?".

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

"The weather since Christmas has been strange, like the sea and the sky are fighting.. And I've also been having these dreams."

"I knew it," Grover said.

"Hush" Chiron ordered.

"But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

"Excuse me?"

"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."

"Something like that is missing?"

"Stolen," Chiron said.

"That's worse. Who did it?"

"By you."

I stood there; mouth slightly opened.

"At least what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked me best', 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"

Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky.

"Er, Percy ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"If the amount I cared was a number, it would be LESS THAN NEGATIVE HUNDR-"

"Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"

Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?"

Know? I lived it horse man.

"Horribly violent?"

"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."

"Like I said, violent" I repeated.

"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

"So, I have to find the fancy taser ," I said. "And return it to Zeus."

"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"

"Well, if it aint with Poseidon, who is it with?"

"I believe I know. Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"Why can't you just tell me where it is and I just go get it?"

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."

I snorted. "I seriously doubt that"

"You agree then?"

I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.

"All right," I said. "Better that than dolphinification."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor.

The warm air from the open door smelled like mildew and rotten wood and snakes.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armour stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things—severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy(the dead body kind, not the Egyptian toilet paper covered one).

She sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. Inside my head, I heard a voice: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

I asked, "What is my destiny?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.

It was Team-7 as children, in the photo which Kakashi-sensei had them take the day before their C turned A rank mission.

Sensei spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.

Sakura said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.

Sasuke then said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Finally, All three of them said at the same time: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I yelled, "Wait! What does that even mean? What will I fail to save?"

The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.

My audience with the Oracle was over.

"Well?" Chiron asked me.

I sat into a chair. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."

Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"

"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed. "This is important."

She said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Grover said.

Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell him.

What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many here, and I couldn't imagine the ones I did have betray me.

And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. What was the point of going on the quest if I'd end up failing anyway.

"No," I said. "That's about it."

He studied my face. "Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

"Okay," I said, trying to change topics. " Who could this god in the west be?"

"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

"Someone wanting to and with the ability to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbours a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades."

Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminium fell out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. what?"

"A Fury came after Percy" Chiron said "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but—but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon... ."

"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."

"Great," I muttered. "That's two gods who want to kill me."

"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

Well, that sort of made things convenient since mom was also probably in the underworld, and I'm sure I had enough time to get both.

Also,

My dad needed me.

If I had been someone else, I'm sure I would have been bitter for him leaving, but I knew the value of family. If this gave me a chance to meet my father I'd take it, and if he apologised, I will forgive him.

He's a god though, and if there's one thing I learnt from Sasuke it's that people who think they're superior to others would die before even considering apologising.

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."

"Oh ..." He shifted his hooves. "No ... it's just that satyrs and underground places ... well..."

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminium bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."

"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where exactly?"

Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

"Oh," I said. "Seems simple enough. So, we just get on a plane—"

"No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"

I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. Mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."

"Okay," I said. "So, I'll travel on land I guess."

"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Chiron.

Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?"

Her cheeks coloured. "Do you want my help or not?"

The truth was, I did. Her talent with strategy would be priceless here.

"A trio," I said. "That'll work."

Reminds me of old time.

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."