I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON RICK RIORDAN DOES! I only have rights to Atlanta and, just Atlanta. The stories are still in Percy's POV.
Athena gives Perseus her mirror shield to use so he can look through the shield at Medusa instead of directly upon her. Perseus slays Medusa, and returns her head still retaining its power, back to Athena.
Chapter Eleven: We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium
In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really, bad luck: when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.
So there we were, Annabeth, Grover, Atlanta, and I walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.
Atlanta was tracing her fork charm on her necklace, looking everywhere around her.
Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes, turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."
I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus window still rang in my ears. But Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."
"Half of our money was back there," Atlanta reminded her. "The food, yours and Percy's clothes."
"Well, well maybe if you had hurried up with your plan and if you two hadn't decided to jump into the fight-"
"What did you want us to do? Let you and Grover get killed?" I asked.
"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."
"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in. "but fine."
"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.
"Don't tell him to shut up. How do we know you won't have planned for him to be bait or something?" Atlanta said.
"Oh would you let it go! I told you Athena always has a plan."
"Not one that bad!"
Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans…a perfectly good bag of tin cans."
We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.
After a few minutes, Annabeth fell in line between Atlanta and I. "Look, I…" Her voice faltered. "I'm sorry about the creek, okay.
I shouldn't have planned for you and Percy to be bait, so we could take the flag okay? And…and I appreciate you two coming back for us. It was really brave."
"We're supposed to be a team right?" I asked.
She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you and Atlanta died…aside from the fact that it would suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."
"Nothing's stopping you from doing that. Leave camp, pray to your mom to watch over you. Don't use Percy and me as an excuse to see the world."
I elbowed Atlanta in the side as Annabeth glared at her, but I felt the same way. Atlanta jogged until she caught up with Grover. The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair.
"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked
"No…only shirt field trips. My dad-"
"The history professor."
"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she was afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."
If I didn't know any better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in her voice.
"You're pretty good with that knife," I said.
"You think so?"
From the corner of my eye, I saw Grover elbow Atlanta in the side and node his head. "Um…anyone who can piggyback-ride a fury is okay by me."
I couldn't really see, but I thought Annabeth might've smiled.
"You know," she said. "maybe I should tell you…back on the bus…"
Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured. "Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!" He puffed out a few notes, but the tone still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.
Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head.
Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.
After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I would smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized Atlanta and I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since we'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.
We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-laned road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1900s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.
It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indian and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.
To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.
"What the heck does that say?" I asked.
"I don't know." Annabeth said.
She loved reading so much, I'd forgotten she was dyslexic, too.
Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."
Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.
I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.
"Hey…" Grover warned.
"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."
"Snack bar," I said wistfully.
"Snack bar," she agreed.
"Are you crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."
"Yeah, come on," Atlanta agreed. "I have a bad feeling about this place."
We ignored them.
The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.
"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"
Atlanta stumbled over a fallen statue's feet, before she could fall to the ground, Grover steadied her.
We stopped at the warehouse door.
"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."
"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"
"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."
"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.
"Note how none of those have or are meat Percy," Atlanta scowled. "Now come on. Let's leave. These statues are…looking at me."
The door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a boy about our age. His hair was covered by a black beanie hat, and I heard lots of hissing around him. He had a pair of dark sunglasses blocking his eyes and many piercing in his ears. He wore black head to toe. His coffee-colored skin had traced of dry skin that almost looked like snake scales.
He seemed panic and didn't want to see us at all. He said. "You need to leave."
"Wha-" I said.
"Leave."
"Look where lost, and we're hoping for some food," Annabeth said.
"No. Now leave, You shouldn't be here, especially not you girly. This is the last time I tell-"
The door slammed shut, and I could hear arguing and things breaking inside. It went quiet and then there was nothing but silence. Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.
Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is much too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"
"They're…um…" Annabeth started to say.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Atlanta kicked me in the leg.
"We got separated," Atlanta lied. "We were gathering firewood for our camp fire."
"Separated?" the woman said. "But my dears! These woods are dangerous."
"Our parents told us to meet them at the gas station if we got separated, but they may have forgotten, or they meant a different gas station. Anyway we're lost and hoping for directions."
"Is that food I smell?" I asked.
"Oh, my dears," the woman said, "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em, and this is my son, Emris. Go straight through the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."
We thanked her and went inside.
Annabeth muttered to Atlanta, "Camping trip?"
"Always have a strategy, right?" Atlanta asked. "Besides if Percy told the lie, he would say something about a circus caravan."
Grover and Annabeth snorted as I shrugged, knowing it was something I'd say.
The warehouse was filled with more statues-people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of those statues, because they were life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.
Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair-it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, Atlanta's consist pulling on my shirt, or the way the statue's eyes seemed to follow me, a constant banging on a door, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.
All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.
"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.
"Awesome," I said.
"Um," Grover said reluctantly, " we don't have any money, ma'am."
Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice children."
"Thank-you ma'am," Annabeth said.
Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.
"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew Annabeth's named, even though we had never introduced ourselves.
Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL serving of French fries.
I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breath.
Annabeth slurped her shake.
Atlanta and Grover both picked at the fries and Grover eyes the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but they still looked too nervous to eat.
"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.
"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."
"I take vitamins. For my ears."
"That's admirable," she said.
"Who was that boy at the door before?" Atlanta asked.
"Ermis, he is my son. He is prone to have episodes of anger and throwing things around. He locks himself into my office and throws things around, for to clean. He really is such a trouble maker. But enough of him, please relax, Atlanta."
Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figures the least I could do was try and make small talk with our hostess.
"So you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?"
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built…most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
My neck tingled, as if someone else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."
"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em has to force her own son into helping her. I only have the statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my willing company." The sadness in her voice sounded so dee and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.
Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a…a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a prince. Such a price."
I wasn't sure what she meant, but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for her. I don't know why, but I felt like she wasn't telling the truth about this bad woman, and I felt protective of her instead of Aunty Em. My eye lids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy.
"Percy," Annabeth was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean our parents will be waiting."
She sounded as tensed as Grover, Ermis, and Atlanta looked. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.
"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."
She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.
"We really should go."
"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up, pulling Atlanta with him. "Our parents are waiting! Right!"
I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice, even if something felt off about her. I wanted to stay with her a while.
"Please dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
"A pose?" Atlanta and Annabeth asked warily.
"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."
Atlanta, Grover, and Annabeth shifted their weight from foot to foot…hoof to hoof in Grover's case.
"I don't we can, ma'am. Come on Percy-" Atlanta pleaded.
"Sure we can," I said. I was irritated with Annabeth, Grover, and Atlanta for being so pushy on leaving, so rude to an old lady who'd fed us for free. Ermis was no better, treating his mother this way. "It's just a photo, guys. What's the harm?"
"Yes, children," the woman purred. "No harm."
I could tell my friends didn't like it but they allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.
Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. Annabeth, you in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side. Atlanta why don't you sit in front of your brother."
"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"
"Where's your camera?" Atlanta asked.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile foe me please, everyone? A large smile?"
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."
"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "Look this way, dear."
She still had no camera in her hands.
"Percy-" Annabeth said.
Some instinct warned me to listen to them, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from food and the old lady's voice.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil…"
"Percy's something's wrong," Atlanta said.
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.
"Look away from her, now!"
It was Ermis, he was running toward us. Annabeth whipped out her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.
I was on the ground, looking at Aunty Em's sandaled feet.
I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Annabeth in another. I heard Atlanta try to run away, but I guess she got a little to close to Aunty Em. Atlanta's feet stayed close to her. I could hear struggling, and another pair of black boots joined them. The black boots were digging into the ground, and I heard someone muttering "let her go!"
I saw one of Aunty Em's leg go up and she was struggling to stand on one leg, as Atlanta kicked her just below the leg. Atlanta and the black boots disappeared from my view. But I was too dazed to move.
Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.
I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"
More rasping-the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from…from about where Aunty Em's head would be.
"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.
I couldn't move. I started at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.
"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," She told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."
I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens-a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.
Aunty Em.
Aunty "M."
How could I be so stupid? I'll have to remember not to tell our mom about this.
Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?
But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my name sake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and take open my face.
"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."
I felt angry. Not at Athena, but at Medusa for making her to be a victim. She and my Dad were total jerks for having their affair in her temple. Why couldn't they have gone somewhere else? Atlanta and the boy, Ermis felt the same way.
"Oh shut up," Atlanta yelled.
"Sure she may have taken her anger out unfairly," The boy, Ermis said. "but you should have known better."
I could almost hear Grover and Annabeth suck in a breath. I was truthfully waiting for a bunch of owls to come peck them, but they didn't come.
"Silence, you brats!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the gray-eyed girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."
"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.
"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain."
"Percy," Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pounded hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"
I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"
That finally jolted me into a sluggish action, but action never the less. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.
Thwack!
At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection."
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.
I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.
Ker-whack!
"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spiting.
While I was catching my breath, I took out my pen, and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand. I held on to, clutching at my shirt.
I heard someone coming up behind me. I turned, pointing Riptide straight at Ermis's throat. Atlanta was next to him, holding his hand and her trident in the other. She had it pointing at me.. I lowered Riptide as she lowered her trident. We took several deep breaths.
Right next to us, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy, Atlanta!"
Ermis, Atlanta, and I jumped so high our feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Annabeth! Don't do that!"
Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. She pointed a dagger at Ermis, trying to pull Atlanta and me away from him. "Get away from them!"
Atlanta and I yanked our hands away from Annabeth.
"What's wrong with you, he's helping us!" I said.
"He's Medusa's son!"
"She no mother to me. And did you forget who tried to warn you?" Ermis said.
Annabeth didn't look happy about it, but lowered her knife. "You have to cut her head off, Percy."
"What are you crazy? Let's get out of here," I said.
"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. We have to kill her," Ermis said.
"I'd kill her myself, but…" Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got a better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You-you've got a chance."
"What? I can't-"
"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?" Ermes asked.
He pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man, and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.
Ermis grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby fallen pedestal. "it's not Athena's mirror shield, but it's better then nothing." He rubbed it with his shirt, clearing any dust or dirt from it.
When he finished, Annabeth snatched from him and studied it critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of-"
"Would you speak English?" I asked.
"I am!"
Atlanta snatched the glass ball from her hands. "Not in terms he understands."
"Hey guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"
"Roooaaarrr!"
"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.
"We've got to hurry. I can't do it my eyes only paralyze someone for like five minutes," Ermis said.
"I can't do either, I still feel sluggish from the food," I said.
Atlanta held out her trident towards me, and I took it. She took Riptide from my hand, weighing it. I wonder if it felt the same as her trident.
She followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.
I wanted to look back, but I knew I couldn't. I looked at the ground, and I noticed something shimmering in the dirt. I picked it up and it was one of those compact mirrors with makeup inside. I opened it and the mirror was clean and unbroken. I used it to watch Atlanta, Grover, and Medusa.
Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"
Medusa was about to lunge at him when Atlanta yelled "Hey!"
Atlanta advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding Riptide and a glass ball. If she charged, Atlanta would have a hard time defending herself.
But Medusa let her approach-twenty feet, ten feet.
Medusa's reflection must have been something, cause Atlanta started to tremble. Was her reflection that ugly or something? I can't tell what it would look like seeing it through a green gazing ball.
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Atlanta," She crooned. "I know you won't."
Atlanta hesitated, staring at the gazing ball. I couldn't tell what was happening. They were both too far away for to see everything. I could see Atlanta's arms lower a bit.
From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Tlanta, don't listen to her!"
"You don't know me, or what I will do," Atlanta said.
Medusa snarled.
She lunged at Atlanta with her talons.
Atlanta slashed up with my sword, and even from a distance heard a sickening shlock!, then Medusa's head fell to the ground by Atlanta's feet. Atlanta shivered, and moved away from the head.
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. I couldn't see much of his face, but I guess he could hear noises from Medusa's head. "Mega-yuck."
Ermis left Annabeth and me in our hiding spot. "Wait here, I'll tell you when its safe."
I watched from the compact mirror as he walked towards Atlanta, picking up Medusa's black veil on the way. "Don't move."
Ermis knelt and draped his mother's head in the black cloth, then picked it up. It dripping green juice.
"It's safe."
I bolted towards Atlanta hugging her tightly. Atlanta hugged me back, taking shaky breaths.
"You okay?" Annabeth asked, her voice trembling.
"Yeah," Atlanta decided, though her voice sounded strained and shaky. "Why didn't…why didn't the head evaporate?"
"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," Ermis said.
"Same as your minotaur horns," Atlanta said. "But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."
Grover moaned as he climbed down the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green resta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying around his head.
"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."
He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."
He snatched his shoes out of the air. Atlanta and I traded weapons back and I recapped my sword. Atlanta reattached the fork charm back to her necklace. Together, the four of us stumbled back to the warehouse.
We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where Annabeth and I had eaten dinner and at around it, too exhausted to speak.
Finally I said, "So we have Poseidon to thank for this monster?"
Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. "Yours and Atlanta's dad, actually. Don't you remember?"
"Percy said Poseidon. Medusa was your dad's girlfriend. They decided to meet in Athena's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monsters. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her sneak into the temple, they became the three gorgons."
"That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you and Atlanta as nice statues. She's still sweet on your dad. You and Percy probably reminded her of him."
My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."
Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "It's just a photo, guys. What's the harm?"
"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."
"You're insufferable."
"You're-"
"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"
I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRCIATE YOUR BUSINESS!
I was angry, not just with Annabeth or my dad, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.
What had Medusa said?
Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue.
I got up. "I'll back."
"Percy," Atlanta called after me. "You better be doing what I think you're doing."
I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. The door was kicked out, and off the henges. Ermis most of done that. Her account book showed her most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorated Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address waws DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.
In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.
I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:
The Gods
Mount Olympus
600th Floor,
Empire State Building
New York, NY
With best wishes,
Percy and Atlanta Jackson
Ps. Dad you suck!
Ermis was laughing as he read over my shoulder.
"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you and Atlanta are impertinent."
I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!
"We am impertinent," I said.
I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.
She didn't. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," She muttered. "We need a new plan."