Percy had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill him. The rest wanted food.
He must've woken up several times, but what he heard and saw made no sense, he just passed out again. He remembers 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 him, smirking as she scraped drips off his chin with the spoon.
When she saw his eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"
He managed to croak, "What?"
She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I don't…"
Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled his mouth with pudding.
The next time he woke up, the girl was gone.
A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over him. He had blue eyes—at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.
When Percy finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about his surroundings,
except that they were nicer than he was used to. He 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.
There was a blanket over his legs, a pillow behind his neck. All that was great, but his mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. His tongue was dry and nasty and every one of his teeth hurt.
On the table next to him was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.
His hand was so weak, he almost dropped the glass once I got his fingers around it.
"Careful," a familiar voice said.
Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoebox. 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.
"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 shoebox in Percy's lap.
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.
"The Minotaur," He said.
"Um, 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." Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"
"Just you, getting knocked out and my pull against the Minotaur"
Percy 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 them, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.
"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm—I'm the worst satyr in the world."
He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off, more like the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof shaped hole.
"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.
Thunder rolled across the clear sky.
As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, Percy thought, Well, that settles it.
Grover was a satyr. He was ready to bet that if he shaved his curly brown hair, he'd find tiny horns on his head. But he was too tired to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs.
Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever— looked as if he expected to be hit.
Percy said, "It wasn't your fault."
"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."
"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"
"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least…I was."
"But why…" He suddenly felt dizzy, his vision swimming.
"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here."
He helped Percy hold the glass and put the straw to his lips.
He recoiled at the taste, because he was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—Sally's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, his whole body felt warm and good, full of energy.
He felt as if his mom had just brushed her hand against hischeek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.
Before Percy knew it, he'd drained the glass. He stared into it, sure he'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.
"Was it good?" Grover asked.
He nodded.
"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, Percy felt guilty.
"Sorry," He said. "I should've let you taste."
His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just…wondered."
"Chocolate-chip cookies," he replied. "My mom's. Homemade."
He sighed. "And how do you feel?"
"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."
"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."
The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.
His legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but Percy held on to it. He'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. He wasn't going to let it go.
As they came around the opposite end of the house, he caught his breath.
They 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, he simply couldn't process everything he was seeing.
The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—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 he was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.
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 him popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them. The man facing him was small, but porky. 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. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and Percy had the weird feeling that he knew him from somewhere, but he couldn't remember where.
"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to him. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron.…"
He pointed at the guy whose back was to him.
First, Percy realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then he recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.
"Mr. Brunner!" He cried.
The Latin teacher turned and smiled at him. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answer B.
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle." He offered him a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at him 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."
"Uh, thanks." Percy scooted a little farther away from him because, he gave off a weird feeling, plus he had a distinct scent of wine, that makes him uncomfortable.
"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl. She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced them.
"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."
Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."
She was probably his age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what Percy thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.
They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take him down in a fight. He was vaguely familiar to him, as if he knew her personally, but yet again he couldn't remember when.
She glanced at the Minotaur horn in his hands, then back at him. Percy imagined she was going to say, "You killed a Minotaur!" or "Wow, you're so awesome!" or something like that.
Instead, she said, "You drool when you sleep." Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.
"So," he said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"
"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex–Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."
"Wait a minute, like the Chiron from the Greek myths you've taught ?"
He smiled down at me. "Exactly, I'm impressed Percy that you've figured it out. Indeed, I am, Chiron, trainer of Hercules and all that?"
"But, shouldn't you be dead?" Percy asked.
Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish…and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."
Percy looked at the director. "And Mr. D…does that stand for something?"
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."
"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?" Percy asked.
"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."
Percy 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.
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 step."
"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"
"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though Percy didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.
"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.
"Well," he told Percy , "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."
"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.
"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun— Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?" Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."
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.
"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"
"She said…" Percy remembered what she told him on the phone after their encounter with the old ladies at the fruit stand. "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."
"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"
"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. "No," Chiron decided.
"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"—he pointed to the horn in the shoebox—"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."
Percy stared at the others around the table.
He waited for somebody to yell, that it was a joke ! But all he 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."
Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.
"Wait," Percy 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?"
"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."
"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."
And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.
"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."
"But they're stories," Percy said. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."
"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—He flinched when he said his real name, which he 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. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."
He wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called him mortal, as if…he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in his 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 that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"
He was about to answer, off the top of his head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made him hesitate.
"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," Percy said.
"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning?
"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."
He 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.
Percy's jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.
"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise. "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."
"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."
Percy 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. "You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine. Which means that your father is Zeus."
Mr. D looked a little surprised but then started to quiet down before clapping slowly. "You, Mr. Jackson, are the first person to have reasonably deducted of who I was, without asking for hints or anything, I must applaud you."
Chiron was also surprised that he could find Mr. D identity without any hints, as he smiled at Percy.
"So since wine was enough to become a god, it means that I could invent something and become a god ?" Percy asked with a smirk.
Mr. D was not prepared at all from what he just heard while Grover was on the verge of fainting and Chiron had a smile, knowing that Percy would bad-mouth him if he didn't like him.
He turned to look at Percy straight on, and he saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing him 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. Percy knew that if he pushed him, Mr. D would show him worse things. He would plant a disease in his brain that would leave his wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life but he held his ground.
"I couldn't care less about you, little brat. So mind your own business"
The fire in his eyes died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."
"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."
Percy 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. "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."
He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.
"Will Grover be okay?" Percy asked Chiron.
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," He said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"
"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 use 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?"
"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."
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 he seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if he were part of some club.
"Who are you, Chiron? Who…who am I?"
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 s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."
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, Percy thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, He 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.
Percy 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 his Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk. "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."
Once Percy got over the fact that his Latin teacher was a horse, they had a nice tour, though he was careful not to walk behind him. He'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, sorry if he did not trust Chiron's back end the way he trusted his front.
They passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the Minotaur horn he was carrying. Another said, "That's him." Most of the campers were older than Percy. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters.
Percy wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at him made him uncomfortable. He felt like they were expecting him to do a flip or something. Percy looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than he'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. He was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught his eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and he got the distinct impression he was being watched.
"What's up there?" Percy asked Chiron.
He looked where Percy was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."
"Somebody lives there?"
"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."
He got the feeling he was being truthful. But he was also sure something had moved that curtain.
"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."
We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.
Chiron told him the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."
He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.
Percy watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. He wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. He wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.
"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron.
"I mean…he was a good protector. Really."
Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse's back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than is reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."
"But he did that!"
"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."
"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"
Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age.…"
"How old is he?"
"Oh, twenty-eight."
"What! And he's in sixth grade?"
"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."
"That's horrible."
"Quite," Chiron agreed.
"At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career. …"
"That's not fair," Percy said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"
Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"
But Percy wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop.
As they walked to the woods, Percy realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.
Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."
"Stocked with what?" Percy asked. "Armed with what?"
"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"
"My own—?"
"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."
Percy wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued.
They saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.
"Sword and spear fights?" I asked. "Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."
Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.
"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.
Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?"
I decided to drop the subject. Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.
Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.
They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more his thing).
In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. He had the feeling that he has met before but at another place.
The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
"Zeus and Hera?" Percy guessed.
"Correct," Chiron said.
"Their cabins look empty."
"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."
Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?
He stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three. It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.
He peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"
Before Chiron could pull him back, Percy caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down.
But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, Percy was glad when Chiron put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."
Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers. Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside Percy could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared.
The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALFBLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on him and gave him an evil sneer. She reminded him of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.
Percy kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves.
"We haven't seen any other centaurs," He observed.
"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."
"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really…"
He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."
"But, how are you still alive after all these years ?" Percy asked.
Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish…and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."
Percy thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made his Top Ten Things to Wish For list.
"Doesn't it ever get boring?"
"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."
"Why depressing?" Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.
"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."
The blond girl Percy'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.
When they reached her, she looked him over critically, like she was still thinking about how much he drooled.
He tried to see what she was reading, but he couldn't make out the title. Percy thought his dyslexia was acting up. Then he realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to him, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.
Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Cabin eleven," Chiron told Percy, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."
Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it…? A caduceus.
Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center. Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.
"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner." He galloped away toward the archery range.
Percy stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at him, sizing him up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.
"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."
So naturally Percy tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of himself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.
Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."
"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.
I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined." Everybody groaned.
A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, over there."
The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.
"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow.
He glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. She saw him looking, and her expression hardened again.
"He's your counselor for now."
"For now?" Percy asked.
"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."
Percy looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given him. He had nothing to put there to mark it as his own. Just the Minotaur's horn. He thought about setting that down, but then he remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.
He looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing him as if they were waiting for a chance to pick his empty pockets.
"How long will I be here?" Percy asked.
"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."
"How long will that take?" The campers all laughed.
"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."
"I've already seen it."
"Come on." She grabbed his wrist and dragged him outside. Percy could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind him.
When they were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."
"What?"
She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."
"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "I'm completely new to this Greek stuff, and all I know is that, I fought against what would seem like the Minotaur."
"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"
"To get killed?"
"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"
I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories…"
"Yes."
"Then there's only one."
"Yes." "And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So…"
"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."
"Oh, thanks. That doesn't make any sense."
"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."
Percy thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally"
"The Fur…I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."
"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"
"You talk in your sleep."
"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"
Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.
"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."
"Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks over there."
He pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or…your parent"
She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.
"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station."
"That's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."
"I never knew him."
Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.
"Most of the kids here didn't either. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."
"Ambrosia and nectar."
"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."
Then, suddenly a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"
Percy looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.
"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"
"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."
"Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which Percy somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though he had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.
She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"
"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."
Percy blinked. "Like…the war god?"
Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"
"No," he said, recovering his wits. "It explains the bad smell."
Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."
"Percy."
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."
"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say. "Stay out of it, wise girl." Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and Percy didn't really want her help.
He was the new kid. he had to earn his own rep. He handed Annabeth his minotaur horn and got ready to fight, Clarisse approached him and he threw a solid punch in her jaw, making her stumble over.
"Oh, you're dead meat, Prissy" Clarisse said, with fury in her eyes.
Before Percy could reply, Clarisse had him by the neck and was dragging him toward a cinderblock building that he knew immediately was the bathroom. He was kicking and punching. He'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. He was lucky to be able to throw a punch.
She dragged him into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and he was thinking—as much as he could think with Clarisse ripping his hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.
Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and Percy was trying to find the strength he'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.
"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed him toward one of the toilets.
"Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking." Her friends snickered.
Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. Clarisse bent him over on his knees and started pushing his head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets.
He strained to keep his head up, he was looking at the scummy water, thinking that he won't go into that. Then something happened, He felt a tug in the pit of stomach, he heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on his hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over his head, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind him.
He turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.
She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back.
The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.
As soon as they were out the door, Percy felt the tug in his gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door.
She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at him in shock. Percy looked down and realized he was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around him .
He didn't have one drop of water on clothes. Nothing. He stood up, his legs shaky.
Annabeth said, "How did you…"
"I don't know." They walked to the door.
Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage.
She gave him a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."
Percy probably should have let it go, but he said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."
Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.
Annabeth stared at him. He couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at him for dousing her.
"What?" he demanded. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."
Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever Percy went, campers pointed at him and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.
"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."
"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."
"Whatever."
"It wasn't my fault." She looked at me skeptically, and he realized it was his fault.
He'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. He didn't understand how, but the toilets had responded to him. He had become one with the plumbing.
Annabeth showed him the rest of the camp and they stopped at the lake where the cabins were.
He could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard his stomach growl. She told him to go on, she'd catch him later. Percy left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.
Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, Percy noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles.
They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to him as he walked over to his spot on the floor and plopped down with his minotaur horn.
The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact. "Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."
Percy couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part but he said, "Thanks."
"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"
"Pretty much, the initiation ceremony sucks tho" Percy said.
"I've heard that you defended yourself pretty good" Luke smirked.
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, Percy knew it was a conch shell, even though he'd never heard one before.
Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" The whole cabin, about twenty of them, filed into the common's yard. They lined up in order of seniority, so of course Percy was dead last.
Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.
They marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined the from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods, he saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.
At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. Percy had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half his butt hanging off.
Luke told Percy to take his plate to the fire and toss a piece of his food into the fire. So Percy scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.
When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention
Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."
A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.
"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."
Chiron murmured something. "Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."
Everybody cheered. They all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. They sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, he didn't feel that anyone was staring at him anymore. Percy felt that he was home.
The next few days, Percy settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that he was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.
Each morning, he took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and they talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird.
Percy discovered Annabeth was right about his dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for him to read. At least, no harder than English.
After a couple of mornings, Percy could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache. The rest of the day, he'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something he was good at.
Chiron was teaching him archery and told him to grab a bow and arrows in the armory. So Percy went to search for one and stumbled into an old and rusty one with beautiful intricate designs. Little did he knew, it was his ancient bow.
Little reminder, after the whole Orion incident back in the day, Apollo had cursed every child on Poseidon to suck at archery to prevent this from happening again, but Percy wasn't a normal child of Poseidon.
So when Percy came back with the bow, Chiron taught him how to use it, and was shocked when Percy was quite average with it. Chiron had some suspicions because Percy very much looked like a young Poseidon, so when Percy succeeded into hitting the target, he was extremely surprised.
Unbeknownst to them, the bow had a tracking spell on it, so when Percy started using it, the spell got activated and alerted Artemis.
Artemis was on Olympus to tend business when she got the alert in the mind.
"Who's the little shit who's using Perseus's bow ?" She thought.
She aimed her own bow and made an one-way Iris-message to see who had the displeasure of using the bow.
She was shocked, when she saw that it was a younger copy of her uncle Poseidon and her late lover, and she was even more shocked to see that he was decent at archery.
"Looks like my uncle broke his vow, typical and my stupid little brother is not even capable of cursing people correctly" She spat as she looked at Percy in disgust. "I've got my eyes on you *boy*"
Back at the camp, Percy tried out other indoors activities, looking for something he was good at.
Foot racing, he was quite good as it. The wood-nymph instructors were impressed that he could almost catch them. But still, it feels weird to be slower than a tree.
And wrestling? Forget it. Every time he got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize him.
"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in his ear. The only thing he really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.
Thursday afternoon, three days after he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, he had his first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be their instructor.
They started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. Percy understood what he was supposed to do, and his reflexes were good. The problem was, he couldn't find a blade that felt right in his hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix him up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for him.
They moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be Percy's partner, since this was his first time.
"Good luck," one of the campers told him. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."
"Maybe he'll go easy on me," Percy said. The camper snorted.
Luke showed him thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, he got a little more battered and bruised.
"Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap him in the ribs with the flat of his blade.
"No, not that far up!" Whap! "Lunge!" Whap! "Now, back!" Whap! By the time he called a break, Percy was soaked in sweat.
Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, Percy did the same. Instantly, he felt better. Strength surged back into his arms.
The sword didn't feel so awkward. "Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."
He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.
"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique." He demonstrated the move on him in slow motion.
Sure enough, the sword clattered out of his hand. "Now in real time," he said, after Percy'd retrieved his weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"
He nodded, and Luke came after him. Somehow, Percy kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of his sword. His senses opened up. He saw his attacks coming. He countered. He stepped forward and tried a thrust of his own.
Luke deflected it easily, but Percy saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press him with more force. The sword grew heavy in his hand. The balance wasn't right. Percy knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took him down, so Percy tried the disarming maneuver.
His blade hit the base of Luke's and he twisted, putting his whole weight into a downward thrust. Clang. Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of his blade was an inch from Luke's undefended chest.
The other campers were silent. Percy lowered sword. "Um, sorry." For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.
"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"
The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned him. But Luke insisted. This time, there was no contest. The moment their swords connected, Luke hit Percy's hilt and sent his weapon skidding across the floor.
After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"
Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised Percy with an entirely new interest.
"Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword.…"
That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual. At last, it was time for Capture the Flag.
When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and they all stood at their tables. Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner.
It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.
Percy turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"
"Yeah."
"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"
"Not always," he said. "But often."
"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do—repaint the flag?"
He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."
"Whose side are we on?"
He gave him a sly look, as if he knew something Percy didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight.
"We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."
The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded —shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.
Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus.
Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.
"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"
He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.
"Whoa," Percy said. "We're really supposed to use these?" Luke looked at him as if he was crazy.
"Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."
Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"
They cheered and shook their swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at them as they headed off toward the north. Percy managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over his equipment.
"Hey." She kept marching.
"So what's the plan?" He asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?" Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid he'd stolen something.
"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"
"Border patrol, whatever that means."
"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan." She pushed ahead, leaving him in the dust.
"Okay," Percy mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."
Far away, the conch horn blew. He heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past him like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.
Then Percy heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by. He raised his shield instinctively; he had the feeling something was stalking him. Then the growling stopped. He felt the presence retreating.
On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.
"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed. Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made him feel any better.
They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. He managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur.
They surrounded him, and Clarisse thrust at him with her spear. His shield deflected the point, but he felt a painful tingling all over his body.
His shield arm went numb, and the air burned. Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric.
Percy fell back. Another Ares guy slammed him in the chest with the butt of his sword and he hit the dirt. They could've kicked him into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.
"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."
Percy managed to get to his feet. He raised his sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew.
"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."
"The flag is that way," Percy told her.
"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid."
"You do that without my help," he told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.
Two of them came at him. He backed up toward the creek, tried to raise his shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck him straight in the ribs.
If Percy hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, he would've been shish-kebabbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked his teeth out of his mouth.
One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across his arm, leaving a good-size cut. Seeing his own blood made him dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.
"No maiming," He managed to say.
"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege." He pushed Percy into the creek and he landed with a splash.
They all laughed. Percy figured as soon as they were through being amused, he would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up his senses, as if he'd just had a bag of his mom's double-espresso jelly beans.
Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get him, but he stood to meet them.
He swung the flat of his sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. He hit him so hard Percy could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.
Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at him. He slammed one in the face with his shield and used his sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume.
Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy.
As soon as she thrust, Percy caught the shaft between the edge of his shield and his sword, and he snapped it like a twig.
"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!" She probably would've said worse, but he smacked her between the eyes with his sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.
Then Percy heard yelling, elated screams, and he saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids.
The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse. "A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."
They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. His side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven.
Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn. The game was over. They'd won.
Percy was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to him in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero." He looked, but she wasn't there.
"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.
"You set me up," He said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."
Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."
"A plan to get me pulverized."
"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but…" She shrugged. "You didn't need help." Then she noticed his wounded arm.
"How did you do that?"
"Sword cut," he said. "What do you think?"
"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."
The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As Percy watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared. "I—I don't get it," he said.
Annabeth was thinking hard. He could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at his feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."
"What—"
"Just do it." He came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. His arms started to go numb again. His adrenaline rush left him. He almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied him.
"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want…I assumed it would be Zeus.…"
Before he could ask what she meant, he heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest. The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which Percy would realize, only later, he had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"
Annabeth drew her sword. There on the rocks just above them was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers. It was looking straight at Percy. Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, run!"
She tried to step in front of him, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit him, as he stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through his armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other.
From the hound's neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at his feet. By some miracle, Percy was still alive. He didn't want to look underneath the ruins of his shredded armor.
His chest felt warm and wet, and he knew he was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned him into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat. Chiron trotted up next to them, a bow in his hand, his face grim.
"Di immortales!" Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't…they're not supposed to…"
"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."
Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone. Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"
"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.
They watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.
"You're wounded," Annabeth told him. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."
"I'm okay."
"No, you're not," she said. "Chiron, watch this."
Percy was too tired to argue. He stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around him. Instantly, he felt better. He could feel the cuts on his chest closing up. Some campers gasped.
"Look, I—I don't know why," Percy said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry.…"
But they weren't watching his wounds heal. They were staring at something above his head.
"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um…"
By the time he looked up, the sign was already fading, but he could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.
"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is really not good."
"It is determined," Chiron announced. All around Percy, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.
"My father?" he asked, completely bewildered. "Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."