Rick Riordan - The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)

A QUEST

The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.

I didnt have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaurs horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call lights out whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

And I was absolutely miserable.

Just when Id started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid-or as normal as you can be when youre a half-blood-Id been separated out as if I had some rare disease.

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what Id done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasnt afraid to bruise me up in the process.

Youre going to need all the training you can get, he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. Now lets try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions.

Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if Id just poked her between the eyes.

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

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. Id rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.

BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER

FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

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

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

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

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

The phone number was circled in black marker.

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.

Lights out, I told myself miserably.

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

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

I had to stop them. I didnt know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.

I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

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

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

I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadnt dreamed that.

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

Come in?

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. Mr. D wants to see you.

Why?

He wants to kill I mean, Id better let him tell you.

Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.

For days, Id been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who werent supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.

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

I pointed at the storm. What the heck is that, then?

He glanced uneasily at the sky. Itll pass around us. Bad weather always does.

I realized he was right. In the week Id been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds Id seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.

But this storm this one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollos cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysuss twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheelchair. They were playing against invisible opponentstwo sets of cards hovering in the air.

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

I waited.

Come closer, Mr. D said. And dont expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father.

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

Blah, blah, blah, Dionysus said.

Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

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