by Rick Riordan
Mrs O’Leary bounded after her prey and pounced on the dummy, flattening its armour. She began chewing on its helmet.
The swordsman smiled dryly. He was in his fifties, I guess, with short grey hair and a clipped grey beard. He was in good shape for an older guy. He wore black mountain-climbing trousers and a bronze breastplate strapped over an orange camp T-shirt. At the base of his neck was a strange mark, a purplish blotch like a birthmark or a tattoo, but before I could make out what it was, he shifted his armour straps and the mark disappeared under his collar.
‘Mrs O’Leary is my pet,’ he explained. ‘I couldn’t let you stick a sword in her rump, now, could I? That might have scared her.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Promise not to kill me if I put my sword away?’
‘I guess.’
He sheathed his sword and held out his hand. ‘Quintus.’
I shook his hand. It was as rough as sandpaper.
‘Percy Jackson,’ I said. ‘Sorry about – How did you, um –’
‘Get a hellhound for a pet? Long story, involving many close calls with death and quite a few giant chew toys. I’m the new sword instructor, by the way. Helping Chiron out while Mr D is away.’
‘Oh.’ I tried not to stare as Mrs O’Leary ripped off the target dummy’s shield with the arm still attached and shook it like a frisbee. ‘Wait, Mr D is away?’
‘Yes, well… busy times. Even old Dionysus must help out. He’s gone to visit some old friends. Make sure they’re on the right side. I probably shouldn’t say more than that.’
If Dionysus was gone, that was the best news I’d had all day. He was only our camp director because Zeus had sent him here as a punishment for chasing some off-limits wood nymph. He hated the campers and tried to make our lives miserable. With him away, this summer might actually be cool. On the other hand, if Dionysus had got off his butt and actually started helping the gods recruit against the Titan threat, things must be looking pretty bad.
Off to my left, there was a loud BUMP. Six wooden crates the size of picnic tables were stacked nearby, and they were rattling. Mrs O’Leary cocked her head and bounded towards them.
‘Whoa, girl!’ Quintus said. ‘Those aren’t for you.’ He distracted her with the bronze shield frisbee.
The crates thumped and shook. There were words printed on the sides, but with my dyslexia they took me a few minutes to decipher:
TRIPLE G RANCH
FRAGILE
THIS WAY UP
Along the bottom, in smaller letters:
OPEN WITH CARE.
TRIPLE G RANCH IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PROPERTY
DAMAGE, MAIMING OR EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL DEATHS.
‘What’s in the boxes?’ I asked.
‘A little surprise,’ Quintus said. ‘Training activity for tomorrow night. You’ll love it.’
‘Uh, okay,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure about the ‘excruciatingly painful deaths’ part.
Quintus threw the bronze shield, and Mrs O’Leary lumbered after it. ‘You young ones need more challenges. They didn’t have camps like this when I was a boy.’
‘You – you’re a half-blood?’ I didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but I’d never seen an old demigod before.
Quintus chuckled. ‘Some of us do survive into adulthood, you know. Not all of us are the subject of terrible prophecies.’
‘You know about my prophecy?’
‘I’ve heard a few things.’
I wanted to ask what few things, but just then Chiron clip-clopped into the arena. ‘Percy, there you are!’
He must’ve just come from teaching archery. He had a quiver and bow slung over his ‘NO. 1 CENTAUR’ T-shirt. He’d trimmed his curly brown hair and beard for the summer, and his lower half, which was a white stallion, was flecked with mud and grass.
‘I see you’ve met our new instructor.’ Chiron’s tone was light, but there was an uneasy look in his eyes. ‘Quintus, do you mind if I borrow Percy?’
‘Not at all, Master Chiron.’
‘No need to call me “master”,’ Chiron said, though he sounded sort of pleased. ‘Come, Percy. We have much to discuss.’
I took one more glance at Mrs O’Leary, who was now chewing off the target dummy’s legs.
‘Well, see you,’ I told Quintus.
As we were walking away, I whispered to Chiron, ‘Quintus seems kind of –’
‘Mysterious?’ Chiron suggested. ‘Hard to read?’
‘Yeah.’
Chiron nodded. ‘A very qualified half-blood. Excellent swordsman. I just wish I understood…’
Whatever he was going to say, he apparently changed his mind. ‘First things first, Percy. Annabeth told me you met some empousai.’
‘Yeah.’ I told him about the fight at Goode, and how Kelli had exploded into flames.
‘Mm,’ Chiron said. ‘The more powerful ones can do that. She did not die, Percy. She simply escaped. It is not good that the she-demons are stirring.’
‘What were they doing there?’ I asked. ‘Waiting for me?’
‘Possibly.’ Chiron frowned. ‘It is amazing you survived. Their powers of deception… almost any male hero would’ve fallen under their spell and been devoured.’
‘I would’ve been,’ I admitted. ‘Except for Rachel.’
Chiron nodded. ‘Ironic to be saved by a mortal, yet we owe her a debt. What the empousa said about an attack on camp – we must speak of this further. But for now, come, we should get to the woods. Grover will want you there.’
‘Where?’
‘At his formal hearing,’ Chiron said grimly. ‘The Council of Cloven Elders is meeting now to decide his fate.’
Chiron said we needed to hurry, so I let him give me a ride on his back. As we galloped past the cabins, I glanced at the dining hall – an open-air Greek pavilion on a hill overlooking the sea. It was the first time I’d seen the place since last summer, and it brought back bad memories.
Chiron plunged into the woods. Nymphs peeked out of the trees to watch us pass. Large shapes rustled in the shadows – monsters that were kept in here as a challenge to the campers.
I thought I knew the forest pretty well after playing capture the flag here for two summers, but Chiron took me a way I didn’t recognize, through a tunnel of old willow trees, past a little waterfall and into a glade blanketed with wildflowers.
A bunch of satyrs was sitting in a circle on the grass. Grover stood in the middle, facing three really old, really fat satyrs who sat on topiary thrones shaped out of rose bushes. I’d never seen the three old satyrs before, but I guessed they must be the Council of Cloven Elders.
Grover seemed to be telling them a story. He twisted the bottom of his T-shirt, shifting nervously on his goat hooves. He hadn’t changed much since last winter, maybe because satyrs age half as fast as humans. His acne had flared up. His horns had got a little bigger, so they just stuck out over his curly hair. I realized with a start that I was taller than him now.
Standing off to one side of the circle were Annabeth, another girl I’d never seen before, and Clarisse. Chiron dropped me next to them.
Clarisse’s stringy brown hair was tied back with a camouflage bandanna. If possible, she looked even buffer, like she’d been working out. She glared at me and muttered, ‘Punk,’ which must’ve meant she was in a good mood. Usually she says hello by trying to kill me.
Annabeth had her arm around the other girl, who looked like she’d been crying. She was small – petite, I guess you’d call it – with wispy hair the colour of amber and a pretty, elfish face. She wore a green chiton and laced sandals, and she was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘It’s going terribly,’ she sniffled.
‘No, no.’ Annabeth patted her shoulder. ‘He’ll be fine, Juniper.’
Annabeth looked at me and mouthed the words Grover’s girlfriend.
At least I thought that’s what she said, but that made no sense. Grover with a girlfriend? Then I looked at Juniper more clos
ely, and I realized her ears were slightly pointed. Her eyes, instead of being red from crying, were tinged green, the colour of chlorophyll. She was a tree nymph – a dryad.
‘Master Underwood!’ the council member on the right shouted, cutting off whatever Grover was trying to say. ‘Do you seriously expect us to believe this?’
‘B-but, Silenus,’ Grover stammered. ‘It’s the truth!’
The council guy, Silenus, turned to his colleagues and muttered something. Chiron cantered up to the front and stood next to them. I remembered he was an honorary member of the council, but I’d never thought about it much. The elders didn’t look very impressive. They reminded me of the goats in a petting zoo – huge bellies, sleepy expressions, and glazed eyes that couldn’t see past the next handful of goat chow. I wasn’t sure why Grover looked so nervous.
Silenus tugged his yellow polo shirt over his belly and adjusted himself on his rosebush throne. ‘Master Underwood, for six months – six months – we have been hearing these scandalous claims that you heard the wild god Pan speak.’
‘But I did!’
‘Impudence!’ said the elder on the left.
‘Now, Maron,’ Chiron said. ‘Patience.’
‘Patience, indeed!’ Maron said. ‘I’ve had it up to my horns with this nonsense. As if the wild god would speak to… to him.’
Juniper looked like she wanted to charge the old satyr and beat him up, but Annabeth and Clarisse held her back. ‘Wrong fight, girlie,’ Clarisse muttered. ‘Wait.’
I don’t know what surprised me more: Clarisse holding somebody back from a fight, or the fact that she and Annabeth, who despised each other, almost seemed like they were working together.
‘For six months,’ Silenus continued, ‘we have indulged you, Master Underwood. We let you travel. We allowed you to keep your searcher’s licence. We waited for you to bring proof of your preposterous claim. And what have you found in six months of travel?’
‘I just need more time,’ Grover pleaded.
‘Nothing!’ the elder in the middle chimed in. ‘You have found nothing.’
‘But, Leneus –’
Silenus raised his hand. Chiron leaned in and said something to the satyrs. The satyrs didn’t look happy. They muttered and argued among themselves, but Chiron said something else, and Silenus sighed. He nodded reluctantly.
‘Master Underwood,’ Silenus announced, ‘we will give you one more chance.’
Grover brightened. ‘Thank you!’
‘One more week.’
‘What? But, sir! That’s impossible!’
‘One more week, Master Underwood. And then, if you cannot prove your claims, it will be time for you to pursue another career. Something to suit your dramatic talents. Puppet theatre, perhaps. Or tap dancing.’
‘But, sir, I – I can’t lose my searcher’s licence. My whole life –’
‘This meeting of the council is adjourned,’ Silenus said. ‘And now let us enjoy our noonday meal!’
The old satyr clapped his hands and a bunch of nymphs melted out of the trees with platters of vegetables, fruits, tin cans and other goat delicacies. The circle of satyrs broke and charged the food. Grover walked dejectedly towards us. His faded blue T-shirt had a picture of a satyr on it. It read: Got Hooves?
‘Hi, Percy,’ he said, so depressed he didn’t even offer to shake my hand. ‘That went well, huh?’
‘Those old goats!’ Juniper said. ‘Oh, Grover, they don’t know how hard you’ve tried!’
‘There is another option,’ Clarisse said darkly.
‘No. No.’ Juniper shook her head. ‘Grover, I won’t let you.’
His face was ashen. ‘I – I’ll have to think about it. But we don’t even know where to look.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.
In the distance, a conch horn sounded.
Annabeth pursed her lips. ‘I’ll fill you in later, Percy. We’d better get back to our cabins. Inspection is starting.’
It didn’t seem fair that I’d have to do cabin inspection when I just got to camp, but that’s the way it worked. Every afternoon, one of the senior counsellors came around with a papyrus-scroll checklist. Best cabin got first shower hour, which meant hot water guaranteed. Worst cabin got kitchen patrol after dinner.
The problem for me: I was usually the only one in the Poseidon cabin, and I’m not exactly what you would call neat. The cleaning harpies only came through on the last day of summer, so my cabin was probably just the way I’d left it on winter break: my chocolate wrappers and crisp bags still on my bunk, my armour for capture the flag lying in pieces all around the cabin.
I raced towards the commons area, where the twelve cabins – one for each Olympian god – made a U around the central green. The Demeter kids were sweeping out theirs and making fresh flowers grow in their window boxes. Just by snapping their fingers they could make honeysuckle vines bloom over their doorway and daisies cover their roof, which was totally unfair. I don’t think they ever got last place in inspection. The guys in the Hermes cabin were scrambling around in a panic, stashing dirty laundry under their beds and accusing each other of taking stuff. They were slobs, but they still had a head start on me.
Over at the Aphrodite cabin, Silena Beauregard was just coming out, checking items off the inspection scroll. I cursed under my breath. Silena was nice, but she was an absolute neat freak, the worst inspector. She liked things to be pretty. I didn’t do ‘pretty’. I could almost feel my arms getting heavy from all the dishes I would have to scrub tonight.
The Poseidon cabin was at the end of the row of ‘male god’ cabins on the right side of the green. It was made of grey shell-encrusted sea rock, long and low like a bunker, but it had windows that faced the sea and it always had a good breeze blowing through it.
I dashed inside, wondering if maybe I could do a quick under-the-bed cleaning job like the Hermes guys, and I found my half-brother Tyson sweeping the floor.
‘Percy!’ he bellowed. He dropped his broom and ran at me. If you’ve never been charged by an enthusiastic Cyclops wearing a flowered apron and rubber cleaning gloves, I’m telling you, it’ll wake you up quick.
‘Hey, big guy!’ I said. ‘Ow, watch the ribs. The ribs.’
I managed to survive his bear hug. He put me down, grinning like crazy, his single calf-brown eye full of excitement. His teeth were as yellow and crooked as ever, and his hair was a rat’s nest. He wore ragged XXXL jeans and a tattered flannel shirt under his flowered apron, but he was still a sight for sore eyes. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, since he’d gone under the sea to work at the Cyclopes’ forges.
‘You are okay?’ he asked. ‘Not eaten by monsters?’
‘Not even a little bit.’ I showed him that I still had both arms and both legs, and Tyson clapped happily.
‘Yay!’ he said. ‘Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!’
I hoped he didn’t mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely, we’d have a lot of fun this summer. I couldn’t help smiling; he was so enthusiastic about everything.
‘But first,’ I said, ‘we’ve gotta worry about inspection. We should…’
Then I looked around and realized Tyson had been busy. The floor was swept. The bunk beds were made. The saltwater fountain in the corner had been freshly scrubbed so the coral gleamed. On the windowsills, Tyson had set out water-filled vases with sea anemones and strange glowing plants from the bottom of the ocean, more beautiful than any flower bouquets the Demeter kids could whip up.
‘Tyson, the cabin looks… amazing!’
He beamed. ‘See the fish ponies? I put them on the ceiling!’
A herd of miniature bronze hippocampi hung on wires from the ceiling, so it looked like they were swimming through the air. I couldn’t believe Tyson, with his huge hands, could make things so delicate. Then I looked over at my bunk, and I saw my old shield hanging on the wal
l.
‘You fixed it!’
The shield had been badly damaged in a manticore attack last winter, but now it was perfect again – not a scratch. All the bronze pictures of my adventures with Tyson and Annabeth in the Sea of Monsters were polished and gleaming.
I looked at Tyson. I didn’t know how to thank him.
Then somebody behind me said, ‘Oh, my.’
Silena Beauregard was standing in the doorway with her inspection scroll. She stepped into the cabin, did a quick twirl, then raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Well, I had my doubts. But you clean up nicely, Percy. I’ll remember that.’
She winked at me and left the room.
Tyson and I spent the afternoon catching up and just hanging out, which was nice after a morning of getting attacked by demon cheerleaders.
We went down to the forge and helped Beckendorf from the Hephaestus cabin with his metalworking. Tyson showed us how he’d learned to craft magic weapons. He fashioned a flaming double-bladed war axe so fast even Beckendorf was impressed.
While he worked, Tyson told us about his year under the sea. His eye lit up when he described the Cyclopes’ forges and the palace of Poseidon, but he also told us how tense things were. The old gods of the sea, who’d ruled during Titan times, were starting to make war on our father. When Tyson had left, battles were raging all over the Atlantic. Hearing that made me feel anxious, like I should be helping out, but Tyson assured me that Dad wanted us both at camp.
‘Lots of bad people above the sea, too,’ Tyson said. ‘We can make them go boom.’
After the forges, we spent some time at the canoe lake with Annabeth. She was really glad to see Tyson, but I could tell she was distracted. She kept looking over at the forest, like she was thinking about Grover’s problem with the council. I couldn’t blame her. Grover was nowhere to be seen, and I felt really bad for him. Finding the lost god Pan had been his lifelong goal. His father and his uncle had both disappeared, following the same dream. Last winter, Grover had heard a voice in his head: I await you – a voice he was sure belonged to Pan – but apparently his search had led nowhere. If the council took away his searcher’s licence now, it would crush him.
