Running the Gauntlet

I do a side quest

Garden

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and Percy smelled.

Percy looked over to me. "Hey come come you don't smell like BO?" He asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, what do I smell like?" I asked.

Percy made a thinking face before coming to the conclusion. "You smell a bouquet of flowers." I gave him a smile. "I wonder why that is?" I winked at Annabeth and Grover who the former rolled her eyes at me while the latter laughed.

"Shut up Garden." Percy smiled.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?" Percy asked.

"Jeez Annabeth breaking the rules much?" Which made me earn a pinch.

"I'm not talking about phones."

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, I kinda felt trapped.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were four adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

Man I'd probably kill for some doughnuts right now. Why did I think about food?

"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."

He then gave me a look. "I got nothing." I said digging around my pockets.

Percy started fishing in his pocket and found his last bit of change and handed it to Grover.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Gazuntite." I said.

The others gave me a weird look.

"What?"

Percy shook his head. "Instant messaging right?"

"What is that?" I asked.

All three of my friends look dumbfounded. "Are you from this time period?" Percy asked.

"Yeah born in '92."

"Yeah, maybe 1892. Were you raised on a farm?"

"Not really, I work on a farm though."

"We are going to have a conversation later." Percy said to me.

"Anyway I meant Iris-messaging." Annabeth said. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

"That's weird, is it like a genie in a bottle type situation?"