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CHAPTER SIX ( bus goes kaboom )
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I DIDN'T HAVE a lot of possessions in my name, but it did take me some time to pack. I figured it would be smart to pack some sanitary pads in case of an emergency, not only for me but for Annabeth too. I wanted us to be prepared no matter what. Of course, I grabbed an extra inhaler other than the one in my pocket in case it ran out. To my entire cabin, I might've looked a little paranoid, but it was my first quest ever. I needed to have everything.
The camp store gave Percy, the leader of the quest, one hundred dollars and twenty golden drachmas. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron had said, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. The coins might come in handy for nonmortal transactions – such as emergency Iris messages or anything else . He gave Annabeth, Percy and I each a flask of nectar and an airtight bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.
I decided to bring one of my bows, since I had two. One that I normally used and the other hidden under my bunk due to its sentimental value. One main problem was that I found it hard to stuff it inside of my bag since carrying it around might raise a few eyebrows. Finally, the Hephaestus cabin was generous enough to add a mechanism into the bow that made it simple to fold and expand when necessary. The arrows were complicated too, but they surprisingly fit my bag at a weird angle. My golden charm bracelet felt in its rightful spot on my right wrist, reminding me of the present my mother had given me on behalf of my dad during Christmas. If I tapped on its dangling sun charm, it transformed into a dagger, which was almost never used but I decided to bring it either way. Along with my sun charm, it had three others dangling down from it, all representing different things. There was an owl charm representing Annabeth, a caduceus for Luke, and a tiny lightning bolt for Thalia – symbols for my friends – which I wanted to fill my entire bracelet with.
Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. Grover wore his fake feet and his trousers to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's 'So Yesterday', both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.
