craving |PERCY JACKSON| [book 1] UNDER EDITING

XLI

ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by Cabin Nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. The blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Selena, Annabeth, and Percy were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell them goodbye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks, he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

"I'm off," he said. "I just came to say ... Well, you know."

Annabeth gave him a hug. She told him to keep his fake feet on. Percy asked him where he was going to search first.

"Kind of a secret," he said, looking embarrassed. "I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans and Pan ..."

"We understand," Selena smiled sadly, "You got enough tin cans for the trip?"

"Yeah."

"And you remembered your reed pipes?" Annabeth asked,

"Jeez, you guys," he grumbled. "You're like an old mama goat." But he didn't really sound annoyed.

He gripped his walking stick and slung a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like any hitchhiker you might see on an American highway. Nothing like the little runty boy Percy used to defend from bullies at Yancy Academy.

"Well," he cleared his throat, "wish me luck."

He gave Annabeth and Selena another hug. Before he could leave, Selena handed the three of them photos that they took one day in camp. 'So he wouldn't forget them' she told him. Grover gave the girl a kiss on the cheek before he clapped Percy on the shoulder, then headed back through the dunes.

Fireworks exploded to life overhead: Hercules killing the Nemean lion, Artemis chasing the boar, George Washington (who, by the way, was a son of Athena) crossing the Delaware.

"Hey, Grover," Percy called and Grover turned at the edge of the woods, "Wherever you're going-I hope they make good enchiladas."

Grover grinned, and then he was gone, the trees closing around him.

"We'll see him again," Selena said.

Percy tried to believe it. The fact that no searcher had ever come back in two thousand years... Well, he decided not to think about that. Grover would be the first. He had to be.

July passed.

Percy spent his days devising new strategies for capture-the-flag and making alliances with the other cabins to keep the banner out of Ares's hands. He got to the top of the climbing wall for the first time without getting scorched by lava.