Everyone walked back to their cabins a bit dumbfounded. We were all shocked that a child of the Big Three had made it safely to camp. I wanted to talk with Luke but it was late and the hellhound had scared everyone. Most of my cabin mates fell asleep immediately, and so did I, despite how I thought I would never fall asleep.
The next morning, I woke up and opened up our door, taking in the sunlight, just as Chiron was taking Percy over to cabin three.
I saw him multiple times over the next few days. He still took lessons on Greek with Annabeth, though she didn't seem happy about it. He only ever practised sword fighting with Luke since the rest of cabin eleven was too scared of him.
Nobody really mentioned the hellhound when Percy was near, but everywhere else they talked about it. Every camper had been terrified over the hellhound. Its attack had shown that monsters would stop at nothing to destroy Percy. Clarisse even stayed away from him though I suspected she was plotting on how to get him back for breaking her spear. With all the business of those days and the coming of a Big Three child, I never really got to speak with her.
I found Luke one night walking towards the Poseidon cabin and asked him what he was up to.
"This," he said, handing me what looked like a newspaper. After focusing very hard, I was able to make out the title of the article. It said, "BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT."
"Freak car accident?" I asked.
"Yeah, Percy and his mom's car was destroyed by the minotaur."
"Oh."
"I'm giving this to Percy," Luke said. "Thought he might wanna know what the mortals think happened. But here," he said, handing me a second copy.
"Oh, thanks," I said. I wasn't sure why he was giving me one but I was curious as to what it said. Then I remembered what I had been wanting to talk to Luke about. He had already started walking away so I called out to him.
He turned to face me. "Yeah?" he asked.
"Can I ask you about Friday night?"
"I'm busy right now. But maybe later," he replied, walking off.
I turned around, grumpily walking back to my cabin. I had been waiting for a chance to talk with him and when I finally got the chance, he walked off. I plopped down on my bed and began trying to read the article. It was hard because of my dyslexia. Most demigods are born with ADHD and dyslexia. ADHD is what keeps us alive in battles and we have dyslexia because our brains are made to read Ancient Greek. Anyway, after about thirty minutes, I finally finished it.
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 family's 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. Jackson's 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 mother's 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.
Okay, I know Luke was thinking that Percy may want to know about what mortals thought but that article was harsh. I wouldn't want to read something like that if it was about me.
My cabin mates started filing in to get ready for bed a bit after I finished reading.
"What is that?" my brother, Mitchell, asked me, pointing at the newspaper.
"Nothing important," I responded, putting it into my trunk by my bed.
He walked off with an unsure look on his face and I noticed that everyone was ready for bed so I called lights out.
I woke up to the sound of hoofs clopping on the ground. I got up quietly and went to the door to see who was outside. Grover was walking over to cabin three. The dim light suggested that it was early morning. Grover knocked on Percy's door and opened it. He said something and then after a few minutes they started walking towards the big house. I was about to follow them but my bracelet started to glow.
I walked back into my cabin quickly, not wanting Percy and Grover to see the light from it. I sat down on my bed trying to figure out why it was glowing, when suddenly an image shot out of it, I was seeing Percy and Grover walking to the Big House again. So, either Luke is seeing this and I can see it or the bracelet is doing something weird.
Percy looked up and I followed his gaze. Over the sound, Long Island Sound to be exact, the sky was dark with serious storm clouds. Rain was falling in a thick sheet.
Percy asked, "Do we need an umbrella?"
I was about to respond but then I remembered that I wasn't actually there.
Grover answered instead. "No, it never rains here unless we want it to."
Percy pointed towards the rain. "What the heck is that, then?"
"It'll pass around us," Grover said uneasily. "Bad weather always does."
The magical barriers control what comes in but that doesn't just mean monsters and mortals. It also applies to weather. During the winter, the borders allow a light dusting of snow but that is basically the only non-sunny weather we get. Still, this storm was very large.
There were a lot of campers who were out, despite the time. Aphrodite children need their beauty sleep so I let them sleep until about an hour before breakfast. A few Apollo kids were at the volleyball court playing against some satyrs. Castor and Pollux were using their plant magic to make the strawberries in the strawberry fields grow. Everyone else was doing normal things but they kept glancing at the sky, worried about the storm.
Grover and Percy reached the Big House where Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke. He would be drinking wine but that was part of his punishment from Zeus. He couldn't drink wine until his time was up. So, he resorted to Diet Coke. Chiron was sitting beside Mr D in his wheelchair, holding his cards. They must have been playing against two invisible players, since there were two sets of cars floating in the air.
"Well, well. Our little celebrity." Mr D said without looking up from his game.
Percy just stood there, hesitant, I guess.
"Come closer," Dionysus said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."
Lightning flashed through the clouds and thunder shook the windows on the house.
"Blah, blah, blah," Mr D said.
Chiron buried his head in his cards and Grover cowarded by the railing of the porch.
"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd 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."
"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron said cooly.
"Nonsense," Mr D said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."
"Mr. D—" Chiron cautioned.
"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." He stood up and the invisible opponents' cards dropped. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."
Mr D picked up one of the pinochle cards, twisted it around, and it turned into a security pass. He snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving only the smell of grapes behind.
Chiron smiled towards Percy, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. And Grover."
They sat.
Chiron sat his cards on the table. It was a winning hand that he never got to play.
"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"
Percy shuddered in his seat.
"It scared me," Percy replied softly. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."
"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done," Chiron said sadly.
"Done...with what?" Percy asked.
"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"
I noticed how Grover was crossing his fingers.
"Um, sir," Percy said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."
"Well, that's the hard part, the details," Chiron sighed.
Thunder rumbled. The dark clouds had reached the beach. The sky and sea seemed to be boiling together.
"Poseidon and Zeus," Percy said. "They're fighting over something valuable...something that was stolen, aren't they?"
Grover and Chiron looked at each other.
"How did you know that?" Chiron asked, leaning forward in his wheelchair.
Percy's face turned red. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she overheard something about a theft. And...I've also been having these dreams."
"I knew it," Grover said.
"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.
"But it is his quest!" Grover said, his eyes shone with excitement. "It must be!"
"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."
Percy chuckled nervously. "A what?"
"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."
"Oh," Percy said quietly, his face red.
"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, going into too much of a teacher lecture. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."
"And it's missing?" Percy asked
"Stolen," Chiron answered.
"By who?"
"By whom," Chiron corrected him. There was that teacher part of him again. "By you."
Percy's mouth fell open.
"At least," Chiron said, holding up a hand. "That's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realised his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."
"But I didn't...." Percy tried to say.
"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."
"But I've never even been to Olympus!" Percy exclaimed. "Zeus is crazy!"
Grover and Chiron glanced up at the sky. The clouds were rolling straight over us instead of going around. That couldn't be good.
"Er, Percy...?" Grover said nervously. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."
"Perhaps paranoid," Chiron put in. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam...." He looked at Percy as if he expected Percy, a dyslexic and ADHD kid, to remember question thirty-eight. Since I am also a dyslexic and ADHD kid, I know how hard it is to remember things like that.
Percy looked like he was thinking hard. "Something about a golden net?" he said. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods...they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"
"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offence at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."
"But I'm just a kid!" Percy yelled.
"Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you....Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"
"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?" Percy asked.
Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that.Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full fledged war would look like, Percy?"
"Bad?" Percy said. I know he's new and all that but seriously, Percy? There were probably a hundred other words that would be more descriptive than that.
"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight." Chiron said, trying to make Percy envision it.
"Bad," he repeated.
"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."
I heard a noise and saw that it had started raining. The volleyball playing campers looked up at the sky, stunned.
"So I have to find the stupid bolt," Percy said, sounding very angry. "And return it to Zeus."
"What better peace offering," Chiron said, smiling, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"
"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?" Percy asked, still sounding angry.
"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was somewhat grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago...well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."
"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?" Percy asked.
"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."
Percy gulped. "Good reason."
"You agree then?" Chiron asked.
Percy glanced at Grover who nodded very encouragingly.
"All right," Percy said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."
"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."
Then the connection cut off from my bracelet. No! I thought. I really wanted to see what the prophecy that Percy would get was. Maybe Luke would know later.
I should probably explain the Oracle. The Oracle in the attic is the Oracle of Delphi. You know, Apollo's sacred Oracle, where people used to go to get a prophecy for why things were happening to them or what would happen. The oracle is now in our attic because.... Well actually I don't really know why. But she isn't living anymore. She is a mummy, the shrivelled up kind, not the wrapped in bandages kind, and she is dressed in hippie like clothes. I have never gotten a quest so I have never met her, but I have heard stories from others who have.
When she talks to you, green mist pours out of her mouth and surrounds you and she speaks in your head, not out loud. Honestly I am kinda glad I haven't gotten a quest yet. I don't know if I really want to experience that.
I sat and thought about what I just saw until my cabinmates started to stir. My sister, Valentina, was the first to wake.
"What is that sound?" She asked me.
"Rain," I said.
"But it never rains!" She exclaimed, waking the rest of our siblings up. Even the boys in the other room.
As they got out of bed, they were all murmuring about the rain. Jade came up to me.
"Why is it raining?" she asked me softly.
"I don't know, sweetie," I lied. "Maybe the strawberry plants needed more water so Chiron let the rain come." She didn't look like she believed me but I was getting used to that now.
"Campers!" We heard Chiron announce. "The storm will pass eventually. Until then, do your normal activities in the rain or stay inside for a bit." My cabin mates decided to stay inside but I said I have something I need to do. I ran outside holding my coat over my head.
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**author's note**
greetings! oo look a quest! look at people risking their lives and me just being lazy and procrastinating wkwkwkkwkwk.
anyways, have a good day
- Gem