Hey Guys so yeah got my laptop back and i am starting the next chapter now so i will post it soon
Love ya
Bree13345
So there they were, Annabeth, Percy and Grover and Erin, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in there noses.
"all there kindly ones at once" Grover said shivering, "come on faster, the more we get away the better" Annabeth said, "All our money was back there," Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything." "Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-" "What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?" "You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."
"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."
"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.
Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."
"I cant believe that I put all of my money with you Percy, but I do have some wiz- I mean some of those squares and a few other thing" Erin said looking in her bag, "never knew you knew how to fight Erin, didn't even know you had a sword" Annabeth said, Erin smiled at her, "how'd you think I got the flag Annabeth", "I thought look gave it to you" Erin scoffed at that "yeah no, learnt how to fight at 10, and I got my sword last year, and the necklace" Erin said rolling the sword charm in her fingers, "does your sword have a name" Grover asked, "yep, Dumbledore" Erin said, "Dumbledore?" Annabeth asked confused, "yep Dumbledore, last year I found out that when I was two I was kidnapped by two men, probley would have killed me but then a great man named Albus Dumbledore saved me" Erin said smiling slightly, they sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.
After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to Percy. "Look, I..." Her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, you and Erin okay? That was really brave."
"We're a team, right?" She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you and Erin died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you two, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."
The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind them, leaving them in almost total darkness. No one could see anything. "You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" Percy asked her. "No ... only short field trips. My dad-" "The history professor." "Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."
"You're pretty good with that knife," Percy said. "You think so?" "Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me." "You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."
Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured. "Grover!" Erin yelled jumping
"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"
He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff. Instead of finding a path, Percy immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on his head. Erin laughed at Percy but then she tripped on a tree root, which then it was Percy's turn to laugh. They kept walking until they saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed- down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell. "What the heck does that say?" Erin asked.
"I don't know," Annabeth said. Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."
Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.
They crossed the street, following the smell of the ham-burgers. "Hey ..." Grover warned. "The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open." "Snack bar," Percy said wistfully.
"Snack bar," Erin agreed.
"Are you there crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."
They ignored him. The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.
"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!" They stopped at the warehouse door. "Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters." "Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?" "Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."
"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," Percy reminded him. "Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."
Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of them was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least, she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well manicured and elegant.
Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?" "They're ... um ..." Annabeth started to say.
"We're orphans," Percy said said. "Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"
"We got separated from our caravan," Percy said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?" "Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."
They thanked her and went inside. Annabeth muttered to Percy, "Circus caravan?" "I was on spot ok, give me a break" "Your head is full of kelp."
The warehouse was filled with more statues-people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. "Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.
"Awesome," Percy said.
"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."
Before anyone could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."
"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said. Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done some-thing wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly.
"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Erin looked straight at Aunty Em studying her carefully
Their hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before they knew it, she'd brought them plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries. Annabeth slurped her shake. While Erin was eating she kept eyeing Aunty Em,
Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.
"What's that hissing noise?" he asked. Annabeth shook her head. "Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover." take vitamins. For my ears." "That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."
Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head-dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at them when they couldn't see her face. "So, you sell gnomes," Percy said, trying to sound interested.
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?" "Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
Percy turned to a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."
"You make these statues yourself?" Erin asked. "Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real.
Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price." Percy's eyelids kept getting heavier, his stomach full stomach making him sleepy, next to him Erin yawned sleepy also
"Percy?" Annabeth was shaking him to get his attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting." She sounded tense. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.
"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."
She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.
"We really should go." "Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
"A pose?" Erin asked warily.
"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."
Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy-"
"Sure we can," Percy said. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?" "Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."
Aunty Em to lead them back out the front door, into the garden of statues.
Aunty Em directed them to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The two young girls in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side." "Not much light for a photo," Percy remarked.
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"
"Where's your camera?" Grover asked. "is that a wand" Erin mumbled to Percy, Percy then stared at her wiredly but she wasn't looking at Aunty Em.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand.", "is that lady whering robes and is that a stick or-" "Grover, Erin," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dears." She still had no camera in her hands. " Erin, Percy-" Annabeth said. Some instinct warned me to listen to Annabeth, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil...." "Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?", "that is a wand!" Erin said pointing to a lady wearing robes and have a wand like Erin's in her hand.
"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover, Erin and Percy off the bench.
Erin had grabbed Percy's wrist so they had both fallen next to the bench, they could hear some hissing above them, they could hear Grover running across the gravel in one direction and Annabeth in the other, but both Erin and Percy were frozen. "such pity I have to destroy such beautiful and handsome faces" Medusa said, "stay with me Percy and Erin, all you have to do is look up", "don't your dare look up" Erin mumbled to Percy. "The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy and Erin," Medusa said, "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this." "Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, some-where in the statuary. "Run!"
"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Percy, Erin. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dears, you need not suffer." "Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked as Percy and Erin standed up slowly there eyes shut close. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy, Erin? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dears. You would be better off as a statues. Less pain. Less pain." "Percy, Erin! Duck" Grover shouted, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"
Percy jumped to the side, knowing Grover he would miss but then he heard a load THUD! And a scream from Erin, Percy fought hard not to look, "ow!, one bit me" Erin yelled, then Percy heard a knife slicing though something, Medusa screamed, "how dare you!" she said, then he heard something hit the bench. Grover screamed as he hit a tree and fell to the concrete.
Right next to Percy, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!" he jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!" Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off." "What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here.", "Percy we cant, Medusa had Erin! And Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You-you've got a chance." "What? I can't-" "Look, do you want her Erin and more people into statues?", Percy could hear Medusa yelling at Erin, Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of-"
"Would you speak English?"
"I am!" She tossed Percy the glass ball. "Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly."
"Hurry," Annabeth told him. "Erin wont last there long, she will probely kill Erin before she turns her to stone"
Percy took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated.
He followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.
Percy kept his eyes locked on the gazing ball so he would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, he saw her. She was hideous, with the snakes all hissing at something, but about 4 of them where cut in half. Medusa was about to lunge at Erin when Percy yelled, "Hey!"
He advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending himself.
But she let him approach-twenty feet, ten feet.
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."
From the Bench, Erin yelled, "Percy, don't listen to her!"
Medusa cackled. "Too late."
She lunged at him with her talons.
Percy slashed up with his sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern-the sound of a monster disintegrating.
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, "Mega-yuck."
Annabeth came up next to Percy, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."
Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.
"Are you okay?" Erin asked Percy, her voice trembling. "I am fine, but what about you are you ok", "oh I will be fine" Erin said with a smirk on her face, "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"
"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," Annabeth said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."
Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.
"The Red Baron," Percy said. "Good job, man." He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."
He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse. They then found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where they'd eaten dinner and sat around it, to exhausted to speak.
Finally Percy said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"
Annabeth flashed him an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You both probably reminded her of him.", Erin frown, "is that a complement or what", Annabeth smiled but it quickly went away.
Percy got up. "I'll be back." "Percy," Annabeth called after him. "What are you-"
Percy searched the back of the warehouse until he found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. Percy folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.
in the cash register Percy found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. He rummaged around the rest of the office until he found the right-size box.
Percy went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip: The Gods
Mount Olympus
600th Floor,
Empire State Building New York, NY
With best wishes,
PERCY JACKSON
"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."
Percy poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as he closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!
"I am impertinent," Percy said. "Come on," Annabeth muttered. "We need a new plan."