Rick Riordan Percy Jackson and the Olympians
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I was completely shocked . How had I never realized what Tyson was ?
But I didn ' t have much time to think about it just then . The whole side of the hill was burning . Wounded heroes needed attention . And there were still two banged-up bronze bulls to dispose of , which I didn ' t figure would fit in our normal recycling bins .
Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot off her forehead . " Jackson , if you can stand , get up . We need to carry the wounded back to the Big House , let Tantalus know what ' s happened ." " Tantalus ?" I asked . " The activities director ," Clarisse said impatiently . " Chiron is the activities director . And where ' s Argus ? He ' s head of security . He should be here ." Clarisse made a sour face . " Argus got fired . You two have been gone too long . Things are changing ." " But Chiron ... He ' s trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years . He can ' t just be gone . What happened ?" " That happened ," Clarisse snapped . She pointed to Thalia ' s tree . Every camper knew the story behind the tree . Six years ago , Grover , Annabeth , and two other demigods named Thalia and Luke had come to Camp Half-Blood chased by an army of monsters . When they got cornered on top of this hill , Thalia , a daughter of Zeus , had made her last stand here to give her friends time to reach safety . As she was dying , her father , Zeus , took pity on her and changed her into a pine tree . Her spirit had reinforced the magic borders of the camp , protecting it from monsters . The pine had been here ever since , strong and healthy .
But now , its needles were yellow . A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree . In the center of the trunk , three feet from the ground , was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole , oozing green sap .
A sliver of ice ran through my chest . Now I understood why the camp was in danger . The magical borders were failing because Thalia ' s tree was dying .
Someone had poisoned it .
Chapter Five
I Get A New Cabin Mate
Ever come home and found your room messed up ? Like some helpful person ( hi , Mom ) has tried to " clean " it , and suddenly you can ' t find anything ? And even if nothing is missing , you get that creepy feeling like somebody ' s been looking through your private stuff and dusting everything with lemon furniture polish ? That ' s kind of the way I felt seeing Camp Half-Blood again . On the surface , things didn ' t look all that different . The Big House was still there with its blue gabled roof and its wraparound porch . The strawberry fields still baked in the sun . The same whitecolumned Greek buildings were scattered around the valley — the amphitheater , the combat arena , the dining pavilion overlooking Long Island Sound . And nestled between the woods and the creek were the same cabins — a crazy assortment of twelve buildings , each representing a different Olympian god .
But there was an air of danger now . You could tell something was wrong . Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit , counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed . Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods . The forest looked sickly , the grass in the meadow was pale yellow , and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars .
Somebody had messed with my favorite place in the world , and I was not ... well , a happy camper .
As we made our way to the Big House , I recognized a lot of kids from last summer . Nobody stopped to talk . Nobody said , " Welcome back ." Some did double takes when they saw Tyson , but