Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
3
3
"Postpone? Mom, how could it not be safe? I'm a half-blood! It's like the only safe place on
earth for me!"
"Usually, dear. But with the problems they're having—"
"What problems?"
"Percy ... I'm very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can't
explain it all now. I'm not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly."
My mind was reeling. How could I not go to camp? I wanted to ask a million questions, but
just then the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.
My mom looked almost relieved. "Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting."
"But—"
"Percy, we'll talk this afternoon. Go on to school."
That was the last thing I wanted to do, but my mom had this fragile look in her eyes—a kind
of warning, like if I pushed her too hard she'd start to cry. Besides, she was right about my friend
Tyson. I had to meet him at the subway station on time or he'd get upset. He was scared of traveling
underground alone.
I gathered up my stuff, but I stopped in the doorway. "Mom, this problem at camp. Does it...
could it have anything to do with my dream about Grover?"
She wouldn't meet my eyes. "We'll talk this afternoon, dear. I'll explain ... as much as I can."
Reluctantly, I told her good-bye. I jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.
I didn't know it at the time, but my mom and I would never get to have our afternoon talk.
In fact, I wouldn't be seeing home for a long, long time.
As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a
second I saw a dark shape in the morning sunlight—a human silhouette against the brick wall, a
shadow that belonged to no one.
Then it rippled and vanished.
Chapter Two
I Play Dodgeball With Cannibals
My day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.
See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag
chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert
T-shirts to work.
That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never
done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about
Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't
always ... well, bright.
Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord
of the Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam,
our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what
would happen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth
graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most
of those activities.
Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy
black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see
how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd
taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN
sign.
Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my
friend Tyson.
Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I
could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he