Rick Riordan Percy Jackson and the Olympians
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" Downsizing ," Apollo said . " The Romans started it . They couldn ' t afford all those temple sacrifices , so they laid off Helios and Selene and folded their duties into our job descriptions . My sis got the moon . I got the sun . It was pretty annoying at first , but at least I got this cool car ." " But how does it work ?" Nico asked . " I thought the sun was a big fiery ball of gas !" Apollo chuckled and ruffled Nico ' s hair . " That rumor probably got started because Artemis used to call me a big fiery ball of gas . Seriously , kid , it depends on whether you ' re talking astronomy or philosophy . You want to talk astronomy ? Bah , what fun is that ? You want to talk about how humans think about the sun ? Ah , now that ' s more interesting . They ' ve got a lot riding on the sun … er , so to speak . It keeps them warm , grows their crops , powers engines , makes everything look , well , sunnier . This chariot is built out of human dreams about the sun , kid . It ' s as old as Western Civilization . Every day , it drives across the sky from east to west , lighting up all those puny little mortal lives . The chariot is a manifestation of the sun ' s power , the way mortals perceive it . Make sense ?" Nico shook his head . " No ." " Well then , just think of it as a really powerful , really dangerous solar car ." " Can I drive ?" " No . Too young ." " Oo ! Oo !" Grover raised his hand . " Mm , no ," Apollo said . " Too furry ." He looked past me and focused on Thalia . " Daughter of Zeus !" he said . " Lord of the sky . Perfect ." " Oh , no ." Thalia shook her head . " No , thanks ." " C ' mon ," Apollo said . " How old are you ?" Thalia hesitated . " I don ' t know ." It was sad , but true . She ' d been turned into a tree when she was twelve , but that had been seven years ago . So she should be nineteen , if you went by years . But she still felt like she was twelve , and if you looked at her , she seemed somewhere in between . The best Chiron could figure , she had kept aging while in tree form , but much more slowly . Apollo tapped his finger to his lips . " You ' re fifteen , almost sixteen ." " How do you know that ?" " Hey , I ' m the god of prophecy . I know stuff . You ' ll turn sixteen in about a week ." " That ' s my birthday ! December twenty-second ." " Which means you ' re old enough now to drive with a learner ' s permit !" Thalia shifted her feet nervously . " Uh —" " I know what you ' re going to say ," Apollo said . " You don ' t deserve an honor like driving the sun chariot ." " That ' s not what I was going to say ." " Don ' t sweat it ! Maine to Long Island is a really short trip , and don ' t worry about what happened to the last kid I trained . You ' re Zeus ' s daughter . He ' s not going to blast you out of the sky ." Apollo laughed good-naturedly . The rest of us didn ' t join him . Thalia tried to protest , but Apollo was absolutely not going to take " no " for an answer . He hit a button on the dashboard , and a sign popped up along the top of the windshield . I had to read it backward ( which , for a dyslexic , really isn ' t that different than reading forward ). I was pretty sure it said WARNING : STUDENT DRIVER . " Take it away !" Apollo told Thalia . " You ' re gonna be a natural !"
I ' ll admit I was jealous . I couldn ' t wait to start driving . A couple of times that fall , my mom had taken me out to Montauk when the beach road was empty , and she ' d let me try out her Mazda . I mean , yeah , that was a Japanese compact , and this was the sun chariot , but how different could it be ?
" Speed equals heat ," Apollo advised . " So start slowly , and make sure you ' ve got good altitude before you really open her up ."
Thalia gripped the wheel so tight her knuckles turned white . She looked like she was going to be sick .
" What ' s wrong ?" I asked her .