Rick Riordan
The Titan’s Curse - 03
"Nothing," she said shakily. "N-nothing is wrong."
She pulled back on the wheel. It tilted, and the bus lurched upward so fast I fell back and
crashed against something soft.
"Ow" Grover said.
"Sorry."
"Slower!" Apollo said.
"Sorry!" Thalia said. "I've got it under control!"
I managed to get to my feet. Looking out the window, I saw a smoking ring of trees from the
clearing where we'd taken off.
"Thalia," I said, "lighten up on the accelerator."
"I've got it, Percy," she said, gritting her teeth. But she kept it floored.
"Loosen up," I told her.
"I'm loose!"Thalia said. She was so stiff she looked like she was made out of plywood.
"We need to veer south for Long Island," Apollo said. "Hang a left."
Thalia jerked the wheel and again threw me into Grover, who yelped.
"The other left," Apollo suggested.
I made the mistake of looking out the window again. We were at airplane height now—so
high the sky was starting to look black.
"Ah…" Apollo said, and I got the feeling he was forcing himself to sound calm. "A little lower,
sweetheart. Cape Cod is freezing over."
Thalia tilted the wheel. Her face was chalk white, her forehead beaded with sweat.
Something was definitely wrong. I'd never seen her like this.
The bus pitched down and somebody screamed. Maybe it was me. Now we were heading
straight toward the Atlantic Ocean at a thousand miles an hour, the New England coastline off to our
right. And it was getting hot in the bus.
Apollo had been thrown somewhere in the back of the bus, but he started climbing up the
rows of seats.
"Take the wheel!" Grover begged him.
"No worries," Apollo said. He looked plenty worried. "She just has to learn to—WHOA!"
I saw what he was seeing. Down below us was a little snow-covered New England town. At
least, it used to be snow-covered. As I watched, the snow melted off the trees and the roofs and the
lawns. The white steeple on a church turned brown and started to smolder. Little plumes of smoke,
like birthday candles, were popping up all over the town. Trees and rooftops were catching fire.
"Pull up!" I yelled.
There was a wild light in Thalia's eyes. She yanked back on the wheel, and I held on this
time. As we zoomed up, I could see through the back window that the fires in the town were being
snuffed out by the sudden blast of cold.
"There!" Apollo pointed. "Long Island, dead ahead. Let's slow down, dear. 'Dead' is only an
expression."
Thalia was thundering toward the coastline of northern Long Island. There was Camp Half-
Blood: the valley, the woods, the beach. I could see the dining pavilion and cabins and the
amphitheater.
"I'm under control," Thalia muttered. "I'm under control."
We were only a few hundred yards away now.
"Brake," Apollo said.
"I can do this."
"BRAKE!"
Thalia slammed her foot on the brake, and the sun bus pitched forward at a forty-five-degree
angle, slamming into the Camp Half-Blood canoe lake with a huge FLOOOOOOSH! Steam billowed
up, sending several frightened naiads scrambling out of the water with half-woven wicker baskets.
The bus bobbed to the surface, along with a couple of capsized, half-melted canoes.
"Well," said Apollo with a brave smile. "You were right, my dear. You had everything under
control! Let's go see if we boiled anyone important, shall we?"
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