Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
81
81
"Tell me when it's over," Thalia said. Her eyes were shut tight. The statue was holding on to
us so we couldn't fall, but still Thalia clutched his arm like it was the most important thing in the
world.
"Everything's fine," I promised.
"Are… are we very high?"
I looked down. Below us, a range of snowy mountains zipped by. I stretched out my foot and
kicked snow off one of the peaks.
"Nah," I said. "Not that high."
"We are in the Sierras.'" Zoe yelled. She and Grover were hanging from the arms of the
other statue. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few
hours."
"Hey, hey, Frisco!" our angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics
Monument again! They know how to party!"
"Oh, man," the other angel said. "I am so there!"
"You guys have visited San Francisco?" I asked.
"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" our statue said. "Those
mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues,
see. And—"
"Hank!" the other statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."
"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, I swear Hank did. "Back to flying."
We sped up, so I could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and
then we were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.
Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at
random billboards as we flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and we passed
dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.
Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was
praying.
"You did good back there," I told her. "Zeus listened."
It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed.
"Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room,
anyway? You said they cornered you."
I told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see
right through the Mist. I thought Thalia was going to call me crazy, but she just nodded.
"Some mortals are like that," she said. "Nobody knows why."
Suddenly I flashed on something I'd never considered.
My mom was like that. She had seen the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill and known exactly what
it was. She hadn't been surprised at all last year when I'd told her my friend Tyson was really a
Cyclops. Maybe she'd known all along. No wonder she'd been so scared for me as I was growing
up. She saw through the Mist even better than I did.
"Well, the girl was annoying," I sa id. "But I'm glad I didn't vaporize her. That would've been
bad."
Thalia nodded. "Must be nice to be a regular mortal." She said that as if she'd given it a lot of
thought.
"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking me up from a nap.
I looked down and said, "Whoa."
I'd seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most
beautiful city I'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been
surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the
Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. I felt like I should take a picture or something.
Greetings from Frisco. Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.
"There," Zoe suggested. "By the Embarcadero Building."
"Good thinking," Chuck said. "Me and Hank can blend in with the pigeons."
We all looked at him.
"Kidding," he said. "Sheesh, can't statues have a sense of humor?"