Rick Riordan The Titan’ s Curse- 03
" Um, no, sir," I said. " Drat," he said. " I need three more Sopwith Camels." " Right," I said, though I had no clue what he was talking about. " We ' re friends of Annabeth." " Annabeth?" He straightened as if I ' d just given him an electric shock. " Is she all right? Has something happened?"
None of us answered, but our faces must ' ve told him that something was very wrong. He took off his cap and goggles. He had sandy-colored hair like Annabeth and intense brown eyes. He was handsome, I guess, for an older guy, but it looked like he hadn ' t shaved in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side.
" You ' d better come in," he said.
90
It didn ' t look like a house they ' d just moved into. There were LEGO robots on the stairs and two cats sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The coffee table was stacked with magazines, and a little kid ' s winter coat was spread on the floor. The whole house smelled like fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. There was jazz music coming from the kitchen. It seemed like a messy, happy kind of home— the kind of place that had been lived in forever. " Dad!" a little boy screamed. " He ' s taking apart my robots!" " Bobby," Dr. Chase called absently, " don ' t take apart your brother ' s robots." " I ' m Bobby," the little boy protested. " He ' s Matthew!" " Matthew," Dr. Chase called, " don ' t take apart your brother ' s robots!" " Okay, Dad!" Dr. Chase turned to us. " We ' ll go upstairs to my study. This way." " Honey?" a woman called. Annabeth ' s stepmom appeared in the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was a pretty Asian woman with red highlighted hair tied in a bun. " Who are our guests?" she asked. " Oh," Dr. Chase said. " This is …" He stared at us blankly. " Frederick," she chided. " You forgot to ask them their names?" We introduced ourselves a little uneasily, but Mrs. Chase seemed really nice. She asked if we were hungry. We admitted we were, and she told us she ' d bring us some cookies and sandwiches and sodas. " Dear," Dr. Chase said. " They came about Annabeth." I half expected Mrs. Chase to turn into a raving lunatic at the mention of her stepdaughter, but she just pursed her lips and looked concerned. " All right. Go on up to the study and I ' ll bring you some food." She smiled at me. " Nice meeting you, Percy. I ' ve heard a lot about you."
Upstairs, we walked into Dr. Chase ' s study and I said, " Whoa!"
The room was wall-to-wall books, but what really caught my attention were the war toys. There was a huge table with miniature tanks and soldiers fighting along a blue painted river, with hills and fake trees and stuff. Old-fashioned biplanes hung on strings from the ceiling, tilted at crazy angles like they were in the middle of a dogfight.
Dr. Chase smiled. " Yes. The Third Battle of Ypres. I ' m writing a paper, you see, on the use of Sopwith Camels to strafe enemy lines. I believe they played a much greater role than they ' ve been given credit for."
He plucked a biplane from its string and swept it across the battlefield, making airplane engine noises as he knocked down little German soldiers.
" Oh, right," I said. I knew Annabeth ' s dad was a professor of military history. She ' d never mentioned he played with toy soldiers. Zoe came over and studied the battlefield. " The German lines were farther from the river." Dr. Chase stared at her. " How do you know that?" " I was there," she said matter-of-factly. " Artemis wanted to show us how horrible war was, the way mortal men fight each other. And how foolish, too. The battle was a complete waste." Dr. Chase opened his mouth in shock. " You—" " She ' s a Hunter, sir," Thalia said. " But that ' s not why we ' re here. We need—"