DON'T READ THIS A/N IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BURNING MAZE!

Wow, 31 reviews 😍😍😍. Hi, I'm back. Sorry, I'm late. I don't own anything. Also, I realized that I was in third POV when I was trying to do first. Sorry. Also, I realized that with The Burning Maze coming out that Piper and Jason are not dating anymore and that Jason is dead. But in my story, they are still dating and Jason not dead yet.

Clarisse's POV

"I'll read next," I said.

"You can read?" asked Percy.

"Oh, shut up, Prissy," I said.

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

"Of course you did," grumbled Poseidon.

"Why Percy?" groaned Annabeth.

I know, I know. It was rude.

"Yes, it was," agreed Alex.

But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

"Stop blaming yourself," said Thalia.

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.

"He not going to," interrupted Chris.

"Of course, we already established that fact," I told my boyfriend.

"You guys are bullying me," whined Percy.

Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. "East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

"Great," said the Stolls together. "We know where you live, so we can prank you."

"I don't live there anymore, after my first quest, my mom and me moved into a bigger apartment after we got rid of Gabe," said Percy.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

"She amazing," cried all the Greek demigods.

"Yes, she makes amazing food," said Apollo quietly.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

"What happened?" asked Frey.

Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,

Everyone glared at Zeus. He said, "what?"

"If you don't know, brother, then you're stupider than I thought."

"Her parent died in a plane crash," Piper said pointedly.

"Oh, sorry about that."

and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program.

"How did you get such a woman, Fish Face."

"Can you to stop calling each other names?" asked Annabeth.

"Why?" pouted Poseidon.

"Because it's stupid," said Leo boldly.

Everyone gasped and the demigods closed their eyes hoping that they wouldn't hear Leo being smitten by two gods. There were ten seconds of complete silence. Then it was broken by Poseidon laughing.

"You're right Leo. I should stop picking a fight with Athena."

Then her uncle got cancer,

Everyone glared at Apollo. He defended himself by saying: "It wasn't me, it was the nosoi."

and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

"That's so sad," cried Nico.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad. I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.

"You visited him when he was a child," accused Zeus.

"Yes, I did," said Poseidon with defiance.

"That's against our ancient laws!" yelled Zeus.

"I hate those ancient laws," yelled all the gods at once.

My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret.

"It was," said Poseidon.

Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

"That's not the truth but not a lie either," said Hazel.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own.

She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.

"Understatement of the year," said Thalia.

"Hey!" cried Percy.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk.

The ground started shaking and everyone looked at Poseidon.

"It's not me!"

"Percy!" cried Piper. "Stop it!"

The ground stop shaking but Percy still looked mad.

When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

"Eww!" shrieked Aphrodite.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work.

Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies.

"Did he gamble?" asked Poseidon with disgust.

"Yes."

The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

"What!?" screamed Poseidon, his voice an octave higher than usual. "No asking how you've been? Or anything?"

"Nope."

That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?

"Like father, like son," said Athena.

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp as if that made him handsome or something.

"That is disgusting," said Piper.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous,

"Yuck," said Aphrodite.

and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds.

"Why?" asked Travis.

"Because he didn't have any money by then," said Percy.

He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"WHAT?!" yelled Poseidon. "Perseus, did he ever hit you?"

Percy didn't answer.

"Perseus Jackson, answer me!" demanded Poseidon.

"Just a few times."

Poseidon growled like an angry dog. He looked ready to kill Gabe.

"I don't have any cash," I told him. He raised a greasy eyebrow. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"Ew," said Aphrodite. She was deeply disgusted by Gabe.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight.

"You're kidding, right?" said Magnus. "He really said that to you."

Am I right, Eddie?" Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy.

"Oh someone who sticks up for you, Perce," said Thalia.

"No, not really."

"Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels.

"I will never look at pretzels the same again," said Leo.

The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

"Eww!" shrieked Aphrodite and Freya together.

"How could someone live like that?" questioned Freya.

"Sister, calm down," said Frey.

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Oh, he will be," said Hermes.

"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

"What was it like?" asked Jack.

"Bad," said Percy. "C's and D's."

Athena shuddered, "why are you dating him?" She asked Annabeth.

"Because I like the way he makes me feel."

"Keep it PG," I told the two lovers.

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study."

"Study! My… " Sam started to say. But her father cut her off.

"Samirah, don't you dare finish that sentence."

He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer. I dropped my suitcase on the bed.

"That is disgusting," I said. In my mind, I was wondering why Sally put up with this jerk.

Home sweet home.

"Sarcasm is one of Percy's strong suits," said Hazel.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

"Hmm," said Athena. She was deep in thought.

"Whatcha thinking?" asked Hermes.

"I was wondering why Sally Jackson would put up with a pig like this. And I have an idea and if I'm right then I was wondering why Poseidon started dating such a smart woman."

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me.

"Aww, you poor dear," said Freya.

I felt like someone something was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then I heard my mom's voice.

"Percy?" She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

"Aww, he's a mama's boy," said Ares mocked. He was trying to pick a fight with the young man.

"Dad, shut up," said Frank.

Ares was taken aback.

"What did you say to me, boy!" he cried.

"Dad, have n't noticed Percy is a very dangerous demigod. You don't want him as your enemy."

Percy mouthed 'thank you' to Frank.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old.

"You better not," said Hera. "That's rude to your mother."

"Dear," said Zeus cautiously. "He said he didn't think as of her as old."

When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"That pig needs some unkind words," said Demeter.

"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.

"Aww!" cried Aphrodite.

"I don't know her," said Piper shielding her face from her mother.

Jason laughed and held her lovingly.

She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters.

"Was that a lot?" I asked.

"No, because I told her everything except about the monsters, but she knew about those anyway because she could see through the mist."

She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right? I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

"Wimp."

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally how about some bean dip, huh?" I gritted my teeth.

Everyone did too.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

"Or a god, said Apollo with a note of sadness.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion.

"How often did you get expelled?" asked Freya.

"That was my sixth time," answered Percy.

I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin.

"Chiron should be proud that you actually got good grades in Latin," I said.

And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.

I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.

"Dude you need to get out more," said Travis.

Until that trip to the museum ... "What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

"Don't ever lie to your mother," cried Hermes.

Everyone stared at him in shock.

"What did you just say," asked Hades.

"I said, don't ever lie to your mother," said Hermes.

"Why would you of all people say that?" said Apollo suspiciously.

"Because you don't lie to your mother, that's rule."

"So," said Hera. "You shouldn't lie to me, yet you still do."

"That's different."

I felt bad lying.

"As you should," I said.

I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

"She wouldn't think so, son. She's clear-sighted."

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"She knows you're lying," said Annabeth.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Yay!" cheered Annabeth, Percy, & Poseidon

"Three nights same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

That …, Poseidon started to say.

But Hera interrupted him, "Poseidon don't swear!"

"But sister."

"No buts, we have children here."

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

Poseidon growled and pulled out a pad of paper, scribbled something on it and stuffed it in Hades's hand and said: "Make sure that happens to that ugly pig."

I wanted to punch him,

"So do I," everyone said

but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"He'd better," said Artemis in a threatening tone of voice.

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

"Ah, bribery, said Hermes. "I like this woman."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"WHAT?! shrieked Aphrodite, Freya, and Blitzen, so loudly that several people covered their ears in pain.

"Why would she have a budget on clothes," cried Aphrodite.

"That's a crime in itself," said Freya horrorstruck.

Blitz just stared at the book open-mouthed.

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"Yes we will," said Percy with a ghost of a smile. "We'll take it to the moon and leave it there."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought.

"Do it, Do it, Do it!" cheered Ares.

And make you sing soprano for a week. But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream.

"It's for your own good, Seaweed Brain."

Why did she care what he thought? "I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now." Gabe's eyes narrowed.

Hearth signed something. "What did he say?" asked Frank.

"He said 'Yeah right,'" said Alex.

His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

"There's no way I blessed that thing with brains," said Athena.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game. "Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.

"You weren't mistaken, son," said Poseidon. I figured that he was dreading all of what Percy was going to go through. I felt a stab of pity for the sea god and his son.

She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip. An hour later we were ready to leave.

"Yay! No more about that evil man," said Poseidon. "I was tired of hearing about that ugly person."

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking and more importantly, his '78 Camaro for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

"Like he'd be the one driving," said Hazel and Reyna together. "He's twelve."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve.

Everyone stared at them weirdly.

But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.

As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.

The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

"Wow, your son is very powerful, Uncle Poseidon," said Hephaestus.

Maybe it was just the wind or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out. I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes.

There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,

Athena & Annabeth shuddered and Annabeth said, "I hope you cleaned it out before I went there."

"I did."

and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. I loved the place. We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer.

She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

"Aww!" cried Aphrodite and Freya together.

"That so cute!" shrieked Freya.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

"She so pretty!" cried Aphrodite.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.

"Does that include de-spidering the cabin?" asked Athena.

We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

"What's with the blue food?" asked Zeus. "Blue is my color."

I guess I should explain the blue food.

"Oh."

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue.

She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop.

This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

"She was never 'suckered'" said Percy angrily. The floor started to shake again.

"Percy, calm down," said Piper soothing, charmspeak in her voice. Percy calmed down and put his arm around Annabeth.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash.

Everyone glared at Zeus and he squirmed under their gazes.

"What?!"

She told me about the books she wanted to write someday when she had enough money to quit the candy shop. Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk, my father.

Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."

Everyone looked at Percy and Poseidon.

"They do look alike said," Hazel.

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."

"I am,"

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"You have other talents," said all the Greek demigods.

"Like sword fighting," said Leo.

"Awesome water powers," said Nico.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile. I had always assumed he knew me as a baby.

This time Zeus glared at Poseidon.

My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me …

I felt angry at my father.

Poseidon sighed and Demeter comforted him "He doesn't feel that anymore."

Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom.

" I wanted to" said Poseidon sadly.

All the gods gasped.

He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out. My mom's eyes welled with tears.

"Percy!" scolded all the girls. "Don't say that!"

She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"You say that's a bad thing," said Reyna and Alex. Both of them were sad that's what Percy thought.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

"Monsters," said Jason.

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

"Cyclopes," said Annabeth matter of factly.

Before that a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

"Wow!" said Demeter. "He's like Heracles."

Jason and Piper had been smiling and laughing at a joke Leo had told them but as the mention of Heracles the smiles vanished and Jason said: "He's nothing like Heracles."

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.

But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"Foolish boy."

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake.

"Who's they?" asked Sam.

"Chiron and Grover probably."

But there's only one other option, Percy the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp." My head was spinning. Why would my dad who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born to talk to my mom about a summer camp?

And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"Because she did want to part with you," said Jack.

Wow, Jack, you actually sounded smart, said Magnus.

"Hey!"

"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..." She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream. It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse, and a golden eagle,

"Poseidon and Zeus," said Hades, not surprised that his two brothers were fighting.

were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons.

The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

"Who is that?" asked Freya.

"Kronos," said Percy and Annabeth darkly.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion

. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes,

"HA! I won," cheered Zeus jumped up and did a little dance. Hermes was filming the whole thing.

and I screamed, No! I woke with a start. Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. With the next thunderclap, my mom woke.

She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane." I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

"Wow, you two are really mad," said Artemis.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Goat boy makes a comeback," cried the Stolls happily.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?" My mother looked at me in terror not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?" I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled.

"Nice curse," said Thalia.

"It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.

I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night.

Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me.

I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked. Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

"Finished!" I said.

Nico and Percy yawned. Poseidon and Hades noticed.

"Bedtime," said Hades.

"Aww, man," said Nico.

Wow, 23 pages long. Sorry I was late in updating. Thanks for reading this. And please review, it makes me a happy camper.