"Luke…" Annabeth whimpered. She kept her eyes on the creepy-crawlie that was crawling straight at her. "Luke…!" she said louder.

The spider leaped at her, and she couldn't keep in her scream any longer. "LUUUUUKE!" She screamed bloody murder. Thalia was up instantly, and Luke grabbed his golf club.

Annabeth backed away from the spider until she hit a tree. "SPIDER!" she shrieked.

"Annabeth, we're in the middle of the woods. Of course there'd be spiders." Thalia said, tapping her shield so that it shrunk into a bracelet again.

Annabeth didn't hear her. The spider leapt at her again, and she climbed up the tree in record speed. "THALIAAAAAAAA!"

Thalia stifled a grin at what was going on before her eyes. Seven-year-old Annabeth, who ran away from home and attacked Luke with a hammer, afraid of spiders?

Luckily, Thalia was able to follow Annabeth fairly easily because of Annabeth's screaming. She made sure to stomp on the spider that was scaring poor Annabeth into next week.

She gathered up the screaming seven-year-old into her arms, saying soothingly, "It's all right. The spider's dead. Here's proof." Thalia took off her boot and showed the bottom of it, which had squished spider on it.

She stopped screaming and immediately began blushing.

"C'mon, kiddo. Let's see about getting down, huh?"