Страница 10 из 48
"I–I will."
"Um…" I said. "Would this be the super-dangerous prophecy that has me in it, but the gods have forbidden you to tell me about?"
Nobody answered.
"Right," I muttered. "Just checking."
"Chiron…" A
"Swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger," he insisted. "Swear upon the River Styx."
"I–I swear it upon the River Styx," A
Thunder rumbled outside.
"Very well," Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. "Perhaps my name will be cleared and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsmen in the Everglades. It's possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until this matter is resolved… one way or another."
A
"Who is this Tantalus guy, anyway?" I demanded. "Where does he get off taking your job?"
A conch horn blew across the valley. I hadn't realized how late it was. It was time for the campers to assemble for di
"Go," Chiron said. "You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, Percy, and let her know you're safe. No doubt she'll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you!"
With that, he clopped out of the apartment and down the hall, Tyson calling after him, "Pony! Don't go!"
I realized I'd forgotten to tell Chiron about my dream of Grover. Now it was too late. The best teacher I'd ever had was gone, maybe for good.
Tyson started bawling almost as bad as A
The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. We stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in. A
Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn't seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.
After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin—six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmiths forge all day. He was nice enough once you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf. Rumor was he could make anything. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing birdbath for your grandmother's garden. Whatever you wanted.
The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded me painfully of Grover.
I'd always had a soft spot for the satyrs. When they were at camp, they had to do all kinds of odd jobs for Mr. D, the director, but their most important work was out in the real world. They were the camp's seekers. They went undercover into schools all over the world, looking for potential half-bloods and escorting them back to camp. That's how I'd met Grover. He had been the first one to recognize I was a demigod.
After the satyrs filed in to di
Now the Hermes cabin was led by Travis and Co
As soon as the last campers had filed in, I led Tyson into the middle of the pavilion. Conversations faltered. Heads turned. "Who invited that?" somebody at the Apollo table murmured.
I glared in their direction, but I couldn't figure out who'd spoken.
From the head table a familiar voice drawled, "Well, well, if it isn't Peter Johnson. My mille
I gritted my teeth. "Percy Jackson … sir."
Mr. D sipped his Diet Coke. "Yes. Well, as you young people say these days: Whatever."
He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and te
Mr. D's real name is Dionysus. The god of wine. Zeus appointed him director of Camp Half-Blood to dry out for a hundred years—a punishment for chasing some off-limits wood nymph.
Next to him, where Chiron usually sat (or stood, in centaur form), was someone I'd never seen before—a pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner's jumpsuit. The number over his pocket read 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut gray hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. He stared at me; his eyes made me nervous. He looked… fractured. Angry and frustrated and hungry all at the same time.
"This boy," Dionysus told him, "you need to watch. Poseidon's child, you know."
"Ah!" the prisoner said. "That one."
His tone made it obvious that he and Dionysus had already discussed me at length.
"I am Tantalus," the prisoner said, smiling coldly. "On special assignment here until, well, until my Lord Dionysus decides otherwise. And you, Perseus Jackson, I do expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble."
"Trouble?" I demanded.
Dionysus snapped his fingers. A newspaper appeared on the table—the front page of today's New York Post, There was my yearbook picture from Meriwether Prep. It was hard for me to make out the headline, but I had a pretty good guess what it said. Something like: Thirteen-Year-Old Lunatic Torches Gymnasium.
"Yes, trouble," Tantalus said with satisfaction. "You caused plenty of it last summer, I understand."
I was too mad to speak. Like it was my fault the gods had almost gotten into a civil war?
A satyr inched forward nervously and set a plate of barbecue in front of Tantalus. The new activities director licked his lips. He looked at his empty goblet and said, "Root beer. Barq's special stock. 1967."