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A
Some of the spectators were trying to fight back. The Athena campers were calling for shields. The archers from Apollo's cabin brought out their bows and arrows, ready to slay the menace, but with so many campers mixed in with the birds, it wasn't safe to shoot.
"Too many!" I yelled to A
She stabbed at a pigeon with her knife. "Hercules used noise! Brass bells! He scared them away with the most horrible sound he could—"
Her eyes got wide. "Percy… Chiron's collection!"
I understood instantly. "You think it'll work?"
She handed her fighter the reins and leaped from her chariot into mine like it was the easiest thing in the world. "To the Big House! It's our only chance!"
Clarisse has just pulled across the finish line, completely unopposed, and seemed to notice for the first time how serious the bird problem was.
When she saw us driving away, she yelled, "You're ru
I urged our horses into a gallop. The chariot rumbled through the strawberry fields, across the volleyball pit, and lurched to a halt in front of the Big House. A
His boom box was still on his nightstand. So were his favorite CDs. I grabbed the most repulsive one I could find, A
Down at the track, the chariots were in flames. Wounded campers ran in every direction, with birds shredding their clothes and pulling out their hair, while Tantalus chased breakfast pastries around the stands, every once in a while yelling, "Everything's under control! Not to worry. "
We pulled up to the finish line. A
I pressed PLAY and started up Chiron's favorite—the All-Time Greatest Hits of Dean Martin. Suddenly the air was filled with violins and a bunch of guys moaning in Italian.
The demon pigeons went nuts. They started flying in circles, ru
"Now!" shouted A
With clear targets, Apollo's archers had flawless aim. Most of them could nock five or six arrows at once. Within minutes, the ground was littered with dead bronze-beaked pigeons, and the survivors were a distant trail of smoke on the horizon.
The camp was saved, but the wreckage wasn't pretty. Most of the chariots had been completely destroyed. Almost everyone was wounded, bleeding from multiple bird pecks. The kids from Aphrodite's cabin were screaming because their hairdos had been ruined and their clothes pooped on.
"Bravo!" Tantalus said, but he wasn't looking at me or A
Then he turned and smiled at me. "And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this race."
SEVEN
I ACCEPT GIFTS
FROM A STRANGER
The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if A
This was so completely unfair, I told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut, which didn't help his mood. He sentenced us to kitchen patrol—scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so A
Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but A
The only good thing about our punishment was that it gave A
"If he's really found it," she murmured, "and if we could retrieve it—"
"Hold on," I said. "You act like this… whatever-it-is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. What is it?"
"I'll give you a hint. What do you get when you skin a ram?"
"Messy?"
She sighed. "A fleece. The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool—"
"The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"
A
"Yeah," I said. "That old movie with the clay skeletons."
A
"What?" I demanded.
"Just listen. The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."
"It was probably important to her."
"The point is, when Cadmus got to Colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the Fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. The Fleece brought prosperity to the land. Animals stopped getting sick. Plants grew better. Farmers had bumper crops. Plagues never visited. That's why Jason wanted the Fleece. It can revitalize any land where it's placed. It cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution—"
"It could cure Thalia's tree."
A
"But Grover found it," I said. "He went looking for Pan and he found the Fleece instead because they both radiate nature magic. It makes sense, A
A
I remembered last summer, how Kronos had manipulated our quest. He'd almost fooled us into helping him start a war that would've destroyed Western Civilization.
"What choice do we have?" I asked. "Are you going to help me rescue Grover or not?"
She glanced at Tyson, who'd lost interest in our conversation and was happily making toy boats out of cups and spoons in the lava.
"Percy," she said under her breath, "we'll have to fight a Cyclops. Polyphemus, the worst of the Cyclopes. And there's only one place his island could be. The Sea of Monsters."
"Where's that?"
She stared at me like she thought I was playing dumb. "The Sea of Monsters. The same sea Odysseus sailed through, and Jason, and Aeneas, and all the others."
"You mean the Mediterranean?"
"No. Well, yes… but no."
"Another straight answer. Thanks."
"Look, Percy, the Sea of Monsters is the sea all heroes sail through on their adventures. It used to be in the Mediterranean, yes. But like everything else, it shifts locations as the West's center of power shifts."