Annabeth Chase and the Lightning Thief

Chapter 22 - I go on the Thrill Ride of Love with Percy

The water park was a dump. I didn't know how it used to look, but it was trashed now. Junk littered the area and graffiti covered walls. It had once been called WATERLAND but someone had knocked out a few lettered so it spelt WAT R A D.

It didn't help that it was getting dark and making the place seem creepier than usual. The front gate was padlocked and had barbed wire strung over the top. Why anyone would bother try to keep intruders out from such a dump was beyond me. Shadows draped themselves off the dry waterslides and collected in the empty pools. All in all, it wasn't the ideal location for me at the moment.

"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," Percy mused, staring at the barbed wire, "I'd hate to see what she looks like."

"Percy," I warned. "Be more respectful."

"Why? I thought you hated Ares."

"He's still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental."

"You don't want to insult her looks," Grover added.

"Who is she? Echidna?"

"No, Aphrodite," Grover sighed dreamily. "Goddess of love."

"I thought she was married to somebody," Percy frowned. "Hephaestus."

"What's your point?" Grover asked.

Percy reddened. "Oh. So how do we get in?"

"Maia!" Grover yelled, flying up as his shoes sprouted wings. He somersaulted over the gates and landed clumsily on the other side, brushing himself off to seem cool. "You guys coming?"

Percy and I had to climb the gates, holding down the barbed wire for each other so we could crawl over.

It grew steadily darker as we walked through the park, searching for the Tunnel of Love. We found a heap of other rides like Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit. I didn't particularly want to go on the last one.

It was eerily quiet, the only sounds being the crunch of our sneakers on the gravel and the wind rattling loose papers. I saw a souvenir shop nearby, door open. Leading the others in, we went through the shop, finding that it wasn't in that bad a condition.

"Clothes," I said, studying a rack of them. "Fresh clothes."

They were pretty horrible, all Waterland merchandise but I didn't really care at the moment. My current clothes were shredded and practically clung to me and in a not so friendly way.

"Yeah," Percy said. "But you can't just -"

"Watch me."

I grabbed an armful and ducked into the changing room. Going through them, I found the ones that weren't too big or looked too bad. I ended up in Waterland flower-print shorts, a red Waterland t-shirt and commemorative Waterland surf shoes. I even had a Waterland backpack.

The boys sniggered at me when I came out, but then seemed to notice how clean I was.

"What the heck," Grover said, him and Percy grabbing some clothes and walking off to get changed.

They came out looking worse than even me. Grover had a green Waterland shirt with brown Waterland trackies to cover his legs, but he kept his normal shoes on. He even had a bucket Waterland hat to cover his horns. Percy had an orange Waterland shirt and blue Waterland flowery shorts, lace trimming the edges. I didn't bother tell him that they were for girls.

Looking like bigger idiots than we normally did, we kept walking through the park, still searching for the Tunnel of Love. It was almost like it was hiding from us.