AMARANTHINE-ɪ, pjo/hp

PERCY PLAYS PINOCHLE WITH A HORSE

*PERCY P.O.V.*

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it. "Careful," a familiar voice said. 

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse Hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy. 

Next to him stood a girl, the same girl who had fed me the weird pudding when I had come around a while back. She had shoulder length slightly wavy blond hair, pulled into a ponytail and startling ocean blue eyes which seemed to be scanning me from head to toe. Her skin was pale like snow. Like Grover, the girl too wore an orange shirt that said CAMP-HALF BLOOD and denim shorts. She looked younger than me maybe by a couple of months, at most by a year and must have been shorter than me by quite a few inches. She reminded me of the princesses my mother would sometimes read me stories of, but I had a feeling that she would probably bash someone up if they pissed her off. On other circumstances, I might have found her really beautiful and probably would have blushed but right now I was too confused to care.

Maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ... "You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this." Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap. Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare. 

"The Minotaur," I said."Uhh, Percy, it isn't a good idea-" blond girl began.  "That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull." Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?" 

"My mom. Is she really ..." He looked down and the girl didn't meet his eyes. I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight. My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful. 

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled." I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world." He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole. Blond girl sighed and patted his shoulder though Grover didn't seem to notice. "Oh, Styx!" he mumbled. Thunder rolled across the clear sky. As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. 

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light. I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something. Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit. I said, "It wasn't your fault," me and the blond girl said at the same time. Slightly startled, I glanced at her, but she didn't seem to have noticed. Instead, she seemed to be more focused on comforting Grover.