10| We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium
We are walking through the woods on the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. Grover is shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupilled and full of terror.
Grover: 'Three Kindly Ones, all three at once.'
Annabeth: 'Come on! The further away we get, the better.'
Percy: 'All our money was back there, our food and clothes. Everything.'
Annabeth: 'Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-'
Percy: 'What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?'
Annabeth: 'Y/N had everything under control, he always does.'
Y/N: 'Keep quiet, the more you talk, you waste the warmth in your body.'
We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. The City glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness.
Grover: 'Hey, my reed pipes still work! If I could just remember a "find path" song, we could get out of these woods!'
He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff. Instead of finding a path, Percy immediately slammed into a tree. After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I see light up ahead: the colours of a neon sign. I could smell food, fried, greasy, excellent food.
We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read.
Percy: 'What the heck does that say?'
Y/N and Annabeth: 'I don't know.'
Grover: 'Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium.'
Percy crossed the street.
Grover: 'Hey...'
Annabeth: 'The lights are on inside, maybe it's open.'
Percy: 'Snack bar.'
Annabeth: 'Snack bar.'
Y/N: 'Snack bar.'
Grover: 'Are you three crazy? This place is weird.'
We ignored him, the front garden was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes.
Grover: 'Bla-ha-ha! Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!'
We stopped at the warehouse door.
Grover: 'Don't knock, I smell monsters.'
Annabeth: 'Your nose is clogged up from the Furies, all I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?'
Grover: 'Meat! I'm a vegetarian.'
Percy: 'You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminium cans.'
Grover: 'Those are vegetables, come on. Let's leave, these statues are... looking at me.'
Then a tall woman walked out of the door.
Woman: 'Children, is it too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?'
Annabeth: 'They're... um...'
Percy: 'We're orphans.'
Woman: 'Orphans? But, my dears! Surely not!'
