¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

iv. The Truth to Fables

chapter four
❛ the truth to fables ❜

━━━━━  ACCORDING TO TANTALUS, the four who had gone to get Chiron's boom box were actually the ones disrupting the Chariot Race — not the Stymphalian birds. In his pea-sized brain, he reasoned that the Stymphalian birds' (apparently warranted) attack had been because of the bad chariot driving that Annabeth and Percy had. That's why the Stymphalian birds descended from the trees, cawing and pecking furiously at any and every camper — because Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were bad at driving chariots. (He didn't mention any of the other chariot drivers, not Travis, nor Lee, and certainly not Clarisse.)

It was completely unfair, and any reasonable onlooker knew as such; however, Percy didn't help their situation by telling Tantalus to "go chase a donut." They were already in bad enough stakes, but that comment alone was certainly the reason the four — Posie, Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson — were sentenced to kitchen patrol. They spent their entire afternoon in the underground kitchen at Camp Half-Blood, scrubbing pots and platters with the cleaning harpies. She had heard murmurs of how they liked to clean, but Posie just chalked it up to teenagers being teenagers — it wasn't, because the harpies really did prefer to wash dishes with lava instead of water. Lava was more effective, apparently; it gave the dishes an extra-clean sparkle, all the while killing ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all germs. So the three demigods had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons — unless, of course, they wanted to completely disintegrate their hands and arms in the boiling lava.

Tyson didn't seem to mind. He (seemingly eagerly, to Posie's astonishment) plunged his large, bare hands into the lava, beginning to scrub away at the gigantic pile of plates. On the other hand, Posie, Annabeth, or Percy were not so eager — the three had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work. To make matters worse (though Posie wasn't sure how things could get any worse), there were even more plates than normal. Perhaps out of spite against Percy and his "go chase a donut" comment, Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse's chariot victory — a full-course meal, featuring country-fried Stymphalian death-bird.

The only good thing that came from their punishment was that the three had plenty of time to speak (and, though Posie didn't add this in fear it would start another argument between Annabeth and Percy, but they now had a common enemy to hate). Truthfully, it hadn't been that long since their argument at the Canoe Lake, but Posie had become sick of being the middleman between Annabeth and Percy (and she was hardly a middleman considering the fact that she was also avoiding the son of Poseidon). After listening to Percy's dream about Grover again, the daughter of Athena finally looked like she was starting to believe him. Posie backed Percy up, trying to fill in the details that Percy overlooked (because, considering his storytelling abilities, he overlooked many details that Annabeth would consider important). It seemed they were starting to crack Annabeth's hard exterior, who began chewing on her bottom lip nervously.

She looked back down at the vat of lava, scrubbing a round plate with oversized gloves. "If he's really found it," she said lowly, carefully speaking the words like she was afraid to jinx their chances, "and if we could retrieve it —"

Posie shifted on her feet, half between nerves and discomfort from standing for so long. "Do you really think he found it?"

Ever since Percy had told her of his dreams the very morning before the Chariot Race, she had been mulling over the details. She knew of Polyphemus, how he lost his eye to Odysseus, but how he was leading hundreds of satyrs to his island and managing to trap them — that was a mystery to her. Satyrs had good noses, and they would be keenly aware of what a Cyclops smelled like. But she remembered her dream, of a lush island with rolling hills — and that glittering shawl in the distance. Perhaps it was a stretch, but there was a chance (no matter how small) that Grover had found the Golden Fleece.