The Twins Of Poseidon

Snake Lady Tries To Turn My Brother To Stone

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day. So there we were, Annabeth, Percy, Grover and I walking through the woods along 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 was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once." 

I wanted to stop and comfort Grover, he didn't handle Quest's well, but Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better." 

"All our money was back there," Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything." 

"Well, maybe if you both hadn't decided to jump into the fight—" 

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine." 

"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth. 

"Hey don't bring Grover into this he did nothing wrong." I said, trying to stop this fight. 

"Oh you be quiet too mermaid girl." Annabeth snapped, glaring at me, then her eyes softened realizing what she said. "Alex I-"

"It's fine let's just keep moving." I said now leading up front. 

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans." 

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. After a few minutes I heard Annabeth and Percy talking though I couldn't here what about. I had just finished wrapping up my hands from when they were cut by the glass, it was a good thing I had spare ones in my pockets. No one noticed as it was too dark which I was glad about, I didn't need the questions. The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I could only see a little bit of light reflecting of Grover's belt buckle.

 Soon after I was about to ask Percy about something but got interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot. "Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "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. 

I heard someone slam into a tree behind me and from the curses I heard, I could tell it was Percy. After about another mile or so, I  started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Junk food of sort, which didn't smell good to me 'cause I've been living off of nothing but healthy foods at Camp Half Blood, even the burgers had to have lots of vegetables on them and the meat had to be tofu most of the time. But I was so hungry I would eat it anyway. 

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 junk smell. It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. There was a big neon sign was, neon red and in cursive, I could read it easily 'Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium' It read.  I saw both Annabeth and Percy, I knew Percy had dyslexia but I always forgot Annabeth had it.