"Just write a book" they said. "It'll be easy," they said, "Everyone gets published these days." Yeah, well, it's a little harder when your editors are gods that will turn you into a gecko and use you as a ping pong ball if you don't write them exac...
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YEAH, I KNOW. I've been told a thousand times that "it was a stupid decision" and "you're not the center of everything" and "wow, that's not fair to the original questers!" Just keep reading. It'll make sense why we had to give involved, even without permission.
Anyway. I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to being punished unfairly because the guy in charge hates us.
According to Tantalus, the attack was entirely our fault. I guess the Annabeth, Tyson, and Percy's charioteering was so atrocious it offended the Stymphalian birds into violence. But also Annabeth's brother did nothing wrong and would be punished, and me sitting in the stands made me an accomplice or something. Totally logical!
And people wonder why I don't trust adults.
We were assigned kitchen patrol as punishment. Which wouldn't be too bad. Maybe a little boring. Except for some reason the pots and platters were washed in lava instead of water (seriously, what is with this camp and random, misplaced lava?) According to the cleaning harpies it "gave an extra-clean sparkle" and "killed ninety-nine point nine percent of all germ." I told them hand sanitizer did that without melting my hands off, to which they responded by threatening to eat my face.
Annabeth, Percy, and I were giving asbestos gloves and aprons. It was great that they didn't want us burnt, but I don't know why giving us lung damage was better.
The only person who didn't mind was Tyson (not counting Pat, who showed up after lunch so he could poke at the lava with a stick until he was chased out by the cleaning harpies with threats of having to work.) He was immune to the lava and enjoyed the work. I tried to look cheerful for him. It's hard when I was about to shrivel up into a prune, assuming I didn't get third degree burns from the lava.
It didn't help that there were extra plates. Tantalus ordered the Stymphalian birds be cooked as a special luncheon to celebrate Clarisse's chariot victory.
There was one good thing about our punishment: Annabeth and Percy fixed their argument. Whatever that was. Percy explained his dreams about Grover to her, including a new one he had had the night before. I listened in silent as he talked about Grover finding something. Something that we, apparently, needed to know about. I considered telling them about my own dream. It fits the theme, you know? But PB's reaction had made me scared of bringing it up, incase there was some extra new problem that came up.
"If he's really found it," Annabeth murmured. "and if we could retrieve it –"
"Hold on. You act like this...whatever-it-is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save camp. What is it?" Percy asked.
"I'll give you a hint."
"Ergh, really?" I muttered. Annabeth shot me a look and, in a fake cheery tone, I amended, "I mean, wow! Really? Thanks, Annabeth, for giving us a hint instead of just telling us directly."
