𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 - 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐨𝐜

¸„.-•~*°˜¨ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 ¨˜ˆ°*~•-.„¸

"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."

"It is," Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side, as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?" He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"

Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!"

"Look!" Bianca said.

She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in moonlight.

"A Hunter's bow!" She yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percys sword!"

Zoe's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."

"But-"

"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed."

Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.

"I don't like this place," Thalia said. She gripped the shaft of her spear.

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.

Thalia gave Percy a hard look. "Zoe is right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."

"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoe," Phoenix muttered, but Thalia ignored her.

They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.

Phoenix would like to say they left the stuff alone, but there was too much cool junk not to check out some of it. She found an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre that was so sweet she had to pick it up.

Grover found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings.

Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead of us, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert.

But between them and the road...

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together.

Bianca frowned. "They look like-"

"Toes," Grover said.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."

Zoe and Thalia exchanged nervous looks.

"Ew," Phoenix remarked.

"Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."

"But the road is right over there," Percy protested. "Quicker to climb over."

Ping. Thalia hefted her spear and Zoe drew her bow, but then Phoenix realized it was only Grover.

He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Why did you do that?" Zoe demanded.