The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.
I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare
clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.
And I was absolutely miserable.
Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood—I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.
Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. T h e attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.
T h e other campers steered clear of me as much as possi- ble. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my les- sons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.
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"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."
Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.
After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest . . . Poseidon? . . . Dirty rotten . . . Got to make a plan . . ."
Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.
I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.
BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT
BY EILEEN SMYTHE
Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's
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badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.
Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circum- stances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.
Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.
Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with informa- tion to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.
The phone number was circled in black marker.
I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.
"Lights out," I told myself miserably.
That night, I had my worst dream yet.
I was running along the beach in a storm. This time,
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there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.
About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.
I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.
Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.
T h e waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.
I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!
The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.
Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!
T h e sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and dark-
ness swallowed me.
I woke up, sure I was falling.
I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was
morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across
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