by Rick Riordan
ALL: Dooo-waaapppp!
APOLLO: Ladies and gentlemen…the Lyre Choir!
[Applause]
BOYS and GIRLS [singing soft background harmony with a slow beat]: Doo-da-doo, waa, waa. Doo-da-doo, waa, waa. [continues]
APOLLO [crooning to the beat]: Marble may be marble-lous,
And wood might be good.
Stone’s a sturdy choice
For this half-blood neighborhood.
But for my children’s cabin,
I demand something more divine.
So give me precious metal,
[background harmony swells]
And make it GOLD every time!
ALL: Gold, gold, gold, gold—there’s nothing quite so bright!
Gold, gold, gold, gold—it reflects Apollo’s might!
[Apollo cuts off background singers]
APOLLO [crooning solo]: Silver suits my sister
But unattended, it can tarnish.
Roofs of thatch are fine, I guess,
But why not add some varnish?
[background harmony resumes softly]
Vines of wine are creepy,
And abalone smells of fish.
[background harmony grows louder]
Red’s too strong a color,
And gray is boring-ish.
[background harmony grows louder still]
That’s why my children’s cabin
Is made of something more divine.
I’m worth that precious metal—
[background harmony swells]
So make it GOLD every time!
[Cheers and applause]
ALL: Gold, gold, gold, gold…
Talk about curb appeal! Tastefully decorated inside and out, these charming units are big on comfort and totally unique in style—one might even say each has its own personality! Of course, location is key, and you couldn’t ask for a better spot than this. The twenty cabins are within easy walking distance of all camp amenities as well as training and recreational facilities. Don’t see a unit dedicated to your particular godly parent? No worries! Once you’re claimed, one can be built to suit. In the meantime, pull up a bunk in Cabin Eleven and stay awhile!
WARNING! The divine cabins area is an active construction site, so please watch out for exposed nails, exploding blocks, and cracks that could plummet you to the Underworld.
For generations, Camp Half-Blood had only twelve cabins—one for each major Olympian deity. The odd-numbered cabins were dedicated to the Olympic gods, the even ones to the Olympic goddesses—except for Cabin Twelve, which Dionysus took over when Hestia gave him her seat on the Council of Olympus, but that’s another story. Anyway, after the Titan War, my kindhearted boyfriend, Percy, made the Olympians promise that all demigods, not just the kids of the major twelve, would have cabins of their own.
Which is just like Percy: doing something impulsive and compassionate, and making my life difficult in the process. See, I’m the camp’s resident architect, which meant that the task of designing all those new cabins fell to me.
Don’t get me wrong. I supported Percy’s plan one hundred percent. But after building units thirteen through sixteen—Hades, Iris, Hypnos, and Nemesis—the cabin area started to look cramped. I met with Chiron to discuss the problem.
“Space,” I told him, “could be an issue.”
“Any ideas?” Chiron asked.
I brainstormed aloud: “We build upward, combine new cabins into one tall complex. Demigods associated with the earth on lower levels, with the sky on top.”
Chiron shook his head. “Intriguing idea, but experience has shown me that demigods from different families don’t cohabitate well.”
“Okay, scratch that.” I pointed at the nearby forest. “What about tree houses? Enclosed platforms, elevated walkways, ladders, rope swings—”
Chiron cut me off. “The dryads wouldn’t go for it. And imagine what would happen if a demigod took to sleepwalking.”
“Caves?”
“Only one available, and Apollo has claimed it for his Oracle.”
“Houseboats?”
“Sleepwalking again, plus the naiads would nix it. Also, we need the lake for trireme practice.”
I cast around for inspiration. My eyes fixed on Hestia, who was tending her hearth in the center of the commons. You’d think a major Olympian goddess would attract a lot of notice sitting in the middle of camp, but Hestia came and went without any fanfare, usually in the shape of a young girl in plain brown robes. I hadn’t noticed her, because she was so small and low profile.
Small and low profile.
An idea hit me like a Zeus-thrown thunderbolt.
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow,” I told Chiron.
The old centaur chuckled. “I know that look. You have an idea.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. In fact, my brain was buzzing. “But I want to work out some details before I share it with you. See you at breakfast.”
That night I worked into the wee hours, pausing only to…well, to wee. In the morning I had my blueprints ready, but I still needed more time.
At breakfast, I broke the news to Chiron. “I want to set up a construction site in the southern woods.”
He furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “You’re not thinking of building the cabins there, are you? As I said, the dryads won’t—”
“I just need a secluded work area,” I said. “I won’t build anything big or permanent in that space. Trust me on this, okay?”
Chiron stroked his beard. “Well, you’ve never let me down before. And I do owe you for designing those centaur-size bathrooms for the Big House. Very well, Annabeth. You have my permission.”
The next days were a feverish blur of measuring, sawing, and hammering. By week’s end, I’d completed a full-scale model of my design, premounted on a wheeled platform for easy moving. I bribed my pegasus friends Blackjack and Porkpie with some donuts, and they agreed to haul my creation out of the woods and into the commons.
A few campers wandered over to see what I’d built. “It’s supercute!” gushed Lacy from the Aphrodite cabin. “But what is it?”
“A portable storage shed,” Clarisse La Rue guessed, eyeing the wheels. “Or a covered chariot. No, wait. It’s a rapid-deployment outhouse.”
“None of the above,” I replied, slightly offended. “I call it a tiny house. Check it out!”
I threw open the door and invited them in, a few at a time. The main sitting room was compact but perfectly livable. Two built-in cushioned benches along the walls doubled as beds. I lifted the cushions. “And see? There’s storage underneath the beds for your clothes, armor, weapons. It’s even long enough for that electric spear of yours, Clarisse.”
“Uh-huh.”
Clarisse sounded unimpressed, but that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. I pointed to the narrow staircase against the back wall. “Upstairs is a loft with two more twin beds. Or it could be used as a game room, meeting area, whatever. I made the ceiling extra high so headroom isn’t an issue. Under the stairs is more built-in storage. But the best part is over here.”
I squeezed past them and rolled open a narrow pocket door in the corner. “Ta-da!”
“So it is an outhouse,” Clarisse said.
“It’s a private bathroom,” I corrected. “Whoever lives here never has to use the common facilities again.” I smirked at her, remembering the drenching Percy had once given her by blowing up the camp toilets. “You of all people should appreciate that.”
Clarisse reddened. “I’m coming down with claustrophobia.” She shoved past me and out the door.
I turned to Lacy. “You see the potential here, right? Microhouses are the future. This is cutting-edge architecture!”
She looked at the whitewashed walls, taupe cushions, and unadorned windows. “Well, it’s kind of…boring inside.”
“It’s only the model,” I said defensively. “Whoever lives here can decorate it however—”
A tap on the door interrupted me. Chiron
poked his head in and frowned. “I would come in for a tour, but, ah, I fear there is no room.”
“Good luck,” Lacy whispered to me. Then she slipped past Chiron and hurried away.
I got out of the way so Chiron could come in and clop around the tiny house. It was large enough to accommodate him, but just barely. The entire walk-through took him about three steps.
When he emerged again, he looked deep in thought.
“It’s only the model,” I told him.
“Hmm?” He focused on me as if trying to process my words. Then he exhaled with relief. “Oh, a model. I see. In that case…yes, this might work.” He scanned the cabin area as if calculating the acreage. “We’ll need about four, don’t you think? Please proceed with construction.”
Designing and building one tiny house had been fun. Constructing four? I was over the moon. “I won’t let you down, Chiron!”
Two weeks later, I let him down.
I had been working overtime to modify my original design. I widened the doorways for better access. I got some magical paint from the Hephaestus cabin so the exterior color of each new minibuilding could be changed with just a touch, making each one unique. I applied everything I knew about extra-dimensional construction to create impossibly deep storage containers, a larger shower in the bathroom, and built-in furniture that could be moved, collapsed, or reshaped as desired. With a snap of your fingers, you could turn the living area into a bedroom, or a gym, or a dining room, or a military command center that even Clarisse would be proud of. I added a dozen preprogrammed interior-decorating schemes so Lacy could never accuse the space of being boring. When I finally rolled out the new cabins and proudly presented them to Chiron, I expected him to be pleased. Instead, he looked puzzled.
“Um…is this it?”
I frowned. “You asked for four, right?”
“Four cabins. Not four models.”
My spirits deflated like a bunch of month-old party balloons.
“Oh, dear,” Chiron murmured when he saw my face. “That model you showed me—that was the full-size cabin, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “That was the whole point, wasn’t it? Saving space? I—I thought smaller buildings…”
He kindly laid his hand on my shoulder. “Annabeth, your work is exemplary. But as lovely as these units are, I fear that the children of, ah, lesser deities—for lack of a better term—will not appreciate accommodations so much smaller than the other cabins.”
The flaw in my concept was so obvious, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t considered it. The whole point of Percy’s plan was so our new recruits—and their godly parents—would feel included at camp—equal, not lesser. But they wouldn’t see my tiny houses as fun minimalist living spaces. They’d see them as yet another snub from the more powerful deities and their kids. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to crawl under a rock.
“I’ll get Harley to blow up the tiny houses,” I mumbled. “He’ll like that.” I turned to go, but Chiron stopped me.
“Wait a moment.” He studied the units. “These have wheels.”
“Yeah. I mean, they don’t have to have wheels, but I thought—”
“Perhaps I was too hasty,” Chiron said. “Let me try something.”
He put his shoulder to the closest minicabin and pushed it toward the next one in line. Having the strength of a stallion, Chiron had no trouble moving the tiny houses around. A few more shoves and he had arranged the four units so they were back-to-back, two on either side. The slanted rooftops joined into one centerline peak. In short, the tiny houses looked as if they’d been designed to fit together as a single structure that was about the same size as the older cabins.
“You know,” Chiron said, “I think this might work quite nicely for our newest pair of demigods.” He called across the commons, “Holly! Laurel!”
Identical twin girls who had been arguing on the steps of Hermes cabin raced over, each trying to push the other out of the way so she could be first.
“What’s up?” asked the one on the left.
“Contest?” the one on the right asked eagerly. “World war?”
“Something even more exciting,” Chiron promised. “Annabeth, I’d like you to meet Laurel and Holly Victor, recently claimed daughters of Nike, the goddess of victory. Laurel, Holly, this is Annabeth Chase, the most gifted architect at camp. She redesigned the palaces of Mount Olympus!”
The twins’ eyes widened in amazement. I felt a little self-conscious with Chiron praising me. I was, in fact, the only architect at camp. But that bit about redesigning Mount Olympus—that was true. It was the centerpiece of my college-admissions portfolio.
“What you see in front of you,” Chiron continued, “is Annabeth’s latest triumph: completely customizable, modular cabins.”
Laurel edged toward the nearest tiny house. She peeked inside the door. “It’s small.”
“Ah, but it’s not!” Chiron said. “It’s private. Each module is for a maximum of four people. How many do you have to live with right now in the Hermes cabin?”
“Like a thousand,” Holly grumbled. “All losers, too.”
I didn’t think the Hermes kids would appreciate that, but I understood what Chiron was trying to do. I chimed in. “These modules are brand-new. The bathrooms are state-of-the-art.”
Laurel’s eyes lit up. “Bathrooms in the cabin?”
“Yep,” I said. “The furniture is programmable. The exterior colors, the interior design—it can be changed to whatever you want.” I touched the nearest cabin, willing it to turn from dull red to bright silver.
“Whoa,” said Holly.
“But we can’t give brand-new cabins like this to just anyone,” I said. “Whoever gets these, everyone else in camp will be totally jealous. We need to find the absolute best campers—”
“Us,” Holly said. “Obviously.”
“Me,” Laurel corrected her sister. “With you a distant second.”
“So who wants to claim a bunk first?”
“Me!” the sisters yelled simultaneously. They charged to the same front door, growling as they tried to push each other out of the way. Then they split apart and made for different entrances.
Shouts rang out from inside the cabins.
“I’ll get to my loft before you!” one sister cried.
“Ha! No chance, loser! I’m already halfway up!”
Chiron turned toward me and smiled. “There we are. Modular units that can be rearranged and moved as desired! Each cluster can be as big or small as we need it to be. More campers can be fit into the same amount of space as a regular cabin, but with more privacy and better accommodations. Annabeth Chase, you are a genius!”
I listened to the sounds of pounding footsteps and triumphant crowing from the Victor sisters as they argued about whose module was the coolest.
“Thanks,” I told Chiron. “Genius was exactly what I was going for.”
My tiny-house mash-up brought the cabin count to seventeen. Three more units—Hebe, Tyche, and Hecate—were added afterward, and construction crews are ready to build more. Space might still be an issue someday, depending on how many gods we end up needing to represent, but you know what? Not one person has complained about my tiny houses being too tiny. In fact, when I get out of college, I may go into business designing portable microhousing for demigods. It beats building rapid-response outhouses, at least.
This four-story sky-blue Victorian is a bona fide gem. The vast wraparound porch offers ample space for pinochle players and convalescents alike. The basement is currently set up for strawberry-jam storage, but can also be used to hide the occasional demigod driven insane by the Labyrinth. The first-floor living quarters, camp infirmary, and combination rec room / meeting room are wheelchair accessible, as is a specially designed bronze-lined office. The rooms of the top floors stand ready to welcome overnight guests, while the attic, now free of its resident desiccated mummy, provides the perfect catchall for camper discards and memorabilia.
; People think I’m a thief, a sneak, a pickpocket, and a lock picker. They’re right, of course, but c’mon—how else am I supposed to spend my time while waiting for a quest?
When my brother, Travis, was here (he’s in college now), we explored every inch of camp except one area: the Big House attic. No way either of us was setting foot in there while that ol’ leather-skinned hippie Oracle was propped in the corner.
But then Spooky gave up the spirit and crumbled to dust on the Big House front porch. We saw our chance and took it. While everyone else was waiting to see if Rachel, the new Oracle, would survive the spirit invasion (spoiler: she did), we made our move around to the back door of the Big House.
It was locked. (Ha!) One pick, three clicks, and BOOM!—we were inside. Thanks to past reconnaissance missions, we knew the way up to the attic. We pulled down the stairs and stuck our heads through the trapdoor and into a thieves’ paradise.
We ignored the junk, like that old three-legged stool the mummy used to sit on. But other pieces seemed to scream Pick me! Pick me! as if itching to be freed from their dusty attic prison. That glittery crown on the mannequin in the far corner. That emerald-pommeled sword hanging on the wall. That sweet Elvis-style rhinestone cape, which for some reason was draped across the shoulders of a stuffed taxidermic grizzly bear.
Travis and I had planned to take our time and really search through the stuff. But then, for no apparent reason, this beam of golden light shot upward through the floor and engulfed the Oracle’s old three-legged stool. The light shut off as quickly as it had appeared, and the stool was gone. I didn’t know what had just happened. Maybe Apollo was teleporting the stool to its new owner. Maybe somebody was randomly blasting disintegrator rays in our direction. Hey, you never know what those Hephaestus kids will do. Anyway, it kind of freaked us out. We decided not to stick around, just in case that weird beam came back and zapped us away too. We grabbed the nearest things we could reach—a canvas sack for me, a small wooden box for Travis—and got out of that attic faster than you can say Hermes Express.
Back at our cabin, we chased the other demigods outside and told them to go play in the woods or something (being co–head counselors does have its privileges). Then we sat down to examine our take.
Travis opened the lid of his box. His eyes grew wide. “Whoa. It’s a mystical bag of winds.”
My pulse started to race. “Like the thermos Dad gave Percy that time? I’ve always wanted one of those! Let me see!”
All slow and dramatic, he pulled out a flat pink rubber sack with a thin nozzle at one end. “Behold!”
I smacked him on the arm. “That’s a whoopee cushion, you idiot.”
He burst out laughing. “Yeah, but I had you there for a second. Okay, your turn.”