by Rick Riordan
I guess I should explain the blue food.
See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This – along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs Ugliano – was proof that she wasn’t totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.
When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.
Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk – my father. Mom’s eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.
‘He was kind, Percy,’ she said. ‘Tall, handsome and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes.’
Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. ‘I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud.’
I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.
‘How old was I?’ I asked. ‘I mean… when he left?’
She watched the flames. ‘He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin.’
‘But… he knew me as a baby.’
‘No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born.’
I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember… something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.
I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I’d felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he’d never even seen me…
I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He’d left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.
‘Are you going to send me away again?’ I asked her. ‘To another boarding school?’
She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.
‘I don’t know, honey.’ Her voice was heavy. ‘I think… I think we’ll have to do something.’
‘Because you don’t want me around?’ I regretted the words as soon as they were out.
My mom’s eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. ‘Oh, Percy, no. I – I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away.’
Her words reminded me of what Mr Brunner had said – that it was best for me to leave Yancy.
‘Because I’m not normal,’ I said.
‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing, Percy. But you don’t realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you’d finally be safe.’
‘Safe from what?’
She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me – all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I’d tried to forget.
During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.
Before that – a really early memory. I was in pre school, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I’d somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.
In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.
I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my maths teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn’t make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn’t want that.
‘I’ve tried to keep you as close to me as I could,’ my mom said. ‘They told me that was a mistake. But there’s only one other option, Percy – the place your father wanted to send you. And I just… I just can’t stand to do it.’
‘My father wanted me to go to a special school?’
‘Not a school,’ she said softly. ‘A summer camp.’
My head was spinning. Why would my dad – who hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see me born – talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn’t she ever mentioned it before?
‘I’m sorry, Percy,’ she said, seeing the look in my eyes. ‘But I can’t talk about it. I – I couldn’t send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good.’
‘For good? But if it’s only a summer camp…’
She turned towards the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.
That night I had a vivid dream.
It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse’s muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle’s wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
I ran towards them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse’s wide eyes, and I screamed, No!
I woke with a start.
Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and five-metre-high waves pounding the dunes like artillery.
With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, ‘Hurricane.’
I knew that was crazy. Long Island never saw hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.
Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice – someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.
Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn’t… he wasn’t exactly Grover.
‘Searching all night,’ he gasped. ‘What were you thinking?’
My mother looked at me in terror – not scared of Grover, but of why he’d come.
‘Percy,’ she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. ‘What happened at school? What didn’t you tell me?’
I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
‘O Zeu kai alloi theoi!’ he yelled. ‘It’s right behind me! Didn’t you tell her?’
I was too shocked to register that he’d just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I’d understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had got here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn’t have his trousers on – and where his legs should be… where his legs should be…
My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she’d never used before:’Percy. Tell me now!’
I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, ‘Get to the car. Both of you. Go!’
Grover ran for the Camaro – but he wasn’t running, exactly. He was trotting,
shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.
Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.
4 My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting
We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn’t know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I’d gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet trousers. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo – lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All I could think to say was, ‘So, you and my mum… know each other?’
Grover’s eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘I mean, we’ve never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.’
‘Watching me?’
‘Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn’t faking being your friend,’ he added hastily. ‘I am your friend.’
‘Um… what are you, exactly?’
‘That doesn’t matter right now.’
‘It doesn’t matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey –’
Grover let out a sharp, throaty ‘Blaa-ha-ha!’
I’d heard him make that sound before, but I’d always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.
‘Goat!’ he cried.
‘What?’
‘I’m a goat from the waist down.’
‘You just said it didn’t matter.’
‘Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!’
‘Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like… Mr Brunner’s myths?’
‘Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs Dodds a myth?’
‘So you admit there was a Mrs Dodds!’
‘Of course.’
‘Then why –’
‘The less you knew, the fewer monsters you’d attract,’ Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. ‘We put Mist over the humans’ eyes. We hoped you’d think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are.’
‘Who I – wait a minute, what do you mean?’
The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
‘Percy,’ my mom said, ‘there’s too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety.’
‘Safety from what? Who’s after me?’
‘Oh, nobody much,’ Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. ‘Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.’
‘Grover!’
‘Sorry, Mrs Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?’
I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn’t do it. I knew this wasn’t a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘The summer camp I told you about.’ My mother’s voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. ‘The place your father wanted to send you.’
‘The place you didn’t want me to go.’
‘Please, dear,’ my mother begged. ‘This is hard enough. Try to understand. You’re in danger.’
‘Because some old ladies cut yarn.’
‘Those weren’t old ladies,’ Grover said. ‘Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means – the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you’re about to… when someone’s about to die.’
‘Whoa. You said “you”.’
‘No I didn’t. I said “someone”.’
‘You meant “you”. As in me.’
‘I meant you, like “someone”. Not you, you.’
‘Boys!’ my mom said.
She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she’d swerved to avoid – a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘We’re almost there,’ my mother said, ignoring my question. ‘Another mile. Please. Please. Please.’
I didn’t know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness – the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs Dodds and the moment when she’d changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn’t been human. She’d meant to kill me.
Then I thought about Mr Brunner… and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.
I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried and hosed down all at the same time.
I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver’s seat and said, ‘Ow.’
‘Percy!’ my mom shouted.
‘I’m okay….’
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn’t dead. The car hadn’t really exploded. We’d swerved into a ditch. Our driver’s-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning. That was the only explanation. We’d been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. ‘Grover!’
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to die!
Then he groaned, ‘Food,’ and I knew there was hope.
‘Percy,’ my mother said, ‘we have to…’ Her voice faltered.
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering towards us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
I swallowed hard. ‘Who is –’
‘Percy,’ my mother said, deadly serious. ‘Get out of the car.’
My mother threw herself against the driver’s-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might’ve been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
‘Climb out the passenger’s side!’ my mother told me. ‘Percy – you have to run. Do you see that big tree?’
‘What?’
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas-tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
‘That’s the property line,’ my mom said. ‘Get over that hill and you’ll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don’t look back. Yell for help. Don’t stop until you reach the door.’
‘Mom, you’re coming, too.’
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover.’
‘Food!’ Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming towards us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn’t be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands – huge meaty hands – were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass
that was too big to be his head… was his head. And the points that looked like horns…
‘He doesn’t want us,’ my mother told me. ‘He wants you. Besides, I can’t cross the property line.’
‘But…’
‘We don’t have time, Percy. Go. Please.’
I got mad, then – mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering towards us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.
I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. ‘We’re going together. Come on, Mom.’
‘I told you –’
‘Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover.’
I didn’t wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn’t have carried him very far if my mom hadn’t come to my aid.
Together, we draped Grover’s arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine – bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other ‘ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear – I mean, bright white Fruit-of-the-Looms, which would’ve been funny except for the top half of his body. Coarse brown hair started at about his bellybutton and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns – enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn’t get from an electric sharpener.
I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr Brunner told us. But he couldn’t be real.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. ‘That’s –’
‘Pasiphae’s son,’ my mother said. ‘I wish I’d known how badly they want to kill you.’
‘But a he’s a min–’
‘Don’t say his name,’ she warned. ‘Names have power.’