The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)

by Rick Riordan

Grover didn’t say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “Can I have your apple?”

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse’s trunk.

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn’t have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They’d had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

“Poseidon,” said Chiron. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”