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

by Rick Riordan

ook, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that.

I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon.

He cried when he got frustrated.

The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld.

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he’d been at this girl’s funeral.

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I’ve missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it.

All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been selling out of my dorm room.

Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

smell of sulfur

I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom

I’d miss Grover, who’d been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he’d survive next year without me.

I wasn’t sure why, but I’d started to believe him.

his thousand-year-old eyes.

I didn’t want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn’t tried.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

“Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?

Her name is Sally Jackson and she’s the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

When she looks at me, it’s like she’s seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.

I guess I should explain the blue food. See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing.

But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue.

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.

He would be so proud.”

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

“Names have power.

rage filled me like high-octane fuel.

I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I’d just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry,

“He’s the one. He must be.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

“You drool when you sleep.”

“Young man, names are powerful things. You don’t just go around using them for no reason.”

“Wait,” I told Chiron. “You’re telling me there’s such a thing as God.” “Well, now,” Chiron said. “God—capital G, God. That’s a different matter altogether. We shan’t deal with the metaphysical.”

the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?”

People do not forget the gods.

The truth is, I can’t be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish…and I gave up much.

“Monsters don’t die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don’t die.”

What’s the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them.

They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.

I felt that I was home.

I wish I’d known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

our fates were still tied together.

the Big Three agreed they wouldn’t sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage.

children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods.