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

by Rick Riordan

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.

He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god’s symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it.”

“Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight.”

You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend. Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

I was ready to take him on. Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld… Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You’re a kid. Hades is a god.

“Percy, think,” Chiron said. “You are the son of the Sea God. Your father’s bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus’s domain. You would never come down again alive.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain,” she said. “Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you’re going to save the world, I’m the best person to keep you from messing up.” “If you do say so yourself,” I said. “I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?”

“Percy, that’s a gift from your father. I’ve kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one.” I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I’d vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be…?

“Use it only for emergencies,” Chiron said, “and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn’t harm them in any case.”

They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable.”

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

Chiron pursed his lips. “Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born.”

“Braccas meas vescimini!” I yelled. I wasn’t sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant “Eat my pants!”

In a way, it’s nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you’re walking away from a bus that’s just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it’s raining on top of everything else, most people might think that’s just really bad luck; when you’re a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

“If I could just remember a ‘find path’ song, we could get out of these woods!” He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.

“What the heck does that say?” I asked. “I don’t know,” Annabeth said. She loved reading so much, I’d forgotten she was dyslexic, too.

According to one freight bill, the Underworld’s billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.

I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box. I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa’s head, and filled out a delivery slip: The Gods Mount Olympus 600th Floor, Empire State Building New York, NY With best wishes, PERCY JACKSON

They’ve polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr.” “Oh, yeah. I guess you’d be an environmentalist.”

“Only a human wouldn’t be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast…ah, never mind. It’s useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I’ll never find Pan.”

“Pam? Like the cookin...

“Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I’ll succeed. I’ll be the first searcher to return alive.” “Hang on—the first?”

“Your first keeper job was five years ago. Annabeth has been at camp five years. She wasn’t…I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—” “I can’t talk about it,”

“The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy…why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren’t as aggressive as they could’ve been.”

“Look, Percy, I’m not as smart as Annabeth. I’m not as brave as you. But I’m pretty good at reading emotions. You’re glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he’s claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That’s why you mailed Medusa’s head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you’d done.”

“My dad’s resented me since the day I was born, Percy,” she said. “He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn’t happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent.”

“I want to do that,” she sighed. “What?” I asked. “Build something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Percy?” “Only in pictures.” “Someday, I’m going to see it in person. I’m going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that’ll last a thousand years.”

Second realization: I wasn’t wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.

Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn’t in my head. I wasn’t imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

Luke shouted to me over the music. “Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus–Poseidon standoff. We’re still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It’s shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus.”

The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where’s My Swimsuit?

“Like you said, Percy, a seven-year-old half-blood wouldn’t have made it very far alone. Athena guided me toward help. Thalia was twelve. Luke was fourteen. They’d both run away from home, like me. They were happy to take me with them. They were…amazing monster-fighters, even without training. We traveled north from Virginia without any real plans, fending off monsters for about two weeks before Grover found us.”

“So if the gods fight,” I said, “will things line up the way they did with the Trojan War? Will it be Athena versus Poseidon?” She put her head against the backpack Ares had given us, and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what my mom will do. I just know I’ll fight next to you.” “Why?” “Because you’re my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?” I couldn’t

“I placed a satyr’s sanctuary on them.” “Meaning?” “Meaning they’ll reach the wild safely,” he said. “They’ll find water, food, shade, whatever they need until they find a safe place to live.”

“Do not judge the Lord of the Sea too harshly,” the Nereid told me. “He stands at the brink of an unwanted war. He has much to occupy his time. Besides, he is forbidden to help you directly. The gods may not show such favoritism.” “Even to their own children?” “Especially to them. The gods can work by indirect influence only. That is why I give you a warning, and a gift.”

“I know you journey to Hades’s realm,” she said. “Few mortals have ever done this and survived: Orpheus, who had great music skill; Hercules, who had great strength; Houdini, who could escape even the depths of Tartarus. Do you have these talents?”

You have gifts you have only begun to know. The oracles have foretold a great and terrible future for you, should you survive to manhood. Poseidon would not have you die before your time. Therefore take these, and when you are in need, smash a pearl at your feet.”

But remember: what belongs to the sea will always return to the sea.”

“Oh, right!” he chimed in. “We got this far. We’ll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem.”

“Polluted,” Charon said. “For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me.”

I thought about that as we waited for the ghouls to pass. I pretended not to see Annabeth wipe a tear from her cheek as she listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance, longing for his new friend.

What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades’s underwear?

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades’s fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after me right now. But at the moment, the Underworld wasn’t my biggest problem. I had to get to shore. I had to get Zeus’s thunderbolt back to Olympus. Most of all, I had to have a serious conversation with the god who’d tricked me.

They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around our shoulders and water bottles that said I’M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

My senses were working overtime. I now understood what Annabeth had said about ADHD keeping you alive in battle. I was wide awake, noticing every little detail.

“You have made an enemy, godling,” he told me. “You have sealed your fate. Every time you raise your blade in battle, every time you hope for success, you will feel my curse. Beware, Perseus Jackson. Beware.”

“Fly,” I agreed. She stared at me. “Fly, like, in an airplane, which you were warned never to do lest Zeus strike you out of the sky, and carrying a weapon that has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb?” “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much exactly like that. Come on.”

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake. This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Finally, brave Percy Jackson (I was beginning to like this kid) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach.

“All I want,” I said, choking back my tears, “is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew…somehow…we would be okay. And I know he’ll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here’s the phone number.” The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for three tickets on the next plane to New York.