The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1)

by Rick Riordan

“I’m Meg McCaffrey!” Meg blew me a raspberry. “And I claim your service!” Overhead, thunder rumbled in the gray sky. The sound echoed through the city canyons like divine laughter. Whatever was left of my pride turned to ice water and trickled into my socks. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?” “Yep!” Meg bounced up and down in her red sneakers. “We’re going to have fun!” With great difficulty, I resisted the urge to weep.

I raised my face to the heavens. “Please, Father, I get the point. Please, I can’t do this!” Zeus did not answer. He was probably too busy recording my humiliation to share on Snapchat.

Had I still been a god, I would have turned her into a blue-belly lizard and released her into the wilderness never to be seen again. The thought soothed me.

The others seemed confused. Then the glow became brighter: a holographic golden sickle with a few sheaves of wheat, rotating just above Meg McCaffrey. A boy in the crowd gasped. “She’s a communist!”

Practice makes perfect Ha, ha, ha, I don’t think so Ignore my sobbing