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The whole middle school had read this book called Lord of the Flies,
Laistrygonians
“Laistry—I can’t even say that. What would you call them in English?” She thought about it for a moment. “Canadians,” she decided.
Tyson nodded. “But you are…Son of the Sea God?” “Yeah,” I admitted. “My dad is Poseidon.” Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. “But then…”
GYAR SSIRES—
“30, 31, 75, 12!” Anger wailed. “That’s all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!”
“Percy, do you know what those are up there? The Colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. We can’t fight them without Medea’s Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We’ll get burned to a crisp.”
The bull must’ve been as surprised as I was, because before it could unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull’s face. “BAD COW!”
“Tyson,” I stammered. “You’re a…” “Cyclops,” Annabeth offered. “A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn’t get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson’s one of the homeless orphans.” “One of the what?” “They’re in almost all the big cities,” Annabeth said distastefully. “They’re…mistakes, Percy. Children of nature spirits and gods…Well, one god in particular, usually…and they don’t always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don’t know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to
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Ever come home and found your room messed up? Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to “clean” it, and suddenly you can’t find anything?
Somebody had messed with my favorite place in the world, and I was not…well, a happy camper.
None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw. “Whasthat!” he gasped. “The stables for pegasi,” I said. “The winged horses.” “Whasthat!” “Um…those are the toilets.” “Whasthat!” “The cabins for the campers. If they don’t know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin—that brown one over there—until you’re determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom’s group.” He looked at me in awe. “You…have a cabin?”
As soon as we saw him, Tyson froze. “Pony!” he cried in total rapture.
Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.
I’d always thought it was funny that the god of thieves would have kids with the last name “Stoll,” but the only time I mentioned it to Travis and Connor, they both stared at me blankly like they didn’t get the joke.
Tantalus scooted away from Tyson in surprise. All I could do was stare in disbelief at the brilliant green light that was about to change my life—a dazzling holographic image that had appeared above Tyson’s head. With a sickening twist in my stomach, I remembered what Annabeth had said about Cyclopes, They’re the children of nature spirits and gods…Well, one god in particular, usually… Swirling over Tyson was a glowing green trident—the same symbol that had appeared above me the day Poseidon had claimed me as his son.
I had a new cabin mate. I had a monster for a half-brother.
She glanced at Tyson, who’d lost interest in our conversation and was happily making toy boats out of cups and spoons in the lava.
The bonfire was enchanted, so the louder you sang, the higher it rose, changing color and heat with the mood of the crowd. On a good night, I’d seen it twenty feet high, bright purple, and so hot the whole front row’s marshmallows burst into the flames. Tonight, the fire was only five feet high, barely warm, and the flames were the color of lint.
He came forward with a toasted marshmallow on a stick and tried to pluck it off, real casual-like. But before he could touch it, the marshmallow flew off the stick. Tantalus made a wild grab, but the marshmallow committed suicide, diving into the flames.
“Daddy always cared for m-me,” he sniffled. “Now…I think he was mean to have a Cyclops boy. I should not have been born.”
“Percy,” Annabeth said, trying to keep her cool, “we’re going to Polyphemus’s island! Polyphemus is an S-i-k…a C-y-k…” She stamped her foot in frustration. As smart as she was, Annabeth was dyslexic, too. We could’ve been there all night while she tried to spell Cyclops. “You know what I mean!”
Finally it was just Tyson in the water. His hippocampus was treating him to 360º aerials and backward ollies, and Tyson was laughing so hysterically, the sound echoed up the side of the ship.
“Oh my gods, how did the Princess Andromeda travel so far overnight? That’s like—” “Five hundred and thirty nautical miles,” I said. She stared at me. “How did you know that?” “I—I’m not sure.” Annabeth thought for a moment. “Percy, what’s our position?” “36 degrees, 44 minutes north, 76 degrees, 2 minutes west,” I said immediately. Then I shook my head. “Whoa. How did I know that?” “Because of your dad,” Annabeth guessed. “When you’re at sea, you have perfect bearings. That is so cool.”
“Powdered donuts,” Tyson said earnestly. “I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness.” He headed outside and started calling, “Here, donuts!”
“Percy!” Annabeth scolded. “You just opened another Monster Donut shop somewhere!”
“Knowledge isn’t always good for you.” “Your mom is the wisdom goddess!”
The water! Sound didn’t travel well underwater. If I could submerge her long enough, I could break the spell of the music. Of course, Annabeth wouldn’t be able to breathe, but at the moment, that seemed like a minor problem.
She pulled her blanket around her. “My fatal flaw. That’s what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.” I blinked. “That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?” She rolled her eyes. “No, Seaweed Brain. That’s hummus. Hubris is worse.” “What could be worse than hummus?”
We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good. Once, I lost my grip and I found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was my face.
Polyphemus patted my sheep and nearly knocked me to the ground. “Putting on some extra mutton there?” Uh-oh, I thought. Here it comes. But Polyphemus just laughed and swatted the sheep’s rear end, propelling us forward. “Go on, fatty! Soon Polyphemus will eat you for breakfast!”
I wanted to hug the big oaf, except he was standing in the middle of killer sheep. “Tyson, thank the gods. Annabeth is hurt!” “You thank the gods she is hurt?” he asked, puzzled.
Which reminded me…I still owed the gods a debt. “You’re a genius,” I told Annabeth quietly. Then I put my head against the Fleece, and before I knew it, I was asleep, too.
They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned. I couldn’t tell whether they had come to celebrate or attack. Apparently both. As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom-made arrow with a leather boxing glove on the end. It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the swimming pool.
His warriors scattered. I couldn’t blame them. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion is scary enough, but when it’s a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior would retreat.
“Dude!” the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson’s weight. “Do the words ‘low-carb diet’ mean anything to you?”
Chiron sighed. He set Annabeth and Grover down on a picnic blanket next to me. “I really wish my cousins wouldn’t slam their heads together. They don’t have the brain cells to spare.”
I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but it made me worried about what Luke had said: I was going to let you take the Fleece…once I was done with it.
“That’s right,” he said. “Humans don’t exist on the same level as the immortals. They can’t even be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy—you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That’s what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal. Monsters never die. They are reborn from the chaos and barbarism that is always bubbling underneath civilization, the very stuff that makes Kronos stronger. They must be defeated again and again, kept at bay. Heroes embody that struggle. You fight the
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“Percy,” Chiron said, his voice impossibly soft. “The titan Kronos is my father.”
“Hello, Percy. Didn’t recognize me without my jogging clothes?” “Uh…” I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to kneel or buy stamps from him or what.
Hermes shrugged. “Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related, for better or worse…and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”
Did you bring me a rat? George asked. “No…” I said. “Uh, we didn’t find any.” What about a guinea pig? George! Martha chided. Don’t tease the boy.
“I know what you will tell me,” Tyson said, looking ashamed. “Poseidon did care for me after all.” “Uh, well—” “He sent you to help me. Just what I asked for.” I blinked. “You asked Poseidon for…me?” “For a friend,” Tyson said, twisting his shirt in his hands.
“The scars on your back?” A tear welled in his eye. “Sphinx on Seventy-second Street. Big bully. I prayed to Daddy for help. Soon the people at Meriwether found me. Met you. Biggest blessing ever. Sorry I said Poseidon was mean. He sent me a brother.”
The crowd didn’t want to be quiet, but Annabeth made herself heard: “We couldn’t have done it without somebody else! We couldn’t have won this race or gotten the Fleece or saved Grover or anything! We owe our lives to Tyson, Percy’s…” “Brother!” I said, loud enough for everybody to hear. “Tyson, my baby brother.”
“I am Thalia,” the girl said. “Daughter of Zeus.”
