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“I need to talk to Clarisse,” Annabeth said. I stared at her as if she’d just said I need to eat a large, smelly boot. “What for?”
“Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!” I hoped he didn’t mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely, we’d have a lot of fun this summer. I couldn’t help smiling, he was so enthusiastic about everything.
Yo, boss! He capered around in his stall, his black wings buffeting the air. Ya bring me some sugar cubes? “You know those aren’t good for you, Blackjack.” Yeah, so you brought me some, huh? I smiled and fed him a handful.
Blackjack crunched down his sugar cubes. He shook his mane like he was having a sugar seizure. Whoa! Good stuff! Well, boss, you come to your senses and want to fly somewhere, just give a whistle. Ole Blackjack and his buddies, we’ll stampede anybody for ya!
We met in the sword arena, which I thought was pretty strange—trying to discuss the fate of the camp while Mrs. O’Leary chewed on a life-size squeaky pink rubber yak.
I realized everyone was watching Annabeth and me like a tennis match. Mrs. O’Leary’s squeaky yak went EEK! as she ripped off its pink rubber head.
I paced the arena, waiting. Mrs. O’Leary ate her lunch, which consisted of a hundred pounds of ground beef and several dog biscuits the size of trash-can lids. I wondered where Quintus got dog biscuits that size. I didn’t figure you could just walk into Pet Zone and put those in your shopping cart.
I stepped forward and hugged her. Butterflies started turning my stomach into a mosh pit.
“Well,” Grover said nervously, “good-bye sunshine.” “Hello rocks,” Tyson agreed. And together, the four of us descended into darkness.
I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. “You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.” Rachel looked embarrassed. “It was the only thing I had.”
“But my name, Pan…originally it meant rustic. Did you know that? But over the years it has come to mean all. The spirit of the wild must pass to all of you now. You must tell each one you meet: if you would find Pan, take up Pan’s spirit. Remake the wild, a little at a time, each in your own corner of the world. You cannot wait for anyone else, even a god, to do that for you.”
But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.” He left me alone to think about that. And as I watched Clarisse and Chris singing a stupid campfire song together, holding hands in the darkness, where they thought nobody could see them, I had to smile.
