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

by Rick Riordan

“You just said it didn’t matter.”

They only do that when you’re about to…when someone’s about to die.” “Whoa. You said ‘you.’” “No I didn’t. I said ‘someone.’” “You meant ‘you.’ As in me.” “I meant you, like ‘someone.’ Not you, you.”

dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

Then he groaned “Food,” and I knew there was hope.

“Pasiphae’s son,” my mother said. “I wish I’d known how badly they want to kill you.”

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying. Oops.

My legs tensed. I couldn’t jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature’s head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck. How did I do that? I didn’t have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster’s head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils. The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap! The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife. The monster charged. Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

with grief. I’d just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn’t going to let him go. The last thing I remember is collapsing on

pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess’s. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, “He’s the one. He must be.” “Silence, Annabeth,” the man said. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside.”

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch,

All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest.

hadn’t been a nightmare. “The Minotaur,” I said. “Um, Percy, it isn’t a good idea—”

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

was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with…Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I’d do something.

if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

Instead she said, “You drool when you sleep.”

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

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

“And tell me, Perseus Jackson”—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—

“You’re a god.” “Yes, child.” “A god. You.”

Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods.”

The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods.

Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren’t very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here.”

I BECOME SUPREME LORD OF THE BATHROOM

I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

“Don’t talk like that!” Annabeth told me. “You know how many kids at this camp wish they’d had your chance?” “To get killed?” “To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?”

“Erre es korakas!” Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for ‘Go to the crows!’ though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.

They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us.”

But gods should behave better.

“The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor.” She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. “You are a New Yorker, right?” “Oh, sure.” As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He’d even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I felt that I was home.

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

I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache. The rest of the day, I’d rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at.

I lowered my sword. “Um, sorry.” For a moment,

The chances of you getting a quest…and even if you did, why would you want me along?” “Of course I’d want you along!” Grover stared glumly into the water. “Basket-weaving…Must be nice to have a useful skill.”

“Seventeen years ago,

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn’t seem like much. I wondered, if I’d acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

and there were only four of them,

had a blue horsehair plume on top.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “Glad you wanted me on your team.”

Great, I thought. I’ll miss all the fun, as usual.

“You do that without my help,” I told them. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.

“Not bad, hero.”

“I’m okay.” “No, you’re not,” she said. “Chiron, watch this.”

“Look, I—I don’t know why,” I said, trying to apologize. “I’m sorry.…”