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

by Rick Riordan

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I’ve missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

“Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?”

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She’s got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old.

“Come now, Percy. What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. 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.”

People do not forget the gods. Every place they’ve ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings.

Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

He smiled down at me. “The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am.” “But, shouldn’t you be dead?”

“Monsters don’t die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don’t die.”

The letters float off the page when you read, right? That’s because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you’re impulsive, can’t sit still in the classroom. That’s your battlefield reflexes.

“Let’s just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn’t allowed any more quests. Annabeth’s been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate.

and the funny thing was, I didn’t feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos.” “Zeus, Poseidon, Hades.”

“Poseidon,” said Chiron. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

“But I’ve never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!”

Hes so funy omg

The weirdest thing was: it wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn’t committed.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should’ve been named ADHD poster child of the year.

“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.

Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my namesake, Perseus. She wasn’t anywhere near asleep now.

“I’m not saying hello to a pink poodle,” I said. “Forget it.” “Percy,” Annabeth said. “I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle.” The poodle growled. I said hello to the poodle.

“If you are the son of Poseidon,” Echidna hissed, “you would not fear water. Jump, Percy Jackson. Show me that water will not harm you. Jump and retrieve your sword. Prove your bloodline.”

I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.

The ADHD part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades’s underwear?

“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.