MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHERLook, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now.Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nastyways.If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you forbeing able to believe that none of this ever happened.But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop readingimediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a mater of time before theysense it too, and they’ll come for you.Don’t say I didn’t warn you.My name is Percy Jackson.I’m twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, aprivate school for troubled kids in upstate New York.Am I a troubled kid?Yeah. You could say that.I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going badlast May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhatan- twenty-eight mental-case kids andtwo teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancientGreek and Roman stuff.I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.But Mr. Bruner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.Mr. Bruner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thining hair and ascruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn’t think he’dbe cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesomecollection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn’t put me tosleep.I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn’t get in trouble.Boy, was I wrong.See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to theSaratoga batlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War canon. I wasn’t aiming for theschool bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when wetook a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on thecatwalk and our class took an unplaned swim. And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.This trip, I was determined to be good.All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,hiting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut buter-and-ketchupsandwich.Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must’ve beenheld back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispybeard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the restof his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funy, like every stephurt him, but don’t let that fool you. You should’ve seen him run when it was enchilada day in thecafeteria.Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, andshe knew I couldn’t do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster hadthreatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildlyentertaining happened on this trip.“I’m going to kill her,” I mumbled.Grover tried to calm me down. “It’s okay. I like peanut buter.”He dodged another piece of Nancy’s lunch.“That’s it.” I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.“You’re already on probation,” he reminded me. “You know who’ll get blamed if anythinghappens.”Looking back on it, I wish I’d decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspensionwould’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.Mr. Bruner led the museum tour.He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marblestatues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange potery.It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and startedtelling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings onthe sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, buteverybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone,Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.Mrs. Dodds was this litle math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket,even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervousbreakdown.From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She wouldpoint her crooked finger at me and say, “Now, honey,” real sweet, and I knew I was going to getafter-school detention for a month.One time, after she’d made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I toldGrover I didn’t think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, “You’reabsolutely right.”Mr. Bruner kept talking about Greek funeral art.Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned aroundand said, “Will you shut up?”It came out louder than I meant it to.The whole group laughed. Mr. Bruner stopped his story.“Mr. Jackson,” he said, “did you have a coment?”My face was totally red. I said, “No, sir.”Mr. Bruner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. “Perhaps you’ll tell us what this picturerepresents?”I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. “That’s Kronoseating his kids, right?”“Yes,” Mr. Bruner said, obviously not satisfied. “And he did this because …”“Well…” I racked my brain to remember. “Kronos was the king god, and-““God?” Mr. Bruner asked.“Titan,” I corrected myself. “And … he didn’t trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronosate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, whenZeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-““Eeew!” said one of the girls behind me.“-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,” I continued, “and the godswon.”Some snickers from the group.Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, “Like we’re going to use this in real life. Likeit’s going to say on our job applications, ‘Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.’”“And why, Mr. Jackson,” Bruner said, “to paraphrase Miss Bobofit’s excellent question, doesthis mater in real life?”“Busted,” Grover mutered.“Shut up,” Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Bruner was the only one who ever caught her sayinganything wrong. He had radar ears.I thought about his question, and shruged. “I don’t know, sir.”“I see.” Mr. Bruner looked disappointed. “Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feedKronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, ofcourse, being imortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan’sstomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scatered hisremains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it’s time for lunch. Mrs.Dodds, would you lead us back outside?”The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around andacting like doofuses.Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Bruner said, “Mr. Jackson.”I knew that was coming.I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Bruner. “Sir?”Mr. Bruner had this look that wouldn’t let you go- intense brown eyes that could’ve been athousand years old and had seen everything.“You must learn the answer to my question,” Mr. Bruner told me.“About the Titans?”“About real life. And how your studies apply to it.”“Oh.”“What you learn from me,” he said, “is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I willaccept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.”I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Romanarmor and shouted: “What ho!’” and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board andname every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god theyworshipped. But Mr. Bruner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that Ihave dyslexia and atention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn’texpect me to be as good; he expected me to be beter. And I just couldn’t learn all those names andfacts, much less spell them correctly.I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Bruner took one long sad look at the stele,like he’d been at this girl’s funeral.He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic alongFifth Avenue.Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I’d ever seen over the city. Ifigured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York statehad been weird since Christmas. We’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightningstrikes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers.Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady’s purse, and, of course, Mrs. Doddswasn’t seeing a thing.Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if wedid that, everybody wouldn’t know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks whocouldn’t make it elsewhere.“Detention?” Grover asked.“Nah,” I said. “Not from Bruner. I just wish he’d lay off me sometimes. I mean-I’m not agenius.”Grover didn’t say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deepphilosophical coment to make me feel beter, he said, “Can I have your apple?”I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom’s apartment,only a litle ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad tojump in a taxi and head home. She’d hug me and be glad to see me, but she’d be disappointed, too.She’d send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixthschool in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn’t be able to stand thatsad look she’d give me.Mr. Bruner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while heread a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like amotorized cafe table.I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her uglyfriends-I guess she’d goten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch inGrover’s lap.“Oops.” She grined at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody hadspray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, “Count to ten, get control ofyour temper.” But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.I don’t remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was siting on her butt in thefountain, screaming, “Percy pushed me!”Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.Some of the kids were whispering: “Did you see-““-the water-““-like it grabbed her-“I didn’t know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor litle Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt atthe museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, asif I’d done something she’d been waiting for all semester. “Now, honey-““I know,” I grumbled. “A month erasing workbooks.”That wasn’t the right thing to say.“Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said.“Wait!” Grover yelped. “It was me. I pushed her.”I stared at him, stuned. I couldn’t believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scaredGrover to death.She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.“I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she said.“But-““You-will-stay-here.”Grover looked at me desperately.“It’s okay, man,” I told him. “Thanks for trying.”“Honey,” Mrs. Dodds barked at me. “Now.”Nancy Bobofit smirked.I gave her my deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn’tthere. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently atme to come on.How’d she get there so fast?I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I knowI’ve missed something, as if a puzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blankplace behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpretingthings.I wasn’t so sure.I went after Mrs. Dodds.Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cuting his eyes between meand Mr. Bruner, like he wanted Mr. Bruner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Bruner wasabsorbed in his novel.I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the endof the entrance hall.Okay, I thought. She’s going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.But apparently that wasn’t the plan.I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in theGreek and Roman section.Except for us, the gallery was empty.Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. Shewas making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.Even without the noise, I would’ve been nervous. It’s weird being alone with a teacher,especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted topulverize it…“You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said.I did the safe thing. I said, “Yes, ma’am.”She tuged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “Did you really think you would get away with it?”The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.She’s a teacher, I thought nervously. It’s not like she’s going to hurt me.I said, “I’ll-I’ll try harder, ma’am.”Thunder shook the building.“We are not fools, Percy Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said. “It was only a mater of time before wefound you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.”I didn’t know what she was talking about.All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been sellingout of my dorm room. Or maybe they’d realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internetwithout ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they weregoing to make me read the book.“Well?” she demanded.“Ma’am, I don’t…”“Your time is up,” she hissed.Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingersstretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human. Shewas a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about toslice me to ribbons.Then things got even stranger.Mr. Bruner, who’d been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into thedoorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.“What ho, Percy!” he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen outof the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn’t a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Bruner’s bronzesword, which he always used on tournament day.Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.She snarled, “Die, honey!”And she flew straight at me.Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.Hisss!Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized onthe spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as ifthose two glowing red eyes were still watching me.I was alone.There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.Mr. Bruner wasn’t there. Nobody was there but me.My hands were still trembling. My lunch must’ve been contaminated with magic mushrooms orsomething.Had I imagined the whole thing?I went back outside.It had started to rain.Grover was siting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was stillstanding there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me,she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your but.”I said, “Who?”“Our teacher. Duh!”I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.She just rolled her eyes and turned away.I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.He said, “Who?”But he paused first, and he wouldn’t look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.“Not funy, man,” I told him. “This is serious.”Thunder boomed overhead.I saw Mr. Bruner siting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved.I went over to him.He looked up, a litle distracted. “Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writingutensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.”I handed Mr. Bruner his pen. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it.“Sir,” I said, “where’s Mrs. Dodds?”He stared at me blankly. “Who?”“The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher.”He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. “Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on thistrip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling allright?”

THE SOCKS OF DEATHI was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twentyfour/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entirecampus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completelyand totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I’d never seen in my life until shegot on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could tripthem up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.Almost.But Grover couldn’t fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, thenclaim she didn’t exist. But I knew he was lying.Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.I didn’t have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds withtalons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.The freak weather continued, which didn’t help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out thewindows in my dorm room. A few days later, the bigest tornado ever spoted in the Hudson Valleytouched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in socialstudies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in theAtlantic that year.I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got intomore fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazyto study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, but itsounded good.The headmaster sent my mom a leter the following week, making it official: I would not beinvited back next year to Yancy Academy.Fine, I told myself. Just fine.I was homesick.I wanted to be with my mom in our litle apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go topublic school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.And yet… there were things I’d miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, theHudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I’d miss Grover, who’d been a good friend,even if he was a litle strange. I worried how he’d survive next year without me.I’d miss Latin class, too-Mr. Bruner’s crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn’t forgoten what Mr.Bruner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d startedto believe him.The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythologyacross my dorm room. Words had started swiming off the page, circling my head, the leters doingone-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember thedifference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latinverbs? Forget it.I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.I remembered Mr. Bruner’s serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept onlythe best from you, Percy Jackson.I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.I’d never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Bruner, he could give mesome pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn’twant to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn’t tried.I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Bruner’sdoor was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Bruner asked aquestion. A voice that was definitely Grover’s said “… worried about Percy, sir.”I froze.I’m not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friendtalking about you to an adult.I inched closer.“… alone this sumer,” Grover was saying. “I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that weknow for sure, and they know too-““We would only make maters worse by rushing him,” Mr. Bruner said. “We need the boy tomature more.”“But he may not have time. The sumer solstice deadline- ““Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can.”“Sir, he saw her… .”“His imagination,” Mr. Bruner insisted. “The Mist over the students and staff will be enough toconvince him of that.”“Sir, I … I can’t fail in my duties again.” Grover’s voice was choked with emotion. “You knowwhat that would mean.”“You haven’t failed, Grover,” Mr. Bruner said kindly. “I should have seen her for what she was.Now let’s just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-“The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.Mr. Bruner went silent.My heart hamering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Bruner’s office door, the shadow of something muchtaller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer’sbow.I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound likean animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then movedon.A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Bruner spoke. “Nothing,” he murmured. “My nerves haven’tbeen right since the winter solstice.”“Mine neither,” Grover said. “But I could have sworn …”“Go back to the dorm,” Mr. Bruner told him. “You’ve got a long day of exams tomorrow.”“Don’t remind me.”The lights went out in Mr. Bruner’s office.I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he’d been there all night.“Hey,” he said, bleary-eyed. “You going to be ready for this test?”I didn’t answer.“You look awful.” He frowned. “Is everything okay?”“Just… tired.”I turned so he couldn’t read my expression, and started geting ready for bed.I didn’t understand what I’d heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I’d imagined the whole thing.But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Bruner were talking about me behind my back. Theythought I was in some kind of danger.The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swiming with all theGreek and Roman names I’d misspelled, Mr. Bruner called me back inside.For a moment, I was worried he’d found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but thatdidn’t seem to be the problem.“Percy,” he said. “Don’t be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It’s … it’s for the best.”His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, theother kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic litle kissingmotions with her lips.I mumbled, “Okay, sir.”“I mean …” Mr. Bruner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn’t sure what to say. “Thisisn’t the right place for you. It was only a mater of time.”My eyes stung.Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. After saying hebelieved in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.“Right,” I said, trembling.“No, no,” Mr. Bruner said. “Oh, confound it all. What I’m trying to say … you’re not normal,Percy. That’s nothing to be-““Thanks,” I blurted. “Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.“Percy-“But I was already gone.On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on ahiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juveniledelinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, orambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.They asked me what I’d be doing this sumer and I told them I was going back to the city.What I didn’t tell them was that I’d have to get a sumer job walking dogs or selling magazinesubscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I’d go to school in the fall.“Oh,” one of the guys said. “That’s cool.”They went back to their conversation as if I’d never existed.The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to.He’d booked a ticket to Manhatan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again,heading into the city.During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the otherpassengers. It occurred to me that he’d always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if heexpected something bad to happen. Before, I’d always assumed he was worried about geting teased.But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.I said, “Looking for Kindly Ones?”Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. “Wha-what do you mean?”I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Bruner the night before the exam.Grover’s eye twitched. “How much did you hear?”“Oh … not much. What’s the sumer solstice dead-line?”He winced. “Look, Percy … I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demonmath teachers …”“Grover-““And I was telling Mr. Bruner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because therewas no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and …”“Grover, you’re a really, really bad liar.”His ears turned pink.From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. “Just take this, okay? In case you needme this sumer.The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made outsomething like:Grover UnderwoodKeeperHalf-Blood HillLong Island, New York(800) 009-0009“What’s Half-““Don’t say it aloud!” he yelped. “That’s my, um … sumer address.”My heart sank. Grover had a sumer home. I’d never considered that his family might be as richas the others at Yancy.“Okay,” I said glumly. “So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion.”He nodded. “Or … or if you need me.”“Why would I need you?”It came out harsher than I meant it to.Grover blushed right down to his Adam’s apple. “Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have toprotect you.”I stared at him.All year long, I’d goten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I’d lost sleep worrying thathe’d get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defendedme.“Grover,” I said, “what exactly are you protecting me from?”There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and thewhole bus filled with a smell like roten egs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over tothe side of the highway.After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver anounced that we’dall have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.We were on a stretch of country road-no place you’d notice if you didn’t break down there. Onour side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and liter from passing cars. On the other side,across four lanes of asphalt shimering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts andapricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladiessiting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, kniting the bigest pair of socks I’d ever seen.I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the rightknited one of them. The lady on the left knited the other. The lady in the middle held an enormousbasket of electric-blue yarn.All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied backin white bandanas, bony arms sticking out of bleached coton dresses.The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from hisface. His nose was twitching.“Grover?” I said. “Hey, man-““Tell me they’re not looking at you. They are, aren’t they?”“Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?”“Not funy, Percy. Not funy at all.”The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, likeshears. I heard Grover catch his breath.“We’re geting on the bus,” he told me. “Come on.”“What?” I said. “It’s a thousand degrees in there.”“Come on!’” He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear Icould hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks,leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the enginecompartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.The passengers cheered.“Darn right!” yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. “Everybody back on board!”Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I’d caught the flu.Grover didn’t look much beter. He was shivering and his teeth were chatering.“Grover?”“Yeah?”“What are you not telling me?”He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?”“You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They’re not like … Mrs. Dodds, arethey?”His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were somethingmuch, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, “Just tell me what you saw.”“The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn.”He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might’ve been crossing himself, but itwasn’t. It was something else, something almost-older.He said, “You saw her snip the cord.”“Yeah. So?” But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.“This is not happening,” Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. “I don’t want this tobe like the last time.”“What last time?”“Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth.”“Grover,” I said, because he was really starting to scare me. “What are you talking about?”“Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me.”This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.“Is this like a superstition or something?” I asked.No answer.“Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?”He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I’d like best on mycoffin.

LOSES HIS PANTSConfession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a deadman, mutering “Why does this always happen?” and “Why does it always have to he sixth grade?”Whenever he got upset, Grover’s bladder acted up, so I wasn’t surprised when, as soon as we gotoff the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead ofwaiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.“East One-hundred-and-fourth and First,” I told the driver.A word about my mother, before you meet her.Her name is Sally Jackson and she’s the best person in the world, which just proves my theorythat the best people have the rotenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,and she was raised by an uncle who didn’t care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so shespent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program.Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After hedied, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.I don’t have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.My mom doesn’t like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.See, they weren’t married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was asecret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never cameback.Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on herown. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn’t an easy kid.Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, thenshowed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I’msorry, but it’s the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic piza wrapped in gym shorts.Between the two of us, we made my mom’s life prety hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, theway he and I got along … well, when I came home is a good example.I walked into our litle apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, SmellyGabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips andbeer cans were strewn all over the carpet.Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, “So, you’re home.”“Where’s my mom?”“Working,” he said. “You got any cash?”That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had aboutthree hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don’tknow why he hadn’t been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the moneyon cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, heexpected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our “guy secret.” Meaning, if I told mymom, he would punch my lights out.“I don’t have any cash,” I told him.He raised a greasy eyebrow.Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smellshould’ve covered up everything else.“You took a taxi from the bus station,” he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucksin change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right,Eddie?”Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. “Come on,Gabe,” he said. “The kid just got here.”“Am I right?” Gabe repeated.Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.“Fine,” I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. “I hopeyou lose.”“Your report card came, brain boy!” he shouted after me. “I wouldn’t act so snooty!”I slamed the door to my room, which really wasn’t my room. During school months, it wasGabe’s “study.” He didn’t study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving mystuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the placesmell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.Gabe’s smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that oldfruit lady’s shears snipping the yarn.But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover’s look of panic-how he’dmade me promise I wouldn’t go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt likesomeone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growinglong, horrible talons.Then I heard my mom’s voice. “Percy?”She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and changecolor in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She’s got a few gray streaks mixed in with her longbrown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it’s like she’s seeing all the goodthings about me, none of the bad. I’ve never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word toanyone, not even me or Gabe.“Oh, Percy.” She huged me tight. “I can’t believe it. You’ve grown since Christmas!”Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world:chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She’d broughtme a huge bag of “free samples,” the way she always did when I came home.We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I atacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran herhand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn’t put in my leters. She didn’t mentionanything about my geting expelled. She didn’t seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her litleboy doing all right?I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really gladto see her.From the other room, Gabe yelled, “Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?”I grited my teeth.My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should’ve been married to a millionaire, not to somejerk like Gabe.For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn’t toodown about the expulsion. I’d lasted almost the whole year this time. I’d made some new friends. I’ddone prety well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn’t been as bad as the headmaster said. I likedYancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I startedchoking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Bruner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn’t seem sobad.Until that trip to the museum …“What?” my mom asked. Her eyes tuged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. “Didsomething scare you?”“No, Mom.”I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but Ithought it would sound stupid.She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn’t push me.“I have a surprise for you,” she said. “We’re going to the beach.”My eyes widened. “Montauk?”“Three nights-same cabin.”“When?”She smiled. “As soon as I get changed.”I couldn’t believe it. My mom and I hadn’t been to Montauk the last two sumers, because Gabesaid there wasn’t enough money.Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, “Bean dip, Sally? Didn’t you hear me?”I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom’s eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: benice to Gabe for a litle while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get outof here.“I was on my way, honey,” she told Gabe. “We were just talking about the trip.”Gabe’s eyes got small. “The trip? You mean you were serious about that?”“I knew it,” I mutered. “He won’t let us go.”“Of course he will,” my mom said evenly. “Your stepfather is just worried about money. That’sall. Besides,” she added, “Gabriel won’t have to setle for bean dip. I’ll make him enough sevenlayer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works.”Gabe softened a bit. “So this money for your trip … it comes out of your clothes budget, right?”“Yes, honey,” my mother said.“And you won’t take my car anywhere but there and back.”“We’ll be very careful.”Gabe scratched his double chin. “Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip … And maybe ifthe kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game.”Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.But my mom’s eyes warned me not to make him mad.Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?“I’m sorry,” I mutered. “I’m really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game.Please go back to it right now.”Gabe’s eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.“Yeah, whatever,” he decided.He went back to his game.“Thank you, Percy,” my mom said. “Once we get to Montauk, we’ll talk more about… whateveryou’ve forgoten to tell me, okay?”For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I’d seen in Grover during the busride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and wentto make Gabe his seven-layer dip.An hour later we were ready to leave.Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom’s bags to the car.He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his ‘78 Camaro-for thewhole weekend.“Not a scratch on this car, brain boy,” he warned me as I loaded the last bag. “Not one litlescratch.”Like I’d be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn’t mater to Gabe. If a seagull so much aspooped on his paint job, he’d find a way to blame me.Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can’texplain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I’d seen Grover make on the bus, asort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement towardGabe. The screen door slamed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up thestaircase as if he’d been shot from a canon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident withthe hinges, but I didn’t stay long enough to find out.I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a litle pastelbox with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spidersin the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.I loved the place.We’d been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She neverexactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she’d met my dad.As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearingfrom her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin’s windows, and went through our usual cleaningroutine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jellybeans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.I guess I should explain the blue food.See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed likea really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She bakedblue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and broughthome blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather thancalling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn’t totally suckered by Gabe. She did have arebellious streak, like me.When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me storiesabout when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about thebooks she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came toMontauk-my father. Mom’s eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things shealways did, but I never got tired of hearing them.“He was kind, Percy,” she said. “Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have hisblack hair, you know, and his green eyes.”Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. “I wish he could see you, Percy. He would beso proud.”I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boywith a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.“How old was I?” I asked. “I mean … when he left?”She watched the flames. “He was only with me for one sumer, Percy. Right here at this beach.This cabin.”“But… he knew me as a baby.”“No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before youwere born.”I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember … something about my father. Awarm glow. A smile.I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I’d feltit must be true. Now, to be told that he’d never even seen me …I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage,for not having the guts to marry my mom. He’d left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.“Are you going to send me away again?” I asked her. “To another boarding school?”She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.“I don’t know, honey.” Her voice was heavy. “I think … I think we’ll have to do something.”“Because you don’t want me around?” I regreted the words as soon as they were out.My mom’s eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. “Oh, Percy, no. I-I haveto, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away.”Her words reminded me of what Mr. Bruner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy.“Because I’m not normal,” I said.“You say that as if it’s a bad thing, Percy. But you don’t realize how important you are. I thoughtYancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you’d finally be safe.”“Safe from what?”She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that hadever happened to me, some of which I’d tried to forget.During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When theteachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I toldthem that under his broad-brimed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down fora nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up andfound me playing with a limp, scaly rope I’d somehow managed to strangle to death with my meatytoddler hands.In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced tomove.I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the artmuseum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But Icouldn’t make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and Ididn’t want that.“I’ve tried to keep you as close to me as I could,” my mom said. “They told me that was amistake. But there’s only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And Ijust… I just can’t stand to do it.”“My father wanted me to go to a special school?”“Not a school,” she said softly. “A sumer camp.”My head was spining. Why would my dad-who hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see meborn- talk to my mom about a sumer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn’t she evermentioned it before?“I’m sorry, Percy,” she said, seeing the look in my eyes. “But I can’t talk about it. I-I couldn’tsend you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good.”“For good? But if it’s only a sumer camp …”She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questionsshe would start to cry.That night I had a vivid dream.It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, weretrying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse’smuzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, theground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals tofight harder.I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was runing in slowmotion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse’s wideeyes, and I screamed, No!I woke with a start.Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. Therewas no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot wavespounding the dunes like artillery.With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, “Hurricane.”I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the sumer. But the oceanseemed to have forgoten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured soundthat made my hair stand on end.Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, poundingon our cabin door.My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn’t… hewasn’t exactly Grover.“Searching all night,” he gasped. “What were you thinking?”My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he’d come.“Percy,” she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. “What happened at school? What didn’t youtell me?”I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.“O Zeu kai alloi theoi!” he yelled. “It’s right behind me! Didn’t you tell her?”I was too shocked to register that he’d just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I’d understood himperfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had goten here by himself in the middle of thenight. Because Grover didn’t have his pants on-and where his legs should be … where his legsshould be …My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she’d never used before: “Percy. Tell menow!”I stamered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom staredat me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, “Get to the car. Both of you. Go!”Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn’t runing, exactly. He was troting, shaking his shagyhindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. Iunderstood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.