MY BEST FRIEND SHOPSFOR A WEDDING DRESSMy nightmare started like this.I was standing on a deserted street in some litle beach town. It was the middle of the night. Astorm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellowstucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscusbushes, the ocean churned.Florida, I thought. Though I wasn’t sure how I knew that. I’d never been to Florida.Then I heard hooves clatering against the pavement. I turned and saw my friend Grover runingfor his life.Yeah, I said hooves.Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzgoatee and a bad case of acne. He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch himwithout his pants on (which I don’t recomend), you’d never know there was anything un-humanabout him. Bagy jeans and fake feet hide the fact that he’s got furry hindquarters and hooves.Grover had been my best friend in sixth grade. He’d gone on this adventure with me and a girlnamed Anabeth to save the world, but I hadn’t seen him since last July, when he set off alone on adangerous quest-a quest no satyr had ever returned from.Anyway, in my dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the wayhe does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the litle tourist shops and surfboard rentalplaces. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground.Grover was terrified of something behind him. He must’ve just come from the beach. Wet sandwas caked in his fur. He’d escaped from somewhere. He was trying to get away from … something.A bone-ratling growl cut through the storm. Behind Grover, at the far end of the block, a shadowyfigure loomed. It swated aside a street lamp, which burst in a shower of sparks.Grover stumbled, whimpering in fear. He mutered to himself, Have to get away. Have to warnthem!I couldn’t see what was chasing him, but I could hear it mutering and cursing. The ground shookas it got closer. Grover dashed around a street corner and faltered. He’d run into a dead-endcourtyard full of shops. No time to back up. The nearest door had been blown open by the storm. Thesign above the darkened display window read: ST. AUGUSTINE BRIDAL BOUTIQUE.Grover dashed inside. He dove behind a rack of wedding dresses.The monster’s shadow passed in front of the shop. I could smell the thing-a sickening combinationof wet sheep wool and roten meat and that weird sour body odor only monsters have, like a skunkthat’s been living off Mexican food.Grover trembled behind the wedding dresses. The monster’s shadow passed on.Silence except for the rain. Grover took a deep breath. Maybe the thing was gone.Then lightning flashed. The entire front of the store exploded, and a monstrous voice bellowed:“MIIIIINE!”I sat bolt upright, shivering in my bed.There was no storm. No monster.Morning sunlight filtered through my bedroom window.I thought I saw a shadow flicker across the glass-a humanlike shape. But then there was a knockon my bedroom door-my mom called: “Percy, you’re going to be late”-and the shadow at the windowdisappeared.It must’ve been my imagination. A fifth-story window with a rickety old fire escape … therecouldn’t have been anyone out there.“Come on, dear,” my mother called again. “Last day of school. You should be excited! You’vealmost made it.’”“Coming,” I managed.I felt under my pillow. My fingers closed reassuringly around the ballpoint pen I always sleptwith. I brought it out, studied the Ancient Greek writing engraved on the side: Anaklusmos. Riptide.I thought about uncapping it, but something held me back. I hadn’t used Riptide for so long….Besides, my mom had made me promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment after I’dswung a javelin the wrong way and taken out her china cabinet. I put Anaklusmos on my nightstandand draged myself out of bed.I got dressed as quickly as I could. I tried not to think about my nightmare or monsters or theshadow at my window.Have to get away. Have to warn them!What had Grover meant?I made a three-fingered claw over my heart and pushed outward-an ancient gesture Grover hadonce taught me for warding off evil.The dream couldn’t have been real.Last day of school. My mom was right, I should have been excited. For the first time in my life,I’d almost made it an entire year without geting expelled. No weird accidents. No fights in theclassroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill me with poisoned cafeteria food orexploding homework. Tomorrow, I’d be on my way to my favorite place in the world-Camp HalfBlood.Only one more day to go. Surely even I couldn’t mess that up.As usual, I didn’t have a clue how wrong I was.My mom made blue waffles and blue egs for breakfast. She’s funy that way, celebrating specialoccasions with blue food. I think it’s her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventhgrade. Waffles can be blue. Litle miracles like that.I ate at the kitchen table while my mom washed dishes. She was dressed in her work uniform-astarry blue skirt and a red-and-white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Herlong brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.The waffles tasted great, but I guess I wasn’t diging in like I usually did. My mom looked overand frowned. “Percy, are you all right?”“Yeah … fine.”But she could always tell when something was bothering me. She dried her hands and sat downacross from me. “School, or …”She didn’t need to finish. I knew what she was asking.“I think Grover’s in trouble,” I said, and I told her about my dream.She pursed her lips. We didn’t talk much about the other part of my life. We tried to live asnormally as possible, but my mom knew all about Grover.“I wouldn’t be too worried, dear,” she said. “Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem,I’m sure we would’ve heard from … from camp… .” Her shoulders tensed as she said the wordcamp.“What is it?” I asked.“Nothing,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. This afternoon we’ll celebrate the end of school. I’ll takeyou and Tyson to Rockefeller Center-to that skateboard shop you like.”Oh, man, that was tempting. We were always strugling with money. Between my mom’s nightclasses and my private school tuition, we could never afford to do special stuff like shop for askateboard. But something in her voice bothered me.“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought we were packing me up for camp tonight.”She twisted her dishrag. “Ah, dear, about that … I got a message from Chiron last night.”My heart sank. Chiron was the activities director at Camp Half-Blood. He wouldn’t contact usunless something serious was going on. “What did he say?”“He thinks … it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone.”“Postpone? Mom, how could it not be safe? I’m a half-blood! It’s like the only safe place on earthfor me!”“Usually, dear. But with the problems they’re having-““What problems?”“Percy … I’m very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can’t explainit all now. I’m not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly.”My mind was reeling. How could I not go to camp? I wanted to ask a million questions, but justthen the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.My mom looked almost relieved. “Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting.”“But-““Percy, we’ll talk this afternoon. Go on to school.”That was the last thing I wanted to do, but my mom had this fragile look in her eyes-a kind ofwarning, like if I pushed her too hard she’d start to cry. Besides, she was right about my friend Tyson.I had to meet him at the subway station on time or he’d get upset. He was scared of travelingunderground alone.I gathered up my stuff, but I stopped in the doorway. “Mom, this problem at camp. Does it…could it have anything to do with my dream about Grover?”She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We’ll talk this afternoon, dear. I’ll explain … as much as I can.”Reluctantly, I told her good-bye. I joged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.I didn’t know it at the time, but my mom and I would never get to have our afternoon talk.In fact, I wouldn’t be seeing home for a long, long time.As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a second Isaw a dark shape in the morning sunlight-a human silhouete against the brick wall, a shadow thatbelonged to no one.Then it rippled and vanished.

I PLAY DODGEBALWITH CANIBALSMy day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.See, it’s this “progressive” school in downtown Manhatan, which means we sit on beanbagchairs instead of at desks, and we don’t get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert Tshirts to work.That’s all cool with me. I mean, I’m ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I’d neverdone that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing aboutMeriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren’talways … well, bright.Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord ofthe Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, ourteachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what wouldhappen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, twopebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of thoseactivities.Sloan wasn’t big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shagy blackhair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see howlitle he cared about his family’s money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he’d takenhis daddy’s Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friendTyson.Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I couldfigure, he’d been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so …different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and wasscared of just about everything, including his own reflection. His face was kind of misshapen andbrutal-looking. I couldn’t tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself lookhigher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funy, like a much younger kid-Iguess because he’d never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tatered jeans, grimysize-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flanel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York Cityalleyway, because that’s where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a comunity service project so all the students could feelgood about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn’t stand Tyson. Once they discovered hewas a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good bypicking on him. I was prety much his only friend, which meant he was my only friend.My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren’t doing enough to help him.She’d called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tysondidn’t exist. They swore up and down that they’d visited the alley we described and couldn’t findhim, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don’t know.Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. Heswated Sloan away a litle too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the litle kids’ tireswing.“You freak!” Sloan yelled. “Why don’t you go back to your cardboard box!”Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his headin his hands.“Take it back, Sloan!” I shouted.Sloan just sneered at me. “Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have friends if youweren’t always sticking up for that freak.”I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. “He’s not a freak. He’s just…”I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn’t listening. He and his big ugly friendswere too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hangingaround him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozenmore, and I was prety sure I’d never seen them before.“Just wait till PE, Jackson,” Sloan called. “You are so dead.”When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage.He pronounced that we’d understood Lord of the Flies perfectly. We all passed his course, and weshould never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chiptoothed grin.I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut buter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.“I … I am a freak?” he asked me.“No,” I promised, griting my teeth. “Matt Sloan is the freak.”Tyson sniffled. “You are a good friend. Miss you next year if … if I can’t …”His voice trembled. I realized he didn’t know if he’d be invited back next year for the comunityservice project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.“Don’t worry, big guy,” I managed. “Everything’s going to be fine.”Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him thatanything would be fine?Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeededin making something explode, Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tinyvials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and madean orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praisedTyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who’d ever aced her exam in underthirty seconds.I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. Icouldn’t stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn’t shake thememory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps, I opened my notebook andstared at the photo inside-my friend Anabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearingjeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled backin a bandana. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, lookingextremely pleased with herself, like she’d personally designed the place. See, Anabeth wants to bean architect when she grows up, so she’s always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She’s weirdthat way. She’d e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I’d look at itjust to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn’t just been my imagination.I wished Anabeth were here. She’d know what to make of my dream. I’d never admit it to her,but she was smarter than me, even if she was anoying sometimes.I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of therings.“Hey!” I protested.Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. “No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is notyour-““Give it back!” My ears felt hot.Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spitwads. They were new kids who must’ve been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupidHI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must’ve had a weird sense of humor, too,because they’d all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOEBOB. No human beings had names like that.“These guys are moving here next year,” Sloan braged, like that was supposed to scare me. “Ibet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend.”“He’s not retarded.” I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.“You’re such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I’m gona put you out of your misery next period.”His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict ordersfrom Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no mater how obnoxious they were. I hadto save my fighting for monsters.Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was …The bell rang.As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl’s voice whispered, “Percy!”I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any atention. Like any girl atMeriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.Before I had time to consider whether or not I’d been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed forthe gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us afree-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did mostof our athletic stuff inside, so we didn’t have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of bootcamp hippie children.I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn’t want to deal with Sloan. I wasabout to leave when Tyson called, “Percy?”He hadn’t changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.“Will you … uh …”“Oh. Yeah.” I tried not to sound agravated about it. “Yeah, sure, man.”Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kindof awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it’s because he’s completely hairy andhe’s got weird scars on his back that I’ve never had the courage to ask him about.Anyway, I’d learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he’d getupset and start ripping the doors off lockers.When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was siting at his litle desk reading Sports Illustrated.Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. Hereminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood-which was a shriveled-up mumy-except CoachNunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I’d observed.Matt Sloan said, “Coach, can I be captain?”“Eh?” Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Mm-hm.”Sloan grined and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team’s captain, but it didn’tmater who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan’s side. So didthe big group of visitors.On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and ahalf dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would’ve beenokay with just Tyson-he was worth half a team all by himself-but the visitors on Sloan’s team werealmost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.“Scared,” Tyson mumbled. “Smell funy.”I looked at him. “What smells funy?” Because I didn’t figure he was talking about himself.“Them.” Tyson pointed at Sloan’s new friends. “Smell funy.”The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn’t helpwondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them withsticks.Sloan blew the coach’s whistle and the game began. Sloan’s team ran for the center line. On myside, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably “I have to go poty!” and ran for the exit. CoreyBailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fearand not look like targets.“Tyson,” I said. “Let’s g-“A ball slamed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other teamexploded in laughter.My eyesight was fuzy. I felt like I’d just goten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn’tbelieve anybody could throw that hard.Tyson yelled, “Percy, duck!”I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.Whooom!It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.“Hey!” I yelled at Sloan’s team. “You could kill somebody!”The visitor named Joe Bob grined at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot biger now … eventaller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. “I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!”The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except thosewho knew my true identity. Friends … and enemies.What had Tyson said? They smell funy.Monsters.All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They wereeight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tatooed with snakes and hulawomen and Valentine hearts.Matt Sloan dropped his ball. “Whoa! You’re not from Detroit! Who …”The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant namedMarrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was aboutto leave and hit the door, slaming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on itdesperately but it wouldn’t budge.“Let them go!” I yelled at the giants.The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tatoo on his biceps that said: JB luvsBabycakes. “And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren’t justplaying for your death. We want lunch!”He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line-but these ballsweren’t made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of canon balls, perforated like wiffle ballswith fire bubbling out the holes. They must’ve been searing hot, but the giants picked them up withtheir bare hands.“Coach!” I yelled.Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn’tlet on. That’s the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearanceof monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybethe coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual. Maybe the other kids sawMatt Sloan’s thugs geting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. (It wouldn’t have been the firsttime.) At any rate, I was prety sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eatingbloodthirsty monsters.“Yeah. Mm-hm,” Coach mutered. “Play nice.”And he went back to his magazine.The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past myshoulder.“Corey!” I screamed.Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting themat to smoking shreds.“Run!” I told my teamates. “The other exit!”They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob’s hand, that door also slamedshut.“No one leaves unless you’re out!” Joe Bob roared. “And you’re not out until we eat you!”He launched his own fireball. My teamates scatered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gymshorts. I had no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker roomdoor was sealed. I was completely defenseless.Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosionstill blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tiedyed T-shirt peppered with sizling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaringdown at me.“Flesh!” they bellowed. “Hero flesh for lunch!” They both took aim.“Percy needs help!” Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.“Tyson!” I screamed, but it was too late.Both balls slamed into him … but no … he’d caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsyhe knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught twofiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back towardtheir surprised owners, who screamed, “BAchests.D!” as the bronze spheres exploded against theirThe giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame-a sure sign they were monsters, all right.Monsters don’t die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of troublecleaning up after a fight.“My brothers!” Joe Bob the Canibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tatoorippled. “You will pay for their destruction!”“Tyson!” I said. “Look out!”Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over CoachNunley’s head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!Kids were runing around screaming, trying to avoid the sizling craters in the floor. Others werebanging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court,watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.Coach Nunley still wasn’t seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions weregiving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine.Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would comehelp us.“Victory will be ours!” roared Joe Bob the Canibal. “We will feast on your bones!”I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but before I could, hehefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn’t deflect all those balls at once. His hands had to beseriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword …I had a crazy idea.I ran toward the locker room.“Move!” I told my teamates. “Away from the door.”Explosions behind me. Tyson had bated two of the balls back toward their owners and blastedthem to ashes.That left two giants still standing.A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait-one Mississippi, two Mississippi-thendove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys’ locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion,so I wasn’t surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge WHOOOOOOOM!The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personalbelongings rained all over the gym.I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the lastgiant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tysonwas turning to face him.“No!” I yelled.The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slamed into theback wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto ChurchStreet. I didn’t see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball wassmoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stuned, into a pile of cinder blocks.“Well!” Joe Bob gloated. “I’m the last one standing! I’ll have enough meat to bring Babycakes adogie bag!”He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.“Stop!” I yelled. “It’s me you want!”The giant grined. “You wish to die first, young hero?”I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.Then I spoted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant’s feet. If I could only getthere…. I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.The giant laughed. “My lunch approaches.” He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.Suddenly the giant’s body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Rightwhere his belly buton should’ve been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn-no,not a horn-the glowing tip of a blade.The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run himthrough from behind.He mutered, “Ow,” and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to makeBabycakes prety upset.Standing in the smoke was my friend Anabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had araged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in herhand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she’d just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.Matt Sloan, who’d been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses.He blinked at Anabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture. “That’s the girl …That’s the girl-“Anabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. “And you,” she told him, “lay off myfriend.”The gym was in flames. Kids were still runing around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and agarbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see theheadmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.“Anabeth …” I stamered. “How did you … how long have you …”“Prety much all morning.” She sheathed her bronze knife. “I’ve been trying to find a good time totalk to you, but you were never alone.”“The shadow I saw this morning-that was-” My face felt hot. “Oh my gods, you were looking inmy bedroom window?”“There’s no time to explain!” she snapped, though she looked a litle red-faced herself. “I justdidn’t want to-““There!” a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.“Meet me outside,” Anabeth told me. “And him.” She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitingdazed against the wall. Anabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn’t quite understand. “You’dbeter bring him.”“What?”“No time!” she said. “Hurry!”She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantlyvanished.That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster camecharging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.“Percy Jackson?” Mr. Bonsai said. “What … how …”Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. “Headhurts.”Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. “Percy did it, Mr.Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!”Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck-he chose that moment tolook up when Sloan said his name. “Eh? Yeah. Mm-hm.”The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell themthe truth.I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, “Come on!” and jumped through the gapinghole in the side of the building.

I PLAY DODGEBALWITH CANIBALSMy day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.See, it’s this “progressive” school in downtown Manhatan, which means we sit on beanbagchairs instead of at desks, and we don’t get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert Tshirts to work.That’s all cool with me. I mean, I’m ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I’d neverdone that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing aboutMeriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren’talways … well, bright.Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord ofthe Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, ourteachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what wouldhappen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, twopebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of thoseactivities.Sloan wasn’t big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shagy blackhair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see howlitle he cared about his family’s money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he’d takenhis daddy’s Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friendTyson.Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I couldfigure, he’d been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so …different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and wasscared of just about everything, including his own reflection. His face was kind of misshapen andbrutal-looking. I couldn’t tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself lookhigher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funy, like a much younger kid-Iguess because he’d never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tatered jeans, grimysize-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flanel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York Cityalleyway, because that’s where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a comunity service project so all the students could feelgood about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn’t stand Tyson. Once they discovered hewas a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good bypicking on him. I was prety much his only friend, which meant he was my only friend.My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren’t doing enough to help him.She’d called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tysondidn’t exist. They swore up and down that they’d visited the alley we described and couldn’t findhim, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don’t know.Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. Heswated Sloan away a litle too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the litle kids’ tireswing.“You freak!” Sloan yelled. “Why don’t you go back to your cardboard box!”Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his headin his hands.“Take it back, Sloan!” I shouted.Sloan just sneered at me. “Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have friends if youweren’t always sticking up for that freak.”I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. “He’s not a freak. He’s just…”I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn’t listening. He and his big ugly friendswere too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hangingaround him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozenmore, and I was prety sure I’d never seen them before.“Just wait till PE, Jackson,” Sloan called. “You are so dead.”When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage.He pronounced that we’d understood Lord of the Flies perfectly. We all passed his course, and weshould never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chiptoothed grin.I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut buter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.“I … I am a freak?” he asked me.“No,” I promised, griting my teeth. “Matt Sloan is the freak.”Tyson sniffled. “You are a good friend. Miss you next year if … if I can’t …”His voice trembled. I realized he didn’t know if he’d be invited back next year for the comunityservice project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.“Don’t worry, big guy,” I managed. “Everything’s going to be fine.”Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him thatanything would be fine?Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeededin making something explode, Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tinyvials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and madean orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praisedTyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who’d ever aced her exam in underthirty seconds.I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. Icouldn’t stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn’t shake thememory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps, I opened my notebook andstared at the photo inside-my friend Anabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearingjeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled backin a bandana. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, lookingextremely pleased with herself, like she’d personally designed the place. See, Anabeth wants to bean architect when she grows up, so she’s always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She’s weirdthat way. She’d e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I’d look at itjust to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn’t just been my imagination.I wished Anabeth were here. She’d know what to make of my dream. I’d never admit it to her,but she was smarter than me, even if she was anoying sometimes.I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of therings.“Hey!” I protested.Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. “No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is notyour-““Give it back!” My ears felt hot.Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spitwads. They were new kids who must’ve been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupidHI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must’ve had a weird sense of humor, too,because they’d all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOEBOB. No human beings had names like that.“These guys are moving here next year,” Sloan braged, like that was supposed to scare me. “Ibet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend.”“He’s not retarded.” I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.“You’re such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I’m gona put you out of your misery next period.”His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict ordersfrom Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no mater how obnoxious they were. I hadto save my fighting for monsters.Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was …The bell rang.As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl’s voice whispered, “Percy!”I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any atention. Like any girl atMeriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.Before I had time to consider whether or not I’d been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed forthe gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us afree-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did mostof our athletic stuff inside, so we didn’t have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of bootcamp hippie children.I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn’t want to deal with Sloan. I wasabout to leave when Tyson called, “Percy?”He hadn’t changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.“Will you … uh …”“Oh. Yeah.” I tried not to sound agravated about it. “Yeah, sure, man.”Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kindof awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it’s because he’s completely hairy andhe’s got weird scars on his back that I’ve never had the courage to ask him about.Anyway, I’d learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he’d getupset and start ripping the doors off lockers.When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was siting at his litle desk reading Sports Illustrated.Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. Hereminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood-which was a shriveled-up mumy-except CoachNunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I’d observed.Matt Sloan said, “Coach, can I be captain?”“Eh?” Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Mm-hm.”Sloan grined and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team’s captain, but it didn’tmater who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan’s side. So didthe big group of visitors.On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and ahalf dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would’ve beenokay with just Tyson-he was worth half a team all by himself-but the visitors on Sloan’s team werealmost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.“Scared,” Tyson mumbled. “Smell funy.”I looked at him. “What smells funy?” Because I didn’t figure he was talking about himself.“Them.” Tyson pointed at Sloan’s new friends. “Smell funy.”The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn’t helpwondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them withsticks.Sloan blew the coach’s whistle and the game began. Sloan’s team ran for the center line. On myside, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably “I have to go poty!” and ran for the exit. CoreyBailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fearand not look like targets.“Tyson,” I said. “Let’s g-“A ball slamed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other teamexploded in laughter.My eyesight was fuzy. I felt like I’d just goten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn’tbelieve anybody could throw that hard.Tyson yelled, “Percy, duck!”I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.Whooom!It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.“Hey!” I yelled at Sloan’s team. “You could kill somebody!”The visitor named Joe Bob grined at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot biger now … eventaller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. “I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!”The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except thosewho knew my true identity. Friends … and enemies.What had Tyson said? They smell funy.Monsters.All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They wereeight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tatooed with snakes and hulawomen and Valentine hearts.Matt Sloan dropped his ball. “Whoa! You’re not from Detroit! Who …”The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant namedMarrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was aboutto leave and hit the door, slaming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on itdesperately but it wouldn’t budge.“Let them go!” I yelled at the giants.The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tatoo on his biceps that said: JB luvsBabycakes. “And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren’t justplaying for your death. We want lunch!”He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line-but these ballsweren’t made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of canon balls, perforated like wiffle ballswith fire bubbling out the holes. They must’ve been searing hot, but the giants picked them up withtheir bare hands.“Coach!” I yelled.Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn’tlet on. That’s the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearanceof monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybethe coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual. Maybe the other kids sawMatt Sloan’s thugs geting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. (It wouldn’t have been the firsttime.) At any rate, I was prety sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eatingbloodthirsty monsters.“Yeah. Mm-hm,” Coach mutered. “Play nice.”And he went back to his magazine.The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past myshoulder.“Corey!” I screamed.Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting themat to smoking shreds.“Run!” I told my teamates. “The other exit!”They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob’s hand, that door also slamedshut.“No one leaves unless you’re out!” Joe Bob roared. “And you’re not out until we eat you!”He launched his own fireball. My teamates scatered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gymshorts. I had no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker roomdoor was sealed. I was completely defenseless.Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosionstill blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tiedyed T-shirt peppered with sizling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaringdown at me.“Flesh!” they bellowed. “Hero flesh for lunch!” They both took aim.“Percy needs help!” Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.“Tyson!” I screamed, but it was too late.Both balls slamed into him … but no … he’d caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsyhe knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught twofiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back towardtheir surprised owners, who screamed, “BAchests.D!” as the bronze spheres exploded against theirThe giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame-a sure sign they were monsters, all right.Monsters don’t die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of troublecleaning up after a fight.“My brothers!” Joe Bob the Canibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tatoorippled. “You will pay for their destruction!”“Tyson!” I said. “Look out!”Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over CoachNunley’s head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!Kids were runing around screaming, trying to avoid the sizling craters in the floor. Others werebanging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court,watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.Coach Nunley still wasn’t seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions weregiving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine.Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would comehelp us.“Victory will be ours!” roared Joe Bob the Canibal. “We will feast on your bones!”I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but before I could, hehefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn’t deflect all those balls at once. His hands had to beseriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword …I had a crazy idea.I ran toward the locker room.“Move!” I told my teamates. “Away from the door.”Explosions behind me. Tyson had bated two of the balls back toward their owners and blastedthem to ashes.That left two giants still standing.A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait-one Mississippi, two Mississippi-thendove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys’ locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion,so I wasn’t surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge WHOOOOOOOM!The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personalbelongings rained all over the gym.I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the lastgiant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tysonwas turning to face him.“No!” I yelled.The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slamed into theback wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto ChurchStreet. I didn’t see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball wassmoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stuned, into a pile of cinder blocks.“Well!” Joe Bob gloated. “I’m the last one standing! I’ll have enough meat to bring Babycakes adogie bag!”He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.“Stop!” I yelled. “It’s me you want!”The giant grined. “You wish to die first, young hero?”I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.Then I spoted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant’s feet. If I could only getthere…. I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.The giant laughed. “My lunch approaches.” He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.Suddenly the giant’s body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Rightwhere his belly buton should’ve been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn-no,not a horn-the glowing tip of a blade.The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run himthrough from behind.He mutered, “Ow,” and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to makeBabycakes prety upset.Standing in the smoke was my friend Anabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had araged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in herhand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she’d just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.Matt Sloan, who’d been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses.He blinked at Anabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture. “That’s the girl …That’s the girl-“Anabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. “And you,” she told him, “lay off myfriend.”The gym was in flames. Kids were still runing around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and agarbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see theheadmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.“Anabeth …” I stamered. “How did you … how long have you …”“Prety much all morning.” She sheathed her bronze knife. “I’ve been trying to find a good time totalk to you, but you were never alone.”“The shadow I saw this morning-that was-” My face felt hot. “Oh my gods, you were looking inmy bedroom window?”“There’s no time to explain!” she snapped, though she looked a litle red-faced herself. “I justdidn’t want to-““There!” a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.“Meet me outside,” Anabeth told me. “And him.” She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitingdazed against the wall. Anabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn’t quite understand. “You’dbeter bring him.”“What?”“No time!” she said. “Hurry!”She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantlyvanished.That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster camecharging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.“Percy Jackson?” Mr. Bonsai said. “What … how …”Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. “Headhurts.”Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. “Percy did it, Mr.Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!”Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck-he chose that moment tolook up when Sloan said his name. “Eh? Yeah. Mm-hm.”The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell themthe truth.I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, “Come on!” and jumped through the gapinghole in the side of the building.