When we got to the water park, there was a padlock on the gate and the place looked like nobody had been there in years.
“We must be at the wrong water park,” I said. “No way that guy brought his girl here.”
“Actually, it’s the perfect spot for a god date,” said Annabeth. “Gods can’t hang out anywhere people will see them.”
“More like the perfect spot for a weirdo date,” I said. “So how are we gonna get in?”
“I’m on it,” said Grover, pulling out the winged socks Luke had given me. But every time Grover tried to put the socks on, they just flew off.
“Great work, thanks Grover,” I said.
Annabeth ended up finding a hole in the fence, and we went inside and found the Tunnel of Love ride. The front of the ride was a pool surrounded by bronze statues of Cupid, but the pool was nearly empty, with only a couple of feet of dirty brown water inside.
“How romantic,” I said. “You think the shield’s under the water?”
“Only one way to find out!” said Annabeth, and she climbed down into the pool. After a few seconds of searching in the water, she found the shield. But as soon as she lifted it up, an alarm sounded, and something that looked like Silly String squirted out of the arrows of the surrounding Cupid statues. The stringy stuff formed a net on top of Annabeth, trapping her.
“It’s a trap set by the god Hephaestus!” said Annabeth. “I should’ve known! Hephaestus’ wife Aphrodite was the one on the date with Ares. So Hephaestus set this trap for when Ares came back to get his shield!”
“Um, I think it’s just the park’s security system,” I said.
“Hey, this net is getting tighter!” said Annabeth. “Help!”
I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to be trapped in a net with a girl as hot as Annabeth. “Hold on, I’ll save you!” I said, and ran down to the bottom of the pool and got under the net with her.
“Uh, how is this helping?” she said.
“I needed to examine the net from the inside,” I said. After a couple minutes of stalling while the net pushed us closer, I noticed the net was starting to get a bit too tight, so we really did need to figure out a way to escape.
“Goat-head, do something!” I shouted to Grover.
Grover looked around for a moment trying to figure out what to do, then threw the winged socks down to us.
“What do we do with these?” I said.
Grover shrugged.
“Ow, this net is getting really tight!” said Annabeth. “Percy, what about your pen?”
“I don’t really see how a bean burrito’s gonna get us out of this,” I said.
“Just try it!” she said.
I somehow managed to wiggle the pen out of my pocket and twisted off the cap. The pen transformed into a brand new burrito and I took a bite. But all that happened is that I needed to fart.
“Congratulations, you’re now trapped under a net with a guy who’s about to take an enormous burrito fart,” I said, “Hope you’re happy.”
“Hurry up!” said Annabeth, struggling to breathe as the net got tighter.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, and farted. I still couldn’t see how this was going to help us. But that’s because I’d forgotten about the Bathtub Effect.
Remember when you took baths as a little kid, and sometimes you’d fart in the bath and there’d be a bunch of bubbles? That’s the Bathtub Effect. And I just happened to be sitting in a couple feet of water at the bottom of the pool.
So when I farted, it produced some bubbles. But the bubbles didn’t just disappear like normal bubbles. Instead, they kept growing. And growing. Soon, Annabeth and I were being carried upwards on the bubbles, higher and higher as the bubbles grew to enormous size. The higher we got, the more the net stretched, and finally, when we were well above the pool, the net broke and we slid down one of the bubbles to safety.
“It worked!” said Annabeth.
“No thanks to them,” said Grover, pointing at the winged socks, which were frolicking in the pool like it was a bird bath.
“Leave ‘em here and grab the shield,” I said. “Because we’ve got ourselves a reward to collect!”
