After we packed, I met Annabeth and Grover at the gate of Camp Half-Wit. Chiron came over to see us off.
“I really wish we’d had more time to train you, Percy,” said Chiron.
“Actually, I think the amount of time was quite enough,” I said.
“Before you go, I have something to give you,” said Chiron, and he handed me a pen.
“Gee, thanks Chiron,” I said. “If I ever decide to give up phones and computers and start using pens, I’ll be sure to use this.”
“Take the cap off,” said Chiron.
I took off the cap, and the pen morphed into a warm, soft cylinder covered with foil.
“What is it?” I said.
“A bean burrito,” said Chiron. “Whenever you open the pen, it’ll turn into a new one.”
I tore off some of the foil and took a bite. “Tastes like a pen,” I said.
“It’s not for regular eating,” said Chiron. “It’s a special burrito, designed to assist you when you’re in danger. Its effects on your body are, shall we say, much greater than that of a normal bean burrito.”
Special or not, it tasted like garbage. “You know what, Chiron, I think I’m good without the burrito pen,” I said, and threw the burrito down the hill.
Then my butt felt started feeling warm…and spicy. Because the burrito was in my back pocket.
“The pen is impossible to lose,” Chiron said. “Nice feature, huh?”
Yeah, great, I thought, I get to have instant indigestion with me wherever I go. I recapped the burrito and it became a pen again.
“Well, we probably should be off so we don’t miss our bus!” I said. The bus didn’t leave for a couple of hours, but I was dying to get out of Camp Half-Wit. I turned to leave, but then heard behind me, “Hold on, wait!” I looked back to see Luke running toward us. Wonderful.
“I just wanted to say bye to you guys,” said Luke.
“Bye,” I said, and turned again to leave.
“Just a sec, I have something for Annabeth,” said Luke. He pulled out a photo of him and Annabeth and handed it to her. “In case you get homesick,” he said.
“Awwwww,” said Annabeth. “Can I get a goodbye hug?”
“Bus. Leaving. Now,” I said. They hugged anyway.
“And for you, Percy, I have this.” Luke handed me a pair of socks.
“Great, a pair of socks,” I said. “This is a much better gift than, say, an awesome travel pillow.”
“Maia!” shouted Luke, and the socks sprouted a pair of wings and flew into the air.
But they were still socks. “Here Grover, hold on to these for me,” I said, handing him the socks. “I’m definitely not giving them to you permanently because it’s not like I hate them or anything.”
I once again turned to leave. “Okay folks, time to hit the road—”
“Oh, I almost forgot!” said Chiron.
“Yes?” I said, turning around again.
“Take this,” said Chiron, and handed me a sword. “It only works against demons, not against Half-Wits or humans.”
I stabbed Luke with it and it passed right through him like he wasn’t there. Darn, Chiron was right.
“Thanks for all the parting gifts,” I said. “We’ll be back soon!” And by “soon,” I mean never, I thought, as we headed out the gate toward the waiting taxi.
I was psyched to finally be out of Camp Half-Wit. My travel companions, however, didn’t share my enthusiasm. Grover kept jumping from window to window, nervously watching for monsters. And ten minutes into the taxi ride, Annabeth said, “I’m missing camp already,” and pulled out the photo of her and Luke and stared at it. I tried to ignore her, but after five straight minutes of staring I couldn’t take it anymore and threw the photo out the window.
“Hey!” she said. “Why the heck did you do that?”
“Don’t worry, it’s like the pen Chiron gave me,” I said. “You can never lose it.”
She waited for a couple minutes, but the photo didn’t reappear.
“Must be defective,” I said. “I can’t believe he gave you a defective photo! What a jerk. You really should find somebody better to hang out with.”
A half-hour later the taxi crossed over a bridge and into Manhattan, and we ended up driving right down the street where my mom lived.
“Do you wanna stop by and see your stepdad?” said Annabeth. “We’ve got some time.”
“No thanks,” I said. Even just the mention of Gabe had gotten me upset.
“You know, your mom married him for you,” said Grover.
“Huh? What are you talking about?” I said.
“As the son of Pooseidon, your farts have an extremely strong smell,” said Grover. “Monsters can detect this from miles away, and your mom knew this, so she married the smelliest guy should could find. Gabe’s bathroom smell is so strong it covered up your own smell. That’s the only thing that kept you hidden from the monsters for so long.”
If only that story were true, I thought. It was a lot better than thinking Mom married Gabe for his money, which I presumed was the real reason. But thankfully it was time to stop thinking about Gabe, because we’d arrived at the bus station. My quest was about to begin.
We boarded the bus for Los Angeles and grabbed some seats toward the back. As I watched the other passengers board the bus, I began to feel afraid. Not because I thought they were monsters sent to attack us, but because they were they usual monstrous people who took the bus anywhere. Had any of these people ever heard of personal grooming? Or showering? Or a diet?
Finally the driver closed the door and the bus started to pull away. But then three passengers ran up to the bus and the driver stopped and let them on. I knew immediately there was something up with them. They were dressed like businesspeople and used language that actually followed grammatical rules. No normal person like this would ever go near a bus station, never mind actually take a bus. I figured maybe they were bus marshals, like the air marshals who flew undercover to protect airplane passengers. Grover, however, had a different opinion.
“Those must be the Furies!” said Grover.
“The Furies?” I said.
“Yeah, the three worst monsters from the Underworld!” said Grover. “Hades knows we’re coming and he’s trying to stop us!”
Oh great, I thought. This trip’s gonna be 3,000 miles of “That person’s a monster sent by Hades!” I got out my noise-cancelling headphones.
The bus pulled away, and things were normal until the bus marshals (or at least, the people I thought were bus marshals) announced they had to check our IDs, and started moving down the aisle. I shuddered as I imagined the marshals recognizing me as the missing kid from the car crash and making me return to my apartment to live alone with Gabe. With Mom not around, guess who’d be churning out the seven-layer bean dip?
“I can’t let them capture me!” I said.
“Yeah, because then Zeus will never get his iPhone back!” said Grover.
“Uh, yeah, whatever,” I said. “Hey Annabeth, can I borrow your hat?”
“Sure,” Annabeth said, and handed me the cap of invisibility. I put it on and disappeared, and then began walking on people’s heads and shoulders toward the front of the bus, right past the bus marshals. I was about to walk off the bus when I heard loud shrieking behind me.
I turned back to see that the bus marshals had transformed into weird gargoyle-like creatures with ugly female heads and the bodies of bats. Part of me was frightened, but part of me felt good knowing that the Department of Homeland Security had such powerful weapons to keep us safe. The gargoyle things looked at me and shrieked again.
“American!” I said, pointing at myself. “Oh say can you seeeee!” But singing the national anthem didn’t satisfy them, and they started moving toward me menacingly. Then I remembered Chiron’s pen. I took off the cap, and the pen became a piping hot bean burrito.
“Hey, no food on the bus!” said the bus driver, and reached for the burrito. But before he could grab it, I took a bite. I soon realized Chiron was right about this burrito having strong effects. The moment I swallowed, I felt like I had to take the biggest fart ever.
I didn’t want to fart with all these people around, so I held it in and the pressure built and built. Finally, when it felt like I was gonna burst, I had no choice but to let it rip. And it was like no fart I’d ever seen.
When I say this fart exploded out of me, I’m not using a figure of speech. There was literally an explosion inside the bus. The pressure of the fart gas blew out all the windows and the top of the bus sailed fifty feet into the air. Fortunately all the passengers were wearing their seatbelts, but the gargoyles were not, and they were blown out of the bus. As each one landed hundreds of yards away, it vaporized immediately into a cloud of dust.
“I guess this is one time we don’t need to ask who farted,” said Grover.
“Thanks for coming back for us!” said Annabeth. “You totally could have run away and just saved yourself.”
I couldn’t let her know the real reason I’d saved them instead of running away, which was that I liked her. Letting a girl know you like her too early is the easiest way to kill all possibility of ever dating her. So I just told Annabeth I’d saved them because they were my friends or something.
The bus driver got on the PA—which still sort-of worked after the explosion—and said they’d be bringing another bus to continue the trip.
Another bus?
“Run!” I said to Grover and Annabeth, and we ran into the woods.
