“The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."
"It was probably important to her.”
“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”
“We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good. Once, I lost my grip and found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was my face.
"Sorry," she murrmured.
"S'okay," I grunted, though I'd never really wanted to know what Annabeth's sneaker tasted like.”
“[My mom's] funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.”
“Hermes gazed up at the stars. 'My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the Internet--”
“You weren't able to talk sense into him?"
Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death."
I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.”
“I told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut. ”
“Before I could figure out how to apologize for being such an idiot, she tackled me with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. "I'm glad you're not a guinea pig."
"Me, too." I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt.”
“I couldn't believe I'd come this far, lost Tyson, suffered through so much, only to fail - stopped by a big stupid monster in a baby-blue tuxedo kilt. Nobody was going to swat down my friends like that! I mean...nobody, not Nobody. Ah, you know what I mean.”
“Mythologically speaking, if there's anything I hate worse than trios of old ladies, it's bulls. Last summer, I fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls - bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn't bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too.”
“It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the internet-"
"You invented the internet?"
It was my idea, Martha said.
Rats are delicious, George said.
"It was my idea!" Hermes said. "I mean the internet, not the rats. But that's not the point.”
“Ever come home and found your room messed up? Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to "clean" it, and suddenly you can't find anything? And even if nothing is missing, you get that creepy feeling like somebody's been looking through your private stuff and dusting everything with lemon furniture polish?”
“I’ve met plenty of embarrassing parents, but Kronos, the evil Titan Lord who wanted to destroy Western Civilization? Not the kind of dad you invited to
school for Career Day.”
“Powdered donuts," Tyson said earnestly. "I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness." He headed outside and started calling, "Here, donuts!”
“Dude! said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: 'Whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!”
“He'd changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He look like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.”
“Tantalus made a wild grab, but the marshmallow committed suicide, diving into the flames.”
“Annabeth:My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.
Percy: the brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?
Annabeth:No, Seaweed Brain. That's HUMMUS. hubris is worse.
Percy: what could be worse than hummus?
Annabeth: Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else... Even the gods.”
“Hermes smiled. "I knew a boy once ... oh, younger than you by far. A mere baby, really."
Here we go again, George said. Always talking about himself.
Quiet! Martha snapped. Do you want to get set on vibrate?
Hermes ignored them. "One night, when this boy's mother wasn't watching, he sneaked out of their cave and stole some cattle that belonged to Apollo."
"Did he get blasted to tiny pieces?" I asked.
"Hmm ... no. Actually, everything turned out quite well. To make up for his theft, the boy gave Apollo an instrument he'd invented-a lyre. Apollo was so enchanted with the music that he forgot all about being angry."
So what's the moral?"
"The moral?" Hermes asked. "Goodness, you act like it's a fable. It's a true story. Does truth have a moral?"
"Um ..."
"How about this: stealing is not always bad?"
"I don't think my mom would like that moral."
Rats are delicious, suggested George.
What does that have to do with the story? Martha demanded.
Nothing, George said. But I'm hungry.
"I've got it," Hermes said. "Young people don't always do what they're told, but if they can pull it off and do something wonderful, sometimes they escape punishment. How's that?”
“Hercules used noise! Brass bells! He scared them away with the most horrible sound he could-" said Percy
"Percy... Chiron's collection!”
“That was so completely unfair that I told Tantalus to go chase a donut, which didn't help his mood.”
“Thalia had been turned into a pine tree when she was 12. Me... well, i was doing my best not to follow her example. I had nightmares about what Poseidon might turn me into if i were ever in the verge of death—plankton, maybe. Or a floating patch of kelp.”
“Don't untie me," she said, "no matter what happens or how much I plead. I'll want to go straight over the edge and drown myself."
"Are you trying to tempt me?"
"Ha-ha.”
“Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important.'
It was probably important to her.”
“Fish gathered to look at us - a school of baracudas, some curious marines. SCRAM! I told them. They swam off, but I could tell they went reluctantly. I swear I understood their intencions. They were about to star rumors flighing around the sea about the son of poseidon and some girl at the bottom of Siren Bay.”
“We did all the standard camp numbers: "Down By The Aegean," "I Am My Own Great-Great-Great-Great Grandpa," "This Land is Minos's Land.”
“Laistry....I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"
"Canadians.”
“Tyson," I said "We're turning around!"
Going the wrong way?" he asked.
Always," I grumbled, but I steered the chariot towards the stands.”
“But how did you know where we were?" Annabeth asked.
Advanced planning, my dear. I figured you would wash up near Miami if you made it out of the Sea of Monsters alive. Almost everything strange washes up near Miami.”
“But no, there he is, voluntarily chatting away, asking me if I watch some zombie show. I don’t. (Those shows aren’t all that appealing when you relate more to the zombies than the humans.)”
“I think of the horizon at midnight, the sky and sea blurring together.”
“didn’t matter. The bond that had first brought them together as children existed whether they spoke of it or not, the bond of survivors. Here in America, a relentlessly foolish and optimistic country, what they knew drew them closer together. She was his country and he hers. They were inseparable. Until now. She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves.”
“We were checked in by a man who looked exactly how the guy checking you in at a cheap motel in the middle of the night is supposed to.”
“the girl’s arm as gently as he can, the man takes her face in his hand and turns it roughly this way and that. Lale looks”
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