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ONE

I GO CRUISING WITH

EXPLOSIVES

The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of reat afternoon Technically I wasn’t supposed to be driving because I wouldn’t turn sixteen for another week, but my mom and my stepdad, Paul, took my friend Rachel and me to this private stretch of beach on the South Shore, and Paul let us borrow his Prius for a short spin

Now, I know you’re thinking, Wow, that was really irresponsible of him, blah, blah, blah, but Paul knows me pretty well He’s seen s, so he probably figured taking a car a few hundred yards wasn’t exactly theI’d ever done

Anyway, Rachel and I were driving along It was a hot August day Rachel’s red hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a white blouse over her swi but ratty T-shirts and paint-splattered jeans before, and she looked like a ht there!" she toldthe Atlantic The sea is always one of littery green and s it calm just for us

My dad, by the way, is Poseidon He can do stuff like that

"So" Rachel smiled at ht" I tried to sound excited I mean, she’d asked me to her family’s vacation house on St Thoet a lot of offers like that My family’s idea of a fancy vacation was a weekend in a rundown cabin on Long Island with some movie rentals and a couple of frozen pizzas, and here Rachel’s folks illing to letto the Caribbean

Besides, I seriously needed a vacation This su a break even for a few days was really teo down any day noas "on call" for a mission Even worse, next as my birthday There was this prophecy that said when I turned sixteen, bad things would happen

"Percy," she said, "I know the tiht?"

She had a point

"I really want to go," I promised "It’s just--"

"The war"

I nodded I didn’t like talking about it, but Rachel knew Unlike ic veil that distorts human vision She’d seen ods ere fighting the Titans and their allies She’d even been there last summer when the chopped-up Lord Kronos rose out of his coffin in a terrible new for him in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush

She put her hand on my arm "Just think about it, okay? We don’t leave for a couple of days My dad" Her voice faltered

"Is he giving you a hard tiust "He’s trying to be nice to o to Clarion Ladies Academy in the fall"

"The school where yourschool for society girls, all the way in New Ha school?"

I admitted the idea sounded pretty du the hoered Yellow-bellied Sapsucker" and stuff like that I’d never even seen her wear a dress It was hard to ihed "He thinks if he does a bunch of nice stuff for ive in"

"Which is why he agreed to let uys on vacation?"

"Yesbut Percy, you’d be doing e favor It would be so much better if you ith us Besides, there’s so I want to talk--" She stopped abruptly

"So you want to talk about?" I asked "You o to St Thomas to talk about it?"

She pursed her lips "Look, just forget it for now Let’s pretend we’re a couple of nor the ocean, and it’s nice to be together"

I could tell so her, but she put on a brave sht made her hair look like fire

We’d spent a lot of tiether this summer I hadn’t exactly planned it that way, but the ot at caet away, just for so room I needed to remind myself that the mortal world was still out there, away fro

"Okay," I said "Just a normal afternoon and two normal people"

She nodded "And sohypothetically, if these two people liked each other, ould it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?"

"Oh" I felt like one of Apollo’s sacred cows--slow, duht red "Uht about Rachel She was so irls I knew I didn’t have to work hard, or watch what I said, or rackRachel didn’t hide much She let you kno she felt

I’m not sure what I would have done next--but I was so distracted, I didn’t notice the huge black for down from the sky until four hooves landed on the hood of the Prius with a WUMP-WUMP-CRUNCH!

Hey, boss, a voice said in asus was an old friend of et too annoyed by the craters he’d just put in the hood; but I didn’t think my stepdad would be real stoked

"Blackjack," I sighed "What are you--"

Then I saas riding on his back, and I knew et a lot more complicated

" ’Sup, Percy"

Charles Beckendorf, senior counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, would e, with ripped es every summer, two years older than me, and one of the caenious ed a Greek firebo a bunch of ion of Kronos’s evil meanies as soon as the first harpy went flush