The Battle of the Labyrinth

insisted. “Riddles are supposed to make you think.”
    “Think?” The Sphinx frowned. “How am I supposed to test whether you can think? That’s ridiculous! Now, how much force is required—”
    “Stop!” Annabeth insisted. “This is a stupid test.”
    “Um, Annabeth,” Grover cut in nervously. “Maybe you should just, you know, finish first and complain later?”
    “I’m a child of Athena,” she insisted. “And this is an insult to my intelligence. I won’t answer these questions.”
    Part of me was impressed with her for standing up like that. But part of me thought her pride was going to get us all killed.
    The spotlights glared. The Sphinx’s eyes glittered pure black.
    “Why then, my dear,” the monster said calmly. “If you won’t pass, you fail. And since we can’t allow any children to be held back, you’ll be EATEN!”
    The Sphinx bared her claws, which gleamed like stainless steel. She pounced at the podium.
    “No!” Tyson charged. He hates it when people threaten Annabeth, but I couldn’t believe he was being so brave, especially since he’d had such a bad experience with a Sphinx before.
    He tackled the Sphinx midair and they crashed sideways into a pile of bones. This gave Annabeth just enough time to gather her wits and draw her knife. Tyson got up, his shirt clawed to shreds. The Sphinx growled, looking for an opening.
    I drew Riptide and stepped in front of Annabeth.
    “Turn invisible,” I told her.
    “I can fight!”
    “No!” I yelled. “The Sphinx is after you ! Let us get it.”
    As if to prove my point, the Sphinx knocked Tyson aside and tried to charge past me. Grover poked her in the eye with somebody’s leg bone. She screeched in pain. Annabeth put on her cap and vanished. The Sphinx pounced right where she’d been standing, but came up with empty paws.
    “No fair!” the Sphinx wailed. “Cheater!”
    With Annabeth no longer in sight, the Sphinx turned on me. I raised my sword, but before I could strike, Tyson ripped the monster’s grading machine out of the floor and threw it at the Sphinx’s head, ruining her hair bun. It landed in pieces all around her.
    “My grading machine!” she cried. “I can’t be exemplary without my test scores!”
    The bars lifted from the exits. We all dashed for the far tunnel. I could only hope Annabeth was doing the same.
    The Sphinx started to follow, but Grover raised his reed pipes and began to play. Suddenly the pencils remembered they used to be parts of trees. They collected around the Sphinx’s paws, grew roots and branches, and began wrapping around the monster’s legs. The Sphinx ripped through them, but it bought us just enough time.
    Tyson pulled Grover into the tunnel, and the bars slammed shut behind us. “Annabeth!” I yelled. “Here!” she said, right next to me. “Keep moving!” We ran through the dark tunnels, listening to the roar of the Sphinx behind us as she complained about all the tests she would have to grade by hand.

ELEVEN

I SET MYSELF ON FIRE
    I thought we’d lost the spider until Tyson heard a faint pinging sound. We made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door.
    The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should’ve been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Êta inscribed in the middle.
    We all looked at each other.
    “Ready to meet Hephaestus?” Grover said nervously.
    “No,” I admitted.
    “Yes!” Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
    As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of us followed, not quite as anxious.
    The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic’s garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames.
    Smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. Tools hung along the walls. Each had its own outline on a Peg-Board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.
    Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a ’98 Toyota Corolla, a pair of legs stuck