The Last Olympian

Academy,” Rachel said. “And my friends are none of your business.”
    Mr. Dare smiled, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It was more like, Someday you’ll realize how silly you sound .
    “Try to get some sleep,” he urged. “We’ll be at the beach by tomorrow night. It will be fun.”
    “Fun,” Rachel repeated. “Lots of fun.”
    Her father exited the room. He left the door open behind him.
    Rachel stared at the portrait of me. Then she walked to the easel next to it, which was covered in a sheet.
    “I hope they’re dreams,” she said.
    She uncovered the easel. On it was a hastily sketched charcoal, but Rachel was a good artist. The picture was definitely Luke as a young boy. He was about nine years old, with a wide grin and no scar on his face. I had no idea how Rachel could’ve known what he looked like back then, but the portrait was so good I had a feeling she wasn’t guessing. From what I knew about Luke’s life (which wasn’t much), the picture showed him just before he’d found out he was a half-blood and had run away from home.
    Rachel stared at the portrait. Then she uncovered the next easel. This picture was even more disturbing. It showed the Empire State Building with lightning all around it. In the distance a dark storm was brewing, with a huge hand coming out of the clouds. At the base of the building a crowd had gathered . . . but it wasn’t a normal crowd of tourists and pedestrians. I saw spears, javelins, and banners—the trappings of an army.
    “Percy,” Rachel muttered, as if she knew I was listening, “what is going on?”
    The dream faded, and the last thing I remember was wishing I could answer her question.
    The next morning, I wanted to call her, but there were no phones at camp. Dionysus and Chiron didn’t need a landline. They just called Olympus with an Iris-message whenever they needed something. And when demigods use cell phones, the signals agitate every monster within a hundred miles. It’s like sending up a flare: Here I am! Please rearrange my face! Even within the safe borders of camp, that’s not the kind of advertising we wanted to do.
    Most demigods (except for Annabeth and a few others) don’t even own cell phones. And I definitely couldn’t tell Annabeth, “Hey, let me borrow your phone so I can call Rachel!” To make the call, I would’ve had to leave camp and walk several miles to the nearest convenience store. Even if Chiron let me go, by the time I got there, Rachel would’ve been on the plane to Saint Thomas.
    I ate a depressing breakfast by myself at the Poseidon table. I kept staring at the fissure in the marble floor where two years ago Nico had banished a bunch of bloodthirsty skeletons to the Underworld. The memory didn’t exactly improve my appetite.
    After breakfast, Annabeth and I walked down to inspect the cabins. Actually, it was Annabeth’s turn for inspection. My morning chore was to sort through reports for Chiron. But since we both hated our jobs, we decided to do them together so it wouldn’t be so heinous.
    We started at the Poseidon cabin, which was basically just me. I’d made my bunk bed that morning (well, sort of) and straightened the Minotaur horn on the wall, so I gave myself a four out of five.
    Annabeth made a face. “You’re being generous.” She used the end of her pencil to pick up an old pair of running shorts.
    I snatched them away. “Hey, give me a break. I don’t have Tyson cleaning up after me this summer.”
    “Three out of five,” Annabeth said. I knew better than to argue, so we moved along.
    I tried to skim through Chiron’s stack of reports as we walked. There were messages from demigods, nature spirits, and satyrs all around the country, writing about the latest monster activity. They were pretty depressing, and my ADHD brain did not like concentrating on depressing stuff.
    Little battles were raging everywhere. Camp recruitment was down to zero. Satyrs were having trouble finding new demigods and bringing them to Half-Blood Hill because so many monsters were roaming the country. Our friend Thalia, who led the Hunters of Artemis, hadn’t been heard from in months, and if Artemis knew what had happened to them, she wasn’t sharing information.
    We visited the Aphrodite cabin, which of course got a five out of five. The beds were perfectly made. The clothes in everyone’s footlockers were color coordinated. Fresh flowers bloomed on the windowsills. I wanted to dock a point because the whole