The Lightning Thief

again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.
    The campers’ cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: “Stand ready! My bow!”
    Annabeth drew her sword.
    There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.
    It was looking straight at me.
    Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, “Percy, run!”
    She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth— and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hound’s neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.
    By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn’t want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would’ve turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.
    Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.
    “Di immortales!” Annabeth said. “That’s a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don’t . . . they’re not supposed to . . .”
    “Someone summoned it,” Chiron said. “Someone inside the camp.”
    Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.
    Clarisse yelled, “It’s all Percy’s fault! Percy summoned it!”
    “Be quiet, child,” Chiron told her.
    We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.
    “You’re wounded,” Annabeth told me. “Quick, Percy, get in the water.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “No, you’re not,” she said. “Chiron, watch this.”
    I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.
    Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.
    “Look, I—I don’t know why,” I said, trying to apologize. “I’m sorry. . . .”
    But they weren’t watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.
    “Percy,” Annabeth said, pointing. “Um . . .”
    By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.
    “Your father,” Annabeth murmured. “This is really not good.”
    “It is determined,” Chiron announced.
    All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn’t look happy about it.
    “My father?” I asked, completely bewildered.
    “Poseidon,” said Chiron. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

I AM OFFERED A QUEST
    T he next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.
    I didn’t have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur’s horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call “lights out” whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.
    And I was absolutely miserable.
    Just when I’d started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you’re a half-blood—I’d been separated out as if I had some rare disease.
    Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.
    The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I’d done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn’t afraid to bruise me up in the process.
    “You’re going to need all the training you can get,” he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. “Now let’s try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions.”
    Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I’d just poked her between the eyes.
    After lessons, she