The Lightning Thief

“And I thought . . . um, maybe you could use these.”
    He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.
    Luke said, “Maia!”
    White bird’s wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.
    “Awesome!” Grover said.
    Luke smiled. “Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don’t use them much these days. . . .” His expression turned sad.
    I didn’t know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I’d been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving me a magic gift. . . . It made me blush almost as much as Annabeth.
    “Hey, man,” I said. “Thanks.”
    “Listen, Percy . . .” Luke looked uncomfortable. “A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just . . . kill some monsters for me, okay?”
    We shook hands. Luke patted Grover’s head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out.
    After Luke was gone, I told her, “You’re hyperventilating.”
    “Am not.”
    “You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn’t you?”
    “Oh . . . why do I want to go anywhere with you, Percy?”
    She stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.
    I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. “I won’t be able to use these, will I?”
    He shook his head. “Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air . . . that would not be wise for you.”
    I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. “Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?”
    His eyes lit up. “Me?”
    Pretty soon we’d laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world’s first flying goat boy was ready for launch.
    “Maia!” he shouted.
    He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.
    “Practice,” Chiron called after him. “You just need practice!”
    “Aaaaa!” Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.
    Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. “I should have trained you better, Percy,” he said. “If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training.”
    “That’s okay. I just wish—”
    I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke’s flying shoes, or Annabeth’s invisible cap.
    “What am I thinking?” Chiron cried. “I can’t let you get away without this.”
    He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.
    “Gee,” I said. “Thanks.”
    “Percy, that’s a gift from your father. I’ve kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one.”
    I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I’d vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be . . . ?
    I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.
    “The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into,” Chiron told me. “Its name is Anaklusmos.”
    “‘Riptide,’” I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.
    “Use it only for emergencies,” Chiron said, “and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn’t harm them in any case.”
    I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. “What do you mean it wouldn’t harm mortals? How could it not?”
    “The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It’s deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don’t kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a