The Lightning Thief

and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.”
    “Grover!”
    “Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?”
    I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn’t do it. I knew this wasn’t a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
    My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
    “The summer camp I told you about.” My mother’s voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. “The place your father wanted to send you.”
    “The place you didn’t want me to go.”
    “Please, dear,” my mother begged. “This is hard enough. Try to understand. You’re in danger.”
    “Because some old ladies cut yarn.”
    “Those weren’t old ladies,” Grover said. “Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you’re about to . . . when someone’s about to die.”
    “Whoa. You said ‘you.’”
    “No I didn’t. I said ‘someone.’”
    “You meant ‘you.’ As in me .”
    “I meant you , like ‘someone.’ Not you, you .”
    “Boys!” my mom said.
    She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she’d swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
    “What was that?” I asked.
    “We’re almost there,” my mother said, ignoring my question. “Another mile. Please. Please. Please.”
    I didn’t know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
    Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she’d changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn’t been human. She’d meant to kill me.
    Then I thought about Mr. Brunner . . . and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom! , and our car exploded.
    I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.
    I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver’s seat and said, “Ow.”
    “Percy!” my mom shouted.
    “I’m okay. . . .”
    I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn’t dead. The car hadn’t really exploded. We’d swerved into a ditch. Our driver’s-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
    Lightning. That was the only explanation. We’d been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. “Grover!”
    He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to die!
    Then he groaned “Food,” and I knew there was hope.
    “Percy,” my mother said, “we have to . . .” Her voice faltered.
    I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
    I swallowed hard. “Who is—”
    “Percy,” my mother said, deadly serious. “Get out of the car.”
    My mother threw herself against the driver’s-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might’ve been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
    “Climb out the passenger’s side!” my mother told me. “Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?”
    “What?”
    Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree–sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
    “That’s the property line,” my mom said. “Get over that hill and you’ll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don’t look back. Yell for help. Don’t stop until you reach the door.”
    “Mom, you’re coming too.”
    Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she