The Sea of Monsters

from the poison that had sunk into the tree’s roots. The longer I sat there, the angrier I got.
    Luke had done this. I remembered his sly smile, the dragon-claw scar across his face. He’d pretended to be my friend, and the whole time he’d been Kronos’s number-one servant.
    I opened the palm of my hand. The scar Luke had given me last summer was fading, but I could still see it—a white asterisk-shaped wound where his pit scorpion had stung me.
    I thought about what Luke had told me right before he’d tried to kill me: Good-bye, Percy. There is a new Golden Age coming. You won’t be part of it.
    * * *
    At night, I had more dreams of Grover. Sometimes, I just heard snatches of his voice. Once, I heard him say: It’s here. Another time: He likes sheep.
    I thought about telling Annabeth about my dreams, but I would’ve felt stupid. I mean, He likes sheep ? She would’ve thought I was crazy.
    The night before the race, Tyson and I finished our chariot. It was wicked cool. Tyson had made the metal parts in the armory’s forges. I’d sanded the wood and put the carriage together. It was blue and white, with wave designs on the sides and a trident painted on the front. After all that work, it seemed only fair that Tyson would ride shotgun with me, though I knew the horses wouldn’t like it, and Tyson’s extra weight would slow us down.
    As we were turning in for bed, Tyson said, “You are mad?”
    I realized I’d been scowling. “Nah. I’m not mad.”
    He lay down in his bunk and was quiet in the dark. His body was way too long for his bed. When he pulled up the covers, his feet stuck out the bottom. “I am a monster.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “It is okay. I will be a good monster. Then you will not have to be mad.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I stared at the ceiling and felt like I was dying slowly, right along with Thalia’s tree.
    “It’s just . . . I never had a half-brother before.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking. “It’s really different for me. And I’m worried about the camp. And another friend of mine, Grover . . . he might be in trouble. I keep feeling like I should be doing something to help, but I don’t know what.”
    Tyson said nothing.
    “I’m sorry,” I told him. “It’s not your fault. I’m mad at Poseidon. I feel like he’s trying to embarrass me, like he’s trying to compare us or something, and I don’t understand why.”
    I heard a deep rumbling sound. Tyson was snoring.
    I sighed. “Good night, big guy.”
    And I closed my eyes, too.
    In my dream, Grover was wearing a wedding dress.
    It didn’t fit him very well. The gown was too long and the hem was caked with dried mud. The neckline kept falling off his shoulders. A tattered veil covered his face.
    He was standing in a dank cave, lit only by torches. There was a cot in one corner and an old-fashioned loom in the other, a length of white cloth half woven on the frame. And he was staring right at me, like I was a TV program he’d been waiting for. “Thank the gods!” he yelped. “Can you hear me?”
    My dream-self was slow to respond. I was still looking around, taking in the stalactite ceiling, the stench of sheep and goats, the growling and grumbling and bleating sounds that seemed to echo from behind a refrigerator-sized boulder, which was blocking the room’s only exit, as if there were a much larger cavern beyond it.
    “Percy?” Grover said. “Please, I don’t have the strength to project any better. You have to hear me!”
    “I hear you,” I said. “Grover, what’s going on?”
    From behind the boulder, a monstrous voice yelled, “Honeypie! Are you done yet?”
    Grover flinched. He called out in falsetto, “Not quite, dearest! A few more days!”
    “Bah! Hasn’t it been two weeks yet?”
    “N-no, dearest. Just five days. That leaves twelve more to go.”
    The monster was silent, maybe trying to do the math. He must’ve been worse at arithmetic than I was, because he said, “All right, but hurry! I want to SEEEEE under that veil, heh-heh-heh.”
    Grover turned back to me. “You have to help me! No time! I’m stuck in this cave. On an island in the sea.”
    “ Where? ”
    “I don’t know exactly! I went to Florida and turned left.”
    “What? How did you—”
    “It’s a trap!” Grover said. “It’s the reason no satyr has ever returned from this quest. He’s a shepherd, Percy! And he has it. Its nature magic is so powerful it smells just like the great god