The Sea of Monsters

demanded.
    “Just listen. The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that’s not important.”
    “It was probably important to her.”
    “The point is, when Cadmus got to Colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the Fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. The Fleece brought prosperity to the land. Animals stopped getting sick. Plants grew better. Farmers had bumper crops. Plagues never visited. That’s why Jason wanted the Fleece. It can revitalize any land where it’s placed. It cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution—”
    “It could cure Thalia’s tree.”
    Annabeth nodded. “And it would totally strengthen the borders of Camp Half-Blood. But Percy, the Fleece has been missing for centuries. Tons of heroes have searched for it with no luck.”
    “But Grover found it,” I said. “He went looking for Pan and he found the Fleece instead because they both radiate nature magic. It makes sense, Annabeth. We can rescue him and save the camp at the same time. It’s perfect!”
    Annabeth hesitated. “A little too perfect, don’t you think? What if it’s a trap?”
    I remembered last summer, how Kronos had manipulated our quest. He’d almost fooled us into helping him start a war that would’ve destroyed Western Civilization.
    “What choice do we have?” I asked. “Are you going to help me rescue Grover or not?”
    She glanced at Tyson, who’d lost interest in our conversation and was happily making toy boats out of cups and spoons in the lava.
    “Percy,” she said under her breath, “we’ll have to fight a Cyclops. Polyphemus, the worst of the Cyclopes. And there’s only one place his island could be. The Sea of Monsters.”
    “Where’s that?”
    She stared at me like she thought I was playing dumb. “The Sea of Monsters. The same sea Odysseus sailed through, and Jason, and Aeneas, and all the others.”
    “You mean the Mediterranean?”
    “No. Well, yes . . . but no.”
    “Another straight answer. Thanks.”
    “Look, Percy, the Sea of Monsters is the sea all heroes sail through on their adventures. It used to be in the Mediterranean, yes. But like everything else, it shifts locations as the West’s center of power shifts.”
    “Like Mount Olympus being above the Empire State Building,” I said. “And Hades being under Los Angeles.”
    “Right.”
    “But a whole sea full of monsters—how could you hide something like that? Wouldn’t the mortals notice weird things happening . . . like, ships getting eaten and stuff ?”
    “Of course they notice. They don’t understand, but they know something is strange about that part of the ocean. The Sea of Monsters is off the east coast of the U.S. now, just northeast of Florida. The mortals even have a name for it.”
    “The Bermuda Triangle?”
    “Exactly.”
    I let that sink in. I guess it wasn’t stranger than anything else I’d learned since coming to Camp Half-Blood.
    “Okay . . . so at least we know where to look.”
    “It’s still a huge area, Percy. Searching for one tiny island in monster-infested waters—”
    “Hey, I’m the son of the sea god. This is my home turf. How hard can it be?”
    Annabeth knit her eyebrows. “We’ll have to talk to Tantalus, get approval for a quest. He’ll say no.”
    “Not if we tell him tonight at the campfire in front of everybody. The whole camp will hear. They’ll pressure him. He won’t be able to refuse.”
    “Maybe.” A little bit of hope crept into Annabeth’s voice. “We’d better get these dishes done. Hand me the lava spray gun, will you?”
    That night at the campfire, Apollo’s cabin led the sing-along. They tried to get everybody’s spirits up, but it wasn’t easy after that afternoon’s bird attack. We all sat around a semicircle of stone steps, singing halfheartedly and watching the bonfire blaze while the Apollo guys strummed their guitars and picked their lyres.
    We did all the standard camp numbers: “Down by the Aegean,”
    “I Am My Own Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa,”
    “This Land is Minos’s Land.” The bonfire was enchanted, so the louder you sang,