The Sea of Monsters

draw Riptide and strike him down. But I couldn’t move. And even if I could, how could I kill something that had already been destroyed—chopped to pieces and cast into eternal darkness?
    Don’t let me stop you, the titan said. Perhaps this time, when you fail, you’ll wonder if it’s worthwhile slaving for the gods. How exactly has your father shown his appreciation lately?
    His laughter filled the cavern, and suddenly the scene changed.
    It was a different cave—Grover’s bedroom prison in the Cyclops’s lair.
    Grover was sitting at the loom in his soiled wedding dress, madly unraveling the threads of the unfinished bridal train.
    “Honeypie!” the monster shouted from behind the boulder.
    Grover yelped and began weaving the threads back together.
    The room shook as the boulder was pushed aside. Looming in the doorway was a Cyclops so huge he made Tyson look vertically challenged. He had jagged yellow teeth and gnarled hands as big as my whole body. He wore a faded purple T-shirt that said WORLD SHEEP EXPO 2001. He must’ve been at least fifteen feet tall, but the most startling thing was his enormous milky eye, scarred and webbed with cataracts. If he wasn’t completely blind, he had to be pretty darn close.
    “What are you doing?” the monster demanded.
    “Nothing!” Grover said in his falsetto voice. “Just weaving my bridal train, as you can see.”
    The Cyclops stuck one hand into the room and groped around until he found the loom. He pawed at the cloth. “It hasn’t gotten any longer!”
    “Oh, um, yes it has, dearest. See? I’ve added at least an inch.”
    “Too many delays!” the monster bellowed. Then he sniffed the air. “You smell good! Like goats!”
    “Oh.” Grover forced a weak giggle. “Do you like it? It’s Eau de Chévre . I wore it just for you.”
    “Mmmm!” The Cyclops bared his pointed teeth. “Good enough to eat!”
    “Oh, you’re such a flirt!”
    “No more delays!”
    “But dear, I’m not done!”
    “Tomorrow!”
    “No, no. Ten more days.”
    “Five!”
    “Oh, well, seven then. If you insist.”
    “Seven! That is less than five, right?”
    “Certainly. Oh yes.”
    The monster grumbled, still not happy with his deal, but he left Grover to his weaving and rolled the boulder back into place.
    Grover closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, trying to calm his nerves.
    “Hurry, Percy,” he muttered. “Please, please, please!”
    * * *
    I woke to a ship’s whistle and a voice on the intercom— some guy with an Australian accent who sounded way too happy.
    “Good morning, passengers! We’ll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don’t forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o’clock, and for our special guests , disemboweling practice on the Promenade!”
    I sat up in bed. “What did he say?”
    Tyson groaned, still half asleep. He was lying facedown on the couch, his feet so far over the edge they were in the bathroom. “The happy man said . . . bowling practice?”
    I hoped he was right, but then there was an urgent knock on the suite’s interior door. Annabeth stuck her head in—her blond hair in a rat’s nest. “ Disemboweling practice?”
    Once we were all dressed, we ventured out into the ship and were surprised to see other people. A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.
    Nobody asked who we were. Nobody paid us much attention. But there was something wrong.
    As the family of swimmers passed us, the dad told his kids: “We are on a cruise. We are having fun.”
    “Yes,” his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. “We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool.”
    They wandered off.
    “Good morning,” a crew member told us, his eyes glazed. “We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda . Have a nice day.” He drifted away.
    “Percy, this is weird,” Annabeth whispered. “They’re all in some kind of trance.”
    Then we passed a cafeteria and saw our first monster. It was a hellhound—a black mastiff with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must’ve been young, because it was small compared to most—no bigger than a grizzly bear. Still, my blood turned cold. I’d almost gotten killed by one of those before.
    The weird thing was: a