The Sea of Monsters

Polyphemus will eat you for breakfast!”
    And just like that, I was in the cave.
    I could see the last of the sheep coming inside. If Annabeth didn’t pull off her distraction soon . . .
    The Cyclops was about to roll the stone back into place, when from somewhere outside Annabeth shouted, “Hello, ugly!”
    Polyphemus stiffened. “Who said that?”
    “Nobody!” Annabeth yelled.
    That got exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for. The monster’s face turned red with rage.
    “Nobody!” Polyphemus yelled back. “I remember you!”
    “You’re too stupid to remember anybody,” Annabeth taunted. “Much less Nobody.”
    I hoped to the gods she was already moving when she said that, because Polyphemus bellowed furiously, grabbed the nearest boulder (which happened to be his front door) and threw it toward the sound of Annabeth’s voice. I heard the rock smash into a thousand fragments.
    For a terrible moment, there was silence. Then Annabeth shouted, “You haven’t learned to throw any better, either!”
    Polyphemus howled. “Come here! Let me kill you, Nobody!”
    “You can’t kill Nobody, you stupid oaf,” she taunted. “Come find me!”
    Polyphemus barreled down the hill toward her voice.
    Now, the “Nobody” thing wouldn’t have made sense to anybody, but Annabeth had explained to me that it was the name Odysseus had used to trick Polyphemus centuries ago, right before he poked the Cyclops’s eye out with a large hot stick. Annabeth had figured Polyphemus would still have a grudge about that name, and she was right. In his frenzy to find his old enemy, he forgot about resealing the cave entrance. Apparently, he didn’t even stop to consider that Annabeth’s voice was female, whereas the first Nobody had been male. On the other hand, he’d wanted to marry Grover, so he couldn’t have been all that bright about the whole male/female thing.
    I just hoped Annabeth could stay alive and keep distracting him long enough for me to find Grover and Clarisse.
    I dropped off my ride, patted Widget on the head, and apologized. I searched the main room, but there was no sign of Grover or Clarisse. I pushed through the crowd of sheep and goats toward the back of the cave.
    Even though I’d dreamed about this place, I had a hard time finding my way through the maze. I ran down corridors littered with bones, past rooms full of sheepskin rugs and life-size cement sheep that I recognized as the work of Medusa. There were collections of sheep T-shirts; large tubs of lanolin cream; and wooly coats, socks, and hats with ram’s horns. Finally, I found the spinning room, where Grover was huddled in the corner, trying to cut Clarisse’s bonds with a pair of safety scissors.
    “It’s no good,” Clarisse said. “This rope is like iron!”
    “Just a few more minutes!”
    “Grover,” she cried, exasperated. “You’ve been working at it for hours!”
    And then they saw me.
    “ Percy? ” Clarisse said. “You’re supposed to be blown up!”
    “Good to see you, too. Now hold still while I—”
    “Perrrrrcy!” Grover bleated and tackled me with a goat-hug. “You heard me! You came!”
    “Yeah, buddy,” I said. “Of course I came.”
    “Where’s Annabeth?”
    “Outside,” I said. “But there’s no time to talk. Clarisse, hold still.”
    I uncapped Riptide and sliced off her ropes. She stood stiffly, rubbing her wrists. She glared at me for a moment, then looked at the ground and mumbled, “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome,” I said. “Now, was anyone else on board your lifeboat?”
    Clarisse looked surprised. “No. Just me. Everybody else aboard the Birmingham . . . well, I didn’t even know you guys made it out.”
    I looked down, trying not to believe that my last hope of seeing Tyson alive had just been crushed. “Okay. Come on, then. We have to help—”
    An explosion echoed through the cave, followed by a scream that told me we might be too late. It was Annabeth crying out in fear.

FIFTEEN

NOBODY GETS THE FLEECE
    “I got Nobody!” Polyphemus gloated.
    We crept to the cave entrance and saw the Cyclops, grinning wickedly, holding up empty air. The monster shook his fist, and a baseball cap fluttered to the ground. There was Annabeth, hanging upside down by her legs.
    “Hah!” the Cyclops said. “Nasty invisible girl! Already got feisty one for wife. Means you gotta be grilled with mango chutney!”
    Annabeth struggled, but she looked dazed. She had a nasty cut on her forehead.