The Sea of Monsters

among mortals, Tyson’s single eye had blurred from the Mist. Grover had put on his cap and sneakers. Even the Fleece had transformed from a sheepskin to a red-and-gold high school letter jacket with a large glittery Omega on the pocket.
    Annabeth ran to the nearest newspaper box and checked the date on the Miami Herald . She cursed. “June eighteenth! We’ve been away from camp ten days!”
    “That’s impossible!” Clarisse said.
    But I knew it wasn’t. Time traveled differently in monstrous places.
    “Thalia’s tree must be almost dead,” Grover wailed. “We have to get the Fleece back tonight .”
    Clarisse slumped down on the pavement. “How are we supposed to do that?” Her voice trembled. “We’re hundreds of miles away. No money. No ride. This is just like the Oracle said. It’s your fault, Jackson! If you hadn’t interfered—”
    “Percy’s fault?!” Annabeth exploded. “Clarisse, how can you say that? You are the biggest—”
    “Stop it!” I said.
    Clarisse put her head in hands. Annabeth stomped her foot in frustration.
    The thing was: I’d almost forgotten this quest was supposed to be Clarisse’s. For a scary moment, I saw things from her point of view. How would I feel if a bunch of other heroes had butted in and made me look bad?
    I thought about what I’d overheard in the boiler room of the CSS Birmingham —Ares yelling at Clarisse, warning her that she’d better not fail. Ares couldn’t care less about the camp, but if Clarisse made him look bad . . .
    “Clarisse,” I said, “what did the Oracle tell you exactly?”
    She looked up. I thought she was going to tell me off, but instead she took a deep breath and recited her prophecy:
    “You shall sail the iron ship with warriors of bone,
You shall find what you seek and make it your own,
But despair for your life entombed within stone,
And fail without friends, to fly home alone.”
    “Ouch,” Grover mumbled.
    “No,” I said. “No . . . wait a minute. I’ve got it.”
    I searched my pockets for money, and found nothing but a golden drachma. “Does anybody have any cash?”
    Annabeth and Grover shook their heads morosely. Clarisse pulled a wet Confederate dollar from her pocket and sighed.
    “Cash?” Tyson asked hesitantly. “Like . . . green paper?”
    I looked at him. “Yeah.”
    “Like the kind in duffel bags?”
    “Yeah, but we lost those bags days a-g-g—”
    I stuttered to a halt as Tyson rummaged in his saddle pack and pulled out the Ziploc bag full of cash that Hermes had included in our supplies.
    “Tyson!” I said. “How did you—”
    “Thought it was a feed bag for Rainbow,” he said. “Found it floating in sea, but only paper inside. Sorry.”
    He handed me the cash. Fives and tens, at least three hundred dollars.
    I ran to the curb and grabbed a taxi that was just letting out a family of cruise passengers. “Clarisse,” I yelled. “Come on. You’re going to the airport. Annabeth, give her the Fleece.”
    I’m not sure which of them looked more stunned as I took the Fleece letter jacket from Annabeth, tucked the cash into its pocket, and put it in Clarisse’s arms.
    Clarisse said, “You’d let me—”
    “It’s your quest,” I said. “We only have enough money for one flight. Besides, I can’t travel by air. Zeus would blast me into a million pieces. That’s what the prophecy meant: you’d fail without friends, meaning you’d need our help, but you’d have to fly home alone. You have to get the Fleece back safely.”
    I could see her mind working—suspicious at first, wondering what trick I was playing, then finally deciding I meant what I said.
    She jumped in the cab. “You can count on me. I won’t fail.”
    “Not failing would be good.”
    The cab peeled out in a cloud of exhaust. The Fleece was on its way.
    “Percy,” Annabeth said, “that was so—”
    “Generous?” Grover offered.
    “ Insane ,” Annabeth corrected. “You’re betting the lives of everybody at camp that Clarisse will get the Fleece safely back by tonight?”
    “It’s her quest,” I said. “She deserves a chance.”
    “Percy is nice,” Tyson said.
    “Percy is too nice,” Annabeth grumbled, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, she was a little impressed. I’d surprised her, anyway. And that wasn’t easy to do.
    “Come on,” I told my friends. “Let’s find another way home.”
    That’s when I turned and found a sword’s point at my throat.
    “Hey, cuz,”