The Titan's Curse

play, like, Green Day or something?”
    “Green who?”
    “Never mind. Let’s dance.”
    “But I can’t dance!”
    “You can if I’m leading,” Thalia said. “Come on, goat boy.”
    Grover yelped as Thalia grabbed his hand and led him onto the dance floor.
    Annabeth smiled.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Nothing. It’s just cool to have Thalia back.”
    Annabeth had grown taller than me since last summer, which I found kind of disturbing. She used to wear no jewelry except for her Camp Half-Blood bead necklace, but now she wore little silver earrings shaped like owls—the symbol of her mother, Athena. She pulled off her ski cap, and her long blond hair tumbled down her shoulders. It made her look older, for some reason.
    “So . . .” I tried to think of something to say. Act natu ral , Thalia had told us. When you’re a half-blood on a dangerous mission, what the heck is natural? “Um, design any good buildings lately?”
    Annabeth’s eyes lit up, the way they always did when she talked about architecture. “Oh my gods, Percy. At my new school, I get to take 3-D design as an elective, and there’s this cool computer program . . .”
    She went on to explain how she’d designed this huge monument that she wanted to build at Ground Zero in Manhattan. She talked about structural supports and facades and stuff, and I tried to listen. I knew she wanted to be a super architect when she grew up—she loves math and historical buildings and all that—but I hardly understood a word she was saying.
    The truth was I was kind of disappointed to hear that she liked her new school so much. It was the first time she’d gone to school in New York. I’d been hoping to see her more often. It was a boarding school in Brooklyn, and she and Thalia were both attending, close enough to Camp Half-Blood that Chiron could help if they got in any trouble. Because it was an all-girls school, and I was going to MS-54 in Manhattan, I hardly ever saw them.
    “Yeah, uh, cool,” I said. “So you’re staying there the rest of the year, huh?”
    Her face got dark. “Well, maybe, if I don’t—”
    “Hey!” Thalia called to us. She was slow dancing with Grover, who was tripping all over himself, kicking Thalia in the shins, and looking like he wanted to die. At least his feet were fake. Unlike me, he had an excuse for being clumsy.
    “Dance, you guys!” Thalia ordered. “You look stupid just standing there.”
    I looked nervously at Annabeth, then at the groups of girls who were roaming the gym.
    “Well?” Annabeth said.
    “Um, who should I ask?”
    She punched me in the gut. “ Me , Seaweed Brain.”
    “Oh. Oh, right.”
    So we went onto the dance floor, and I looked over to see how Thalia and Grover were doing things. I put one hand on Annabeth’s hip, and she clasped my other hand like she was about to judo throw me.
    “I’m not going to bite,” she told me. “Honestly, Percy. Don’t you guys have dances at your school?”
    I didn’t answer. The truth was we did. But I’d never, like, actually danced at one. I was usually one of the guys playing basketball in the corner.
    We shuffled around for a few minutes. I tried to concentrate on little things, like the crepe-paper streamers and the punch bowl—anything but the fact that Annabeth was taller than me, and my hands were sweaty and probably gross, and I kept stepping on her toes.
    “What were you saying earlier?” I asked. “Are you having trouble at school or something?”
    She pursed her lips. “It’s not that. It’s my dad.”
    “Uh-oh.” I knew Annabeth had a rocky relationship with her father. “I thought it was getting better with you two. Is it your stepmom again?”
    Annabeth sighed. “He decided to move. Just when I was getting settled in New York, he took this stupid new job researching for a World War I book. In San Francisco .”
    She said this the same way she might say Fields of Punishment or Hades’s gym shorts .
    “So he wants you to move out there with him?” I asked.
    “To the other side of the country,” she said miserably. “And half-bloods can’t live in San Francisco. He should know that.”
    “What? Why not?”
    Annabeth rolled her eyes. Maybe she thought I was kidding. “You know. It’s right there .”
    “Oh,” I said. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn’t want to sound stupid. “So . . . you’ll go back to living at camp or what?”
    “It’s more serious than that, Percy. I . . . I