The Titan's Curse

Sopwith Camel.”
    She smiled tentatively. “Deal. And, Percy—”
    Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by Grover, who stumbled out of the Big House, tripping over tin cans. His face was haggard and pale, like he’d seen a specter.
    “He spoke!” Grover cried.
    “Calm down, my young satyr,” Chiron said, frowning. “What is the matter?”
    “I . . . I was playing music in the parlor,” he stammered, “and drinking coffee. Lots and lots of coffee! And he spoke in my mind!”
    “Who?” Annabeth demanded.
    “Pan!” Grover wailed. “The Lord of the Wild himself. I heard him! I have to . . . I have to find a suitcase.”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “What did he say?”
    Grover stared at me. “Just three words. He said, ‘I await you.’”

Don't miss the exciting new series The Kane Chronicles , by Rick Riordan

    We only have a few hours, so listen carefully.
    If you’re hearing this story, you’re already in danger. Sadie and I might be your only chance.
    Go to the school. Find the locker. I won’t tell you which school or which locker, because if you’re the right person, you’ll find it. The combination is 13/32/33. By the time you finish listening, you’ll know what those numbers mean. Just remember the story we’re about to tell you isn’t complete yet. How it ends will depend on you.
    The most important thing: when you open the package and find what’s inside, don’t keep it longer than a week. Sure, it’ll be tempting. I mean, it will grant you almost unlimited power. But if you possess it too long, it will consume you. Learn its secrets quickly and pass it on. Hide it for the next person, the way Sadie and I did for you. Then be prepared for your life to get very interesting.
    Okay, Sadie is telling me to stop stalling and get on with the story. Fine. I guess it started in London, the night our dad blew up the British Museum.
     
    My name is Carter Kane. I’m fourteen and my home is a suitcase.
    You think I’m kidding? Since I was eight years old, my dad and I have traveled the world. I was born in L.A. but my dad’s an archaeologist, so his work takes him all over. Mostly we go to Egypt, since that’s his specialty. Go into a bookstore, find a book about Egypt, there’s a pretty good chance it was written by Dr. Julius Kane. You want to know how Egyptians pulled the brains out of mummies, or built the pyramids, or cursed King Tut’s tomb? My dad is your man. Of course, there are other reasons my dad moved around so much, but I didn’t know his secret back then.
    I didn’t go to school. My dad homeschooled me, if you can call it “home” schooling when you don’t have a home. He sort of taught me whatever he thought was important, so I learned a lot about Egypt and basketball stats and my dad’s favorite musicians. I read a lot, too—pretty much anything I could get my hands on, from dad’s history books to fantasy novels—because I spent a lot of time sitting around in hotels and airports and dig sites in foreign countries where I didn’t know anybody. My dad was always telling me to put the book down and play some ball. You ever try to start a game of pick-up basketball in Aswan, Egypt? It’s not easy.
    Anyway, my dad trained me early to keep all my possessions in a single suitcase that fits in an airplane’s overhead compartment. My dad packed the same way, except he was allowed an extra workbag for his archaeology tools. Rule number one: I was not allowed to look in his workbag. That’s a rule I never broke until the day of the explosion.
     
    It happened on Christmas Eve. We were in London for visitation day with my sister, Sadie.
    See, Dad’s only allowed two days a year with her—one in the winter, one in the summer—because our grandparents hate him. After our mom died, her parents (our grandparents) had this big court battle with Dad. After six lawyers, two fistfights, and a near fatal attack with a spatula (don’t ask), they won the right to keep Sadie with them in England. She was only six, two years younger than me, and they couldn’t keep us both—at least that was their excuse for not taking me. So Sadie was raised as a British schoolkid, and I traveled around with my dad. We only saw Sadie twice a year, which was fine with me.
    [Shut up, Sadie. Yes—I’m getting to that part.]
    So anyway, my dad and I had just flown into Heathrow after a couple of delays. It was a drizzly, cold afternoon. The whole taxi ride into the city, my