The Riptides: Percy's Sister (Percy Jackson And The Olympians)

Book One, Chapter Twenty One 1.21

It's funny how people wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality. Chiron had told me that like ten days ago, which feels like forever ago. I did not appreciate this wisdom until now.

According to the Los Angeles news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper (aka Ares) fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

This crazy kidnapper was the same man who had abducted me, Percy and two other kids in New York and brought us across the country on a ten day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy and Molly Jackson weren't international criminals after all. They'd caused a commotion on the Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from their captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather class man on the bus- "Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson (this kid sounds like an idiot) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun to rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy and Molly Jackson and their two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed us the whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't that hard) and played victimized kids for the camera.

"All I want," I said, choking back tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling us delinquent punks, I knew... somehow... we would be okay."

"And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number." Percy offered.

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around a hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

I hoped Zeus would cut us some slack, but it was still hard for me and Percy to force ourselves on the plane.

Takeoff was a nightmare. Every spot of turbulence was more frightening than a Greek monster. Me and Percy didn't unclench our hands from the armrests until we touched down safely at La Guardia. That was the longest three hours of my life. The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!," then caught up with us at baggage claim.

We split up at the taxi stand.

"You two go back to camp." Percy told Annabeth and Grover. "Let Chiron know what happened."

They protested, but Percy insisted.

"Me and Molly have to do this last part ourselves. If things went wrong, if the gods didn't believe us... you two should at least survive to tell Chiron the truth. Come on Molly."

Percy and I hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan.

About half an hour later, we walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building.

We must've looked like homeless kids, with our tattered clothes and scraped up faces. We hadn't slept in an entire twenty four hours.

We went up to the guard at the front desk and Percy said, "Six hundredth floor."

"No such floor, kiddo."

"We need an audience with Zeus."

"Sorry?"