La Vie en Rose // Percy Jackson

iv. percy gets a new cabin mate

On the surface, things didn't look all that different at camp. The Big House was still there with its blue gabled roof and its wraparound porch. The strawberry fields still baked in the sun. The same white-columned Greek buildings were scattered around the valley—the amphitheater, the combat arena, the dining pavilion overlooking Long Island Sound. And nestled between the woods and the creek were the same cabins—a crazy assortment of twelve buildings, each representing a different Olympian god.

But there was an air of danger now. You could tell something was wrong. Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit, counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed.
Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods. The forest looked sickly, the grass in the meadow was pale yellow, and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars.

Somebody had messed with my favorite place in the world, and I was not... well, a happy camper.

Smooth, Annie. Real smooth.

As we made our way to the Big House, Percy recognized a lot of kids from last summer. Nobody stopped to talk. Nobody said, "Welcome back." Some did double takes when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties—running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels. The camp felt like a military school. Annabeth's described some to me. They definitely didn't sound fun.

None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw.

"Whasthat!" he gasped.

"The stables for pegasi," Percy said. "The winged horses."

"Whasthat!"

"Um... those are the toilets."

"Whasthat!"

"The cabins for the campers. If they don't know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin—that brown one over there—until you're deter- mined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom's group."

He looked at Percy in awe. "You... have a cabin?"

"Number three." He pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone.

"You live with friends in the cabin?"

"No. No, just me." He clearly didn't feel like explaining. The embarrassing truth: Percy was the only one who stayed in that cabin because he wasn't supposed to be alive. The "Big Three" gods—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—had made a pact after World War II not to have any more children with mortals. He was more powerful than regular half-bloods. He was too unpredictable.

When he got mad he tended to cause problems... like World War II, for instance. The "Big Three" pact had only been broken twice—once when Zeus sired Thalia, once when Poseidon sired Percy. Neither of them should've been born.

Thalia had gotten herself turned into a pine tree when she was twelve.

I found myself staring at Thalia's dying tree and quickly looked away for fear I'd start crying.

"Annie, we'll save it," Percy said. "I don't know how, but we will."

I met his eyes and said nothing. I wish I believed him.

When we got to the Big House, we found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his favorite 1960s lounge music while he packed his saddlebags. I guess I should mention—Chiron is a centaur. From the waist up he looks like a regular middle-aged guy with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. From the waist down, he's a white stallion. He can pass for human by compacting his lower half into a magic wheelchair. In fact, he'd passed himself off as Percy's Latin teacher during his sixth-grade year. But most of the time, if the ceilings are high enough, he prefers hanging out in full centaur form.