GODS AND MONSTERS , pjo

22 , Percy's "friend"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PERCY'S "FRIEND"
Exit music — Radiohead

      We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest.

      According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

      Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful gray silk with embroidered owls I told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched me and told me to shut up.

     Being children of Poseidon, Percy and I didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheets and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle of each.

      I smiled as it burned.

      Apparently when I was being pulled apart by crusty, I actually like pulled something. I feel like an old lady when I say it. But it was nothing ambrosia and a good night sleep couldn't fix.

      As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, I was surrounded by my old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."

      The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me they'd never forgive us for disgracing their dad.

      That was okay with me.

      Though Estella seemed to be in a good mood.

      Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brats didn't get themselves killed and now they'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."

      I moved back into cabin three, but it didn't feel so lonely anymore. I had my friends to train with during the day.

      At night, me, Estella, Aella, Annabeth, and some girl from the Aphrodite cabin (i believe her name was Lucía) stayed up past curfew and played uno. So far Annabeth was in the lead with 11 wins. We've played 12 times...

      The other time Lucía won because she used her weird special speaking powers to get Annabeth to practically quit. It only happened once tho because Annabeth had learned her lesson.

      As for my mother, she had a chance at a new life. Her letter arrived a week after we got back to camp.

      She told us Gabe had left "mysteriously disappeared" off the face of the planet, in fact. She'd reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.

      On a completely unrelated subject, she'd sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, entitled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She'd gotten so much money for it, she'd put a deposit down on a new apartment and made a payment on her first semester's tuition at NYU.

      The Soho gallery was clamoring for more of her work, which they called "a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism."

      But don't worry, my mom wrote. I'm done with sculpture. I've disposed of that box of tools you left me. It's time for me to turn to writing.