𝒊. 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

𝒗𝒊𝒊.

After tripping and Percy cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, Noelle started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. She could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. She realized she hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since her last cupcake from her dad last October. Only because at Half-Blood Hill they live on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue.

They kept walking until Noelle saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like she'd thought. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for any demigod to read, because if there's anything worse for a demigod's dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.

To the demigods, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.

"What the heck does that say?" Percy asked.

"I don't know," Annabeth said.

She loved reading so much, Noelle had forgotten she was dyslexic, too.

Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.

Percy crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers. The rest of them followed, Grover and Noelle a little more reluctant.

"Hey..." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."

"Snack bar," Percy said wistfully.

"Snack bar," she agreed.

"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."

"Yeah. The only thing open is a gnome emporium? Kind of sketchy," Noelle agreed.

Percy and Annabeth ignored them.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

They stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," Noelle reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Aren't you on my side? Come on. Let's leave. These statues are... looking at me."

Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of them was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least, Noelle assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all Noelle could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so it was easy to imagine she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"They're... um..." Annabeth started to say.