Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods(11)

Her thoughts seemed to drift away. She’d been at Camp Half-Blood since she was seven years old, so she must have been reliving a really early memory. It made sense to me that she would like a game where you had to place one block on top of another. She was all about building and architecture.

As we approached the candy station, I felt a pang in my abdomen. Not because I was hungry, but because the smell reminded me so much of my mom’s old workplace, Sweet on America. I used to love going there during the summer and watching her help people pick out candy. I guess it was a pretty hard job, and it didn’t pay much, but my mom never failed to make people smile. They always left happy, with just the right mix of treats, which made my mom seem like a superhero to me.

Of course, she was still a superhero to me for a lot of reasons. But back when I was seven or eight, having a mom who was the candy lady felt like the coolest thing ever. She used to bring me free samples when she came home, and this place had all my old favorites: blueberry saltwater taffy, blue sour laces, blue . . . well, everything. It’s amazing my tongue hadn’t turned permanently violet.

Grover sniffed at the rows of licorice ropes, which came in so many colors they reminded me of Paul’s tie rack. (Paul loves wearing funky ties to school. He says it keeps his students awake.)

A group of adults walked past, giggly and teary-eyed, reminiscing about their favorite treats and games from back in the day.

“It’s a nostalgia trap,” I realized. “The place is selling people their own childhoods.”

Annabeth nodded. Her gaze drifted around the amusement center like she was scanning for threats. “That makes sense, but a lot of places sell nostalgia. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. . . .”

An employee walked past wearing a bright blue Hebe Jeebies polo shirt and matching shorts, fussing with a wheel of paper prize tickets.

“Excuse me, miss?” Annabeth touched her arm, and the employee jumped.

“What?” she snapped.

I realized she was just a kid. She had wiry black hair with pink barrettes, a pouty baby face, and a name tag that read SPARKY, MANAGER. She couldn’t have been more than nine years old.

“Sorry.” Sparky took a breath. “The token machine is broken again, and I gotta get these tickets to . . . Anyway, how can I help?”

I wondered if the gods had child-labor laws for their magical businesses. If so, the goddess of youth apparently didn’t believe in them.

“We’re looking for Hebe?” I asked.

“If this is about a refund for a defective game—”

“It’s not,” I said.

“Or the pizza being moldy—”

“It’s not. Also, yuck.”

“Depends on the mold,” Grover murmured.

“We just need to speak to the goddess in charge,” Annabeth said. “It’s kind of urgent.”

Sparky scowled, then relented. “Past the diving cliff; left at the henhouse.”

“Diving cliff?” I asked.

“Henhouse?” asked Grover.

“She’ll be in the karaoke bar.” Sparky wrinkled her nose like this was an unpleasant fact of life. “Don’t worry. You’ll hear it.”

She hurried off with her wheel o’ prize tickets.

I looked at Annabeth and Grover. “Are we really going to search out a karaoke bar . . . like, on purpose?”

“You can duet with me on ‘Shallow,’ ” Annabeth offered.

“You don’t want that,” I promised.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She pinched my arm lightly. “Might be romantic.”

“I’m just going to keep walking,” said Grover.

Which was probably the wisest choice.

We found the diving cliff: a two-story wall of fake rock where you could jump off into a suspiciously murky pool of water. A couple of kids were doing it on a loop, splashing down, clambering out, and racing back up to the top, while their parents stood nearby, engrossed in a game of Space Invaders.

I am a son of Poseidon, but you couldn’t have paid me enough to jump into that pool. Any enclosed body of water where little kids have been playing? No thanks. Nevertheless, I took note of where the pool was, just in case I needed some H2O to throw around.

I am a guy of limited talents. If I can’t kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, I am basically defenseless. I come preloaded with sarcasm. The pen-sword is always in my pocket. Now I had access to water, so I was as prepared as I could ever be.

We passed the henhouse . . . which I’d thought might be a nickname for a private event space or something, like where you’d have hen parties. But no. It was an actual henhouse. Right in the middle of the arcade stood a red shack on stilts, surrounded by a chicken-wire fence. On the floor around it, about a dozen hens and some little yellow chicks were pecking at feed, clucking, and basically being chickens.

“Why?” I asked.

“Hebe’s sacred animal,” Annabeth said. “Maybe we should move along.”

I didn’t argue. The chickens were staring at us with their beady black eyes as if thinking, Dude, if we were still dinosaurs, we would tear you to pieces.

At last, we found the karaoke bar. It was partitioned off from the rest of the amusement center by a set of sliding mahogany doors, but that didn’t stop the music from seeping through. Inside, half a dozen tables faced a sad little stage, where a squad of old folks belted out a song that sounded vaguely Woodstock-ish. The stage lights pulsed a sickly yellow color. The sound system crackled.