That sounded like another trick question. Stupidly, I tried to answer it.
“You’re right,” I said. “Of course that’s silly. But maybe you know someone else who could’ve stolen it? Or if you’d let us look around so we can report back that it definitely isn’t here—”
“ENOUGH!” Hebe roared. She spread her hands. “What did you say earlier, Percy Jackson? Getting older is part of life? Well, perhaps you should start that process over again. Maybe you’ll do it right this time and learn some manners!”
The goddess burst into a storm of rainbow glitter that knocked me right out of my chair.
If nostalgia was the door back to youth, I felt like Hebe had opened that door and drop-kicked me through it.
My entire body hurt. Muscles ached in my gut and back where I didn’t even know I had muscles. My brain throbbed like it was too big for my skull.
I lay flat on the floor, the carpet sticky and bristly against my arms. When I sat up, I felt both sluggish and too light, as if someone had given me a transfusion of liquid helium. Annabeth was lying on my left, just starting to stir. Grover was facedown a few feet away, snoring into the rug.
We were alive. We had not been turned into glitter or arcade tickets. Hebe had vanished. Something was wrong, though. My hands felt stubby. My pant legs were too long. The cuffs pooled around my ankles.
I didn’t really understand what had happened until Annabeth groaned and sat up. She, too, was swimming in her too-big clothes. Her face . . . well, look, I would know Annabeth’s face anywhere. I love her face. But this was a version of her I’d never seen before—except in a few old pictures and dream visions.
This was Annabeth the way she’d looked soon after she’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood. She’d regressed to about eight years old.
She rubbed her head and stared at me, her eyes going wide, then let out a curse that sounded strange coming from the mouth of a third grader. “Hebe younged us.”
“BLAAAAAHHHH!” Grover sat up and rubbed his head.
His horns had shrunk to tiny stubs. His goatee was now a gone-tee. His fake feet and shoes had rolled away from his suddenly baby-size hooves, and his shirt was so big it looked like a nightgown.
“I don’t feel so good.” He picked a string of cheese off his face, then looked at his hooves and moaned. “Oh, no. I don’t want to be a kid again!”
I didn’t know if he meant the human kind or the goat kind . . . probably both. Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, I remembered Grover telling me. Which meant . . . multiply by two, carry the one, divide by . . . Nope, never mind. I’d save the math for my homework. If I ever got home again.
“Maybe we’ll change back if we leave the building?” I suggested.
Annabeth stood up shakily. It was strange seeing her as a younger girl. I had an irrational fear that she would yell, Gross! Boy cooties! and run away from me.
Instead, she said doubtfully, “Worth a try.”
We made our way back through the amusement center. When we passed the coop, the chickens looked at us with renewed interest. I didn’t even know chickens could look interested, but they cocked their heads and clucked and flapped their wings. One of the chicks in particular, which had pink fluff around its eyes and beak, followed us along the fence, strutting and peeping.
“Wow, rude,” Grover said.
“What?”
“She’s threatening to tear the flesh from our bones.”
I glanced nervously at the chick. “Okay, li’l killer. Calm down. We’re leaving.”
Suddenly, Grover rounded on me, lowered his head, and butted me in the chest hard enough to push me back a step.
“Ow!” I complained. “Dude, why?”
“Sorry, sorry!” Grover rubbed his horns. “I—I need to play. I’m practicing social dominance in the herd.”
He butted me in the chest again.
“This is going to get old real quick,” I said.
“Right now, I’d love to get old real quick,” Annabeth said. “Let’s keep going.”
None of the other patrons paid us any attention. I guess we were just three more children in the crowd. I looked for Sparky, or somebody else in an employee uniform, but I didn’t see anyone. I tried to keep my focus on finding the exit, but every blinking light and beeping sound caught my attention, tempting me to try the games.
It’s hard having ADHD, but now I remembered how much harder it had been when I was younger, before I’d learned how to channel my focus, control my fidgeting, or, for all practical purposes, even operate my own body.