Annabeth studied the chicks, which were running in circles, stomping in the straw, and hurling untranslatable insults in our direction. The chick I’d noticed earlier with the pink fluff on her face seemed particularly angry—she was peeping at the top of her tiny lungs.
“Hope I can catch one,” Annabeth muttered, mostly to herself.
Before I could say, For a wise girl, that does not seem like a wise move, she reached into the coop.
“OWW!”
Li’l Killer had bitten her finger and clamped on. Annabeth yanked her hand back, shaking the fluffy little chick around like a sock with static cling, but Li’l Killer refused to let go.
“Remember not to hurt her,” I said.
“Really helpful,” Annabeth grumbled.
Blood dripped from her finger, but she cupped her free hand around the chick, holding it against her chest so it wouldn’t get away, assuming it ever got tired of the taste of human flesh. “Let’s get to the karaoke bar.”
“Is one chick enough?” I asked.
“If you’re jealous, you can have this one.”
“She is kinda cute for a killer chicken.”
From across the arcade came a sudden roar of customers cheering, hens screeching BAWK! BAWK!, and one panicked satyr yelling, “Incoming!”
How quickly I’d forgotten the herd of holy hens that wanted to tear us apart.
Annabeth and I raced for the karaoke bar, though with my newly youngified legs, it was more of a waddle. I didn’t even have the time or energy to make the diving pool explode as we ran by.
Grover reached the lounge at the same time we did. He had feathers stuck in his fur, and the back of his shirt was shredded like he’d been rolling around on a really dangerous mattress.
“That was super fun,” he wheezed.
“Get the doors!” Annabeth said.
Grover and I grabbed the big mahogany panels and started sliding them together. Why the karaoke bar had its own partition, I wasn’t sure—maybe to protect the rest of the center from the music, or to create a private event space for birthday parties or intimate interrogation sessions.
We’d just closed the doors when the flock slammed against them.
The hens squawked in outrage. The mahogany panels shuddered and creaked. I couldn’t imagine they’d hold for long under a full chicken onslaught.
“What now?” Grover asked, gasping for breath.
He looked so young and terrified that I felt bad for getting a little kid like him into this situation. Then I remembered I was also a little kid like him.
“Now comes the hard part,” Annabeth said.
“That was the easy part?” I demanded.
Annabeth winced as she yanked Li’l Killer off her finger and set the chick on the floor.
Li’l Killer ruffled her blood-speckled feathers. She looked up at us with her shiny black eyes, peeped in a smug sort of way, like, Yeah, you best put me down, then wandered off, contentedly pecking pizza crumbs off the carpet.
Annabeth wrapped a napkin around her wounded finger. “This karaoke bar is Hebe’s temple, right? Her inner sanctum?”
I usually didn’t associate those words with karaoke bars, but I nodded. “And?”
“On Hebe’s holy days, petitioners used to come to her altar,” Annabeth continued.
“That’s right,” Grover said. “They’d ask forgiveness, and Hebe would give them sanctuary.”
“But this isn’t her holy day, is it?” I asked. “No way we could be that lucky.”
“Probably not,” Annabeth said. “But we’ll have to try.”
The doors shuddered, bending inward under the weight of the evil poultry.
“Grover,” Annabeth said, “do what you can to barricade the doors. Percy and I will look for the right song.”
“Song?” I asked. “You’re not really talking about a ‘Shallow’ duet?”
“No, an apology song, Seaweed Brain! We beg Hebe for forgiveness. Once she shows, we ask for sanctuary and a second chance.”
“What if she refuses?”
Annabeth looked at Li’l Killer. “Then I hope Plan Chick works. Otherwise, we’re dead.”
Gotta love those Annabeth pep talks.
They always boil down to
If A = B => Okay; if A ≠ B=> Dead.
I didn’t know why we’d abducted Li’l Killer, or what Annabeth planned to do with her, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to Plan Chick. Unfortunately, that meant I had to pin my hopes on Plan Percy Sings, which sounded just as likely to get us murdered.