My mom hugged Grover and gushed over the basket of strawberries as I put them on the kitchen counter.
“They smell wonderful!” she said. “Perfect dessert!”
“Last crop of the summer,” Grover said wistfully.
He gave me a sad smile, like he was ruminating about how this had been my last summer at camp as well. Once demigods graduate high school, if we live that long, most of us transition out into the regular world. The thinking is that by then, we are strong enough to fend for ourselves, and monsters tend to leave us alone because we’re no longer such easy targets. That’s the theory, anyway. . . .
“Now we have to get ready for gourd season,” Grover continued with a sigh. “Don’t get me wrong. I love decorative gourds, but they’re not as tasty.”
My mom patted his shoulder. “We’ll make sure these berries don’t go to waste.”
The rice cooker chimed just as Paul turned off the burner on the stovetop and gave the steaming wok one last stir. “Who’s hungry?”
Everything tastes better when you’re eating with people you love. I remember each meal my friends and I shared in the galley on board the Argo II—even if we were mostly just chowing down on junk food between life-and-death battles. These days, at home, I tried to savor every dinner with my mom and Paul.
I spent most of my childhood moving from boarding school to boarding school, so I never had the whole family-dinner thing growing up. The few times I was home, back when my mom was married to Smelly Gabe Ugliano, supper together had never been appealing. The only thing worse than Gabe’s stink was the way he chewed with his mouth open.
My mom did her best. Everything she did was to protect me, including living with Gabe, whose stench threw monsters off my trail. Still . . . my rough past just made me appreciate these times even more.
We talked about my mom’s writing. After years of dreaming and struggling, her first novel was going to be published in the spring. She hadn’t made much money on the deal, but hey, a publisher had actually paid her for her writing! She was presently wavering between elation and extreme anxiety about what would happen when her book came out.
We also talked about Grover’s work on the Council of Cloven Elders, sending satyrs all over the world to check out catastrophes in the wilderness. The council had no shortage of problems to deal with these days.
Finally, I filled in Grover about my first day at school, and the three recommendation letters I was supposed to get from the gods.
A look of panic flashed across his face, but he suppressed it quickly. He sat up straighter and brushed some rice out of his goatee. “Well then, we’ll do these quests together!”
I tried not to show how relieved I was deep down. “Grover, you don’t have to—”
“Are you kidding?” He grinned at Annabeth. “A chance to do quests, just the three of us? Like old times? The Three Musketeers!”
“The Powerpuff Girls,” Annabeth suggested.
“Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” Grover said.
“I’m fine with this,” Annabeth said.
Paul raised his glass. “The monsters will never know what hit them. Just be careful, you three.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Grover said, though his left eye twitched. “Besides, it always takes a while for word to get around among the gods. We’ve probably got weeks before the first request comes in!”
The first request arrived the next day.
At least I’d gotten through all my classes this time. I survived math, kept my eyes open through English, had a nap in study hall （favorite class ever）， and got to meet the swim team in seventh period. The coach said our first swim meet would be on Thursday. No problem, as long as I remembered not to breathe underwater, swim at Mach 5, or come out of the pool totally dry. Those things tended to get me strange looks.
It wasn’t until I was on my way to meet Annabeth and Grover at Himbo Juice after school that I got accosted by a god.
I was sitting on the F train when someone’s shadow fell over me. “May I join you?”
I knew instantly I was in trouble. Nobody talks on the subway if they can avoid it, especially to people they don’t know. No one ever asks if they can join you. They just wedge themselves into whatever seat is available. And besides, the car was almost empty.
The guy in front of me looked like he was about twenty. He had short-cropped black hair, large brown eyes, and coppery skin. He was dressed in ripped jeans, a skintight black tee, and various bits of gold: rings, earrings, necklace, nose ring, wrist bangles. Even the laces of his boots glittered gold. He looked like he’d just stepped out of an ad for some Madison Avenue boutique: Buy our jewelry and you will look like this dude!