The Lightning Thief Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 I BECOME SUPREME LORD
 OF THE BATHROOM

  Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a squeamish bout, though I was conscientious non
to walk backside him. I'd washed pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few
times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron'due south back end the way I trusted his front end.
 We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur
horn I was carrying. Another said, "That'southward him."
 Near of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them
trotting around in orange Military camp HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to  cover their bare shaggy
hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the manner they stared at me fabricated me uncomfortable. I felt similar they
were expecting me to do a flip or something.
 I looked dorsum at the farmhouse. Information technology was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky bluish with
white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the contumely eagle weather vane on tiptop when
something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved
the curtain, simply for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was existence watched.
 "What'southward up there?" I asked Chiron.
 He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Only the attic."
 "Somebody lives there?"
 "No," he said with certitude. "Not a single living thing."
 I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was likewise sure something had moved that curtain.
 "Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a lilliputian forced. "Lots to see."
 Nosotros walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr
played a melody on a reed pipage.
 Chiron told me the military camp grew a overnice ingather for export to New York restaurants and Mountain Olympus. "It
pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."
 He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It
worked all-time with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries
instead.
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 I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in
every management, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with
music. I wondered if he was still within the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.
 "Grover won't go far too much problem, volition he?" I asked Chiron. "I hateful ... he was a good protector.
Really."
 Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has
big dreams, Percy. Mayhap bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great
courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to One-half-Claret Loma."
 "Merely he did that!"
 "I might agree with you," Chiron said. "Only it is not my identify to judge. Dionysus and the Council of
Cloven Elders must decide. I'grand afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover
lost yous in New York. And then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your female parent. And the fact that Grover
was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this
shows any backbone on Grover's part."
 I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, actually guilty. If I hadn't
given Grover the slip at the charabanc station, he might not have gotten in problem.
 "He'll get a second run a risk, won't he?"
 Chiron winced. "I'1000 agape that was Grover'due south 2nd chance, Percy. The council was non anxious to requite
him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years agone. Olympus knows, I brash him to
wait longer before trying once again. He'south nevertheless so small for his age... ."
 "How sometime is he?"
 "Oh, 20-eight."
 "What! And he's in sixth grade?"
 "Satyrs mature one-half as fast equally humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle schoolhouse student
for the past vi years."
 "That'south horrible."
 "Quite," Chiron agreed. "At whatsoever charge per unit, Grover is a belatedly bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very
accom-plished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he volition notice
some other career... ."
 "That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it actually and so bad?"
 Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's movement along, shall nosotros?"
 Just I wasn't quite ready to let the subject driblet. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked
well-nigh my mother's fate, every bit if he were intentionally fugitive the word decease. The beginnings of an idea—a
tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.
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 "Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."
 "Yes, child?"
 "Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"
 Chiron's expression darkened.
 "Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words intendance-fully. "There is a identify where spirits go after
decease. Just for now ... until we know more ...  I would urge you to put that out of your mind."
 "What do y'all hateful, 'until nosotros know more'?"
 "Come, Percy. Let's see the forest."
 Every bit nosotros got closer, I realized how huge the wood was. It took upwardly at to the lowest degree a quarter of the valley, with
copse then tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.
 Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if yous care to try your luck, merely go armed."
 "Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"
 "You lot'll meet. Capture the flag is Friday night. Practise you take your ain sword and shield?"
 "My own—?"
 "No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you practise. I think a size v will practice. I'll visit the armory later."
 I wanted to ask what kind of summertime camp had an arsenal, only there was likewise much else to think near,
and then the bout continued. Nosotros saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't
seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said
they held sword and spear fights.
 "Sword and spear fights?" I asked.
 "Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and at that place's the mess hall."
 Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea.
In that location were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.
 "What do you practise when information technology rains?" I asked.
 Chiron looked at me every bit if I'd gone a trivial weird. "We still have to eat, don't nosotros?" I decided to drop the
discipline.
 Finally, he showed me the cabins. At that place were twelve of them, nestled in the wood by the lake. They
were bundled in a U, with two at the base and v in a row on either side. And they were without doubt
the most baroque collection of buildings I'd always seen.
 Except for the fact that each had a large contumely number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on
the right), they looked absolutely cypher akin. Number nine had smokestacks, similar a tiny manufacturing plant.
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Number 4 had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made
of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was well-nigh impossible to await at. They all faced a
commons area nigh the size of a soccer field, dot-ted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a
couple of basketball game hoops (which were more my speed).
 In the centre of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth
smol-dered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.
 The pair of cabins at the caput of the field, numbers one and ii, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums,
big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front end. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the
twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from dissimilar angles lightning bolts
seemed to streak across them. Cabin ii was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded
with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
 "Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.
 "Correct," Chiron said.
 "Their cabins wait empty."
 "Several of the cabins are. That's true. No ane ever stays in one or two."
 Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But
why would some be empty?
 I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.
 It wasn't high and mighty similar cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough greyness
stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, equally if the slabs had been hewn straight from the lesser of
the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"
 Before he could pull me dorsum, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at
Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were half-dozen empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned
down. Simply at that place was no sign anyone had always slept there. The place felt so deplorable and lonely, I was glad
when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."
 Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.
 Number five was bright ruddy—a real nasty paint job, equally if the color had been splashed on with buckets
and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its
optics seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of hateful-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm
wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or
fourteen. She wore a size XXXL Campsite HALF-Blood T-shirt nether a camouflage jacket. She
zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl
was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brownish instead of red.
 I kept walking, trying to stay articulate of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I
observed.
 "No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might run into
them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. Merely you won't come across any here."
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 "You said your name was Chiron. Are you lot really ..."
 He smiled downward at me. "The  Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yeah, Percy, I
am."
 "Simply, shouldn't you be dead?"
 Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I hon-estly don't know aboutshould  be. The truth is, I
can't  be dead. Y'all come across, eons agone the gods granted my wish. I could con-tinue the work I loved. I could
be a instructor of heroes as long equally humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up
much. But I'm nevertheless here, so I tin can only assume I'm still needed."
 I idea about existence a instructor for three 1000 years. It wouldn't have made my Meridian Ten Things to
Wish For list.
 "Doesn't it ever get boring?"
 "No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."
 "Why depressing?"
 Chiron seemed to plow hard of hearing once again.
 "Oh, expect," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

  * * *
 The blond girl I'd met at the Large House was reading a book in front end of the last cabin on the left, number
xi.
 When nosotros reached her, she looked me over critically, similar she was still thinking almost how much I
drooled.
 I tried to come across what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the championship. I idea my dyslexia was acting
up. So I realized the title wasn't even English language. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.
There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an compages
book.
 "Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery grade at noon. Would you take Percy from hither?"
 "Yes, sir."
 "Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Brand yourself at home."
 Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the almost like a reg-ular old summertime military camp motel, with the emphasis
on former.  The threshold was worn downward, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those
physician's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ? A
caduceus.
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 Inside, information technology was packed with people, both boys and girls, manner more than the number of bunk beds.
Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Cherry-red Cross had fix an
evacuation center.
 Chiron didn't get in. The door was likewise low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and
bowed respectfully.
 "Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll come across you lot at dinner."
 He galloped away toward the archery range.
 I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me,
sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.
 "Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."
 And so naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers
from the campers, but none of them said annihilation.
 Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet motel xi.
 "Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.
 I didn't know what to say, just Annabeth said, "Undetermined."
 Everybody groaned.
 A guy who was a little older than the rest came forrard. "Now, now, campers. That'south what we're here
for. Welcome, Percy. Yous can have that spot on the floor, right over there."
 The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was alpine and muscular, with short-cropped
sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with
five different-colored dirt beads. The just affair unsettling nigh his appearance was a thick white scar
that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.
 "This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her vocalisation sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've
sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hard-ened once more. "He'southward your counselor
for now."
 "For now?" I asked.
 "You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put y'all in, so you're
here. Motel eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god
of travelers."
 I looked at the tiny department of floor they'd given me. I had aught to put there to mark it as my ain, no
luggage, no wearing apparel, no sleeping purse. But the Minotaur'southward horn. I thought nigh setting that down, but so
I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.
 I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing
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me as if they were waiting for a run a risk to pick my pockets.
 "How long will I be here?" I asked.
 "Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."
 "How long will that take?"
 The campers all laughed.
 "Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the vol-leyball court."
 "I've already seen it."
 "Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin xi
laughing behind me.
 When we were a few anxiety away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."
 "What?"
 She rolled her eyes and mumbled nether her breath, "I tin can't believe I thought yous were the ane."
 "What'south your problem?" I was getting angry at present. "All I know is, I impale some balderdash guy—"
 "Don't talk similar that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this military camp wish they'd had your
gamble?"
 "To go killed?"
 "To fight the Minotaur! What do y'all think we train for?"
 I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought actually was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."
 "Yes."
 "Then there'south only i."
 "Yeah."
 "And he died, similar, a gajillion years agone, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."
 "Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't dice."
 "Oh, thanks. That clears it up."
 "They don't have souls, like you and me. Yous can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole
lifetime if you lot're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche-types. Eventually, they
re-form."
 I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"
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 "The Fur ... I mean, your math instructor. That's correct. She's even so out there. You just fabricated her very, very
mad."
 "How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"
 "You talk in your sleep."
 "Y'all nearly called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"
 Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expectedit  to open and swallow her. "Y'all
shouldn't call them by name, even hither. Nosotros call them the Kindly Ones, if we take to speak of them at
all."
 "Wait, is in that location annihilation nosotros can say without it thunder-ing?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, simply right
so I didn't care. "Why do I take to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded
together? In that location are plenty of empty bunks correct over in that location."
 I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned stake. "Y'all don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It
depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."
 She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.
 "My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy shop in Grand Central Station. At least, she
used to."
 "I'grand pitiful nigh your mom, Percy. But that'due south not what I mean. I'yard talking about your other parent. Your
dad."
 "He's dead. I never knew him."
 Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father'south not dead,
Percy."
 "How tin you say that? You know him?"
 "No, of class not."
 "Then how can you say—"
 "Because I know you.  Y'all wouldn't exist here if you weren't one of u.s.a.."
 "Yous don't know anything most me."
 "No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked
out of a lot of them."
 "How—"
 "Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, also."
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 I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that accept to do with annihilation?"
 "Taken together, information technology's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the folio when you read, right? That'southward
because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—y'all're impulsive, can't sit still in the
classroom. That'due south your battle-field reflexes. In a existent fight, they'd keep you live. As for the attention
bug, that's because you lot encounter likewise much, Percy, not also little. Your senses are amend than a regular
mortal's. Of form the teachers want you medicated. Well-nigh of them are monsters. They don't want you
seeing them for what they are."
 "Y'all sound like ... y'all went through the aforementioned thing?"
 "Almost of the kids here did. If yous weren't like united states of america, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the
ambrosia and nectar."
 "Ambrosia and nectar."
 "The food and drink we were giving you to brand you improve. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. Information technology
would've turned your claret to burn and your bones to sand and y'all'd be dead. Face information technology. You lot're a
half-blood."
 A half-blood.
 I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to get-go.
 Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"
 I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls
behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.
 "Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't yous go polish your spear or something?"
 "Sure, Miss Princess," the large girl said. "And so I can run you lot through with it Friday night."
 ''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow nether-stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!'
though I had a feel-ing information technology was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."
 "We'll pulverize yous," Clarisse said, just her eye twitched. Perchance she wasn't sure she could follow
through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who'southward this niggling runt?"
 "Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "come across Clarisse, Girl of Ares."
 I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"
 Clarisse sneered. "You got a trouble with that?"
 "No," I said, recovering my wits. "Information technology explains the bad olfactory property."
 Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Nice."
 "Percy."
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 "Whatever. Come on, I'll bear witness you lot."
 "Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.
 "Stay out of information technology, wise girl."
 Annabeth looked pained, only she did stay out of it, and I didn't really desire her assistance. I was the new kid. I
had to earn my ain rep.
 I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, just earlier I knew information technology, Clarisse had me past
the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the
bathroom.
 I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like
fe. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. In that location was a line of toilets on 1 side and a line of shower
stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bath, and I was thinking—equally much as I could
think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able
to afford classier johns.
 Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur,
but information technology just wasn't in that location.
 "Like he's 'Big Iii' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Aye, right.
Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."
 Her friends snickered.
 Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.
 Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked similar
rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the
scummy water, thinking, I volition not go into that. I won't.
 Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes
shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc directly over my
caput, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind
me.
 I turned just equally water blasted out of the toilet again, hit-ting Clarisse straight in the face so difficult it pushed
her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a burn hose, pushing her backward
into a shower stall.
 She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. Merely then the other toilets exploded,
besides, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The show-ers acted up, too, and together all
the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around similar pieces of
garbage being washed abroad.
 Equally before long as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the h2o shut off every bit quickly as it
had started.
 The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping moisture, but she hadn't
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been pushed out the door. She was continuing in exactly the same identify, staring at me in shock.
 I looked downward and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of
dry floor around me. I didn't have 1 drib of water on my wearing apparel. Nothing.
 I stood up, my legs shaky.
 Annabeth said, "How did y'all ..."
 "I don't know."
 Nosotros walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of
other campers had gathered effectually to gawk. Clarisse'southward pilus was flattened across her face. Her
camouflage jacket was sop-ping and she smelled similar sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred.
"You are expressionless, new male child. You lot are totally expressionless."
 I probably should accept allow it go, but I said, "You desire to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close
your oral cavity."
 Her friends had to concord her back. They dragged her toward motel v, while the other campers fabricated
style to avert her flailing feet.
 Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was only grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.
 "What?" I demanded. "What are yous thinking?"
 "I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my squad for capture the flag."

The Lightning Thief Chapter 6,

Source: http://readpercyjacksonforever.blogspot.com/2012/05/the-lightning-thief-chapter-6.html

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