There!" Apollo pointed. "Long Island, dead ahead. Let's slow down, dear. 'Dead' is only an expression.

Poison!" Grover yelped. "Don't let those things touch you or..." "Or we'll die?" I guessed. "Well...after you shrivel slowly to dust, yes." "Let's avoid the swords," I decided.

I knew Dionysus must've filled it out, because he stubbornly insisted on getting my name wrong: Dear _______Peter Johnson__________.

The wood nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

The more you know, the more you try to change them, and that can be disastrous.

Like water leaking through a dam," said Piper. "Yeah," smiled Percy. "We've got a dam hole." "What?" Piper asked. "Nothing," he said. "Inside joke.

My modus operandi hasn't really changed that much from when I was an English teacher. I wanted my students to leave my classroom loving reading and wanting to read more, and if they left my classroom thinking that reading is boring, then I haven't done my job.