"Bloated!" he cried. The corresponding hieroglyph flew through the air, bursting against a demon's chest in a spray of light. Instantly, the demon swelled like a water balloon and rolled screaming down the pyramid. "Flat!" Thoth blasted another demon, who collapsed and shriveled into a monster-shaped doormat. "Intestinal problems!" Thoth yelled. The poor demon who got zapped with that one turned green and doubled over.

She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge'.

Tyson, Frank is a descendant of Poseidon." "Brother!" Tyson crushed Frank in a hug. Percy stifled a laugh. "Actually he's more like a great-great-...Oh, never mind. Yeah, he's your brother." "Thanks." Frank mumbled through a mouthful of flannel.

Marvelous,” she said. “Tell me about this tapestry.” Arachne’s lips curled over her mandibles. “Why do you care? You're about to die.” “Well, yes,” Annabeth said. “But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real gold thread for the sunbeams?

Kids, if anything, are harder to write for because they are a more discerning audience. They will not stay with you if you go off on a tangent or if you give them extraneous information that doesn't serve the story. You really have to tell a tight story. You have to give them humor and suspense and believable characters. All those things that adults want too, but you have to be really on your game when you're writing for kids.

Mythologically speaking, if there's anything I hate worse than trios of old ladies, it's bulls. Last summer, I fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls - bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn't bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too.

Am I a troubled kid? Yeah, you could say that.