She whirled when the monster was almost on top of her. I thought the thing in her hands was an umbrella until she cranked the pump and the shotgun blast blew the giant twenty feet backwards, right into Nico's sword. "Nice one," Paul said. "When did you learn to fire a shotgun?" I demanded. My mom blew the hair out of her face. "About two seconds ago. Percy, we'll be fine. Go!

i held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus- Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants.

Nico started to crawl away, groaning. Percy wanted him to move faster and groan less. He considered throwing his wonder bread at him.

If you'd sat there any longer,' Annabeth said, 'you would have spontaneously combusted. I hope the conversation was worth it?

Chaos is impatient. It's random. And above all it's selfish. It tears down everything just for the sake of change, feeding on itself in constant hunger. But Chaos can also be appealing. It tempts you to believe that nothing matters except what you want.

On a basketball court, five players were in the middle of an intense game. They wore assortment of jerseys from different American teams, and they all seemed keen to win—grunting and snarling at each other, stealing the ball and pushing. Oh…and the players were all baboons.

One basketball to rule them all,” Leo muttered.