Curled up at the base of the scales, fast asleep, was the oddest monster I'd seen yet. It had the head of crocodile with a lion's mane. The front half of its body was a lion, but the back end was sleek, brown, and fat - a hippo, I decided. The odd bit was, the animal was tiny - I mean, no larger than an average poodle, which I suppose made him a hippodoodle.

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.

But magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool, like a knife. Is a knife evil? Only if the wielder is evil.

I imagined loading the God of the Sea into a taxi and taking him to the Upper East Side.

So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean-before he blew up?

Wha-what?" Her eyes fluttered open. "Nothing," I shouted. "We're being followed by a slaying machine. Go back to sleep.

The images from the book you make in your head are always going to be the best images.