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

I am your friend Bob!

Blowfish, did you say?" "Ah, no. Blofis, actually." "Oh, I see," Poseidon said. "A shame. I quite like blowfish.

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.

Percy imagined what that would be like: getting an apartment in this tiny replica of Rome, protected by the legion and Terminus the OCD border god. He imagined holding hands with Annabeth at a cafe. Maybe when they were older, watching their own kid chase seagulls across the forum.

Annabeth Thalia and I hadn't seen each other in months but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do we were too nervous to talk much. Except for my mom. She talks more when she's nervous. By the time we finally got to Westover Hall it was getting dark and she'd told Annabeth and Thalia every embarrassing baby story there was to tell about me.

Just tell me, Percy, do you still have the birthday gift I gave you last summer?" I nodded and pulled out my camp necklace. It had a bead for every summer I'd been at Camp Half-Blood, but since last year I'd also kept a sand dollar on the cord. My father had given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. He'd told me I would know when to "spend it," but so far I hadn't figured out what he meant. All I knew that it didn't fit the vending machines in the school cafeteria.