They're not so bad. They just need some attention. ...Like pets. Or my brother.

Could I just use the loo?” I asked the nice officer. “No.” She closed the door in my face, As if I might rig an explosion in the toilet. Honestly.

Carter started down the stairs, but I grabbed his arm. “Hang on. What about traps?” He frowned. “Traps?” “Didn’t Egyptian tombs have traps?” “Well…sometimes. But this isn’t a tomb. Besides, more often they had curses, like the burning curse, the donkey curse—” “Oh, lovely. That sounds so much better.

Blackjack," Percy said, "this is Piper and Jason. They're friends." The horse nickered. "Uh, maybe later," Percy answered. Piper had heard that Percy could speak to horses, being the son of the horse lord Poseidon, but she'd never seen it in action. "What does Blackjack want?" she asked. "Donuts," Percy said. "Always donuts.

Big brothers are the ones who are supposed to pull their punches. Little sisters—well, we should be able to hit as hard as we like, shouldn’t we?

Which reminded me...I still owed the gods a debt. "You're a genius," I (Percy) told Annabeth.

But this plan of yous!' Tawaret shuddered, causing a tsunami of jiggling hippo flesh.