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For a while, we just settled into a comfortable silence, watching dozens of vignettes of city life in the illuminated windows of the neighborhood. A family was cooking dinner, laughing and flinging strings of spaghetti at one another. An old man slumped alone in a chair, his face washed in the blue light of a TV screen. Two kids jumped on a bed, hitting each other with pillows.
I love New York because you can see all those lives side by side, like an endless patchwork of different video game screens inviting you to hit Play and slip into a new reality. I wondered if anyone had ever thought about slipping into my life.
“What was I like when I was little?” I asked.
My mom tensed like this was a trick question. “Why do you ask?”
“I turned eight years old today.”
Usually, I don’t tell my mom the details of my quests. I don’t want to worry her any more than I have to. She already knows how dangerous demigod life is. Tonight, though, I recounted my afternoon with all the heebies and jeebies.
“That’s a lot,” she said. “I’ve always liked ‘Jealous Guy,’ but still....”
I nodded, a lump in my throat.
“You got through it,” she noted. “You always do.”
“I guess.... But it was like all my progress, all those years of getting older and learning how to survive... Hebe took it away with a snap of her fingers. I was a helpless little kid again.”
“You are a lot of things, Percy. Buthelplessisn’t one of them.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “When you were little... whenever you got scared, you might back away for a second, but then you would march right up to whatever was scaring you. You’d stare it down until it went away, or until you understood it. Thinking about you as a toddler makes me feel...”
“Sick to your stomach?”
She laughed. “It makes me feelhopeful. You’re still moving forward. You’ve grown into a fine young man, and I’m proud of you.”
The lump in my throat was the size of a kiwi fruit.
“It’s also okay to doubt yourself,” my mom added. “That’s completely normal.”
“Even for demigods?”
“Especially for them.” She pulled me over to her and kissed my head, like she used to do when I was actually eight. “Also, you need to wash the dishes.”
I smirked. “All that buttering up just so I’ll do my chores?”
“Notjust. Now give me a hand, would you? Sitting down is easy. Getting up, not so much.”
I washed the dishes. Because I guess demigods do what they have to do.
I left Paul and my mom in the living room, cuddling on the sofa, listening to Paul’s jazz vinyl. They both thanked me and wished me good night.
But I stayed up. I finished my homework. Somehow, I found the strength for advanced algebra. I even wrote an essay, though the words swam in front of my eyes and half of them were probably misspelled.
That night, I slept the best I had in a long time.
After that, I went three days without any supernatural interference.
Wow. The luxury.
I struggled through my assignments. I met Grover and Annabeth every afternoon for smoothies or a movie or just to walk in Central Park. I gotta say, it was nice.
On Thursday, I had my first swim meet and managed to be impressive but not too impressive. I didn’t summon a tidal wave in the deep end or anything.
I almost forgot the weekend was coming up, and with it the farmers’ market, until Friday at lunchtime.
AHS is a closed campus. Everybody is supposed to eat together in the cafeteria. Sure, a lot of seniors sneak out at lunchtime, but I stayed put because I didn’t want to risk getting kicked out quite so early in the year. It’s a small school, so absentees are pretty easy to notice.
I was sitting alone, munching on a peanut butter and banana sandwich (hey, I made it myself, one of my pro recipes), trying to read some short story about a guy who liked to open cans—no idea why. Then someone loomed over me and said, “Here’s a refill.”
