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“I was just telling them,” Annabeth said. “Glass and marshmallows.”
“Sorry?”
“Glass and marshmallows.”
“Genius,” said Dave.
“Bonkers,” said Hana.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
The nearest librarian glanced over and raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t ashhh, but it was as close as I’d ever gotten.
Annabeth continued at a lower volume. “So you know how the Met has thousands of pieces of art just sitting in warehouses? My plan is to triple the display space—redo the whole building as a giant spiral of glass floors and walls around a central atrium. The art would be protected inside the glass, and those see-through panels would let you examine the art from the back, the front, above, below. You’d feel like you were floating in a three-dimensional cloud of art.”
“And the marshmallows?” I asked, because I tend to focus on things that are tasty.
“Big, soft white beanbag chairs,” she said, “all through the museum. No more uncomfortable benches. When kids come in, they can flop anywhere they want and relax and enjoy the art.”
“Or take a nap,” I suggested.
“That’s valid, too!” Annabeth said. “It’s a public space. Why not take a nap with a statue of Athena or a Frida Kahlo self-portrait?”
“Comfy marshmallows in a glass temple,” I said. “Okay, I’m sold.”
She squeezed my hand. “So, what’s up with you?”
“Oh, just…got an assignment I wasn’t expecting. I wondered if you could help.”
Annabeth’s expression turned more serious. She knew exactly what I was saying, even if Dave and Hana didn’t.
“She can’t doallyour homework for you, dude,” Hana said.
“Yeah, she has to doourhomework,” Dave said.
“Ugh, you two,” Annabeth said, but she gave them a smile. “Okay, Jackson, I can spare you a few minutes. Come on.” She hauled me up and led me out of the library, Paul and Hana whispering behind our backs, probably wondering what Annabeth saw in me given my complete ignorance of architectural design.
Outside, we walked to Annabeth’s favorite thinking spot—a park bench under a maple tree in a nearby churchyard. She’d told me some famous architect was buried there. Peter Stuyvesant? Yeah, that’s the dude. They’d named like half the stuff in the neighborhood for him, so he must’ve been great with glass and marshmallows.
Annabeth said she felt inspired there, which was good enough for me. We sat watching the traffic crawl along Second Avenue, enjoying the perfect weather—cool, crisp and sunny, the kind you wanted to bottle up and open in the middle of August when Manhattan was a swamp.
“So…” Annabeth turned to face me. “What’s the quest?”
I told her about my meeting with Hecate.
Annabeth listened with the kind of intensity most people only give to their favorite songs—like she wanted to memorize every word, analyze the meaning of every line and how it made her feel. She is a natural problem solver. Once I finished bringing her up to speed, I expected her to frown and start running mental equations, gaming out scenarios for all the things that might go wrong during a school week as Hecate’s house sitters.
Instead, she laughed.
“That’s awesome!” She kissed me on the cheek like I’d given her a gift.
“It is?” I asked. “Which part—taking care of demonic pets? Or getting incinerated if we fail?”
She waved away my concerns. “We won’t fail. Look, if I can play fetch with Cerberus, I can take care of a hellhound and a polecat.”
I winced. I still have nightmares about Hades’s three-headed guard dog. Sometimes I wake up smelling Cerberus’s sulfurous breath in my face before I realize I just need to brush my teeth. For Annabeth, though, our meeting with Cerberus had been the best part of our first excursion into the Underworld. Granted, that wasn’t saying much.
“Besides,” she said, “this means we have a venue for our party!”
