The Titan's Curse Read Free

school in New York. I’d been hoping to see her more often. It was a boarding school in Brooklyn, and she and Thalia were both attending, close enough to Camp Half-Blood that Chiron could help if they got in any trouble. Because it was an all-girls school, and I was going to MS-54 in Manhattan, I hardly ever saw them.
    â€œYeah, uh, cool,” I said. “So you’re staying there the rest of the year, huh?”
    Her face got dark. “Well, maybe, if I don’t—”
    â€œHey!” Thalia called to us. She was slow dancing with Grover, who was tripping all over himself, kicking Thalia in the shins, and looking like he wanted to die. At least his feet were fake. Unlike me, he had an excuse for being clumsy.
    â€œDance, you guys!” Thalia ordered. “You look stupid just standing there.”
    I looked nervously at Annabeth, then at the groups of girls who were roaming the gym.
    â€œWell?” Annabeth said.
    â€œUm, who should I ask?”
    She punched me in the gut. “ Me , Seaweed Brain.”
    â€œOh. Oh, right.”
    So we went onto the dance floor, and I looked over to see how Thalia and Grover were doing things. I put one hand on Annabeth’s hip, and she clasped my other hand like she was about to judo throw me.
    â€œI’m not going to bite,” she told me. “Honestly, Percy. Don’t you guys have dances at your school?”
    I didn’t answer. The truth was we did. But I’d never, like, actually danced at one. I was usually one of the guys playing basketball in the corner.
    We shuffled around for a few minutes. I tried to concentrate on little things, like the crepe-paper streamers and the punch bowl—anything but the fact that Annabeth was taller than me, and my hands were sweaty and probably gross, and I kept stepping on her toes.
    â€œWhat were you saying earlier?” I asked. “Are you having trouble at school or something?”
    She pursed her lips. “It’s not that. It’s my dad.”
    â€œUh-oh.” I knew Annabeth had a rocky relationship with her father. “I thought it was getting better with you two. Is it your stepmom again?”
    Annabeth sighed. “He decided to move. Just when I was getting settled in New York, he took this stupid new job researching for a World War I book. In San Francisco .”
    She said this the same way she might say Fields of Punishment or Hades’s gym shorts .
    â€œSo he wants you to move out there with him?” I asked.
    â€œTo the other side of the country,” she said miserably. “And half-bloods can’t live in San Francisco. He should know that.”
    â€œWhat? Why not?”
    Annabeth rolled her eyes. Maybe she thought I was kidding. “You know. It’s right there .”
    â€œOh,” I said. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn’t want to sound stupid. “So . . . you’ll go back to living at camp or what?”
    â€œIt’s more serious than that, Percy. I . . . I probably should tell you something.”
    Suddenly she froze. “They’re gone.”
    â€œWhat?”
    I followed her gaze. The bleachers. The two half-blood kids, Bianca and Nico, were no longer there. The door next to the bleachers was wide open. Dr. Thorn was nowhere in sight.
    â€œWe have to get Thalia and Grover!” Annabeth looked around frantically. “Oh, where’d they dance off to? Come on!”
    She ran through the crowd. I was about to follow when a mob of girls got in my way. I maneuvered around them to avoid getting the ribbon-and-lipstick treatment, and by the time I was free, Annabeth had disappeared. I turned a full circle, looking for her or Thalia and Grover. Instead, I saw something that chilled my blood.
    About fifty feet away, lying on the gym floor, was a floppy green cap just like the one Bianca di Angelo had been wearing. Near it were a few scattered trading cards. Then I caught a glimpse of