Rick Riordan

After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the haz-ardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists.

See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she’s always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She’s weird that way.

Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn’t have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.

He reminded me of the Oracle at Camp HalfBlood — which was a shriveled-up mummy — except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke

The rest of my team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets

“Victory will be ours!” roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. “We will feast on your bones!” I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously

, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys’ locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion

Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. “And you,” she told him, “lay off my friend.”

I’d missed Annabeth probably more than I wanted to admit

“Laistry — I can’t even say that. What would you call them in English?” She thought about it for a moment. “Canadians,”