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me as I could,’ my mom said. ‘They told me that was a mistake. But there’s only one other option, Percy – the place your father wanted to send you. And I just… I just can’t stand to do it.’
    ‘My father wanted me to go to a special school?’
    ‘Not a school,’ she said softly. ‘A summer camp.’
    My head was spinning. Why would my dad – whohadn’t even stayed around long enough to see me born – talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn’t she ever mentioned it before?
    ‘I’m sorry, Percy,’ she said, seeing the look in my eyes. ‘But I can’t talk about it. I – I couldn’t send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good.’
    ‘For good? But if it’s only a summer camp…’
    She turned towards the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.
    That night I had a vivid dream.
    It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse’s muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle’s wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
    I ran towards them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse’s wide eyes, and I screamed,
No!
    I woke with a start.
    Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and five-metre-high waves pounding the dunes like artillery.
    With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, ‘Hurricane.’
    I knew that was crazy. Long Island never saw hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.
    Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice – someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
    My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.
    Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn’t… he wasn’t exactly Grover.
    ‘Searching all night,’ he gasped. ‘What were you thinking?’
    My mother looked at me in terror – not scared of Grover, but of why he’d come.
    ‘Percy,’ she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. ‘What happened at school? What didn’t you tell me?’
    I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
    ‘O Zeu kai alloi theoi!’
he yelled. ‘It’s right behind me! Didn’t you
tell
her?’
    I was too shocked to register that he’d just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I’d understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had got here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn’t have his trousers on – and where his legs should be… where his legs should be…
    My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she’d never used before:’
Percy
. Tell me
now!’
    I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
    She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, ‘Get to the car. Both of you. Go!’
    Grover ran for the Camaro – but he wasn’t running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.
    Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

4    My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting
     
    We tore through the night along dark