Chapter 45: Grover Loses His Pants.
We 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 twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.
With the next thunderclap, our mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."
We knew that was crazy, Long island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, We heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made our hair stand on end.
Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice----someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.
Our mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.
Grover stood 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 both thinking?"
Our mother looked at us in terror-----not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.
"Percy," "James," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you both tell me?"
We was frozen, looking at Grover. We couldn't understand what we were seeing.
"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me!
Didn't you guys tell her?"
We were to shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and we'd understood him perfectly. We were also too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on------and where his legs should be . . . where his legs should be . . .
Our mom looked at us sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. "James. Tell me now!"
We stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and our mom stared at us, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
She grabbed her purse, tossed us our rain jackets, 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 us. We 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.
Chapter 46: Car accident.
We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. We didn't know how our mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
Every time there was a flash of lightning, we looked at Grover sitting next to us in the backseat and we wondered if we'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one we remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo-----lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All we could think to say was, "So, you and our mom . . . know each other?"
Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching both of you."
"Watching us?"
"Keeping tabs on both of you. Making sure you both were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Um . . . what are you, exactly?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, our best friend is a donkey-----"
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"
We'd heard him make that sound before, but we'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now we realized it was more of an irritated bleat.
"Goat!" he cried.
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter."
"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"
"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like . . . Mr. Brunner's myths?"
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? James? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"
"Of course."
"Then why-----"
"The less you both knew, the fewer monsters you'd both attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd both think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You both started to realize who you are."
"Who We-----wait a minute, what do you mean?"
The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
"Percy," "James," our mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get both of you to safety."
"Safety from what? Who's after us?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
We tried to wrap our minds around what was happening, but we couldn't do it. We knew this wasn't a dream. We had no imagination. We could never dream up something this weird.
Our mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
"Where are we going?" We both asked.
"The summer camp I told you both about." Our mother's voice was tight; she was trying for our sake not to be scared.
"The place your father wanted to send you both."
"The place you didn't want us to go"
"Please, dears," our mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're both in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn."
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you both know what it means-----the fact they appeared in front of you both? They only do that when you're about to . . . when someone's about to die."
"Whoa. You said 'you.'''
"No I didn't. I said 'someone."'
"You meant 'you.' As in us,"
"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."
"Boys!" our mom said.
She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and we both got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid----a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
"What was that?" We asked.
"We're almost there," our mother said, ignoring our question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
We didn't know where there was, but the both of us found ourselves leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-----the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. We thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into that thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. Our limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill us.
Then Percy thought about his older brother James . . . and the sword he had thrown Percy. Before percy could ask James about that, the hair rose on the backs of our necks. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.
We remember feeling weightless, like we were being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.
We peeled our foreheads off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow"
"Percy!" "James!" our mom shouted.
"We're okay . . ."
We tried to shake off the daze. We weren't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to us in the backseat was a big motionless lump, "Grover!"
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. We shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're our best friend and we don't want you to die!
Then he groaned "Food," and we knew there was hope.