Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods

I didn’t respond. It seemed like the smart choice.

“Old Age is never embraced,” he muttered. “Do you know the last time I had a hug?” He stared into the sky as if trying to remember. His sad expression reminded me of old people I’d seen in nursing homes, gazing into the distance, trying to figure out where their lives had gone, where their loved ones were, how they’d become so alone.

“So what now?” I asked.

He frowned. “Old Age is patient. I hate that about myself, but I almost never rush to end someone’s life. And you’re right . . . ending your life now, at age sixteen . . .”

“Seventeen,” I corrected.

Grover cleared his throat. Shut up!

“Seventeen,” Gary echoed. The number seemed to taste bitter in his mouth. “No. It isn’t right. This isn’t your time.”

He tilted his head, turning his liver spots to the morning sunlight. “You really wouldn’t drink from the chalice, would you?”

“Nah,” I said. “I kinda want to live a whole life, you know? Even the tough stuff. Plus, I’ve seen what happens to people who are turned into gods.” I thought about poor Ganymede, frozen as a beautiful teen, but stuck with all his anxiety, self-doubt, and fears forever. No thank you.

“Interesting.” Gary studied my friends, then turned back to me. “I look forward to wrestling you for many years to come, Percy Jackson. Do not think I will go easy on you, just because you have impressed me now.”

“I’ll keep exercising,” I promised. “Do a bunch of crossword puzzles.”

Gary curled his lip. “We were having a nice moment. Don’t ruin it.” He snapped his fingers, and the chalice of the gods appeared, floating and gleaming in the air between us. All it needed was an angelic chorus to complete the effect.

“Take it,” Gary said. “I suppose it should stay on Mount Olympus, among those fools who have already turned their backs on Old Age. You give me hope, Percy Jackson, that not everyone is like them.” He sniffed before grumbling, “Crossword puzzles . . .”

Then he poofed into a gray cloud of talcum powder.

I managed to catch the chalice just before it hit the pavement. It felt as heavy as a bowling ball, which did not do wonders for my aching arms.

“Ow,” I said.

“You did it!” Grover did a little goat dance of relief. “Hugging him? That was really risky!”

“It was perfect,” Annabeth said. She marched up and kissed me. “You know what? I think you’ll make a handsome old man. I hope one day we’ll get the chance to find out. But I’m glad that isn’t today.”

I smiled. The smell of Gary lingered on my clothes. I was weary and sore and felt like I’d aged a few decades. But those mental pictures also lingered . . . the images of growing older with the people I loved, with my best friends. And that made me feel like I could handle the aches and pains. Maybe the trade-off was worth it.

“So, you think we can send Ganymede an Iris-message?” I hefted the chalice. “I don’t want to keep this in my locker until Sunday.”

Annabeth looked like she was about to say something, but just then, a Hula-Hoop fell out of the sky.

It was pink with blue stripes and sparkles baked into the plastic. It hit the pavement with a jolly rattling whack, bounced twenty feet into the air, then came down again and rolled across the playground, wobbling to a stop like a flipped coin.

Even in a weird morning, this seemed weird.

“Um . . .” I said.

Annabeth walked over to the hoop. She nudged it. When it did not explode or turn into a monster, she picked it up. She looked at the clouds, but no other objects fell from the sky.

“This is a symbol of Ganymede,” she said.

“The Hula-Hoop?” Grover asked.

“Well . . . the hoop. It’s been a kids’ toy for thousands of years. It’s a symbol of his eternal youth.”

I shuddered. “Yeah, that doesn’t make Zeus’s abduction of him one bit less creepy. And you think what, Ganymede tossed the hoop off Mount Olympus?”

Since these days Olympus hovered over the Empire State Building, it wasn’t such a crazy idea. A good godly throw could probably reach Washington Square Park, no problem. But why?

Annabeth examined the hoop more closely. “Hold on.”

She found a section of paper wrapped around one part of the hoop. I had assumed it was a label or something, but Annabeth peeled it off and started to read.

“It’s a distress call,” she announced. “Ganymede says he’s stuck on Olympus, and he needs the cup immediately. He says . . .”

Her face fell. “Oh, gods. Zeus isn’t waiting for Sunday to have a feast.”

I gulped, remembering what Ganymede had said about Zeus being unpredictable. “So . . . what, he’s having one tonight?”

“Worse than that,” Annabeth said. “Zeus is having his mom over for a family get-together right now. They’re having brunch.”





Is there anything more terrifying than brunch?

It’s an abomination among meals, a Frankenstein hybrid of clashing food choices. It evokes nightmares of soft jazz bands, kids in itchy dress clothes, ladies in strange hats, lipstick smears on champagne glasses, and the smell of croque monsieur. I am sorry. I don’t eat food with a name that translates as Mr. Crunchy.

Even the word brunch gives me the willies. (See, I almost said heebie-jeebies, but we don’t use that term anymore in this household.) Brunch is the most non-elegant term for something that is supposed to be elegant. It’s like saying, Let’s get all dressed up and go to a quack-splat. Like . . . why?

But now I had found something even worse than a mortal brunch: a brunch among the gods. On a Monday morning, no less. And during regular breakfast hours, but, oh, no, they had to make it a brunch anyway.

Also, Zeus was having his mom over? I’d never met Rhea, the Titan queen, and I wasn’t anxious to find out what the gods served her for her special morning meal. Probably poached demigod on toast with demigod-tear mimosas.

I hefted the chalice of the gods. “I don’t suppose we can send this Hermes Express?”

Annabeth frowned. “Percy . . .”

“Don’t they have one-hour delivery in Manhattan?”

“Ganymede needs it now. And you have to bring it. It’s—”

“My job.” I sighed. I was familiar with the rules of quest completion, which included white-glove delivery by the demigod in charge. It was looking increasingly unlikely that I would make it to school in time for my first-period quiz.

“Fine,” I said. “Any suggestions on how I can sneak into Olympus and infiltrate a godly brunch?”

“Um, actually?” Grover blinked like what he was about to say would be painful for me to hear. “I might have an idea.”

The easy part was getting a taxi uptown. Normally I wouldn’t have sprung for a cab, but after Grover and I said good-bye to Annabeth, it seemed like the fastest way to get to the Empire State Building, and also the fastest way to avoid Annabeth’s wrath.

With great reluctance, she had lent me her New York Yankees cap. She never does that. The invisibility hat was a gift from her mom, so borrowing it just wasn’t something you did without a really good reason. It would’ve been like me letting another demigod use Riptide in a fight. Nope.

But when Grover pleaded that it was the only way, Annabeth had handed it over. She glared at me and said, “You will bring it back. Good luck. Don’t die.” Then she ran off to start her school day, since her campus was only a couple of blocks away.

In the cab, Grover tapped his hooves nervously on the floorboard as he explained the rest of his plan. I wasn’t too worried about the cabdriver listening in, because this was New York. A plan to break into Mount Olympus was not the craziest thing any cabbie would hear on any given day. Also, Grover had insisted on bringing the Hula-Hoop in the cab with us, and I had a giant chalice in my lap, so we were already unreliable narrators.

“A cloud nymph,” I said, just to make sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Yeah.” He glanced behind us, though as far as I could tell, we weren’t being followed.