The Son of Neptune - Chapter 36

FRANK TOOK THE QUICKEST POSSIBLE SHOWER, put on the
clothes Hazel had set out – an olive-green shirt with beige
cargo pants, really? – then grabbed his spare bow and
quiver and bounded up the attic stairs.
The attic was full of weapons. His family had collected
enough ancient armaments to supply an army. Shields,
spears and quivers of arrows hung along one wall –
almost as many as in the Camp Jupiter armoury. At the
back window, a scorpion crossbow was mounted and
loaded, ready for action. At the front window stood
something that looked like a machine gun with a cluster of
barrels.
‘Rocket launcher?’ he wondered aloud.
‘Nope, nope,’ said a voice from the corner. ‘Potatoes.
Ella doesn’t like potatoes.’
The harpy had made a nest for herself between two old
steamer trunks. She was sitting in a pile of Chinese
scrolls, reading seven or eight at once.
‘Ella,’ Frank said, ‘where are the others?’
‘Roof.’ She glanced upward, then returned to her
reading, alternately picking at her feathers and turning
pages. ‘Roof. Ogre-watching. Ella doesn’t like ogres.
Potatoes.’
‘Potatoes?’ Frank didn’t understand until he swivelled
the machine gun around. Its eight barrels were loaded with
spuds. At the base of the gun, a basket was filled with
more edible ammunition.
He looked out of the window – the same window his
mom had watched him from when he had met the bear.
Down in the yard, the ogres were milling around, shoving
each other, occasionally yelling at the house, and
throwing bronze cannonballs that exploded in midair.
‘They have cannonballs,’ Frank said. ‘And we have a
potato gun.’
‘Starch,’ Ella said thoughtfully. ‘Starch is bad for ogres.’
The house shook from another explosion. Frank
needed to reach the roof and see how Percy and Hazel
were doing, but he felt bad leaving Ella alone.
He knelt next to her, careful not to get too close. ‘Ella,
it’s not safe here with the ogres. We’re going to be flying to
Alaska soon. Will you come with us?’
Ella twitched uncomfortably. ‘Alaska. Six hundred
twenty-six thousand, four hundred twenty-five square
miles. State mammal: the moose.’
Suddenly she switched to Latin, which Frank could just
barely follow thanks to his classes at Camp Jupiter: ‘To
the north, beyond the gods, lies the legion’s crown. Falling
from ice, the son of Neptune shall drown –’ She stopped
and scratched her dishevelled red hair. ‘Hmm. Burnt. The
rest is burnt.’
Frank could hardly breathe. ‘Ella, was … was that a
prophecy? Where did you read that?’
‘Moose,’ Ella said, savouring the word. ‘Moose. Moose.
Moose.’
The house shook again. Dust rained down from the
rafters. Outside, an ogre bellowed, ‘Frank Zhang! Show
yourself!’
‘Nope,’ Ella said. ‘Frank shouldn’t. Nope.’
‘Just … stay here, okay?’ Frank said. ‘I’ve got to go help
Hazel and Percy.’
He pulled down the ladder to the roof.
‘Morning,’ Percy said grimly. ‘Beautiful day, huh?’
He wore the same clothes as the day before – jeans,
his purple T-shirt and Polartec jacket – but they’d
obviously been freshly washed. He held his sword in one
hand and a garden hose in the other. Why there was a
garden hose on the roof, Frank wasn’t sure, but every time
the giants sent up a cannonball, Percy summoned a highpowered
blast of water and detonated the sphere in
midair. Then Frank remembered – his family was
descended from Poseidon, too. Grandmother had said
their house had been attacked before. Maybe they had
put a hose up here for just that reason.
Hazel patrolled the widow’s walk between the two attic
gables. She looked so good it made Frank’s chest hurt.
She wore jeans, a cream-coloured jacket and a white shirt
that made her skin look as warm as cocoa. Her curly hair
fell around her shoulders. When she came close, Frank
could smell jasmine shampoo.
She gripped her sword. When she glanced at Frank, her
eyes flashed with concern. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘Oh, uh, nothing,’ he managed. ‘Thanks for breakfast.
And the clothes. And … not hating me.’
Hazel looked baffled. ‘Why would I hate you?’
Frank’s face burned. He wished he’d kept his mouth
shut, but it was too late now. Don’t let her get away, his
grandmother had said. You need strong women.
‘It’s just … last night,’ he stammered. ‘When I
summoned the skeleton. I thought … I thought that you
thought … I was repulsive … or something.’
Hazel raised her eyebrows. She shook her head in
dismay. ‘Frank, maybe I was surprised. Maybe I was
scared of that thing. But repulsed? The way you
commanded it, so confident and everything – like, Oh, by
the way, guys, I have this all-powerful spartus we can use. I
couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t repulsed, Frank. I was
impressed.’
Frank wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. ‘You
were … impressed … by me?’
Percy laughed. ‘Dude, it was pretty amazing.’
‘Honest?’ Frank asked.
‘Honest,’ Hazel promised. ‘But right now we have other
problems to worry about. Okay?’
She gestured at the army of ogres, who were getting
increasingly bold, shuffling closer and closer to the
house.
Percy readied the garden hose. ‘I’ve got one more trick
up my sleeve. Your lawn has a sprinkler system. I can
blow it up and cause some confusion down there, but
that’ll destroy your water pressure. No pressure, no hose,
and those cannonballs are going to plough right into the
house.’
Hazel’s praise was still ringing in Frank’s ears, making it
difficult to think. Dozens of ogres were camped on his
lawn, waiting to tear him apart, and Frank could barely
control the urge to grin.
Hazel didn’t hate him. She was impressed.
He forced himself to concentrate. He remembered what
his grandmother had told him about the nature of his gift,
and how he had to leave her here to die.
You’ve got a role to play, Mars had said.
Frank couldn’t believe he was Juno’s secret weapon, or
that this big Prophecy of the Seven depended on him. But
Hazel and Percy were counting on him. He had to do his
best.
He thought about that weird partial prophecy Ella had
recited in the attic, about the son of Neptune drowning.
You don’t understand her true value, Phineas had told
them in Portland. The old blind man had thought that
controlling Ella would make him a king.
All these puzzle pieces swirled around in Frank’s mind.
He got the feeling that when they finally connected, they
would create a picture he didn’t like.
‘Guys, I’ve got an escape plan.’ He told his friends about
the plane waiting at the airfield, and his grandmother’s
note for the pilot. ‘He’s a legion veteran. He’ll help us.’
‘But Arion’s not back,’ Hazel said. ‘And what about your
grandmother? We can’t just leave her.’
Frank choked back a sob. ‘Maybe – maybe Arion will
find us. As for my grandmother … she was pretty clear.
She said she’d be okay.’
It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was as much as Frank
could manage.
‘There’s another problem,’ Percy said. ‘I’m not good with
air travel. It’s dangerous for a son of Neptune.’
‘You’ll have to risk it … and so will I,’ Frank said. ‘By the
way, we’re related.’
Percy almost stumbled off the roof. ‘What?’
Frank gave them the five-second version:
‘Periclymenus. Ancestor on my mom’s side. Argonaut.
Grandson of Poseidon.’
Hazel’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re a – a descendant of
Neptune? Frank, that’s –’
‘Crazy? Yeah. And there’s this ability my family has,
supposedly. But I don’t know how to use it. If I can’t figure it
out –’
Another massive cheer went up from the
Laistrygonians. Frank realized they were staring up at
him, pointing and waving and laughing. They had spotted
their breakfast.
‘Zhang!’ they yelled. ‘Zhang!’
Hazel stepped closer to him. ‘They keep doing that.
Why are they yelling your name?’
‘Never mind,’ Frank said. ‘Listen, we’ve got to protect
Ella, take her with us.’
‘Of course,’ Hazel said. ‘The poor thing needs our help.’
‘No,’ Frank said. ‘I mean yes, but it’s not just that. She
recited a prophecy downstairs. I think … I think it was
about this quest.’
He didn’t want to tell Percy the bad news, about a son of
Neptune drowning, but he repeated the lines.
Percy’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t know how a son of
Neptune can drown. I can breathe underwater. But the
crown of the legion –’
‘That’s got to be the eagle,’ Hazel said.
Percy nodded. ‘And Ella recited something like this
once before, in Portland – a line from the old Great
Prophecy.’
‘The what?’ Frank asked.
‘Tell you later.’ Percy turned his garden hose and shot
another cannonball out of the sky.
It exploded in an orange fireball. The ogres clapped
with appreciation and yelled, ‘Pretty! Pretty!’
‘The thing is,’ Frank said, ‘Ella remembers everything
she reads. She said something about the page being
burned, like she’d read a damaged text of prophecies.’
Hazel’s eyes widened. ‘Burned books of prophecy? You
don’t think – but that’s impossible!’
‘The books Octavian wanted, back at camp?’ Percy
guessed.
Hazel whistled under her breath. ‘The lost Sibylline
books that outlined the entire destiny of Rome. If Ella
actually read a copy somehow, and memorized it –’
‘Then she’s the most valuable harpy in the world,’ Frank
said. ‘No wonder Phineas wanted to capture her.’
‘Frank Zhang!’ an ogre shouted from below. He was
bigger than the rest, wearing a lion’s cape like a Roman
standard bearer and a plastic bib with a lobster on it.
‘Come down, son of Mars! We’ve been waiting for you.
Come, be our honoured guest!’
Hazel gripped Frank’s arm. ‘Why do I get the feeling
that “honoured guest” means the same thing as “dinner”?’
Frank wished Mars were still there. He could use
somebody to snap his fingers and make his battle jitters
go away.
Hazel believes in me, he thought. I can do this.
He looked at Percy. ‘Can you drive?’
‘Sure. Why?’
‘Grandmother’s car is in the garage. It’s an old Cadillac.
The thing is like a tank. If you can get it started –’
‘We’ll still have to break through a line of ogres,’ Hazel
said.
‘The sprinkler system,’ Percy said. ‘Use it as a
distraction?’
‘Exactly,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll buy you as much time as I can.
Get Ella, and get in the car. I’ll try to meet you in the
garage, but don’t wait for me.’
Percy frowned. ‘Frank –’
‘Give us your answer, Frank Zhang!’ the ogre yelled up.
‘Come down, and we will spare the others – your friends,
your poor old granny. We only want you!’
‘They’re lying,’ Percy muttered.
‘Yeah, I got that,’ Frank agreed. ‘Go!’
His friends ran for the ladder.
Frank tried to control the beating of his heart. He
grinned and yelled, ‘Hey, down there! Who’s hungry?’ The
ogres cheered as Frank paced along the widow’s walk and
waved like a rock star.
Frank tried to summon his family power. He imagined
himself as a fire-breathing dragon. He strained and
clenched his fist and thought about dragons so hard,
beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. He wanted to
sweep down on the enemy and destroy them. That would
be extremely cool. But nothing happened. He had no clue
how to change himself. He had never even seen a real
dragon. For a panicky moment, he wondered if
Grandmother had played some sort of cruel joke on him.
Maybe he’d misunderstood the gift. Maybe Frank was the
only member of the family who hadn’t inherited it. That
would be just his luck.
The ogres started to become restless. The cheering
turned to catcalls. A few Laistrygonians hefted their
cannonballs.
‘Hold on!’ Frank yelled. ‘You don’t want to char me, do
you? I won’t taste very good that way.’
‘Come down!’ they yelled. ‘Hungry!’
Time for Plan B. Frank just wished he had one.
‘Do you promise to spare my friends?’ Frank asked. ‘Do
you swear on the River Styx?’
The ogres laughed. One threw a cannonball that arced
over Frank’s head and blew up the chimney. By some
miracle, Frank wasn’t hit with shrapnel.
‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he muttered. Then he shouted
down: ‘Okay, fine! You win! I’ll be right down. Wait there!’
The ogres cheered, but their leader in the lion-skin
cape scowled suspiciously. Frank wouldn’t have much
time. He descended the ladder into the attic. Ella was
gone. He hoped that was a good sign. Maybe they’d got
her to the cadillac. He grabbed an extra quiver of arrows
labelled ASSORTED VARIETIES in his mother’s neat printing.
Then he ran to the machine gun.
He swivelled the barrel, took aim at the lead ogre, and
pressed the trigger. Eight high-powered spuds blasted the
giant in the chest, propelling him backwards with such
force that he crashed into a stack of bronze cannonballs,
which promptly exploded, leaving a smoking crater in the
yard.
Apparently starch was bad for ogres.
While the rest of the monsters ran around in confusion,
Frank pulled his bow and rained arrows on them. Some of
the missiles detonated on impact. Others splintered like
buckshot and left the giants with some painful new tattoos.
One hit an ogre and instantly turned him into a potted
rosebush.
Unfortunately, the ogres recovered quickly. They began
throwing cannonballs – dozens at a time. The whole
house groaned under the impact. Frank ran for the stairs.
The attic disintegrated behind him. Smoke and fire
poured down the second-floor hallway.
‘Grandmother!’ he cried, but the heat was so intense, he
couldn’t reach her room. He raced to the ground floor,
clinging to the banister as the house shook and huge
chunks of the ceiling collapsed.
The base of the staircase was a smoking crater. He
leaped over it and stumbled through the kitchen. Choking
from the ash and soot, he burst into the garage. The
Cadillac’s headlights were on. The engine was running
and the garage door was opening.
‘Get in!’ Percy yelled.
Frank dived in the back next to Hazel. Ella was curled
up in the front, her head tucked under her wings,
muttering, ‘Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.’
Percy gunned the engine. They shot out of the garage
before it was fully open, leaving a Cadillac-shaped hole of
splintered wood.
The ogres ran to intercept, but Percy shouted at the top
of his lungs, and the irrigation system exploded. A
hundred geysers shot into the air along with clods of earth,
pieces of pipe and very heavy sprinkler heads.
The Cadillac was going about forty when they hit the
first ogre, who disintegrated on impact. By the time the
other monsters overcame their confusion, the Cadillac
was half a mile down the road. Flaming cannonballs burst
behind them.
Frank glanced back and saw his family mansion on fire,
the walls collapsing inward and smoke billowing into the
sky. He saw a large black speck – maybe a buzzard –
circling up from the fire. It might’ve been Frank’s
imagination, but he thought it had flown out of the secondstorey
window.
‘Grandmother?’ he murmured.
It seemed impossible, but she had promised she would
die in her own way, not at the hands of the ogres. Frank
hoped she had been right.
They drove through the woods and headed north.
‘About three miles!’ Frank said. ‘You can’t miss it!’
Behind them, more explosions ripped through the
forest. Smoke boiled into the sky.
‘How fast can Laistrygonians run?’ Hazel asked.
‘Let’s not find out,’ Percy said.
The gates of the airfield appeared before them – only a
few hundred yards away. A private jet idled on the runway.
Its stairs were down.
The Cadillac hit a pothole and went airborne. Frank’s
head slammed into the ceiling. When the wheels touched
the ground, Percy floored the brakes, and they swerved to
a stop just inside the gates.
Frank climbed out and drew his bow. ‘Get to the plane!
They’re coming!’
The Laistrygonians were closing in with alarming
speed. The first line of ogres burst out of the woods and
barrelled towards the airfield – five hundred yards away,
four hundred yards …
Percy and Hazel managed to get Ella out of the
Cadillac, but as soon as the harpy saw the aeroplane, she
began to shriek.
‘N-n-no!’ she yelped. ‘Fly with wings! N-n-no
aeroplanes.’
‘It’s okay,’ Hazel promised. ‘We’ll protect you!’
Ella made a horrible, painful wail like she was being
burned.
Percy held up his hands in exasperation. ‘What do we
do? We can’t force her.’
‘No,’ Frank agreed. The ogres were three hundred yards
out.
‘She’s too valuable to leave behind,’ Hazel said. Then
she winced at her own words. ‘Gods, I’m sorry, Ella. I
sound as bad as Phineas. You’re a living thing, not a
treasure.’
‘No planes. N-n-no planes.’ Ella was hyperventilating.
The ogres were almost in throwing distance.
Percy’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve got an idea. Ella, can you hide
in the woods? Will you be safe from the ogres?’
‘Hide,’ she agreed. ‘Safe. Hiding is good for harpies.
Ella is quick. And small. And fast.’
‘Okay,’ Percy said. ‘Just stay around this area. I can
send a friend to meet you and take you to Camp Jupiter.’
Frank unslung his bow and nocked an arrow. ‘A friend?’
Percy waved his hand in a tell you later gesture. ‘Ella,
would you like that? Would you like my friend to take you
to Camp Jupiter and show you our home?’
‘Camp,’ Ella muttered. Then in Latin: ‘“Wisdom’s
daughter walks alone, the Mark of Athena burns through
Rome.”’
‘Uh, right,’ Percy said. ‘That sounds important, but we
can talk about that later. You’ll be safe at camp. All the
books and food you want.’
‘No planes,’ she insisted.
‘No planes,’ Percy agreed.
‘Ella will hide now.’ Just like that, she was gone – a red
streak disappearing into the woods.
‘I’ll miss her,’ Hazel said sadly.
‘We’ll see her again,’ Percy promised, but he frowned
uneasily, as if he were really troubled by that last bit of
prophecy – the thing about Athena.
An explosion sent the airfield’s gate spinning into the
air. Frank tossed his grandmother’s letter to Percy. ‘Show
that to the pilot! Show him your letter from Reyna too!
We’ve got to take off now.’
Percy nodded. He and Hazel ran for the plane.
Frank took cover behind the Cadillac and started firing
at the ogres. He targeted the largest clump of enemies
and shot a tulip-shaped arrow. Just as he’d hoped, it was a
hydra. Ropes lashed out like squid tentacles, and the
entire front row of ogres ploughed face first into the
ground.
Frank heard the plane’s engines rev.
He shot three more arrows as fast as he could, blasting
enormous craters in the ogres’ ranks. The survivors were
only a hundred yards away, and some of the brighter ones
stumbled to a stop, realizing that they were now within
hurling range.
‘Frank!’ Hazel shrieked. ‘Come on!’
A fiery cannonball hurtled towards him in a slow arc.
Frank knew instantly it was going to hit the plane. He
nocked an arrow. I can do this, he thought. He let the arrow
fly. It intercepted the cannonball midair, detonating a
massive fireball.
Another two cannonballs sailed towards him. Frank ran.
Behind him, metal groaned as the Cadillac exploded.
He dived into the plane just as the stairs started to rise.
The pilot must’ve understood the situation just fine.
There was no safety announcement, no pre-flight drink
and no waiting for clearance. He pushed the throttle, and
the plane shot down the runway. Another blast ripped
through the runway behind them, but then they were in the
air. Frank looked down and saw the airstrip riddled with
craters like a piece of burning Swiss cheese. Swathes of
Lynn Canyon Park were on fire. A few miles to the south, a
swirling pyre of flames and black smoke was all that
remained of the Zhang family mansion.
So much for Frank being impressive. He’d failed to
save his grandmother. He’d failed to use his powers. He
hadn’t even saved their harpy friend. When Vancouver
disappeared in the clouds below, Frank buried his head in
his hands and started to cry.
The plane banked to the left.
Over the intercom, the pilot’s voice said, ‘Senatus
Populusque Romanus, my friends. Welcome aboard.
Next stop: Anchorage, Alaska.’

Categories: The Son of Neptune