We Shop for Water Beds

**We Shop for Water Beds** is the sixty-sixth chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on July 20th, 2018.

## Chapter

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**Jasmine's POV**
It was Annabeth’s idea.
After we briefly told my grandma about what’s happened during our quest, we really had to move, no time to waste, and we said goodbye to my grandma, Nick, Pikachu, and the animals.
Annabeth loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi.
Since there were only three seats in the back and none of us wanted to sit shotgun, I turned myself into a Pikachu and Toothless and I sat on Annabeth’s lap.
I liked being a Pikachu. They’re cute, not that other Pokémon or animals aren’t.
“Los Angeles, please,” Annabeth told the driver.
The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. “That’s three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front.”
“You accept casino debit cards?”
He shrugged. “Some of ‘em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe ‘em through first.”
Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card.
He looked at it skeptically.
“Swipe it,” Annabeth invited.
He did.
His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.
The cigar fell out of the driver’s mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. “Where to in Los Angeles . . . uh, Your Highness?”
“The Santa Monica Pier.” Annabeth said, sitting up a little straighter.
I could tell she liked the “Your Highness” thing, but who wouldn’t? Oh, that’s right. Me.
I’d hate it if someone treated me differently just because I’m royalty or rich, and it’s not fair to people of a lower rank and are treated like shit. That’s why I try my best not to tell anyone who I am exactly, and how rich I am. Just how much of a badass I am.
“Get us there fast, and you can keep the change,” Annabeth told the driver.
Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that. The cab’s speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert. I can’t believe my grandma didn’t stop him.
On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy told us about his latest dream about Thalia and the evil voice from a bottomless pit and his servant. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than “my lord” . . . some special name or title. . . .
“The Silent One?” Annabeth suggested. “The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades.”
“Maybe . . .” Percy said.
“The throne room sounds like Hades’s,” Grover said. “That’s the way it’s usually described.”
Percy shook his head. “Something’s wrong. The throne room wasn’t the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit . . . I don’t know. It just didn’t feel like a god’s voice.”
An evil voice from a bottomless pit . . . not a god . . .
I looked at Annabeth, and I could tell that she was thinking the same thing I was by her eyes widening.
“What?” Percy asked.
“Oh . . . nothing,” she said. “I was just—No, it *has* to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—”
“Like what?”
“I—I don’t know. But if he stole Zeus’s symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That’s what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt.”
Annabeth looked pale. I could tell she didn’t quite believe that herself, and neither did I.
“But if I’d already retrieved the bolt,” Percy said, “why would I be traveling to the Underworld?”
“To threaten Hades,” Grover suggested. “To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back.”
Percy whistled. “You have evil thoughts for a goat.”
“Why, thank you.”
“But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for *two* items. If the master bolt is one, what’s the other?”
Grover shook his head, clearly mystified.
I wasn’t sure what it was either, but Annabeth looked at Percy like she knew his next question, and was silently willing him not to ask it.
But of course, he did.
“You have an idea what might be in the pit, don’t you?” he asked her. “I mean, if it isn’t Hades.”
“Percy . . . let’s not talk about it,” she said. “Because if it isn’t Hades . . . No. It has to be Hades.”
“It may not be, Annabeth,” I said.
“Shut up, Jasmine,” she told me through clenched teeth.
She didn’t like the idea at all and she wanted me to stay quiet. I didn’t want to, but I did.
Wasteland rolled by. We passed a sign that said CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES.
“The answer is in the Underworld,” Annabeth assured Percy. “You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There’s only one place that could be. We’re doing the right thing.”
Well, I don’t doubt that the answer is in the Underworld, but it may not be the answer we were hoping for.
Annabeth tried to boost our moral by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead.
The cab sped west.
At sunset, the taxi dropped us off at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer guys waiting for the perfect wave.
I turned Toothless and myself back to normal, then we all walked down to the edge of the surf.
“What now?” Annabeth asked.
To answer her question, Percy stepped into the surf.
“Percy?” Annabeth said. “What are you doing?”
He kept walking, up to his waist, then his chest.
“You know how polluted that water is?” Annabeth called to him. “There’re all kinds of toxic—”
That’s when his head went under.
I had to agree. I wouldn’t go into polluted water, but Percy did anyway.
We waited on the beach for a while. Percy came back up right after the sun settled over the horizon.
When he reached us, his clothes were completely dry, just like he was when we got out of the Mississippi River.
He told us what happened with the Nereid and showed us the five pearls she gave him.
“She’s right,” I said. “You must always listen to your heart.”
Annabeth grimaced, “No gift comes without a price.”
“They were free,” Percy said, clearly not understanding what she meant.
“No.” She shook her head. “‘There is no such thing as a free lunch.’ That’s an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait.”
On that happy thought, we turned our backs on the sea.
We took the bus into West Hollywood. Toothless rode on the roof. Tired of being a baby.
Percy showed the driver the Underworld address slip he’d taken from Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium, but the driver never heard of DOA Recording Studios.
“You remind me of somebody I saw on TV,” he told Percy. “You a child actor or something?”
“Uh . . . I’m a stunt double . . .” Percy said. “for a lot of child actors.”
“Oh! That explains it.”
We thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop.
We wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn’t appear in the phone book.
Twice, we ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars. Toothless flew above and hid on top of buildings.
Percy froze in front of an appliance-store window.
A television was playing an interview of an ugly fat man talking to Barbara Walters. They seemed to be in an apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and there was a young blond lady sitting next to the ugly fat man, patting his hand.
A tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, “Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn’t for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I’d be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife . . . my Camaro . . . I—I’m sorry, I have trouble talking about it.”
“There you have it, America.” Barbara Walters turned to the camera. “A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver.”
When the screen cut to a grainy shot of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover, Toothless, and me standing outside of the Colorado diner, talking to Ares. I realized that the ugly fat man that Barbara Walters was interviewing must be Percy’s stepdad.
I really doubt that Percy was lying to me about what kind of man he was, so that whole interview was full of shit.
“Who are the other children in this photo?” Barbara Walters asked dramatically. (I hate it when people do that. Just get to the fucking point already.) “Are two of them our country’s protector’s granddaughters? Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America.”
Are they fucking serious? See, this is why I hate the media.
I gave Percy a comforting rub on his shoulder.
“C’mon,” Grover told him. He hauled him away before Percy could punch a hole in the appliance-store window.
I wanted to let him, but his punching is better saved for his stepdad.
It got dark, and predators started coming out on the streets to play.
Grandma trained me and Annabeth to prepare for moments like this, and this is the first time we’ve ever experienced it. Sort of.
I got ready to use my karate and dual blades and even my powers if necessary and paid close attention to everything around us.
We walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at us like they were trying to figure if we were worth the trouble of mugging.
As we hurried past the entrance of an alley, a voice from the darkness said, “Hey, you.”
Of course, we stopped.
Before we knew it, we were surrounded. A gang of kids had circled us. Six of them in all—white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces. Why do rich assholes have to be even more of assholes?
I was about to unsheathe my dual blades, but Percy beat me to it by uncapping his sword.
When the sword appeared out of nowhere, the kids backed off, but their leader, both really stupid and really brave, kept coming at him with a switchblade. I would’ve too.
Percy made the mistake of swinging.
The kid yelped. Unfortunately, he was a hundred percent mortal, and since Percy’s sword is made of Celestial bronze, it passed right through his chest. He looked down. “What the . . .”
“Run!” Percy screamed at us.
I didn’t want to, but I guess I had no choice.
We pushed two kids out of the way and raced down the street, not knowing where we were going. We turned a sharp corner.
“There!” Annabeth shouted.
Only one store on the block looked open, its windows glaring with neon. I noticed the sign above the door.
“Crusty’s Water Bed Palace?” Grover read.
We burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked. A split second later, the gang kids ran past outside.
*Toothless*, I called to him through telepathy. *Go scare those guys out of town. And since it’s night time, it’s your specialty. Then come back and wait for us.*
*Ok, Jasmine*, he replied back, then went off.
“I think we lost them,” Grover panted.
A voice behind us boomed, “Lost who?”
We all jumped.
Standing behind us was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He was at least seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin, thick-lidded eyes, and a cold, reptilian smile. He moved toward us slowly, but I got the feeling he could move fast if he wanted to.
His suit definitely looked like it belonged back in the seventies. The shirt was silk paisley, unbuttoned halfway down his hairless chest. The lapels on his velvet jacket were as wide as landing strips. There were a lot of silver chains around his neck.
“I’m Crusty,” he said, with a tartar-yellow smile.
“Sorry to barge in,” Percy told him. “We were just, um, browsing.”
“You mean hiding from those no-good kids,” he grumbled. “They hang around every night. I get a lot of people in here, thanks to them. Say, you want to look at a water bed?”
Before Percy could respond, Crusty put a huge paw on his shoulder and steered him deeper into the showroom. We followed.
There was every kind of water bed you could imagine: different kinds of wood, different patterns of sheet; queen-size, king-size, emperor-of-the-universe-size.
“This is my most popular model.” Crusty spread his hands proudly over a bed covered with black satin sheets, with built in Lava-Lamps on the headboard. The mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil-flavored Jell-O.
“Million-hand massage,” Crusty told us. “Go on, try it out. Shoot, take a nap. I don’t care. No business today, anyway.”
“Um,” Percy said, “I don’t think . . .”
“Million-hand massage!” Grover cried, and dove in. “Oh, you guys! This is cool.”
“Hmm,” Crusty said, stroking his leathery chin. “Almost, almost.”
“Almost what?” Percy asked.
Crusty looked at Annabeth. “Do me a favor and try this one over here, honey. Might fit.”
“But what—” Annabeth said.
He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and led her to the Safari Deluxe model with teakwood lions carved into the frame and a leopard-patterned comforter.
*Stop him*, my powers told me.
But before I could ask why, Crusty pushed Annabeth down on it when she didn’t want to lie down.
“Hey!” she and I both protested.
Crusty snapped his fingers. “*Ergo!*”
Ropes sprang from the sides of the bed, lashing around Annabeth, holding her to the mattress.
Grover tried to get up, but ropes sprang from his black satin bed, too, and lashed him down.
“N-not c-c-cool!” he yelled, his voice vibrating from the million-hand massage. “N-not c-cool a-at all!”
Crusty looked at Annabeth, then turned toward me and Percy and grinned. “Almost, darn it.”
We tried to step away, but his hand shot out and clamped around the back of our necks. “Whoa, kids. Don’t worry. We’ll find you both one in a sec.”
“Let my friends go,” Percy said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Oh, sure I will,” Crusty said. “But I got to make them fit, first.”
“What do you mean?” Percy asked.
“All the beds are exactly six feet, see? Your friends are too short. Got to make them fit.”
What he was telling us sounded familiar, and I’m pretty sure that I read this from somewhere.
Annabeth and Grover kept struggling.
“Can’t stand imperfect measurements,” Crusty muttered. “*Ergo!*”
A new set of ropes leaped out from the top and bottom of the beds, wrapping around Grover and Annabeth’s ankles, then around their armpits. The ropes started tightening, pulling them from both ends.
“Don’t worry,” Crusty told us. “These are stretching jobs. Maybe three extra inches on their spines. They might even live. Now why don’t we find a bed you two like, huh?”
“Percy! Jasmine!” Grover yelled.
I really wanted to cut this guy up now. But he was fast.
“Your real name’s not Crusty, is it?” Percy asked.
“No, it’s not,” I said, remembering the story now. “It’s Procrustes, right?”
“The Stretcher.”
“The giant who’d tried to kill Theseus with excess hospitality on his way to Athens.”
“Yes,” Crusty said. “But who can pronounce *Procrustes*? Bad for business. Now ‘Crusty,’ anybody can say that.”
“You’re right,” Percy said. “It’s got a nice ring to it.”
“I agree,” I said.
Procrustes’s eyes lit up. “You think so?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Percy said. “And the workmanship on these beds? Fabulous!”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’re quite amazing.”
He grinned hugely, but his fingers didn’t loosen on our necks. “I tell my customers that. Every time. Nobody bothers to look at the workmanship. How many built-in Lava Lamp headboards have you seen?”
“Not too many,” Percy said.
I shook my head in agreement. “None.”
“That’s right!” Procrustes said.
“Percy! Jasmine!” Annabeth yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t mind her,” Percy told Procrustes. “She’s impossible.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “She can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.”
He laughed. “All my customers are. Never six feet exactly. So inconsiderate. And then they complain about the fitting.”
“What do you do if they’re longer than six feet?” Percy asked.
I sent him a warning look, because I already knew the answer to that.
“Oh, that happens all the time. It’s a simple fix.”
He let go of our necks, but before I could react, he reached behind a nearby sales desk and brought out a huge double-bladed axe. “I just center the subject as best I can and lop off whatever hangs over on either end.”
“Ah,” Percy said, swallowing hard. “Sensible.”
Well, that’s what he gets for asking.
“Uh, yeah,” I agreed.
“I’m so glad to come across intelligent customers!” Procrustes said.
The ropes were really stretching our friends now. Annabeth was turning pale, which hurt to look at. Grover made gurgling sounds, like a strangled goose.
“So, Crusty . . .” Percy said, trying to keep his voice light, glanced at the sales tag on the valentine-shaped Honeymoon special. “Does this one really have dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Try it out.”
“Yeah, maybe I will. But would it work even for a big guy like you? No waves at all?”
“Guaranteed.”
“No way.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Way,” he said.
“Show me,” Percy said.
He sat down eagerly on the bed, patted the mattress. “No waves. See?”
Percy and I both snapped our fingers. “*Ergo!*”
Ropes lashed around Procrustes and flattened him against the mattress.
“Hey!” he yelled.
“Center him just right,” Percy said.
The ropes readjusted themselves at his command. Crusty’s whole head stuck out the top. His feet stuck out the bottom.
“No!” he said. “Wait! This is just a demo.”
Percy uncapped Riptide. “A few simple adjustments . . .”
Ok . . . I watched him carefully.
I actually kind of hope that Percy isn’t going to do what I think he’s going to do. I mean, Crusty’s already tied up. Why should we do more to him?
“You drive a hard bargain,” Crusty told Percy. “I’ll give you thirty percent off on selected floor models!”
“I think I’ll start with the top.” Percy raised his sword.
I braced myself.
“No money down! No interest for six months!”
Then again, if it’ll get him to shut up. People are always so damn desperate when they feel other people are going to kill them.
Percy swung his sword. Crusty stopped making offers.
We cut the ropes on the other beds. Annabeth and Grover got to their feet, groaning and wincing and cursing us a lot.
“You look taller,” Percy said.
“Yeah, you really do,” I agreed.
“Very funny,” Annabeth said. “Be faster next time.”
“Oh, Annabeth. You know damn well the best plans are the ones that take the longest to finish.”
I looked at Percy and gave him a high-five.
“You know,” I said. “I did seem like I was playing along, but I actually did agree with most of the stuff he said.”
He nodded. Then he looked at the bulletin board behind Crusty’s sales desk.
There was an advertisement for Hermes Delivery Service, and another for the All-New Compendium of L.A. Area Monsters—“The only Monstrous Yellow Pages you’ll ever need!” Under that, a bright orange flier for DOA Recording Studios, offering commissions for heroes’ souls. “We are always looking for new talent!” DOA’s address was right underneath with a map.
“Come on,” Percy told us.
“Give us a minute,” Grover complained. “We were almost stretched to death!”
“Then you’re ready for the Underworld,” Percy said. “It’s only a block from here.”

I loved the teamwork between Jasmine and Percy here, don't you?
And Annabeth's birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday, Annabeth!
**Please review** here**.**

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## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Jasmine Saturday
* Annabeth Chase
* Percy Jackson