Percy Gets a New Cabin Mate

**Percy Gets a New Cabin Mate** is the eighty-third chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on March 29th, 2019.

## Chapter

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**Annabeth's POV**
Seeing Camp Half-Blood again, things didn’t look all that different. The Big House was still there with its blue gabled roof and its wraparound porch. The strawberry fields still baked in the sun. The same white-columned Greek buildings were scattered around the valley—the amphitheater, the combat arena, the dining pavilion overlooking Long Island Sound. And nestled between the woods and the creek were the same cabins—a crazy assortment of twelve buildings, each representing a different Olympian god.
But there was an air of danger now. You could tell something was wrong. Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit, counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed. Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods. The forest looked sickly, the grass in the meadow was pale yellow, and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars.
Somebody had messed with my favorite place in the world, and I was not . . . well, a happy camper.
As we made our way to the Big House, I recognized a lot of kids from past summers. Nobody stopped to talk. Nobody said, “Welcome back.” Some did double takes when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties—running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels. The camp felt like a military school.
None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw. “Whasthat!” he gasped.
“The stables for pegasi,” Percy said. “The winged horses.”
“Whasthat!”
“Um . . . those are toilets.”
“Whasthat!”
“The cabins for the campers. If they don’t know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin—that brown one over there—until you’re determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom’s group.”
He looked at me in awe. “You . . . have a *cabin*?”
“Number three.” He pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone.
“You live with friends in the cabin?”
“No. No, just me.”
He didn’t seem like he wanted to explain. I didn’t blame him. It’s hard to explain, especially to someone like Tyson, why you never should’ve been born.
When we got to the Big House, we found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his favorite 1960s lounge music while he packed his saddlebags.
As soon as we saw him, Tyson froze. “Pony!” he cried in total rapture.
Chiron turned, looking offended. “I beg your pardon?”
Jasmine and I ran up and hugged him.
“Chiron, what’s happening?” I asked, my voice shaky. “You’re not . . . leaving?”
Chiron was like a second father to me. Technically third, after Jasmine’s dad. Jasmine never admits to considering someone else as her father because of how much she loves her actual dad and wouldn’t want anyone else to take his place, but I know that she also considers Chiron as a father figure for her when she’s here at camp.
Chiron ruffled our hair and gave us a kindly smile. “Hello, children. And Percy, my goodness. You’ve grown over the year!”
Percy swallowed. “Clarisse said you were . . . you were . . .”
“Fired.” Chiron’s eyes glinted with dark humor. “Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he’d created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone.”
“Besides himself, you mean,” Percy growled.
“That’s for sure,” Jasmine agreed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“But this is crazy!” I cried. “Chiron, you couldn’t have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia’s tree!”
“Nevertheless,” Chiron sighed, “some Olympians do not trust me now, under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Percy asked.
Chiron’s face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boom box.
Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron’s flank but was afraid to come closer. “Pony?”
Chiron sniffed. “My dear young Cyclops! I am a *centaur*.”
“Chiron,” Percy said. “What about the tree? What happened?”
He shook his head sadly. “The poison used on Thalia’s pine is something from the Underworld, Percy. Some venom even I had never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus.”
“Then we know who’s responsible. Kro—”
“Do not invoke the titan lord’s name, Percy. Especially not here, not now.”
“But last summer he tried to cause a civil war in Olympus! This *has* to be his idea. He’d get Luke to do it, that traitor.”
“Perhaps,” Chiron said. “But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless . . .”
“Unless what?” I asked.
“No,” Chiron said. “A foolish thought. The whole valley is feeling the shock of the poison. The magical borders are deteriorating. The camp itself is dying. Only one source of magic would be strong enough to reverse the poison, and it was lost centuries ago.”
“What *is* it?” Percy asked. “We’ll go find it!”
Chiron closed his saddlebag, He pressed the stop button on his boom box. Then he turned and rested his hand on Percy’s shoulder, looking him straight in the eyes. “Percy, you must promise me that you will *not* act rashly. I told your mother I did not want you to come here at all this summer. It’s much too dangerous. But now that you are here, stay here. Train hard. Learn to fight. But do not leave.”
“Why?” he asked. “I want to do something! I can’t just let the borders fail. The whole camp will be—”
“Overrun by monsters,” Chiron said. “Yes, I fear so. But you must not let yourself be baited into hasty action! This could be a trap of the titan lord. Remember last summer! He almost took your life.”
It was true, but still. I could tell Percy wanted to help so badly. I also wanted to make Kronos pay. He couldn’t act on his own, but he was great at twisting the minds of mortals and even gods to do his dirty work.
The poisoning *had* to be his doing. Who else would be so low as to attack Thalia’s tree, the only thing left of a hero who’d given her life to save us? But to think that Luke of all people would do that to her . . .
I was trying hard not to cry.
Chiron brushed a tear from my cheek. “Stay with Percy, child,” he told me. “You and Jasmine keep him safe. The prophecy—remember it!”
“I—I will,” I said.
“Me too,” Jasmine agreed.
“Um . . .” Percy said. “Would this be the super-dangerous prophecy that has me in it, but the gods have forbidden you to tell me about?”
Nobody answered. But Jasmine did look at Percy and nodded her head.
“Right,” he muttered. “Just checking.”
“Chiron . . .” I said. “You told me the gods made you immortal only so long as you were needed to train heroes. If they dismiss you from camp—”
“Both of you swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger,” he insisted. “Swear upon the River Styx.”
“I—I swear it upon the River Styx,” I said.
“That is one thing I will swear on it to do,” Jasmine said. “I also swear on the River Styx.”
Thunder rumbled outside.
“Very well,” Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. “Perhaps my name will be cleared and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsmen in the Everglades. It’s possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until the matter is resolved . . . one way or another.”
I stifled a sob.
Chiron patted my shoulder awkwardly. “There, now, child. I must entrust your safety to Mr. D and the new activities director. We must hope . . . well, perhaps they won’t destroy the camp quite as quickly as I fear.”
“Who is this Tantalus guy, anyway?” Percy demanded. “Where does he get off taking your job?”
“Yeah,” Jasmine agreed. “I gotta admit, though, that name does sound familiar.”
A conch horn blew across the valley. I hadn’t realized how late it was. It was time for the campers to assemble for dinner.
“Go,” Chiron said. “You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, Percy, and let her know you’re safe. Now doubt she’ll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you!”
“He would be an idiot if he did,” Jasmine said.
With that, Chiron clopped out of the apartment and down the hall, Tyson calling after him, “Pony! Don’t go!”
He started bawling almost as bad as I was.
“Things are going to be ok, guys,” he said, trying to comfort us.
“Do you really believe that, Percy?” Jasmine asked.
He didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so.”

**Jasmine’s POV**
The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. We stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and found Will smiling at me. “You’re finally here.”
“Hi!” I screamed in delight and threw my arms around his neck in a big hug.
I know it hasn’t been that long since I last saw him, but I always get excited whenever I go to see him, or when he calls or texts me.
I kissed him. “How long have you been here?”
“About an hour,” he replied. “I was going to wait for you at the top of Half-Blood Hill, but . . .”
“The Colchis Bulls?”
“Yeah. And everything else.”
“Right.”
Then Will noticed Tyson, cringed back a little bit, and raised an eyebrow at me.
I waved my hand. “Long story. And be nice.”
Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she’d talk to Percy later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin. I gave Will another kiss, then went to join her, leaving Toothless with them since he was too big to even sit near the table and preferred to eat his meal full-grown since he could eat more that way.
Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn’t seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it. I probably wouldn’t have, either, and just laughed about it.
After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin—six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers’ mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmith’s forge all day. He was nice enough one you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf. I, personally, don’t like to call people by their last names, but Beckendorf sounded cooler rather than a typical name like Charlie. Rumor was he could make anything, which was true as far as I could tell. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing birdbath for your grandmother’s garden. Whatever you wanted.
The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded me painfully of Grover.
I don’t like too many satyrs, but Grover was always my favorite, even if he was the first one I met.
After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. It had been led by Luke last summer, but now the Hermes cabin was led by Travis and Connor Stoll. They weren’t twins, but they looked so much alike, like me and the girls on my mom’s side of my family. It’s really rare for a god to have two children with the same mortal when they’re not twins. Travis was the older one. They were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They wore orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes’s kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt. One time Percy mentioned how it was funny that the god of thieves would have kids with the last name “Stoll.” I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before he said so, but they both stared at him blankly like they didn’t get the joke, and yet I did.
As soon as the last campers had filed in, Percy led Tyson into the middle of the pavilion. Conversations faltered. Heads turned. “Who invited *that*?” one of Will’s brothers at the Apollo table murmured.
Percy and I both glared in their direction.
From the head table a familiar voice drawled, “Well, well, if it isn’t Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete.”
“I wish it really was,” I muttered.
Percy gritted his teeth. “*Percy Jackson* . . . sir.”
Dionysus, a.k.a. Mr. D, sipped his Diet Coke. “Yes. Well, as you young people say these days: *Whatever*.”
He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Dionysus one at a time.
Next to him, where Chiron usually sat (or stood, in centaur form), was someone I’d never seen before—a pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner’s jumpsuit. The number over his pocket read 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut gray hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. He stared at Percy. He looked . . . fractured. Angry and frustrated and hungry all at the same time.
“This boy,” Dionysus told him. “you need to watch. Poseidon’s child, you know.”
“Ah!” the prisoner said. “That one.”
His tone made it obvious that he and Dionysus had already discussed him at length.
“I am Tantalus,” the prisoner said, smiling coldly. “On special assignment here until, well, until my Lord Dionysus decides otherwise. And you, Perseus Jackson, I *do* expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble.”
“Trouble?” he demanded.
Dionysus snapped his fingers. A newspaper appeared on the table. I couldn’t see what it read, but I guessed it was about the incident with the Laistrygonians at his school earlier.
“Yes, trouble,” Tantalus said with satisfaction. “You caused plenty of it last summer, I understand.”
I rolled my eyes. Like it was *his* fault the gods had almost gotten into a civil war?
A satyr inched forward nervously and set a plate of barbecue in front of Tantalus. He licked his lips. He looked at his empty goblet and said, “Root beer. Barq’s special stock. 1967.”
The glass filled itself with foamy soda. Tantalus stretched out his hand hesitantly, as if he were afraid the goblet was hot.
“Go on, then, old fellow,” Dionysus said, a strange sparkle in his eyes. “Perhaps now it will work.”
Tantalus grabbed for the glass, but it scooted away before he could touch it. A few drops of root beer spilled, and Tantalus tried to dab them up with his fingers, but the drops rolled away like quicksilver before he could touch them. He growled and turned toward the plate of barbecue. He picked up a fork and tried to stab a piece of brisket, but the plate skittered down the table and flew off the end, straight into the coals of the brazier.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole thing.
“Blast!” Tantalus muttered.
“Ah, well,” Dionysus said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “Perhaps a few more days. Believe me, old chap, working at this camp will be torture enough. I’m sure your old curse will fade eventually.”
“Eventually,” muttered Tantalus, staring at Dionysus’s Diet Coke. “Do you have any idea how dry one’s throat gets after three thousand years?”
“You’re that spirit from the Fields of Punishment,” Percy said. “The one who stands in the lake with the fruit tree hanging over you, but you can’t eat or drink.”
Tantalus sneered at him. “A real scholar, aren’t you, boy?”
“You must’ve done something really horrible when you were alive,” Percy said, mildly impressed. “What was it?”
Tantalus’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, the satyrs were shaking their heads vigorously, trying to warn him.
I gasped quietly, now remembering who he was. “Oh my God.”
Annabeth looked at me like she also remembered him and what horrible thing he did when he was alive. And it *was* horrible.
“I’ll be watching you, Percy Jackson,” Tantalus said. “I don’t want any problems at my camp.”
“*Your* camp has problems already . . . sir.”
“Oh, go sit down, Johnson,” Dionysus sighed. “I believe that table over there is yours—the one where no one else wants to sit.”
Percy’s face was burning, but he knew better than to talk back, at least not this time. He does it more often than anybody else, besides me. Dionysus was an asshole as always.
“Come on, Tyson,” Percy said.
“Oh, no,” Tantalus said. “The monster stays here. We must decide what to do with it.”
“*Him*,” Percy snapped. “His name is Tyson.”
Tantalus raised an eyebrow.
“Tyson saved the camp,” Percy insisted. “He pounded those bronze bulls. Otherwise they would’ve burned down this whole place.”
“Yes,” Tantalus sighed, “and *what* a pity that would’ve been.”
Dionysus snickered.
“Leave us,” Tantalus ordered, “while we decide this creature’s fate.”
Tyson looked at Percy with fear in his one big eye, but even Percy knew he couldn’t disobey a direct order from the camp directors. Not openly, anyway.
“I’ll be right over here, big guy,” he promised. “Don’t worry. We’ll find you a good place to sleep tonight.”
Tyson nodded. “I believe you. You are my friend.”
“Aw,” I said, but Percy seemed a little guilty.
He trudged over to the Poseidon’s table and slumped onto the bench.
“I’m going to go sit with him,” I told Annabeth, getting up from my seat.
“I kind of figured you would,” she replied.
I stood up and walked calmly over to Percy and sat down across from him, making a big, silent scene in the process with everyone watching me the whole way.
“Hey,” I told him.
“Hey,” he replied with an eyebrow raised. “Umm, can you sit here?”
“Not really. But they can’t stop me no matter how hard they try.”
“Ok.”
A wood nymph brought me and him a plate of Olympian olive-and-pepperoni pizza. We took our dinner, as was customary, up to the bronze brazier and scraped part of it into the flames.
“Poseidon,” I heard Percy murmured, “accept my offering.”
“To my parents,” I said quietly. “Zak and Sarah Saturday.”
The smoke from the burning pizza changed into something fragrant—the smell of a clean sea breeze with wildflowers mixed in.
We went back to our seats. I got Toothless a plate and fed it to him. I didn’t think things could get much worse. But then Tantalus had one of the satyrs blow the conch horn to get our attention for announcements.
“Yes, well,” Tantalus said, once the talking had died down. “Another fine meal! Or so I am told.” As he spoke, he inched his hand toward his refilled dinner plate, as if maybe the food wouldn’t notice what he was doing, but it did. It shot away down the table as soon as he got within six inches.
“And here on my first day of authority,” he continued, “I’d like to say what a pleasant form of punishment it is to be here. Over the course of the summer, I hope to torture, er, interact with each and every one of you children. You all look good enough to eat.”
Oh, how dare he say that?
Dionysus clapped politely, leading to some halfhearted applause from the satyrs. Tyson was still standing at the head table, looking uncomfortable, but every time he tried to scoot out of the limelight, Tantalus pulled him back. Hmm. I’m surprised he even touched him at all.
“And now some changes!” Tantalus gave us all a crooked smile. “We are reinstituting the chariot races!”
Murmuring broke out at all the tables—excitement, fear, disbelief.
“Now I know,” Tantalus continued, raising his voice, “that these races were discontinued some years ago due to, ah, technical problems.”
“Three deaths and twenty-six mutilations,” Will at the Apollo table called.
“Yes, yes!” Tantalus said. “But I know that you will all join me in welcoming the return of this camp tradition. Golden laurels will go to the winning charioteers each month. Teams may register in the morning! The first race will be held in three days time. We will release you from most of your regular activities to prepare your chariots and choose your horses. Oh, and did I mention, the victorious team’s cabin will have no chores for the month in which they win?”
An explosion of excited conversation—no KP for a whole month? No stable cleaning? Was he serious?
Then the last person I expected to object did so.
“But, sir!” Clarisse said. She looked nervous, but she stood up to speak from the Ares table. Some of the campers snickered when they saw the YOU MOO, GIRL! sign on her back. “What about patrol duty? I mean, if we drop everything to ready our chariots—”
“Ah, the hero of the day,” Tantalus exclaimed. “Brave Clarisse, who single-handedly bested the bronze bulls!”
Clarisse blinked, then blushed. “Um, I didn’t—”
“And modest, too.” Tantalus grinned. “Not to worry, my dear! This is a summer camp. We are here to enjoy ourselves, yes?”
“But the tree—”
“And now,” Tantalus said, as several of Clarisse’s cabin mates pulled her back into her seat, “before we proceed to the campfire and sing-along, one slight housekeeping issue. Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Jasmine Saturday have seen fit, for some reason, to bring *this* here.” Tantalus waved a hand toward Tyson.
Uneasy murmuring spread among the campers. A lot of sideways looks at Percy. I wanted to kill Tantalus.
“Now, of course,” he said, “Cyclopes have a reputation for being bloodthirsty monsters with a very small brain capacity. Under normal circumstances, I would release this beast into the woods and have you hunt it down with torches and pointed sticks. But who knows? Perhaps the Cyclops is not as horrible as most of its brethren. Until it proves worthy of destruction, we need a place to keep it! I’ve thought about the stables, but that will make the horses nervous. Hermes’s cabin, possibly?”
Silence at the Hermes table. Travis and Connor developed a sudden interest in the tablecloth. I couldn’t blame them. The Hermes cabin was always full to bursting. There was no way they could take in a six-foot-thee Cyclops.
“Come now,” Tantalus chided. “The monster may be able to do some menial chores. Any suggestions as to where such a beast should be kenneled?”
Suddenly everyone gasped.
Tantalus scooted away from Tyson in surprise. I stared at the dazzling, brilliant green holographic image that had just appeared above Tyson’s head.
I remembered what Annabeth had said about Cyclopes, *They’re the children of nature spirits and gods . . . Well, one god in particular, usually . . .*
I didn’t think too much about it until now, and I guess I should’ve saw this coming.
Swirling over Tyson was a glowing green trident—the exact same symbol that had appeared above Percy the day Poseidon had claimed him as his son.
There was a moment of awed silence.
Being claimed was a rare event. Some campers waited in vain for it their whole lives. When Percy had been claimed by Poseidon last summer, everyone had reverently knelt. But now, they followed Tantalus’s lead, and Tantalus roared with laughter. “Well! I think we know where to put the beast now. By the gods, I can see the family resemblance!”
Everybody laughed except Annabeth, Will, Toothless, me, and a few of our other friends.
Tyson didn’t seem to notice. He was too mystified, trying to swat the glowing trident that was now fading over his head. He was too innocent to understand how much they were making fun of him, how cruel people were.
But Percy got it. He had a new cabin mate, and a new half-brother.

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## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Annabeth Chase
* Jasmine Saturday
* Percy Jackson

### Minor Characters

* Tyson
* Chiron
* Will Solace
* Clarisse
* Dionysus
* Tantalus