Excerpt: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Demigod Snatchers

From Chapter One: Out with the Old

Percy sighed, and closed the door behind him, leaning his back against it and staring up at the ceiling.

This was it. He was here, at last. He was alone and stuck in Iowa for the next four months, with no one around that he knew for thousands of miles. There’d be no one around to help him, nothing familiar to work with. He was going to have new experiences, meet new people –

His desk chair squeaked suddenly and he looked down in time to see it moving around by itself.

Well, maybe he wasn’t completely alone quite yet.

“I thought I felt a no good invisible Daughter of Athena sneaking around earlier,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the chair deliberately.

“You did not,” Annabeth Chase’s disembodied voice whispered right by his ear. Percy turned his head as his girlfriend materialized beside him, pulling her magical Yankees cap from the top of her blonde curls. “Your observational skills suck, Jackson.”

“You’re just tricky,” Percy said, reaching out to slide an arm around her waist. “I thought I told you that you weren’t supposed to come along today?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes, placing her hands on his shoulders. “Since when do I listen to anything you have to say? I wanted to come see you on move-in day, so I came. You almost dropped your box of textbooks on me, by the way. I’m not going to forgive that very easily.”

“Well, maybe you should’ve helped out with the move in process instead of lurking around like that.”

“Whatever. You wouldn’t have wanted to kiss me if I was all sweaty and gross.”

“You’re about to kiss me when I’m sweaty and gross. How is that any different? One of us is still sweaty and gross, Wise Girl.”

“Oh, just stop being difficult and give your girlfriend a hello kiss already, will you?”

“Happily,” Percy said with a grin, bending his head down to capture Annabeth’s lips with his.