Chapter 17:We Shop For Water Beds

This was Annabeth idea. She took us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, to go on a taxi. Then she told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."The driver was just sitting there chewing his cigar. Then he said, "That's three hundred miles from here, that means you guys have to pay me a lot of money." Annabeth asked, "Do you accept casino debit cards?" The driver said, " If they were the same as credit cards, I will take it," Annabeth handed the driver her LotusCash card. The driver looked unsure of what it was, so he swiped the card and his meter machine started rattling. The lights started flashing. Then, an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The driver was in shock, with his eyes open wide, then he said, "Where to in Los Angeles, uh, your highness?" "The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth said strongly. Annabeth seemed to like the, "Your Highness" thing that the driver said. Annabeth told the driver to get us there as fast as possible. The taxi's speedometer never dipped below ninety five the whole way through the desert.

On the road, we had so much time to talk to each other. I told Annabeth and Grover about the latest dream I had. The Lotus Casino seemed to have wrecked my memory, because I don't remember anything about what the invisible voice said to me. Then Annabeth told me that my dream could have taken place at Hades. "Well, the place didn't look like it was Hades place." I said. Then Grover said,"That's usually the way they describe it." We kept arguing about the thing, until we passed wasteland, and we saw a sign that said California State Line, 12 Miles. I got this weird feeling that I was missing one simple, important piece of information. It was like when I stared at a common word I should know, but I couldn't' make sense of it, because some letters were floating around the place. Well, the more I thought about my quest, the more I was sure that facing Hades wasn't the real answer to everything. The problem was that, we were driving toward the Underworld at almost Ninety five miles an hour, thinking that Hades was the one who stole the master bolt. If we got there and found out it wasn't Hades who stole the master bolt, we wouldn't have time to look for the real person who stole the master bolt.

At sunset, we finally arrived at the beach of Santa Monica there were carnival rides lining the pier, palm trees lining the side walks. There were also homeless people sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the right time to surf. Grover, Annabeth and I walked down the beach. Annabeth asked, "What now?". I asked myself this question while we were walking, "How could I be the son of someone that powerful?" Then, I stepped into the water, Annabeth was trying to stop me, but I didn't listen I kept going and going until the water reached my head. I held my breath at first, everyone knows that it is really difficult to inhale water, actually it's impossible. Finally, I couldn't stand holding my breath anymore, so I gasped, I started breathing normally again. Then I walked down a little farther, somehow I could tell where everything was on the ocean floor, I felt something rub against my leg, I looked down and it was a five foot long mako shark. The weird thing was it didn't try to attack me, it was like my own dog. I tried to touch its dorsal fin, it bucked a little, but it was trying to tell me to hold tighter.I grabbed the fin with both hands, then it took off, with me holding on, the shark was carried me down into the darkness, then it let me go. When I let go, I saw something glimmering in the darkness, and the thing grew bigger and brighter as it went closer to me. Then I heard a woman's voice, almost like my mother's, it called out "Percy Jackson, you have come this far. Well done." The lady was the lady I saw in the Mississippi River." Then she told me she was the spirit of the sea, the naiads, her underwater cousins helped sustain her life force. She told me things about Poseidon and how he doesn't show himself to me. Then she went away.

I went back up to the shore with Annabeth and Grover waiting for me. With spare change from the money Ares gave us, we took the bus into West Hollywood. I showed the driver the Underworld address, but the driver never heard of the place. Then he said, "You remind me about this person I saw on TV, I tried to thing of something to tell the driver, so I said, "I'm a stunt double, for a lot of child actors. Good thing the driver believed me. We thanked him and got off on the next stop. We looked for the place for hours and hours, we tried to ask the people if they knew where the place was, but nobody seemed to know. We also had to hide in alleys because we had to avid the police cars. One time, I froze in front of an appliance store window because a television was playing an interview with a familiar face, my step dad, Smelly Gabe. He was talking to Barbara Walters. She talked to him about me and it seemed like Smelly Gabe was lying. I wasn't so happy about the interview, though. So we kept walking until we met these kids that surrounded us on the side walk. I uncapped Riptide. Once, their leader got closer to me I made the mistake of swinging. The kid was a full mortal, because the blade went right through the kid's chest. He was shocked, and he was really angry, so we ran away from them until we lost them. Then when we ran into the store called CRUSTY"S WATER BED PALACE, a man who looked like the owner of the store. He asked us if we wanted a water bed, we didn't want to say no, so we just followed him. He gave us a lot of deals that we could buy but we didn't want it, anyways we didn't even have enough money. Then Crusty held Annabeth and Grover and tied them to a water bed. He said that they need to be six feet tall so that they could fit the water bed. Well, things were not looking so good because he started stretching them. His name wasn't actually Crusty, it was Procrustes. They were screaming, "What are you doing Percy, come help us!" I uncapped Riptide and when I swung the sword Crusty stopped giving us deals. Then I cut the ropes and set Annabeth and Grover free. We left the shop, and went looking for the entrance to the Underworld.