She said, “Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?”

“They’re … um …” Annabeth started to say.

“We’re orphans,” I said.

“Orphans?” the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. “But, my dears! Surely not!”

“We got separated from our caravan,” I said. “Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we’re lost. Is that food I smell?”

.

He looked us over. “How did you die, then?”

I nudged Grover.

“Oh,” he said. “Um … drowned … in the bathtub.”

“All three of you?” Charon asked.

We nodded.

.

“I’m not saying hello to a pink poodle,” I said. “For-get it.”

“Percy,” Annabeth said. “I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle.”

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

.

“I don’t know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me-”

“Are you kidding?” She looked at me as if I’d just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.

“What’s the problem now?” I demanded.

“Me, go with you to the … the ‘Thrill Ride of Love’? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?”

.

I LOVE my kids

Me reading the lightning thief:

what’s hilarious is that the version of this that’s going around without the quotes is getting heavily commented on that Annabeth has the brain cell the entire time

and like…….. you guys are missing out on the fact that Annabeth was horrified that someone would see her with Percy in an abandoned water park where the only people there are in fact, her, percy, and grover.

This is Dumbass Annabeth erasure and I won’t stand for it.