“Dancing?' Annabeth asked.Thalia nodded. She cocked her ear to the music and made a face. 'Ugh. Who chose Jesse McCartney?'Grover looked hurt. 'I did.”

“Dance you guys!" Thalia ordered. "You look stupid just standing there." I looked nervously at Annabeth, then at the groups of girls who were roaming the gym. "Well?" Annabeth asked. "Um, who should I ask?"She punched me in the gut. "Me, Seaweed Brain." "Oh. Oh right.”

“Can you surf really well, then?"I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh."Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)”

“But... you're still getting married?" Grover sounded hurt. "Who's the bride?" Ploypemus looked toward the boiling pot. Clarisse made a strangled sound. "Oh, no! You can't be serious. I'm not-”

“Absurdly, irrationally, she believed that music could make a difference to the temper of the world.She did not investigate this belief, test it to see whether it made sense;she simply believed it, and so she chose music that expressed order and healing:Bach for order, Mozart for healing.”

“Luke grabs my hand. I turn to see a look of pure horror on his face. "This," he says, "is a dance?" "You were expecting what?" I say. "Why are they not dancing?" I look around the gym again. "Well, most people are dancing." I nod at the freshman boys, who have resorted to doing the robot. "They're dancing." Luke looks completely unconvinced. "And the music," he says, "is it always this.....loud?" I laugh. "You sound like you're forty. You have been to a dance before, right?" Luke looks offended. "Yes. Of course. But it was more..." he surveys the gyrating bodies around us "....civilised that this." He turns to me accusatory. "And you. Have you been to a dance?”