“I thought about all the things I was suddenly able to do—like fight with a sword and summon a magical shell of armor. Those were not things I covered in home school.”

“Throwing down your staff may sound like a sign of surrender, but in Egyptian magic, it's bad news. It usually means, 'Hey, I'm going to summon a big nasty thing to kill you while I stand safely inside my circle and laugh'.”

“I suppose with so many things suddenly getting better, the things that were still missing hurt even worse.”

“Poison!" Grover yelped. "Don't let those things touch you or...""Or we'll die?" I guessed."Well...after you shrivel slowly to dust, yes.""Let's avoid the swords," I decided.”

“Maybe being home schooled, Carter didn’t realize that “test” is normally a bad thing.”

“See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. - Percy Jackson”

“I looked down at my clothes. They were slashed to pieces and full of bullet holes, but I was fine. Not a mark on me.Nico's mouth hung open. "You just . . . with a sword . . . you just—""I think the river thing worked," I said."Oh gee," he said sarcastically. "You think?”