The Demigod Diaries (The Heroes of Olympus)(28)

“So what happened to him?” Piper asked.

Leo felt a lump rising in his throat. The guilt was almost too much. “I—I got careless. I polished him with Windex, and…he ran away.”

Jason looked like he was trying to figure out an equation. “Let me get this straight. Your table ran away…because you polished him with Windex.”

“I know, I’m an idiot!” Leo moaned. “A brilliant idiot, but still an idiot. Buford hates being polished with Windex. It has to be Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula. I was distracted. I thought maybe just once he wouldn’t notice. Then I turned around for a while to install the combustion tubes, and when I looked for Buford…”

Leo pointed to the giant open doors of the bunker. “He was gone. Little trail of oil and bolts leading outside. He could be anywhere by now, and he’s got both syncopators!”

Piper glanced at the digital clock. “So…we have exactly one hour to find your runaway table, get back your synco-whatsit, and install it in this engine, or the Argo II explodes, destroying Bunker Nine and most of the woods.”

“Basically,” Leo said.

Jason frowned. “We should alert the other campers. We might have to evacuate them.”

“No!” Leo’s voice broke. “Look, the explosion won’t destroy the whole camp. Just the woods. I’m pretty sure. Like sixty-five percent sure.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Piper muttered.

“Besides,” Leo said, “we don’t have time, and I—I can’t tell the others. If they find out how badly I’ve messed up…”

Jason and Piper looked at each other. The clock display changed to 59:00.

“Fine,” Jason said. “But we’d better hurry.”

As they trudged through the woods, the sun started to set. The camp’s weather was magically controlled, so it wasn’t freezing and snowing like it was in the rest of Long Island, but still Leo could tell it was late December. In the shadows of the huge oak trees, the air was cold and damp. The mossy ground squished under their feet.

Leo was tempted to summon fire in his hand. He’d gotten better at that since coming to camp, but he knew the nature spirits in the woods didn’t like fire. He didn’t want to be yelled at by any more dryads.

Christmas Eve. Leo couldn’t believe it was here already. He’d been working so hard in Bunker 9, he’d hardly noticed the weeks passing. Usually around the holidays he would be goofing around, pranking his friends, dressing up like Taco Claus (his personal invention), and leaving carne asada tacos in people’s socks and sleeping bags, or pouring eggnog down his friends’ shirts, or making up inappropriate lyrics to Christmas carols. This year, he was all serious and hardworking. Any teacher he’d ever had would laugh if Leo described himself that way.

Thing was, Leo had never cared so much about a project before. The Argo II had to be ready by June if they were going to start their big quest on time. And while June seemed a long way away, Leo knew he’d barely have time to make the deadline. Even with the entire Hephaestus cabin helping him, constructing a magic flying warship was a huge task. It made launching a NASA spaceship look easy. They’d had so many setbacks, but all Leo could think about was getting the ship finished. It would be his masterpiece.

Also, he wanted to get the dragon figurehead installed. He missed his old friend Festus, who’d literally crashed and burned on their last quest. Even if Festus would never be the same again, Leo hoped he could reactivate his brain by using the ship’s engines. If Leo could give Festus a second life, he wouldn’t feel so bad.

But none of that would happen if the combustion chamber exploded. It would be game over. No ship. No Festus. No quest. Leo would have no one to blame but himself. He really hated Windex.

Jason knelt at the banks of a stream. He pointed to some marks in the mud. “Do those look like table tracks?”

“Or a raccoon,” Leo suggested.

Jason frowned. “With no toes?”

“Piper?” Leo asked. “What do you think?”

She sighed. “Just because I’m Native American doesn’t mean I can track furniture through the wilderness.” She deepened her voice: “‘Yes, kemosabe. A three-legged table passed this way an hour ago.’ Heck, I don’t know.”

“Okay, jeez,” Leo said.

Piper was half Cherokee, half Greek goddess. Some days it was hard to tell which side of her family she was more sensitive about.

“It’s probably a table,” Jason decided. “Which means Buford went across this stream.”

Suddenly the water gurgled. A girl in a shimmering blue dress rose to the surface. She had stringy green hair, blue lips, and pale skin, so she looked like a drowning victim. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

“Could you be any louder?” she hissed. “They’ll hear you!”

Leo blinked. He never got used to this—nature spirits just popping up out of trees and streams and whatnot.

“Are you a naiad?” he asked.

“Shh! They’ll kill us all! They’re right over there!” She pointed behind her, into the trees on the other side of the stream. Unfortunately, that was the direction Buford seemed to have walked.

“Okay,” Piper said gently, kneeling next to the water. “We appreciate the warning. What’s your name?”