The Sea of Monsters(54)

The monster roared with laughter.

Annabeth and I crept to the edge. We were right above the entrance of the Cyclops’s cave.

Below us stood Polyphemus and Grover, still in his wedding dress. Clarisse was tied up, hanging upside down over a pot of boiling water. I was half hoping to see Tyson down there, too. Even if he’d been in danger, at least I would’ve known he was alive. But there was no sign of him.

“Hmm,” Polyphemus pondered. “Eat loudmouth girl now or wait for wedding feast? What does my bride think?”

He turned to Grover, who backed up and almost tripped over his completed bridal train. “Oh, um, I’m not hungry right now, dear. Perhaps—”

“Did you say bride?” Clarisse demanded. “Who— Grover?”

Next to me, Annabeth muttered, “Shut up. She has to shut up.”

Polyphemus glowered. “What ‘Grover’?”

“The satyr!” Clarisse yelled.

“Oh!” Grover yelped. “The poor thing’s brain is boiling from that hot water. Pull her down, dear!”

Polyphemus’s eyelids narrowed over his baleful milky eye, as if he were trying to see Clarisse more clearly.

The Cyclops was an even more horrible sight than he had been in my dreams. Partly because his rancid smell was now up close and personal. Partly because he was dressed in his wedding outfit—a crude kilt and shoulder-wrap, stitched together from baby-blue tuxedoes, as if the he’d skinned an entire wedding party.

“What satyr?” asked Polyphemus. “Satyrs are good eating. You bring me a satyr?”

“No, you big idiot!” bellowed Clarisse. “That satyr! Grover! The one in the wedding dress!”

I wanted to wring Clarisse’s neck, but it was too late. All I could do was watch as Polyphemus turned and ripped off Grover’s wedding veil—revealing his curly hair, his scruffy adolescent beard, his tiny horns.

Polyphemus breathed heavily, trying to contain his anger. “I don’t see very well,” he growled.

“Not since many years ago when the other hero stabbed me in eye. But YOU’RE—NO—LADY—CYCLOPS!”

The Cyclops grabbed Grover’s dress and tore it away. Underneath, the old Grover reappeared in his jeans and T-shirt. He yelped and ducked as the monster swiped over his head.

“Stop!” Grover pleaded. “Don’t eat me raw! I—I have a good recipe!”

I reached for my sword, but Annabeth hissed, “Wait!”

Polyphemus was hesitating, a boulder in his hand, ready to smash his would-be bride.

“Recipe?” he asked Grover.

“Oh y-yes! You don’t want to eat me raw. You’ll get E coli and botulism and all sorts of horrible things. I’ll taste much better grilled over a slow fire. With mango chutney! You could go get some mangos right now, down there in the woods. I’ll just wait here.”

The monster pondered this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I figured I’d die if I charged.

But I couldn’t let the monster kill Grover.

“Grilled satyr with mango chutney,” Polyphemus mused. He looked back at Clarisse, still hanging over the pot of boiling water. “You a satyr, too?”

“No, you overgrown pile of dung!” she yelled. “I’m a girl! The daughter of Ares! Now untie me so I can rip your arms off!”

“Rip my arms off,” Polyphemus repeated.

“And stuff them down your throat!”

“You got spunk.”

“Let me down!”

Polyphemus snatched up Grover as if he were a wayward puppy. “Have to graze sheep now. Wedding postponed until tonight. Then we’ll eat satyr for the main course!”

“But … you’re still getting married?” Grover sounded hurt. “Who’s the bride?”

Polyphemus looked toward the boiling pot.

Clarisse made a strangled sound. “Oh, no! You can’t be serious. I’m not—”

Before Annabeth or I could do anything, Polyphemus plucked her off the rope like she was a ripe apple, and tossed her and Grover deep into the cave. “Make yourself comfortable! I come back at sundown for big event!”

Then the Cyclops whistled, and a mixed flock of goats and sheep—smaller than the man-eaters—flooded out of the cave and past their master. As they went to pasture, Polyphemus patted some on the back and called them by name—Beltbuster, Tammany, Lockhart, etc.

When the last sheep had waddled out, Polyphemus rolled a boulder in front of the doorway as easily as I would close a refrigerator door, shutting off the sound of Clarisse and Grover screaming inside.

“Mangos,” Polyphemus grumbled to himself. “What are mangos?”

He strolled off down the mountain in his baby-blue groom’s outfit, leaving us alone with a pot of boiling water and a six-ton boulder.

We tried for what seemed like hours, but it was no good. The boulder wouldn’t move. We yelled into the cracks, tapped on the rock, did everything we could think of to get a signal to Grover, but if he heard us, we couldn’t tell.

Even if by some miracle we managed to kill Polyphemus, it wouldn’t do us any good. Grover and Clarisse would die inside that sealed cave. The only way to move the rock was to have the Cyclops do it.

In total frustration, I stabbed Riptide against the boulder. Sparks flew, but nothing else happened. A large rock is not the kind of enemy you can fight with a magic sword.