The Rise of the Earth by Jeanette and Myrna (good books to read for teens txt) 📖

said, trying and failing to hide his laughter.
‘Yeah, got a problem with that?’ Ryan said, glaring at him.
‘N-n-no...’ He stuttered.
I hate it when Thalia uses my middle name. ‘GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT AND GET DRESSED, WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE!’
‘Uhh, come on Thalia, just five more minutes...’ I groaned, waving her away.
‘You are so lazy.’ Athena said.
Ryan shrugged. ‘That’s who I am.’
‘We don’t have five minutes Bolt Head now GET UP!’ She said, pulling away the covers. I sighed, got out of bed and put on some clothes.
‘The others are waiting at the beach,’ Thalia said. ‘I’d say you have about five minutes to pack.’ Thalia left and I started to pack; I packed some extra clothes and some extra nectar and ambrosia. Once I was ready I went to the beach and everyone was staring at me. Annabeth was tapping her foot. ‘Where were you?’ She asked.
‘I overslept and why are you so impatient?’ I asked.
‘Athena always has to be on time and –‘She looked at her watch. ‘- you’re five minutes late.’
‘Well sorry but Thalia woke me up a little late.’ I said.
‘Well it’s not my fault that you have a rare laziness disorder.’ Thalia smirked.
At that comment everyone burst out laughing.
‘Oh, shut up.’ I grumbled.
Then Chiron trotted up calling my name. ‘Ryan, thank the gods I caught you, your father wanted you to have this.’ He handed me one of those push-pencils. ‘Its name is Slashbolt, it can return to the owner’s pocket when you need it and is very powerful. I wish I could help you more but Zeus has forbidden me to interfere more with this quest and remember help comes in the most unexpected places,
‘Very unexpected.’ Ryan said as he smiled to Caliga and Lux.
Your role in this quest is bigger than you have ever imagined, the Fates have chosen you to determine the fate of Olympus.’ We said our goodbyes, boarded the ship and took off and I had a feeling we wouldn’t be seeing camp Half-Blood in a long time.

On the ship everyone was doing their own thing, Thalia and Annabeth seemed to be having a serious conversation; Annabeth was pacing in circles and was looking really agitated and Thalia was trying to calm her down.

‘I never knew you were so observant.’ Annabeth said.
Ryan shrugged. ‘I surprise people.’

Leo was at the helm with Jason and Piper who were laughing at Leo’s goofiness and I was just sitting in the corner fiddling with the push-pencil Chiron gave me. He said that this push-pencil was very powerful and I wondered how. I then clicked it and it began to get heavy in my hands until I was holding a metre long bronze sword.
‘Celestial Bronze.’ A voice said. I turned around to see a guy in his twenties with sandy hair and blue eyes. He looked familiar, like an old memory from the time before my life went downhill.
‘A – Apollo?’ I stuttered.
He smiled at me. ‘Hello Ryan, how’s life?’ I frowned and he seemed to realize what he’d just said. ‘Look Ryan, I’m sorry about your mom, but that’s not why I’m here.’
‘Then why are you here?’ I asked.
Apollo looked over the horizon. ‘I want you to do me a favour, I have a daughter at the Roman camp, her name’s Reyna, and she’s been having a tough time since your brother disappeared from her camp and she might – how do I put this? – Over react about seeing him again, so I want you to try and keep Jason away from her until she gets settled about being around Greeks.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why is she having a tough time?’
Apollo smiled. ‘The answers will be told in time, but for now, I think you have arrived at your destination.’ And sure enough Jason looked down at the city skyline below and shouted, ‘LAND HO!’
I turned to ask Apollo about the prophecy I had but he was gone and all that was left was a pile of ash.

Once we left the ship we started looking for the camp. We walked near the highway which was near the San Francisco Bay Area and I was sure the mortals from the cars would be asking questions about six teenagers walking near the highway late at night.
‘You know that the Mist will just obscure Mortals vision?’ Athena asked.
‘I know, I just thought it would funny if it did happen...’ Ryan grumbled, wishing the stupid comments would stop.
‘Why are we doing this again?’ Leo asked Annabeth.
‘Hermes said that Jason knows where the Roman camp is so we’re following him.’ Annabeth explained.
‘Do you think the mortals would pay any attention to us?’ Piper asked.
‘See, even Piper agrees with me!’ Ryan said. Everyone gave him a weird look.
Annabeth considered the question. ‘Probably not, with this heat they would probably think we would just be a mirage.’
We stopped in a clearing that was near a bunch of trees. ‘We should rest here,’ Jason said. ‘Thalia do you have the camping stuff?’ Thalia nodded and in less than five minutes she set up two tents, one for the girls and one for the boys and a pile of sticks for the campfire and how she did it I had no idea.
‘It’s enchanted.’ Thalia whispered quietly to him.
‘Leo, would you be so kind?’ She asked him.
I watched in awe as Leo set his hand on fire and set fire to the pile of sticks.
‘You’re a fire user?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘But a fire user hasn’t been born since like the fire of London in 1666.’
‘I must be special then.’ He smiled. I stared at the fire and started to realize I was hungry and my stomach began to grumble.
‘Hey Leo, what are you cooking for us tonight?’ Jason asked. Leo started to pull out some cooking ingredients and a small grill and he put five hamburgers and one veggie burger on the fire.
‘Who’s vegetarian?’ I asked Leo. He gestured towards Piper who smiled. ‘I became vegetarian after I dove past a steakhouse in Ohio and the smell was so bad it made me want to puke my insides out.’

Most of the girls in the room crinkled their noses.
‘Okay, that is just disgusting;’ Lux said. ‘I can see why she’s a veggie.’

After we ate the night grew colder, the cold wind blew past us and Annabeth shivered. She moved closer to me to get warm and I kind of felt uncomfortable, I mean my cousin’s girlfriend sitting close to me? I was pretty uncomfortable.

‘Annabeth!’ Nico gasped. ‘Are you cheating on your boyfriend?’
‘If you say anything about me cheating on Percy, you fate is going to be worse than this.’ She said to Nico who was lying unconscious on the floor.

‘Why are you shivering?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not even cold.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ she grumbled. ‘You don’t feel the wind.’
‘Actually, I can feel it but it doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers you and I have a jacket on.’ I said. She glared at me, with her stormy grey eyes and blonde hair; she looked almost exactly like Athena when she’s annoyed with Ares.

‘And you are saying this because...’ Annabeth said as she and Athena glared at the son of Zeus.
‘Umm...’ Ryan said. Artemis decided it was best to continue reading.
(And if your godly parent asks you if you want to go to Olympus, say no.)

‘If you weren’t giving me warmth and you weren’t my best friend’s brother, I would so hit you right now.’
Apollo laughed. ‘Like hitting him would resolve all your problems! And anyway, you wouldn’t smack him when Thalia’s around!’

Artemis smirked as she read the next line.

I laughed. ‘Yeah, like hitting me would resolve all your problems! And anyway, you wouldn’t hit me when Thalia’s around, she’d –’
‘That’s just plain creepy.’ Apollo mumbled.
Then from behind me, Thalia whacked me upside the head. ‘Just because Annabeth can’t hit you doesn’t mean I don’t have to help her.’ She said.
Annabeth smiled at me and said in a sweet voice, ‘what were you saying Ryan?’
‘- She’d hit me because I made you angry.’ I grumbled.

Everyone burst out laughing again.
‘Wow Annabeth, I knew you could violent but not this violent.’ Percy said.
Annabeth glared at him. ‘Do you really want to be like Nico?’ Percy stayed silent.
Leo, Jason and Piper started to snicker and when Thalia and Annabeth joined in the snickering turned into laughing.
Jason started to calm down. ‘It’s getting late; someone should be on guard duty just in case anyone tries to ambush us.’ I didn’t know what he meant but everyone looked at me.
‘Why do I have to be on guard duty?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re the oldest.’ Thalia replied.
‘I’m not the oldest,’ I said. ‘You’re five years older than me.’
Leo and Piper stared at Thalia in awe.
As were the gods doing at that moment.
‘You’re five years older than him?’ Leo asked, and then he started counting on his fingers.
‘...21, 22, that means you’re 23, if you’re not counting the years when you were a hunter, but that still doesn’t make sense, if you became a hunter when you were 15 then you should be at least 18 but Ryan said you are five years older than him which means you should be 23, how does that work?’
Thalia took a deep breath. ‘That’s because when I was twelve, Zeus turned me into a pine tree because I was dying, I was a tree for the next six years until I was poisoned and Clarisse revived me with the Golden Fleece, I still grew in the tree but more slowly, the closest Chiron could figure was that I was about fifteen. Then a day before my sixteenth birthday, I pledged myself to the hunters of Artemis, making me immortal.’
Leo nodded slowly as if he understood. ‘But Ryan still has to be on guard duty, right?’
‘Why do you always pick on me?’ Ryan asked.
‘Because it funny when we pick on you.’ Thalia said like it should be obvious.
Everyone nodded in agreement and before I could protest Leo and the others stood up, extinguished the fire, went into their tents and left me alone in the dark.

I’d like to say I stayed up all night and looked out for ambushers but went you stayed up all night the night before; I managed to stay up for about ten minutes.

‘Idiot...’ Athena, Annabeth and Artemis grumbled.

I woke up to find a sword at my throat; I looked around to find the campsite ruined and my friends being held captive.
‘Ouis es ? Quid agis hic ?’ The guy who was pointing his sword at me said. He was about fifteen with short, spiky brown hair with blonde highlights and red-brown eyes. I didn’t know why, but he reminded me of some of the campers at camp Half-Blood.
‘He’s a son of Ares isn’t he?’ Athena asked.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Ryan said. ‘You are the wisdom goddess.’ She then glared at him.
‘I don’t –‘ I started but then the guy lowered his sword and sighed.
‘You speak English and don’t understand Latin; I said who are you and what are you doing here?’
‘I’m Ryan, and we need to speak to your activities director.’
The guy led us into the woods and into the camp. The camp looked just camp Half-Blood but there was something wrong, people stopped what they were doing and stared at us as the ambushers led us to a