THE THING ABOUT PLUMMETING DOWNHILL at fifty miles an hour on a snack platter—if you realize it’s a bad idea when you’re halfway down, it’s too late.
Percy narrowly missed a tree, glanced off a boulder, and spun a three- sixty as he shot toward the highway. The stupid snack tray did not have power steering. He heard the gorgon sisters screaming and caught a glimpse of Euryale’s coral-snake hair at the top of the hill, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. The roof of the apartment building loomed below him like the prow of a battleship. Head-on collision in ten, nine, eight… He managed to swivel sideways to avoid breaking his legs on impact. The snack platter skittered across the roof and sailed through the air. The platter went one way. Percy went the other.
As he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV’s windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. Stupid sixteen-year-old kid falling from the sky! I’m late! Miraculously, a gust of wind blew him to one side—just enough to miss the highway and crash into a clump of bushes. It wasn’t a soft landing, but it was better than asphalt.
Percy groaned. He wanted to lie there and pass out, but he had to keep moving.
He struggled to his feet. His hands were scratched up, but no bones seemed to be broken. He still had his backpack. Somewhere on the sled ride he’d lost his sword, but Percy knew it would eventually reappear in his pocket in pen form. That was part of its magic.

The Son of Neptune, Chapter II