Nemean lion plan

The lion snarled from the top of the globe.
| looked around. Options. | needed...
The gift shop. | had a vague memory from my trip here as a little kid. Something I'd made my mom buy me, and I'd regretted it. If they still sold that stuff...
‘Thalia,’ | said, ‘keep it occupied.’
She nodded grimly.
‘Hi-yah!’ She pointed her spear and a spidery arc of blue electricity shot out, zapping the lion in the tail.
‘ROOOOOOOAR!’ The lion turned and pounced. Thalia rolled out of its way, holding up Aegis to keep the monster at bay, and | ran for the gift shop.
‘This is no time for souvenirs, boy!’ Zoe yelled.
| dashed into the shop, knocking over rows of T-shirts, jumping over tables full of glow-in-the-dark planets and Space ooze. The sales lady didn’t protest. She was too busy cowering behind her cash register.
There! On the far wall - glittery silver packets. Whole racks of them. | scooped up every kind | could find and ran out of the shop with an armful.
Zoe and Bianca were still showering arrows on the monster, but it was no good. The lion seemed to know better than to open its mouth too much. It snapped at Thalia, slashing with its claws. It even kept its eyes narrowed to tiny slits.
Thalia jabbed at the monster and backed up. The lion pressed her.
‘Percy,’ she called, ‘whatever you’re going to do -’

The lion roared and swatted her like a cat toy, sending her flying into the side of a Titan rocket. Her head hit the metal and she slid to the floor.
‘Hey!’ | yelled at the lion. | was too far away to strike, so | took a risk: | hurled Riptide like a throwing knife. It bounced off the lion’s side, but that was enough to get the monster’s attention. It turned towards me and snarled.
There was only one way to get close enough. | charged and, as the lion leaped to intercept me, | chucked a spacefood pouch into its maw - a chunk of cellophane-wrapped freeze-dried strawberry parfait.
The lion’s eyes got wide and it gagged like a cat with a hairball.
| couldn’t blame it. | remembered feeling the same way when I'd tried to eat space food as a kid. The stuff was just plain nasty.
‘Zoe, get ready!’ | yelled.
Behind me, | could hear people screaming. Grover was playing another horrible song on his pipes.
| scrambled away from the lion. It managed to choke down the space-food packet and looked at me with pure hate.
‘Snack time!’ | yelled.
It made the mistake of roaring at me, and | got an icecream sandwich in its throat. Fortunately, | had always been a pretty good pitcher, even though baseball wasn’t my game. Before the lion could stop gagging, | shot in two more flavours of ice cream and a freeze-dried spaghetti dinner.
The lion’s eyes bugged. It opened its mouth wide and reared up on its back paws, trying to get away from me.
‘Now!’ | yelled.
Immediately, arrows sprouted from the lion’s maw - two, four, six. The lion thrashed wildly, turned and_ fell backwards. And then it was still.
Alarms wailed throughout the museum. People were flocking to the exits. Security guards were running around in a panic with no idea what was going on.

Grover knelt at Thalia’s side and helped her up. She seemed okay, just a little dazed. Zoé and Bianca dropped from the balcony and landed next to me.
Zoe eyed me cautiously. ‘That was... an_ interesting strategy.’
‘Hey, it worked.’
She didn’t argue.
The lion seemed to be melting, the way dead monsters do sometimes, until there was nothing left but its glittering fur coat, and even that seemed to be shrinking to the size of a normal lion’s pelt.

TLT ch.10