THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.

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getting agitated.
“This isn’t right,” she said. “It should still be stone.”
We came to a cave where stalactites hung low from the ceiling. In the center of the dirt floor was a
rectangular pit, like a grave.
Grover shivered. “It smells like the Underworld in here.”
Then I saw something glinting at the edge of the pit—a foil wrapper. I shined my flashlight into the hole
and saw a half-chewed cheeseburger floating in brown carbonated muck.
“Nico,” I said. “He was summoning the dead again.”
Tyson whimpered. “Ghosts were here. I don’t like ghosts.”
“We’ve got to find him.” I don’t know why, but standing at the edge of that pit gave me a sense of
urgency. Nico was close, I could feel it. I couldn’t let him wander around down here, alone except for
the dead. I started to run.
“Percy!” Annabeth called.
I ducked into a tunnel and saw light up ahead. By the time Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover caught up with
me, I was staring at daylight streaming through a set of bars above my head. We were under a steel grate
made out of metal pipes. I could see trees and blue sky.
“Where are we?” I wondered.
Then a shadow fell across the grate and a cow stared down at me. It looked like a normal cow except
with was a weird color—bright red, like a cherry. I didn’t know cows came in that color.
The cow mooed, put one hoof tentatively on the bars,then backed away.
“It’s a cattle guard,” Grover said.
“A what?”I asked.
“They put them at the gates of ranches so cows can’t get out. They can’t walk on them.”
“How do you know that?”
Grover huffed indignantly. “Believe me, ifyou had hooves, you’d know about cattle guards. They’re
annoying!”
I turned to Annabeth. “Didn’t Hera say something about a ranch? We need to check it out. Nico might
be there.”
She hesitated.“All right. But how do we get out?”
Tyson solved that problem by hitting the cattle guard with both hands. It popped off and went flying out
of sight. We heard aCLANG!and a startledMoo! Tyson blushed.