“Okay,” I said. “What trick?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Great.”
“Polyphemus will have to move the rock to let the sheep inside.”
“At sunset,” I said. “Which is when he’ll marry Clarisse and have Grover for dinner. I’m not sure which is grosser.”
“I could get inside,” she said, “invisibly.”
“What about me?”
“The sheep,” Annabeth mused. She gave me one of those sly looks that always made me wary. “How much do you like sheep?”
“Just don’t let go!” Annabeth said, standing invisibly somewhere off to my right. That was easy for her to say. She wasn’t hanging upside down from the belly of a sheep.
Now, I’ll admit it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. I’d crawled under a car before to change my mom’s oil, and this wasn’t too different. The sheep didn’t care. Even the Cyclops’s smallest sheep were big enough to support my weight, and they had thick wool. I just twirled the stuff into handles for my hands, hooked my feet against the sheep’s thigh bones, and presto—I felt like a baby wallaby, riding around against the sheep’s chest, trying to keep the wool out of my mouth and my nose.
In case you’re wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn’t smell that great. Imagine a winter sweater that’s been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week. Something like that.
The sun was going down.
No sooner was I in position than the Cyclops roared, “Oy! Goaties! Sheepies!”
The flock dutifully began trudging back up the slopes toward the cave.
“This is it!” Annabeth whispered. “I’ll be close by. Don’t worry.”
I made a silent promise to the gods that if we survived this, I’d tell Annabeth she was a genius. The frightening thing was, I knew the gods would hold me to it.
My sheep taxi started plodding up the hill. After a hundred yards, my hands and feet started to hurt from holding on. I gripped the sheep’s wool more tightly, and the animal made a grumbling sound. I didn’t blame it. I wouldn’t want anybody rock climbing in my hair either. But if I didn’t hold on, I was sure I’d fall off right there in front of the monster.
“Hasenpfeffer!” the Cyclops said, patting one of the sheep in front of me. “Einstein! Widget—eh there, Widget!”
Polyphemus patted my sheep and nearly knocked me to the ground. “Putting on some extra mutton there?”
Uh-oh, I thought.Here it comes.
But Polyphemus just laughed and swatted the sheep’s rear end, propelling us forward. “Go on, fatty! Soon Polyphemus will eat you for breakfast!”
And just like that, I was in the cave.
I could see the last of the sheep coming inside. If Annabeth didn’t pull off her distraction soon…
The Cyclops was about to roll the stone back into place, when from somewhere outside Annabeth shouted, “Hello, ugly!”
Polyphemus stiffened. “Who said that?”
“Nobody!” Annabeth yelled.
That got exactly the reaction she’d been hoping for. The monster’s face turned red with rage.
“Nobody!” Polyphemus yelled back. “I remember you!”
“You’re too stupid to remember anybody,” Annabeth taunted. “Much less Nobody.”
I hoped to the gods she was already moving when she said that, because Polyphemus bellowed furiously, grabbed the nearest boulder (which happened to be his front door) and threw it toward the sound of Annabeth’s voice. I heard the rock smash into a thousand fragments.
