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1-Page Summary of The Lightning Thief
Overall Summary
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson warns the reader that if they recognize themselves in the story to follow, they should stop reading: being a demigod is rough. His story begins with a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Percy has ADHD and dyslexia, and he’s gotten expelled from six schools already. He tries hard to be good because he admires his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, but the evil math teacher Mrs. Dodds ruins everything. She takes Percy into the museum alone and transforms into a monstrous creature…
Percy and Grover are on a bus when it breaks down. They see an old fruit stand where three old ladies are knitting. This scares Grover, so he asks Percy to walk him home. Percy ditches Grover and goes back to his apartment without Smelly Gabe (Mom’s husband). He waits for Mom, who tells him they’re going to the beach house in Montauk for the weekend without Gabe. The vacation starts out normal—they talk about Dad, who left when Mom was pregnant—but then there’s a hurricane. A goat shows up at their door, claiming that “he” is after them; this turns out to be true because soon after they leave home someone attacks them with lightning and kidnaps Mom. They try to get past a huge pine tree but end up getting attacked by a Minotaur instead; luckily Percy manages to kill it before passing out from exhaustion afterwards. When he wakes up Chiron takes him into camp where Mr. D reveals himself as Dionysus (the god of wine) while Annabeth is revealed as Chiron’s daughter Athena’s child (Athena being one of Zeus’ children). Camp Half-Blood is full of demigods like Percy—children of one human parent and one god parent whose parents were unable or unwilling to raise them themselves, so they were brought here for protection against monsters such as the Minotaur that attacked earlier on the road trip with his mother
Percy settles into camp life, but he is still focused on the possibility that his mother is held captive in the Underworld. He also begins to understand why some of the other kids resent their immortal parents. Several odd things happen: Percy performs a tricky sword maneuver after dumping water on himself and he’s exceptionally good at canoeing. One afternoon, Grover shares that his assignment to protect Percy isn’t over yet and tells him why there are no children of Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades at camp: they promised after World War II not to father more children. Zeus messed up 17 years ago by having Thalia; monsters killed her when she was just a baby. Later that day, the camp plays capture the flag; Clarisse and other Ares kids accost Percy near a stream but as soon as he falls into it (which was entirely accidental), he feels strong enough to fight them off singlehandedly with nothing but his fists (he has never fought before). As soon as this happens, two things happen simultaneously—a hellhound attempts to kill Percy (the first time one has ever come so close) and Neptune’s trident appears above his head signaling for everyone else present that Poseidon is indeed his father!
The next day, Percy has a nightmare about two men fighting. Chiron tells him that Zeus’s thunderbolt is missing and he thinks Percy took it. The oracle says that he must go west to face the god who turned against his father, find what was stolen, and return it. He will lose a friend in the process, but will succeed at what matters most to him. On their way down from Mount Olympus (where they were training), Annabeth tries to convince Percy not be friends because Poseidon and Athena are rivals. On the bus on their trip home, they’re attacked by furies who are looking for something called “it.” They escape after finding out Aunty Em runs an emporium of garden gnomes which she uses as her disguise when she turns into Medusa when people come over so she can turn them into statues with her gaze; this explains why there aren’t any other shoppers besides them at her store! While eating dinner at Aunty Em’s place (the three had smelled burgers cooking outside), Grover smells monsters nearby while Annabeth insists that there isn’t anything wrong…until Medusa shows up and attacks! After defeating Medusa using Riptide, they ship off her head back to Mt Olympus before going on another journey together: this time heading towards Los Angeles where Hades lives since he has Zeus’ thunderbolt.
