To all campers, past and present

Praise me, demigods!

I made you this helpful film.

Trust me. It’s awesome.

—Haiku by Apollo introducing his orientation film Welcome to Camp Half-Blood

Hey, everybody. Percy Jackson here. You might know me as the guy who helped save the world from total destruction—twice, but who’s counting? I like to think of myself as just another Greek demigod lucky enough to have found Camp Half-Blood.

If you can read this, then surprise! You’re probably a demigod too. That’s because only demigods—and a few special mortals, like my mom and Rachel Elizabeth Dare—can read what’s actually written here. To everyone else, this book is called The Complete History of Pavement and it’s about…well, that should be obvious. You can thank the Mist for that choice of topic.

So, demigod, chances are you’re making your way to camp with your satyr guide. Or maybe you’ve already arrived and are reading this with the hope that it’ll calm your nerves. I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance of that happening.

But I’m getting off topic. (I do that. I have ADHD. Bet you know what that’s like.) What I’m supposed to do is explain the story behind this book.

A few months ago, Chiron—he’s the immortal centaur who’s also our camp activities director—was called away to rescue two unclaimed demigods and their satyr guide. (The satyr had gotten himself into a sticky situation. It took him days to get his fur clean.) Anyway, Argus, our resident security guard and part-time chauffeur, drove Chiron on this mission because, well, can you imagine a centaur driving an SUV? (You can? Hmm. Maybe you’re a child of Hypnos and saw it in a dream.) Our camp director, Mr. D (aka Dionysus, the god of wine), was MIA, so that left us demigods on our own.

“Don’t destroy Half-Blood while we’re gone,” was Chiron’s parting instruction. Argus pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at us. This took a few minutes since he has one hundred eyes, but we got the message—be good, or else.

We went about our usual routines—combat practice, volleyball practice, archery practice, strawberry-picking practice (don’t ask), lava-wall-climbing practice….You’ll find we practice a lot here. We would have spent the evening in the usual way, too, with a campfire sing-along, if not for an offhand comment Nico di Angelo dropped at dinner. We were talking about what changes each of us would make if we ran the camp, and Nico said:

“First thing I’d do is make sure the poor newbie demigods don’t have to suffer through the orientation film.”

All conversation stopped. “What orientation film?” Will Solace asked.

Nico looked puzzled. “You know….” He glanced side to side, clearly uncomfortable with everybody watching him. Finally he cleared his throat and sang in a warbly voice to the tune of “The Hokey Pokey”: “It lets the demigods in! It shuts the monsters out! It keeps the half-bloods safe, but turns mortals all about! It’s Misty, and it’s magic, and it makes me want to shout: the border is all about!” He punctuated the last line of the song with some halfhearted claps.

We stared at him in stunned silence.

“Nico.” Will patted his boyfriend’s arm. “You’re scaring the other campers.”

“More than usual,” Julia Feingold muttered under her breath.

“Oh, come on,” Nico protested. “You’ve all heard that annoying song, right? It’s from Welcome to Camp Half-Blood.”

Nobody responded.

“The orientation film,” Nico added.

We shared a group shrug.

Nico groaned. “You mean I just sang in public and…I’m the only one who’s ever seen that stupid film?”

“So far, anyway,” said Connor Stoll. He leaned forward, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Where, exactly, did you see this cinematic masterpiece?”

“Chiron’s office in the Big House,” Nico replied.

Connor pushed back from the table and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Will asked.

“Chiron’s office in the Big House.”

Annabeth Chase—my awesome girlfriend, a daughter of Athena—frowned suspiciously. “Connor…Chiron’s office is locked.”

“Is it?” Connor laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “We’ll see about that.” He turned to Harley, the oddly muscular eight-year-old son of Hephaestus. “Want to come with? I might need help with the projector.”

“A projectile! Yes!” Harley pumped his fist.

“A projector,” Connor corrected. “And you can’t make it do anything but show the movie. No exploding upgrades. No turning it into a killer robot.”

“Aww…” Harley scowled in disappointment, but he followed Connor to the Big House.

I glanced at Nico. “Now look what you’ve started.”

He snorted. “This is my fault? What do you want me to do—stop them?”

“Stop them?” I grinned. “Nah, man. I think we should get some popcorn ready.”

An hour later, we gathered in the amphitheater to watch Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. Connor and Harley had successfully set up the screen and projector without any killer-robot-exploding mishaps, which I appreciated. I figured the movie would be a typical orientation flick—a monotone voiceover; a tour of the campgrounds; happy demigods going about their business, trying to pretend the cameras didn’t exist. Then the opening credits rolled.

“Uh-oh,” Will muttered. “This is going to be…interesting.”

It turned out the creative genius behind the movie was Will’s dad—the god Apollo, which meant this was not going to be a typical orientation flick. No, as we soon found out, Apollo had written, directed, produced, hosted, and starred in…a variety show.

For those of you who don’t know what a variety show is, imagine a talent show on steroids, complete with canned laughter, prerecorded applause, and an extra-large helping of hokeyness. For the next hour, we cringe-watched as Apollo and our demigod predecessors performed in song-and-dance numbers, recited poetry, acted in comedy sketches, and harmonized in a musical group called the Lyre Choir. Naturally, Apollo featured prominently in most of the acts. The one of him Hula-Hooping shirtless while satyrs capered around with long rainbow ribbons on sticks…you can’t unsee that kind of thing. I’m seriously considering asking Hera to purge it from my memory.

(Okay, not really. I am not going through that again.)

Still, I get what Apollo was going for. Each number highlighted something important about Camp Half-Blood—the cabins, the training arenas, the Big House, et cetera, et cetera. The trouble is, Apollo didn’t seem to know much about the camp. According to Valentina Diaz’s assessment of the hairstyles and fashions, the movie dated from the 1950s, so maybe the film accurately depicted what Camp Half-Blood was like back then. If so, yikes. Take it from me: a lot has changed in sixty years.

That’s where Camp Half-Blood Confidential comes in. After seeing Apollo’s film, we decided we really had to take action. We needed to offer our incoming demigods something better for orientation. And so—BOOM. You hold in your hands the definitive guide to life here at our beloved Greek demigod training facility. It’s written for demigods by demigods, which means you get the inside, behind-the-scenes scoop on just about everything. You’ll get the lay of the land, too, thanks to descriptions of sites written by Pete, a geyser god with a flair for selling it like it is. Oh, the stories we’ll tell and the secrets you’ll learn…though I promise you, I will not sing and dance with a Hula-Hoop.