59 pages • 1 hour read
Wrath of the Triple Goddess
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Chapters 9-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Apocalypse Smells Like Strawberries”
The mansion’s interior is wrecked. Percy initially fears an attack, but Annabeth notices that the damage was inflicted from within. Strawberry-scented goo is splattered on everything, some steaming like acid. They run to the kitchen, which is similarly destroyed. A triple-sized Grover is lying in the mess, passed out. He groans and, after letting out an enormous belch, shrinks back to his normal size.
When he sees the destruction, Grover is distraught and explains that it was the milkshake. Annabeth suggests Grover get cleaned up, but he tells her to find Hecuba and Gale. Annabeth and Percy run through the house, but the eels tell Percy the animals left when the door burst apart. Back in the kitchen, Grover berates himself. Annabeth tries to focus him, saying they will need his help to find Hecuba and Gale. Percy silently rages, though he knows he should not blame Grover. They should never have left him alone with the milkshake.
Recognizing that Percy is struggling with his anger, Annabeth sends him to get the animals’ leashes. He thinks about Hecate’s ability to control the Mist and consequently the reality that people experience (the “Mist” is a force that prevents mortals from glimpsing supernatural occurrences, replacing them with visions and false memories). He hears her voice and imagines he sees the child on the bicycle. Reconvening with Annabeth and Grover, Percy sees that Grover needs time to recover and decides to go after the pets alone. First, he calls Mrs. O’Leary.
Chapter 10 Summary: “I Catch a Nope”
Needing a place spacious enough to call his enormous hellhound, Percy uses Hecate’s keys to go into Gramercy Park and then uses a special whistle his friend Leo Valdez crafted for him from Celestial bronze (ore mined from Mount Olympus, the former home of the gods). Mrs. O’Leary comes crashing out of a shadow and slathers Percy with kisses. He has missed her. She now spends most of her time in New Rome, another reason he wants to attend its university. He has her sniff Hecuba’s leash and follow the scent, but she brings him to an alley, where they find an injured, starving hellhound puppy whose bark sounds like “nope.” Percy tears up at the state of the dog, who is trembling, and gently coaxes it with treats and gentle words.
Mrs. O’Leary is exhausted from shadow traveling (a way for Underworld entities to use shadows as portals to move from place to place), so Percy tells her to take a nap, and she melts back into shadows. Percy wonders who terrorized the puppy, thinking of Tyson, his Cyclops half-brother, who was left alone to fend for himself until Percy found him in The Sea of Monsters (book two in Percy Jackson and the Olympians). He resolves to bring the puppy, whom Percy fittingly names “Nope,” back to the mansion, hoping Grover can treat him.
Chapter 11 Summary: “We Have Pizza with Extra Tears”
At the mansion, Annabeth has been trying to clean up. Nope is so excited to be there that he pees on Percy. Annabeth and Grover love him. Because of their empathy link (a telepathic connection satyrs can establish—Grover and Percy’s dates to The Sea of Monsters), Grover knows Percy was angry at him about the milkshake. When Percy asks if Grover can heal Nope, Grover understands that Percy is making a peace offering and assures him that he can. After Grover leaves with the puppy, Percy and Annabeth get cleaned up. She manages to get a pizza delivered, and the group discusses their options while Nope scampers among them.
Percy wants to go out searching for Hecuba and Gale again, but Annabeth says they need a plan, as the animals could be anywhere. Percy suggests using Hecate’s crossed torches, but Annabeth worries about the consequences and only wants to use them as a last resort. Grover begins moaning that they are all going to die while their friends watch; he has already given the Halloween party invitations to the wind spirits to deliver to their friends.
Annabeth announces that she will take the next day off from school to research Hecuba and Gale in Hecate’s library. Percy cannot skip, as he is too far behind. Hellhounds and polecats are nocturnal, so they are unlikely to cause trouble during the day. Once it gets dark, the trio will search for the animals again.
Chapter 12 Summary: “I Get Schooled by an Old Friend”
Unable to find Eudora at school, Percy decides to turn to his history teacher, Dr. Sharma, but finds a substitute instead: Mr. Brunner, Percy’s sixth-grade teacher who is actually the centaur Chiron (in Greek myth, the tutor of numerous heroes and the activities director at Camp Half-Blood in the Percy Jackson series) in disguise. He asks Percy to guard the door while he steps out of his mortal disguise to stretch. Chiron has an immortal injury in his leg that Heracles accidentally inflicted on him. He spends every day in pain.
After Percy tells him the whole story, Chiron cautions him not to use the torches since they “raise ghosts to do [Hecate’s] bidding” and will be especially powerful during Halloween (94). He wonders why Hecate would even suggest using them, prompting Percy to wonder if Hecate set them up to fail and, if so, why. Chiron notes that some ghosts are also memories, regrets, and choices. Percy thinks of the child on the bicycle and wonders if the child was a memory or a ghost.
When Percy mentions Eudora, Chiron is surprised to hear that she is at the school, noting that she and Hecate have a complicated history. He cannot tell her story, but he does give Percy information about Hecuba: She was the queen of Troy when the Greeks sacked the city and killed her children. She hates the Greeks, and Chiron guesses that she will look “for opportunities for revenge” (96). Astoria is a Greek American neighborhood, making it a good place for the demigods and Grover to look for her. The puppy Mrs. O’Leary found may be useful since Hecuba may still be haunted by her children’s deaths.
Chapter 13 Summary: “I Get Extra Time and Candy Corn”
After school, Percy is riding the subway back to Gramercy when Hecate checks on him using a “mirror of shadows” (99). She heard him saying her name more often than usual, a sure way to attract a god’s attention. Percy knows she will recognize if he lies, so he carefully shapes his responses to her questions to avoid revealing that her animals are missing and her house destroyed. He also convinces her to stay away an extra night, making her think he is enjoying watching her animals.
Back at the mansion, Percy reports his encounter with Hecate to Grover and Annabeth, who has been researching Hecuba in the library. She notes that some of the books seemed to be calling to her, prompting Percy to wonder if Hecate is tempting them to fail. The group agrees to go to Astoria, where there are many Greek Americans for Hecuba to torture. They will try to lure her with treats, toys, and the hellhound puppy.
Chapter 14 Summary: “We Find Some Dead Guys”
In Astoria, the group passes a tree-lined plaza, Athens Square, which has a statue of Athena. Percy notices a dark stain splashed across the tiles. Grover confirms Hecuba has shadow traveled either in or out of the plaza. They hear a howl in the distance, “the war cry of a dog” (108), and run toward the sound, which brings them to a restaurant, Sal’s Souvlaki. Patrons are pouring out screaming about rats. Percy wonders what the Mist is obscuring.
Hecuba is on the roof enjoying the spectacle of fear as zombie Trojan warriors pour out of the restaurant. The group cuts them down, but Percy gets tangled in Nope’s leash, and two zombies touch him, plunging him into Hecuba’s memories. He feels her grief and rage over the destruction of her city and family. When he recovers from the vision, he tells Grover and Annabeth what he saw, eliciting their sympathy. Just as Percy laments that they failed since Hecuba has run away, they hear more screaming coming from a few blocks away and take off in pursuit.
Chapter 15 Summary: “I Fail at Dog Diplomacy”
The screaming leads them to Papou’s Pastries, where they find the owner, Papou, swinging a broom at what he thinks are rats but are actually dead Trojans. The demigods attack and quickly turn the Trojans to dust. Papou asks them not to mention this to the Health Department and offers them baklava.
Annabeth heads for the roof to find Hecuba; Grover and Percy follow with Nope. Percy tells Hecuba that she did a great job scaring “those terrible Greeks” (115), explaining how much he and his friends miss her and how sad Hecate will be. Noting what a good mother Hecuba was to her own children, he says that he thought she would know how to care for Nope. Annabeth takes the puppy to Hecuba, slipping Percy Hecuba’s leash. The puppy seems to soothe Hecuba’s grief. Percy realizes how much pain she has been feeling for centuries, with no way to express herself. When Annabeth hands Nope back to Percy, he attaches Hecuba’s leash to her collar clumsily. Realizing what he has done, Hecuba leaps into a dark portal, pulling Nope and Percy with her.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Hellhounds! at the Disco”
Percy has shadow-traveled before with his friend Nico and Mrs. O’Leary, but it feels more terrifying with Hecuba. She drops them in quick succession into a German nightclub, an empty desert, and the women’s lingerie section of a department store before finally arriving on a hillside by the sea: Troy. Realizing Hecuba has brought them to the spot where she lost her children, Percy unhooks her leash. While Nope frolics and explores the shoreline, Percy has a heart-to-heart with Hecuba.
He tells her about his mother’s pregnancy and his fears for the baby, the anger and desire for revenge that he has experienced each time he has lost a friend, and what has helped him get over his losses: his family and friends, the community he has created. He reminds Hecuba that she has that too. Hecate might not be perfect, but she cares about Hecuba, as does Gale, and now Nope needs her too. Hecuba bonds with Nope and agrees to return to Gramercy, but not on a leash.
Chapters 9-16 Analysis
These chapters deal with the fallout of Grover drinking the milkshake and destroying Hecate’s mansion, which enabled Hecuba and Gale to escape. Their initial efforts are haphazard, a result of their panic, but as Annabeth ponders the problem, she characteristically comes up with a methodical plan that enables the trio to find her. This sets the stage for Percy to practice one of his own skills by connecting with Hecuba in an example of The Need for Empathy and Responsibility. Seeing her memories and coming to a deeper understanding of what she has been through enables him to give her the space to make her own decision about returning to the mansion. Rather than try to manipulate her into choosing what will help him, Percy speaks to her as a caring friend, offering her options that he genuinely believes will benefit them all.
Indeed, the group only succeeds in persuading Hecuba to return thanks to a prior act of empathy. Riordan incorporates Percy’s hellhound, Mrs. O’Leary, who was introduced in The Battle of the Labyrinth, the fourth book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Percy enlists her to find Hecuba, but she brings him to Nope instead. Nevertheless, Percy’s powerful sense of empathy and responsibility will not allow him to abandon the puppy. This decision proves pivotal, as Hecuba later responds to Nope’s vulnerability and takes a motherly interest in him. They need each other since he is without his mother, and she is without her children. Across Riordan’s three series, he consistently portrays Percy as skilled with his sword and willing to fight when necessary but equally skilled at connecting empathetically with others.
Still, Riordan depicts Percy as a complex and fallible character, which is one reason why teamwork is so important. Chapter 9 begins with Percy and Annabeth running into the ruined mansion and confronting Grover. Empathy is needed, but Percy is furious since he is the one whose future is potentially at stake. Even in his anger, however, he acknowledges that he bears some responsibility. Given the irresistible pull of strawberry-flavored anything and Grover’s high energy level, Percy should not have left him to face temptation alone: It was a failure of teamwork, which Percy takes responsibility for, helping him avoid lashing out in anger at his friend, who is distraught. The Importance of Friendship and Teamwork is clear in the way Annabeth steps in to redirect both Percy and Grover, Percy by sending him to retrieve the animals’ leashes and Grover by reminding him that his skillset will be essential to recovering the animals. This redirection is what gets the group moving toward solutions rather than becoming mired in accusations and anger.
Breaking up the intensity of the drama, Riordan characteristically incorporates comic relief with his modern updates of Greek mythology. Percy’s encounter with Hecate in Chapter 13 merges the ridiculous with the familiar. She visits him on the New York City subway via portal window. The scene capitalizes on and exaggerates a stereotype regarding New Yorkers: their blasé response to even the most bizarre happenings. Percy seeming to talk to himself on the subway is nothing out of the ordinary, by New York City standards, but the outlandishness of his reasons for doing so lends a lightly satirical tone to the scene. Similarly, Percy’s carefully shaped responses to avoid either lying or revealing the truth evoke the “lying tales” of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. However, when his attempt to redirect Hecate from her line of questioning is successful, he humorously observes, “When in doubt, I’ve found the best way to distract someone is to get them talking about themselves. That seems to be a source of endless fascination for selves everywhere” (100)—a comment that punctures the scene’s mythic dimensions by treating a goddess like any other “self.”
Riordan also introduces lighthearted moments in his incorporation of modern Greek Americans in the narrative. One of the restaurants that Hecuba terrorizes is Papou’s Pastries; “Papou” is “grandfather” in modern Greek. After the group helps dispense with the “rats,” Papou offers them baklava, a popular dessert in Greece, as well as in Middle Eastern cuisine.
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By Rick Riordan
