Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer Why Read

Good Morning!

You lot're Going to Die

Yeah, I KNOW. Y'all guys are going to read about how I died in agony, and you're going be like, 'Wow! That sounds cool, Magnus! Tin can I die in agony, too?'

No. Just no.

Don't go jumping off whatsoever rooftops. Don't meet the highway or gear up yourself on fire. Information technology doesn't work that way. Y'all volition not end up where I ended upwardly.

Besides, you wouldn't want to deal with my situation.

Unless you lot've got some crazy desire to run across undead warriors hacking one another to pieces, swords flying upwards giants' noses and dark elves in snappy outfits, yous shouldn't even call back nigh finding the wolf-headed doors.

My name is Magnus Chase. I'm 16 years old. This is the story of how my life went downhill afterward I got myself killed.

My day started out normal enough. I was sleeping on the sidewalk under a bridge in the Public Garden when a guy kicked me awake and said, 'They're after you.'

By the way, I've been homeless for the past 2 years.

Some of yous may think, Aw, how pitiful. Others may recall, Ha, ha, loser! Only, if you saw me on the street, ninety-nine per cent of yous would walk right by similar I'm invisible. You'd pray, Don't allow him ask me for money. You lot'd wonder if I'grand older than I look, because surely a teenager wouldn't be wrapped in a stinky old sleeping handbag, stuck outside in the eye of a Boston winter. Somebody should help that poor boy!

And then you'd continue walking.

Whatever. I don't demand your sympathy. I'one thousand used to being laughed at. I'm definitely used to beingness ignored. Let's motion on.

The bum who woke me was a guy called Blitz. Equally usual, he looked similar he'd been running through a dirty hurricane. His wiry black hair was full of paper scraps and twigs. His face was the colour of saddle leather and was flecked with ice. His beard curled in all directions. Snowfall caked the bottom of his trench coat where it dragged effectually his anxiety – Blitz being about v feet 5  – and his eyes were and then dilated the irises were all pupil. His permanently alarmed expression fabricated him wait like he might start screaming any 2nd.

I blinked the gunk out of my optics. My mouth tasted like twenty-four hours-old hamburger. My sleeping bag was warm, and I really didn't desire to exit of it.

'Who's after me?'

'Non certain.' Blitz rubbed his nose, which had been broken so many times it zigzagged like a lightning bolt. 'They're handing out flyers with your proper noun and picture.'

I cursed. Random police and park rangers I could deal with. Truant officers, customs-service volunteers, drunken college kids, addicts looking to roll somebody pocket-size and weak – all those would've been equally easy to wake upward to as pancakes and orange juice.

But when somebody knew my name and my face – that was bad. That meant they were targeting me specifically. Perhaps the folks at the shelter were mad at me for breaking their stereo. (Those Christmas carols had been driving me crazy.) Maybe a security camera had caught that last bit of pickpocketing I did in the Theater District. (Hey, I needed money for pizza.) Or maybe, unlikely as it seemed, the police were notwithstanding looking for me, wanting to inquire questions about my mom's murder . . .

I packed my stuff, which took near iii seconds. The sleeping bag rolled up tight and fitted in my backpack with my toothbrush and a change of socks and underwear. Except for the clothes on my back, that's all I endemic. With the backpack over my shoulder and the hood of my jacket pulled low, I could blend in with pedestrian traffic pretty well. Boston was full of college kids. Some of them were even more than scraggly and younger-looking than me.

I turned to Blitz. 'Where'd you run into these people with the flyers?'

'Beacon Street. They're coming this way. Middle-aged white guy and a teenage girl, probably his daughter.'

I frowned. 'That makes no sense. Who –'

'I don't know, kid, but I gotta become.' Blitz squinted at the sunrise, which was turning the skyscraper windows orange. For reasons I'd never quite understood, Blitz hated the daylight. Maybe he was the world's shortest, stoutest homeless vampire. 'Yous should go meet Hearth. He's hanging out in Copley Square.'

I tried non to feel irritated. The local street people jokingly chosen Hearth and Blitz my mom and dad because ane or the other always seemed to be hovering around me.

'I appreciate it,' I said. 'I'll be fine.'

Blitz chewed his thumbnail. 'I dunno, kid. Not today. Yous gotta be extra conscientious.'

'Why?'

He glanced over my shoulder. 'They're coming.'

I didn't run into anybody. When I turned dorsum, Rush was gone.

I hated it when he did that. Just – Poof. The guy was similar a ninja. A homeless vampire ninja.

Now I had a choice: go to Copley Foursquare and hang out with Hearth, or head towards Beacon Street and try to spot the people who were looking for me.

Rush'southward description of them made me curious. A middleaged white guy and a teenage girl searching for me at sunrise on a biting-cold forenoon. Why? Who were they?

I crept forth the edge of the pond. Nearly nobody took the lower trail under the bridge. I could hug the side of the loma and spot anyone approaching on the higher path without them seeing me.

Snow coated the ground. The sky was middle-achingly blueish. The bare tree branches looked like they'd been dipped in glass. The current of air cut through my layers of apparel, but I didn't heed the cold. My mom used to joke that I was half polar bear.

Dammit, Magnus, I chided myself.

Subsequently two years, my memories of her were still a minefield. I'd stumble over 1, and instantly my sophistication would be blown to bits.

I tried to focus.

The human and the girl were coming this way. The man's sandy hair grew over his collar  – not like an intentional style, just like he couldn't exist bothered to cutting it. His baffled expression reminded me of a substitute teacher's: I know I was hitting by a spit wad, but I have no thought where it came from. His smart shoes were totally wrong for a Boston wintertime. His socks were different shades of brown. His necktie looked like it had been tied while he spun around in full darkness.

The girl was definitely his daughter. Her hair was just as thick and wavy, though lighter blonde. She was dressed more sensibly in snow boots, jeans and a parka, with an orange T-shirt peeking out at the neckline. Her expression was more than adamant, aroused. She gripped a sheaf of flyers like they were essays she'd been graded on unfairly.

If she was looking for me, I did non want to exist institute. She was scary.

I didn't recognize her or her dad, only something tugged at the back of my skull . . . like a magnet trying to pull out a very old memory.

Begetter and daughter stopped where the path forked. They looked around equally if simply now realizing they were standing in the middle of a deserted park at no-thank-you lot o'clock in the expressionless of winter.

'Unbelievable,' said the girl. 'I want to strangle him.'

Bold she meant me, I hunkered down a footling more than.

Her dad sighed. 'Nosotros should probably avoid killing him. He is your uncle.'

'Merely two years?' the daughter demanded. 'Dad, how could he not tell us for two years?'

'I can't explain Randolph'south actions. I never could, Annabeth.'

I inhaled and then sharply that I was afraid they would hear me. A scab was ripped off my brain, exposing raw memories from when I was half dozen years old.

Annabeth. Which meant the sandy-haired homo was  .  .  . Uncle Frederick?

I flashed back to the final family Thanksgiving we'd shared: Annabeth and me hiding in the library at Uncle Randolph'southward boondocks firm, playing with dominoes while the adults yelled at each other downstairs.

You're lucky yous live with your momma. Annabeth stacked another domino on her miniature building. It was amazingly good, with columns in forepart like a temple. I'one thousand going to run away.

I had no dubiousness she meant it. I was in awe of her conviction.

And so Uncle Frederick appeared in the doorway. His fists were clenched. His grim expression was at odds with the grinning reindeer on his sweater. Annabeth, we're leaving.

Annabeth looked at me. Her gray optics were a fiddling too fierce for a first-grader'due south. Be safe, Magnus.

With a flick of her finger, she knocked over her domino temple.

That was the terminal time I'd seen her.

Afterwards, my mom had been adamant: We're staying abroad from your uncles. Especially Randolph. I won't give him what he wants. E'er.

She wouldn't explain what Randolph wanted, or what she and Frederick and Randolph had argued about.

Y'all have to trust me, Magnus. Existence effectually them . . . it's too dangerous.

I trusted my mom. Even later her death, I hadn't had whatever contact with my relatives.

Now, suddenly, they were looking for me.

Randolph lived in town, but, equally far as I knew, Frederick and Annabeth however lived in Virginia. Still here they were, passing out flyers with my proper noun and photograph on them. Where had they even got a photograph of me?

My head buzzed and then badly that I missed some of their conversation.

'– to find Magnus,' Uncle Frederick was saying. He checked his smartphone. 'Randolph is at the city shelter in the South Stop. He says no luck. We should try the youth shelter across the park.'

'How do we even know Magnus is alive?' Annabeth asked miserably. 'Missing for two years? He could exist frozen in a ditch somewhere!'

Office of me was tempted to jump out of my hiding identify and shout, TA-DA!

Fifty-fifty though it had been 10 years since I'd seen Annabeth, I didn't like seeing her distressed. Simply after so long on the streets I'd learned the hard way: you never walk into a situation until yous understand what'southward going on.

'Randolph is sure Magnus is alive,' said Uncle Frederick. 'He'due south somewhere in Boston. If his life is truly in danger . . .'

They set off towards Charles Street, their voices carried away past the wind.

I was shivering now, but it wasn't from the cold. I wanted to run afterward Frederick, tackle him and need to hear what was going on. How did Randolph know I was still in boondocks? Why were they looking for me? How was my life in danger now more on whatsoever other 24-hour interval?

Only I didn't follow them.

I remembered the final thing my mom ever told me. I'd been reluctant to use the fire escape, reluctant to exit her, just she'd gripped my artillery and made me await at her. Magnus, run. Hide. Don't trust anyone. I'll notice you. Whatever you do, don't go to Randolph for help.

And so, before I'd made it out of the window, the door of our apartment had burst into splinters. Ii pairs of glowing bluish eyes had emerged from the darkness . . .

I shook off the memory and watched Uncle Frederick and Annabeth walk abroad, veering east towards the Common.

Uncle Randolph  .  .  . For some reason, he'd contacted Frederick and Annabeth. He'd got them to Boston. All this time, Frederick and Annabeth hadn't known that my mom was dead and I was missing. It seemed impossible, but, if it were true, why would Randolph tell them well-nigh it now?

Without confronting him directly, I could remember of just one way to become answers. His boondocks business firm was in Dorsum Bay, an easy walk from here. Co-ordinate to Frederick, Randolph wasn't dwelling house. He was somewhere in the South Finish, looking for me.

Since nothing started a day ameliorate than a little breaking and entering, I decided to pay his place a visit.

Copyright (c) Rick Riordan. 2015

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Source: https://blog.whsmith.co.uk/read-an-extract-from-magnus-chase-and-the-sword-of-summer-by-rick-riordan/

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