Days of Boom: Chapter 44

Eleanor Clatter XLIV Bomb Search We looked down, dazzled by the horror of what just happened. Dan laid down, his eyes shut, body still. I'd figured that Dan must have been sick, but I was horror-struck and ashamed to feel dumb-struck for never thinking the detonation of the bomb was the cause of death. It then suddenly occurred to me that this was twice as worse for his son, Dante. He'd just recently seen his father for the gods know how long and would soon see his father lay motionless.

I felt angry with myself, but then felt angry at Dan for not telling us we were killing him in the process, before going back to being angry at myself for just naturally feeling rude on blaming on Dan, who in spite of knowing he was dying continued to detonate bombs. I was terrified of the future; not detonating the bomb will result in the destruction of Camp Half-Blood, but detonating the bomb is poisonous and will kill one — death is death.

Nolan crouched down to Dan's side, shedding a tear off the side of his cheek. "Why hadn't he told us he was dying?" he muttered, before kicking dirt, in attempt to quench his anger. Nolan beckoned a few Apollo cabin children over and they picked Dan up on an emergency gurney.

Past and through all the recent happenings, Diane and Silver's words echoed into my ears. "Just want to let you all know that we reduced the time for the bomb, you have about ten minutes." I shivered at the sound of it. We were probably down to eight or seven minutes.

"Guys, I know this is honestly so horrible and it makes me want to just sit here and try to feel better by crying, but we have only ten minutes," Joe said, as if knowing what I was thinking. "Please, let's just all try to find the bomb and I promise, we will get our revenge." Joe eyed Diane and Silver, probably having the urge to slice their throat.

"He's right." I backed him up. "In a matter of time, that bomb will explode and we all may die, if we don't find it. Who's with me?" I encouraged them. For a moment, they seemed indecisive, before probably realizing this was a life-and-death situation.

They all got up one by one, each one going to either Joe, Nolan, or I. We all came together to discuss what to do. "Let's all assign our groups somewhere," Nolan suggested.

"Right," Joe agreed. "I'll take the Strawberry fields, arena, and amphitheater."

"I'll take the Big House, forge, armory and half of the cabins. El, you want to take the other half?" Nolan asked.

"Sure." I nodded. "I'll also check the beach and canoe lake. Someone go tell the nymphs to check the woods!" I yelled and someone went right away. "Alright. Let's go!" I said, before we split up, off to our designated locations.

I rounded up all of my demigods before dividing them into three groups. I tagged along with the demigods heading off to the cabins, figuring that Diane and Silver would love to see cabins, where all the demigods sleep, be the main base of the explosion.

I went with about two or three other demigods to the Poseidon cabin. I was amazed, looking inside. The walls glowed like abalone, the floor like the ocean. In the center, there was a fountain that spurted water from the top and the occasional fish would glide across the air, before quickly dunking back into the water.

In spite of how rude it probably was, the demigods and I tore the bed spreads apart, flipped over the mattress, and took shook the fluff out of the pillow, in attempt to see if the bomb was there. Nothing, just our luck. I dove for the fountain, skimming it for any blinking object among the surface.

"I didn't find anything, Eleanor," one demigod said. "I'm almost positive it isn't in here.

Rather than acting all positive, I just agreed. I motioned the others to follow me outside of the cabin, where we would go to our next destination: Demeter's cabin. The demigods guided me towards the tomato-covered cabin. We repeated the procedure with the Poseidon cabin: gave the beds a "makeover", then trash anything else suspicious.

Next stop was the Athena cabin. There were a few other demigods already in there, so I was thankful to have more people help us find any sight of the bomb; though, I then felt bad, since the cabin was so organized. Someone just kept on flipping over the occasional desk, something I just couldn't find myself doing. Some others just went towards the book cases, scanned the book for a quick second, then just threw it. By the time we had finally given up on finding it in the cabin, it looked like one of those houses messy enough to feature on those cleaning shows.

You'd think vandalizing places would be quite fun, which I must admit, if we weren't on a continuous search for a bomb that could explode any minute, it would have been fun. But by the fourth cabin, I was exhausted. It seemed utterly impossible to find it. Along our way to our fifth cabin, we heard the words that made my ears ring in the most relief it could ever have.

"We found it!"