It wouldn't fit before, but that wonderful summary is by SkinOfInk! Thanks, because the one I wrote... let us never speak of it again.

K, I'm not really going to bother recapping for people who haven't read the first one, Percy Jackson and the Kid He Ran Over, so just know that the main character is Green, the mute kid who can talk to plants, and that you should probably wait to read this until you know what's going on!

DISCLAIMER: If I were Rick Riordan, MoA would not have cliffhung like that! :P

Green eyes, wide open in the soft hours right before dawn, gazed out into the blackness. Their owner let his hand tangle in the leaves of the small shrub, possibly a bonsai, which grew next to his bed. Demeter Cabin was full of plants, from wheat to barley, all in neat rows and infuriatingly polite. The longing grew in him again, to climb right out the window and find someone to talk to. He needed to talk to the maple. Yesterday, he'd asked it what he should call it, because 'the maple' just sounded… dumb. It had told him to call it Greg.

Sighing, Green sat up, his solemn expression cracking into a grin at the thought of… Greg. Could he- no. He needed sleep, the others were starting to notice the bags under his eyes. The humans, who he couldn't talk to because he had some kind of mental block or something, who probably wouldn't understand him if he tried to mime whatever it was that kept him up at night. Even better, he could just sneak off into the woods, after a quick chat with Thalia, the once human pine tree, and climb into some old cedar. The old trees would sing to him, a strange and somehow alien melody that eased him into his dreams softer than anything from an animal's throat.

But he couldn't, because then people would notice he'd snuck off again, and they'd give him that suspicious look, and he couldn't explain. So, he lay back and closed his eyes. It took a long while, tossing and turning all the way, for him to fall asleep.

LINEBREAK

Morning light streamed through the window, and a quiet nudging vibrated up through the leaves that still entangled his outstretched hand. Green's eyes opened slowly, still gummed with sleep. Rising, he blinked twice then bolted out the door, sprinting up the hill towards the lone pine, Thalia.

When he arrived, he stared uncomprehendingly for a second, and then rushed forward. Once a rich emerald, the thin leaves of Thalia's tree were a dry red, like rust. Sap dripped slowly from a hole in her trunk, and even as he watched more needles tumbled to the ground. Rushing forward, Green pressed his hand against the trunk, hoping against hope…

THALIA! In his mind, his voice rose to a shriek, all the fear he couldn't set free coursing down his arm.

Green? Her voice was soft and hesitant, and dry as sandpaper.

What happened? He asked, trying to keep the panic down. Tears started burning in the corners of his eyes.

Poison, Luke, get Chiron. She'd barely finished before he sprinted full out towards the big house, nearly bowling over several campers. One of them, probably from Ares, started cussing him out but he was too scared to care.

When he reached the door, he hammered on it hard enough to make his knuckles bleed a little, which snapped him out of his blind panic. Chiron opened the door in centaur form, and rather than waste time with a game of charades Green just grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the hill.

"Green, what- I see," he said, and called out to the dryads and satyrs. "Come! Thalia's tree has been poisoned!"

Once again, Green laid a hand gently on the trunk, not caring that his skin was all sticky from the sap.

Thalia? He asked, afraid he wouldn't get an answer.

Camp, she said, borders… not… stable.

Ripping a scrap of paper out of his pocket, and pulling a pen- pencils always felt a bit like cannibalism to him. So did paper, but he didn't know how to replace that- out from behind his ear. Scribbling as fast as he could, he wrote 'Borderz not staybel.' Looking at it, he winced. Spelling was not his strong suit. Still, it was better than nothing, so he handed it to Chiron.

The old centaur said gravely, "Green is right," yep, it was totally his idea, "our borders may soon fail without the tree. We must organize a patrol." Yeah, the poor camp, poor borders, but Thalia was dying, couldn't they do something? The look on his face must have shown some of what he was feeling, because he heard a voice behind him.

"Worried about your precious picnic spot, pretty boy?" Clarisse. He so didn't need this right now. "You know, it's pretty suspicious how often you sneak off to sit over there." Great, of all the times for her to play detective… Green turned to face her, which was probably a bad idea. "Yeah," she continued, "I bet he poisoned it!" Thalia, he wanted to say, was not an it.

"Clarisse," Chiron warned, but he sounded… unsure. Like he doubted Green's innocence too but didn't want to cause a riot. Resentment, Green knew, was probably the whole reason why Kronos had attacked his father, why Luke had betrayed his, but right then he didn't care. A hot ball of anger was welling up in the pit of his stomach as he glared at the ugly daughter of Ares.

"Hey, looks like someone isn't too happy with me," she jeered. "Don't like me ratting you out, do you, traitor?" If he didn't scream soon, Green was just going to burst, pop like an overcooked hot dog over the campfire. He needed to vent, to do something to stop the burning in his insides, like they were full of molten lead. The edges of his vision were getting blurry and red.

"D-do you really think so?" Asked some kid from Demeter, a guy named Erin. He was about eight, and he practically worshipped everyone older than him. Green had thought of him as a little brother, and now this. Was he really this untrustworthy? No one would accuse Percy like that, and he'd been around just as long.

"'Course," Clarisse said. "He's working for Luke, that's why he wanted to go on that quest so bad!" What came next hadn't really gone through Green's brain first. It came straight from the blazing anger in his gut and bypassed all the reasonable, sane parts of him, and without really planning to Green leaned back and socked Clarisse la Rue right in her beady eyes.