Ludwig von Beethoven had never mastered the elements of arithmetic beyond addition and subtraction. A thirteen-year-old boy whom he had befriended tried unsuccessfully to teach him simple multiplication and division.
After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Last summer it had been led by Luke, the guy who fought with Thalia and Annabeth on top of Half-Blood Hill. For a while, before Poseidon had claimed me, I'd lodged in the Hermes cabin. Luke had befriended me...and then he'd tried to kill me.